Freemasonry in Indonesia

The first lodge in Asia "La Choisie" was founded in Batavia by Jacobus Cornelis Mattheus Radermacher (1741–1783).

In July 1772, Abraham van der Weijden established the Lodge La Fidele Sinceritie in Batavia.

[2] The lodges in the colony played a role in the social emancipation of the Indo-Europeans, as well as of the so-called Foreign Orientals, such as the ethnic-Chinese and Arabs.

In 1836, the painter Raden Saleh was the first indigenous person to become a freemason and joined the lodge Eendracht maakt Macht in The Hague.

The first indigenous member of a lodge in the Dutch East Indies was Abdul Rachman, a descendant of the sultan of Pontianak, in 1844.