Oey Tamba Sia

Oey Tamba Sia (1827 – October 7, 1856), also spelt Oeij Tambah Sia, or often mistakenly Oey Tambahsia, was a rich, Chinese-Indonesian playboy hanged by the Dutch colonial government due to his involvement in a number of murder cases in Batavia, now Jakarta, capital of colonial Indonesia. His life has become part of Jakarta folklore, and inspired numerous literary works.

Life

Born in 1827, Oey was the son of Oey Thai Lo, also known as Oey Thoa, a Chinese-born tycoon and tobacco magnate, originally from Pekalongan, Central Java, who had been appointed Luitenant der Chinezen of Kongsi Besar in Batavia. This was a civil government position in the colonial bureaucracy with legal and political jurisdiction over the local Chinese community. As the son of a Chinese officer, Oey Tamba held the hereditary title of Sia; and his family belonged to the Cabang Atas or the traditional Chinese establishment of colonial Indonesia.

A litograph of Batavia, based on a drawing by C. Deeleman (1859).

Aged 15 years old, Oey Tamba Sia lost his father, Luitenant Oey Thai Lo, who died in 1838, leaving his children a large fortune that supposedly amounted to 2 million guilders. Oey was married to Sim Hong Nio. Not long after, in 1906, Tjoa Boan Soeij published a story in verse, entitled . Tjoa published another work in 1922 based on Oey's life, called Tambah Sia.

In 1956, the historian and writer Phoa Kian Sioe published , a collection of historical anecdotes about the Chinese community of Jakarta.