Asia Education Foundation

Early Civilisations: Old Kingdoms, Great Kings and Trade Empires

Lower Secondary SOSE Unit

Studies of Asia Learning Emphases

Developing concepts of Asia

World contributions by peoples of Asia

Specific Indonesia focus:

Understand Indonesia's past and the impact of past events on contemporary Indonesia.

Explore the links between the growth of the Indonesian spice industry and early European contact.

Students journey through time from Indonesia's earliest recorded history to the coming of the Dutch, recording some influential kingdoms, important people and significant events.

Earlier Times in Indonesia
Digging Deeper into Indonesia's History
The Spice Trade
Stepping into Another's Shoes

Teaching and Learning Activities

Earlier Times in Indonesia

The site below includes a concise summary of Indonesian history. Print out those pages that relate to Prehistory, The Hindu/Buddhist Period, Islam, The Portuguese Period, The English Period and The Dutch Era.

  • Indonesia.net: Culture and History
    http://www.indonesia.net/History.htm

Divide the class into six groups. Allocate each group a different period and give them a copy of the information on that period. Students read the information and make notes of the key points. Each student makes a copy of the group's notes.

Allocate students in each group a number from 1-6. All the 1's form a group, all the 2's form a group etc until all students have formed their new group.

Explain that each person in a group is now an 'expert' in a particular period of Indonesian history. Their task is to explain to the rest of their group the key points on their period. They are to explain why particular groups came to Indonesia.

Each group records its findings on a poster and presents it to the class for discussion and display.

Digging Deeper into Indonesia's History

Reading for information
Working individually and using the following websites, students complete the activities on the Early Civilisations Activity Sheet and share their findings.

  • Sejarah Indonesia: An Online Time-Line of Indonesia
    http://www.gimonca.com/sejarah/
  • The History of the Republic of Indonesia
    http://www.dfa-deplu.go.id/2003/index.php?content=documents&type=94b839bc96c4bb97a992f4ec002eb6f4,cd3e9d4cb5c63d345db616e9bd5449d3&menu=About%20Indonesia&subtype=cd3e9d4cb5c63d345db616e9bd5449d3&submenu=History&strContentMenu=History
  • Indonesia - A Country Study
    http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/idtoc.html

Mapping the past
On a large wall map of the world students locate the following significant places in Indonesian history: Indonesia, China, Holland, India, Mongolia, the Middle East, Portugal, Cambodia, England and Spain.

Students imagine that they live in the past, without cars, planes or other forms of modern transport and in which travel is laborious and time-consuming. They examine the world map for the most probable routes that early travellers from the places listed above might take to Indonesia. Using coloured wool to trace the route, they link these places to Indonesia.

The Spice Trade

Students select either the Portuguese or the Dutch era to research in more depth. Working in groups and using information already collected on their era, they brainstorm key words with which to search the Internet for more details. Key words and phrases could include spice trade, colonial rule, Maluku, Ternate, Batavia and VOC.

Using the information collected, including maps and illustrations, students answer the following questions:

  • Why did Europeans come to Indonesia?
  • How did they travel to Indonesia?
  • Did they come alone or in groups?
  • What were the agricultural products of the places they visited?
  • Why did the Europeans want spices?
  • Was life peaceful in those parts of Indonesia exposed to the Europeans?
  • What did the Europeans leave as a legacy?

Stepping into Another's Shoes

Students pretend to be someone who has been sent to Indonesia during the Portuguese or Dutch period to investigate rumours of wonderful new spices. They create a diary of their week-long stay in the Spice Islands or Batavia.

They should include descriptions of the places they visit as if seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting them for the first time, and descriptions and sketches of the spices and their possible uses (medicinal, cosmetic, culinary). They could create booklets with the pages stained with cold tea bags to create the look of parchment.

Useful additional sites include:

Resources