History of the Karo People of Indonesia

The Karo people are an indigenous people that live in the low and highlands of Sumatra. The Karo culture is not documented prior to the late 1890's and early 1900's when Dutch settlers began coming into contact with the Karo people and documenting their travels into Karo-land, the place where the Karo reside. The first major Dutch excursions into Karo-land were in 1906, when the area was conquered by the Dutch. This led to road building and exploration of the newly taken over territory, and also contact with the Karo people. By 1909, the Dutch had established roads into Karo-land, allowing for faster travel into the highlands to exploit resources and allow Dutch settlers to move to the area in large quantities to settle. By 1912, Christian missionaries began descending on the area in hopes to convert the seemingly uncivilized cultures to Christianity. From 1912 to 1929, the majority of the indigenous populous of Sumatra had been exposed to Christianity, but traditional beliefs were upheld. In 1911, the Dutch introduced western agriculture to the area, especially the cooler highlands, to grow western food crops that would grow in Europe. This led to many of the Karo people becoming farmers, other than subsistence, and growing crops completely unknown to them. Through the years, the Karo have resisted change and influence from outside sources, even Japanese occupation in WWII. This kept their lifestyle relatively unchanged for decades, until recently where government has tried to put a hand in the Karo peoples' lifestyle. The Karo were greatly affected in the Indonesian Genocide from 1965-66, in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed in an ethnic purge to rid Indonesia of Communists. The Genocide was the beginning of the split of the Karo people to new religions of Islam and Christianity.