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of Maluku had been sent to Papua in the early 19th century but they were killed because
they did not know the situation in Papua. Ottow and Geisler learnt from those failures.
They then asked for help from the Sultan of Tidore to allow them to spread the gospel
in Papua. The Sultan of Tidore with open arms permitted and ordered his 37 bobatos to
sail and take Ottow and Geisler to Papua. They arrived at Mansinam on March 5, 1855.
At the beginning, the evangelists had difficulties, but later the number of converts grew
very rapidly, as evidenced by the majority of the population in Papua, especially in the
northern part who embraced Protestantism. In 1956, they formed an independent church
body in Tanah Papua named The Evangelical Christian Church. During evangelism, both
had freed many victims of hostages, kidnapping and slavery. Although the Dutch had
improved their supervision of the slave trade, in areas far from the Dutch government,
there were still cases of trade in slaves in which Tidore was involved. Hasselt (2002: 83-
84) noted that when the slaves were no longer needed in Tidore, they would be traded to
Ternate, Ambon, Timor, Manado and other regions. Therefore, to maintain security and
order in the territory, the Dutch performed punitive expeditions to the villages considered
as the centers of the pirates and started thinking about opening their fort in Papua.
Based on the decree of the Governor General dated February 5, 1898, the Dutch opened
administration posts in Papua. The Dutch government divided the residency of Ternate
into 8 administrative areas (Afdeelings), namely:

1. Afdeeling Ternate
2. Afdeeling Bacan
3. Afdeeling North Halmahera
4. Afdeeling South and East Halmahera islands
5. Afdeeling Sula
6. Afdeeling Banggai
7. Afdeeling North Nieuw Guinea (northern part of Dutch New Guinea in the Eastern
Cape Goede Hoop (Yamursba) and the surrounding islands.
8. Afdeeling South and West New Guinea (part of Dutch New Guinea and other
islands around it, including the islands of King Ampat .
The North New Guinea Afdeeling was based in Manokwari and Afdeeling South and
West New Guinea were based in Fakfak. Each was headed by a Residency Assistant.
After the establishment of the Dutch government in Papua, on July 11, 1898, the
government granted permission to the Catholic Church to work in Southwest Papua. On

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