DUTCH EMPIRE part 2

The beginning of the nineteenth century saw a reestablishment of Dutch colonial rule in the East Indies, though this process was hampered by problems with the organization of colonial government, financial debts, political turmoil in Europe, and a weakening military presence. For many local rulers and others in Asia, a return to the old situation was unthinkable. Local sultans had shifted alliances rather quickly when the English took over the Dutch possessions, but did not readily accede to the reimposition of  Dutch rule in 1816 (mandated by the Convention of London of 1814). The rulers of Yogyakarta and Surakarta, however, decided to accept the return of Dutch authority. But despite attempts under governors-general Daendels and Raffles to reform colonial rule, uprisings soon occurred in the Netherlands Indies. Among these was the uprising of May 14, 1817, led by the Ambonese sergeant major Thomas Matulesia (Pattimura) on the Ambonese island of Saparua (with the help of some tribal members from the island of Ceram). Pattimura was a Christian, and his resistance against the reintroduction of Dutch rule was strongly religiously inspired. Other conflicts occurred with the sultans of Banjarmasin, Ceribon, and Pontianak, but the most serious challenge to newly established Dutch colonial rule was the rebellion of the Javanese prince Diponegoro, which led to the Java War (1825–1830).

Dutch colonialism from 1830 to 1870 is known as a period of exploitation and consolidation. Firstly, in contrast with the British, who had abandoned slavery in 1833, the Dutch continued to permit slavery in both the Caribbean and in Indonesia. Although the Netherlands government had forbidden the slave trade in 1814, illegal shipments to Suriname continued and in Indonesia slavery and bondage were endemic in indigenous societies outside of Java and Sumatra. Slavery as such was abandoned in the Netherlands East Indies in 1858, and in the West Indies in 1863. A second exploitative feature of this period was the cultivation system on Java, which varied locally and regionally but was characterized by the drive to expropriate as many natural resources as possible, in particular coffee, indigo, and sugar. After 1870 the colonial economy no loner depended as much on the forced delivery of sugar, coffee, indigo, and spices by the colonized. The development of railway transportation began modestly with the laying down of railway lines between Semarang-Tanggoeng (1867) and Batavia-Buitenzorg (1873). Steam shipping and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 helped to attract private investors. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, several private entrepreneurs started developing large-scale plantations in the Netherlands Indies. In particular the tobacco plantations in Deli, North Sumatra, proved to be a profitable business. The cultivation of new lands for tobacco required the help of thousands of cheap laborers (mostly Chinese, Malay, and Javanese). This new type of colonial capitalist economy soon met with criticism. The harsh circumstances and unsanitary conditions in the Deli plantations, the maltreatment of coolies, and the immoral behavior of young white planters stirred the consciences of many Dutch citizens both in the colonies and in Europe. So did the attempts to subjugate the sultanate of Aceh, from 1873 during the so-called Aceh War.

The modernization of the colonial economy also quickly increased the demand for minerals. Private merchants also engaged in mining of tin, for instance, after the founding of NV Billiton Maatschappij on Billiton in 1860. Coal mining on Sumatra started in the late 1880s, and in 1890 the first oil fields on that island were exploited. The Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij, a shipping company founded in 1888, took over the transportation of consumer and industrial goods.

 The new port of Tanjung Priuk, just outside Batavia, also facilitated the flow of goods and people. Although the Europeans in the Netherlands Indies comprised only a small minority of 60,000 in 1880, their technical skills, investments, and modernization efforts changed the archipelago for good. The introduction of urban planning, electricity, railways, and buildings done in rococo, art deco, and Jugendstil styles, and the publication of books, magazines, and newspapers—in short, the propagation of the Western bourgeois lifestyle, along with its status differences and social ranking—all had an influence on traditional Indonesian life. In particular, the colonial urban lifestyle—the splendid villas of the elite, such as Menteng in Batavia, their extravagance, their sport clubs, ballrooms, cafe´s, and restaurants—was increasingly attracting (but also disturbing) the educatedyoung Indonesian elite, who found it difficult to gain access to such wealth. Europeanized Indonesians mimicked the colonial lifestyle, as did to a certain extent the locally born (peranakan) Chinese, but by the beginning of the twentieth century the younger Indonesian generation had come to realize that modernization and resistance were necessary. The turn of the twentieth century saw the introduction by the colonial administration of the so-called Ethical Policy, a program of reforms aimed at improving conditions for native Indonesians and introducing a degree of political autonomy. These efforts were largely unsuccessful at improving conditions for Indonesians, however, and did not prevent the growth of anti-Dutch nationalism. The founding of Boedi Oetomo in Yogyakarta on May 20, 1908, is usually seen as the birth of the nationalist movement in Java, although this organization was still careful to formulate its ideal as: ‘‘the harmonious development of the land and people of the Netherlands Indies.’’ This initiative was soon followed by the founding of other idealistic, often Islamic organizations such as Sarekat Islam, which organized mass congresses from its inception in 1912, and Moehammadyah, an Islamic reformist movement also founded in 1912. Simultaneously, the colonial authorities developed democratic institutions at the local and regional level. At the national level, the Volksraad (People’s Council) was established in May 1918, as a first step toward autonomy within the kingdom of the Netherlands. It never developed into a parliament, however, and the government selected half of its forty-eight (in 1927, sixty) members.

