Be Biauw Tjoan

[1] A bureaucrat, revenue farmer (pachter) and businessman, he headed the influential Be family of Bagelen, part of the ‘Cabang Atas’ gentry of the Indies.

[1][2] Born in Central Java, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), Be was the eldest son of a ‘totok’ or first-generation Chinese migrant, the self-made tycoon and, later, bureaucrat Be Ing Tjioe, Majoor-titulair der Chinezen (1803–1857) by his ‘Peranakan’ wife, Tjoa Tjoe Nio.

[3] Be Biauw Tjoan, aged only 21, was raised to the bureaucratic post of Luitenant der Chinezen in Semarang in 1846, serving under his father-in-law.

[1] In 1863 – in a massive blow to the Be-Tan partnership – Ludolph Anne Jan Witt, Baron Sloet van de Beele, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, stripped Be of his titular Chinese mayoralty, and imposed a hefty fine on him and his partners for their illegal opium dealings.

[3] In 1876, though his competitor submitted a formal complaint to the lower house of the Dutch parliament against Be’s supposed undermining of his opium farm, nothing was ever conclusively proven against him.

Kebon Dalem, the Semarang residence of Majoor Be Biauw Tjoan, 1870
The private Javanese orchestra of Majoor Be Biauw Tjoan, 1857-1872