Adriana Bake

Adriana Johanna Bake (1724–1787) was the wife of the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies and an influential figure in the Dutch colony of Batavia.

Adriana Bake was born to David Johan Bake (1689–1738), governor of Amboina, and Ida Dudde (1691–1766).^[1] She married commander Anthonij Guldenarm (1701–1743), and in 1743 Petrus Albertus van der Parra (1714–1775), governor general of Batavia from 1755 to 1775.^[2][3]

Adriana Bake was the first governor's wife not born in the Netherlands, and in the position, she became the first hostess of Weltevreden in 1763, and known as the hostess of many spectacular parties with theater, dance and illuminations and festivals. Her hospitality, simple taste and pious nature, not common in contemporary colonial society, were admired: she financed translations of the Bible, converted her slaves and freed them in her will. Adriana Bake was depicted as an ideal wife in the contemporary Dutch colony and her family life as a role model for other colonial families.^[2] She was the foster mother of a large network of East Indies foster children, many of whom were later to become power holders in the Dutch East Indies.

Notes

1. Taylor, Jean Gelman (2004). The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-299-09474-4. Retrieved 23 October 2021.
2. Zuiderweg, Adrienne (2014). "Bake, Adriana Johanna (1724–1787)". Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland (in Dutch). from the original on 4 March 2017. Retrieved 23 October 2021.
3. Bosma, Ulbe; Raben, Remco (2008). Being "Dutch" in the Indies: A History of Creolisation and Empire, 1500–1920. NUS Press. p. 61. ISBN 978-9971-69-373-2. Retrieved 23 October 2021.