In the 1930s it mainly functioned as an opposition forum. The Partai Komunis Indonesia PKI (the Indonesian Communist Party), established in 1924, became the podium for the more radical protesters against Dutch colonial rule. In 1926 and 1927 the PKI organized strikes and armed resistance, which were crushed by the Royal East Indonesian Army (the KNIL). The government arrested some 13,000 people, of whom 4,500 were sentenced to prison; a great number was brought to the internment camp Boven-Digoel in New Guinea. Following these uprisings, the colonial government formally discontinued the Ethical Policy and abandoned the idea of ‘‘self-rule under Dutch control’’in favor of what eventually became a police state; in response, Indonesian nationalism became stronger.

The worldwide economic crisis following the stock market crash of 1929 also had a severe impact on the Netherlands Indies. The prices of export products like rubber, sugar, and oil dropped dramatically, resulting in mass unemployment. In 1929 the Netherlands Indies exported 263,000 tons of rubber worth 232 million guilders; in 1993 the export had risen to 350,000 tons, but the value of it was only 37 million guilders. Increasing mass poverty on the one hand, and restricted government expenditures on the other, worsened the economic and political crisis. Nationalist Indonesians, since July 1929 organized in the Partai Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Party) under the leadership of the engineer Sukarno (1901–1970), were able to create mass movements for independence, despite persecution and imprisonment. By around 1935 most of the nationalist leaders had been imprisoned, and the Netherlands Indies had become a well-monitored police state. Against this background, Sukarno and others welcomed the Japanese in January 1942. After the loss of British Singapore, there was little to stand in the way of the Japanese advance into the archipelago and in March they controlled much of the region. Although many Indonesians welcomed the Japanese with flags and dancing, Indonesian industry and agriculture were soon exploited for the Japanese empire. Chaos and poverty were the result, and productions declined drastically, sometimes by 80 to 90 percent, as with rubber and sugar production.

The Japanese occupation was a traumatic experience for the Europeans. Within one year after the start of the occupation, 29,000 men, 25,000 women, and 29,000 children were placed in internment camps. About 18,000 Dutch men were brought to Burma to work for the Burma railroad. The Indonesian population suffered even more. The Japanese recruited some 165,000 to 200,000 ‘‘economic soldiers’’ or romushas to work in overseas projects, for instance, in Burma. Thousands of them died in forced labor projects. Millions of Indonesians suffered from malnutrition, and when the food supply collapsed in 1994 the dead bodies could be seen on the streets of Javanese cities.

The Indonesian leaders Sukarno and Mohammed Hatta were shocked by the capitulation of Japan on August 15, 1945. They had hoped for an orderly transfer of power. In May, Sukarno and his advisors had formulated a constitution and laid out the five principles (pancasila) of the Indonesian state: national unity, humanity, democracy, social justice, and the belief in one God. On August 17, Sukarno and Hatta declared Indonesian independence, after being pressured by nationalist youth (the pemuda), and after being convinced that the Japanese authorities would not intervene. The pemuda groups turned very violent in the months following this declaration of independence, though British troops restored order after landing in Surabaya. The new Dutch governor, Dr. H. J. van Mook, soon found that the restoration of the old order was an illusion. Negotiation with the nascent Indonesian Republic led to the Linggadjati Agreement at the end of 1946. Conservative Dutch politicians and Dutch public opinion, however, undermined this agreement, along with radical nationalists in Indonesia. After two Dutch-Indonesian wars in 1947 and 1948, the Netherlands government finally accepted Indonesian independence under international pressure. On December 27, 1949, Queen Juliana transferred sovereignty to the Indonesian Republic. To the Indonesians however, August 17, 1945, is the formal date of independence.

Dutch policies toward Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles took a different turn than in the

Netherlands Indies. After the abolishment of slavery, Suriname had seen an influx of cheap laborers from India and Java, which made Suriname a multiethnic society. In 1898 the geologist G. C. Dubois found bauxite on the plantations of Rorac. A drop in European bauxite exports to the United States during World War I stimulated bauxite mining in Suriname. In1916 the Surinaamse Bauxiet Maatschappij (Suriname Bauxite Company) was founded. During World War II, Suriname was of strategic importance because of the bauxite mines delivering aluminum for the aircraft industry in the United States. Curac¸ao welcomed English and French troops, as the island was a part of the Caribbean Sea Frontier guarding against German submarines.

Despite its multiethnic population of Creoles, Hindus, Javanese, and native Indians, Suriname showed enough political stability to develop democratic institutions during the 1940s and 1950s. In all of the Dutch overseas territories in the West, there was a desire for autonomy after World War II.

The first Round Table Conference in 1948 resulted in a high degree of autonomy for Suriname, while the second Round Table Conference in 1952 led to a separate political status for Suriname within the kingdom. Suriname only became completely independent on November 25, 1975. By that time Suriname had already faced several political crises due to the development of political parties based on ethnic groups. Political patronage and favoritism were endemic as political leaders tried to gain the support of their own ethnic group through granting favors. By the time Suriname became independent, a large portion of the population had already settled in the Netherlands. At the end of 1975, one third of Suriname’s population, around 130,000 people, lived in the Netherlands. After the military coup of February 25, 1980, led by Desi Bouterse, more people left Suriname, which sank into poverty and remained poor for the rest of the twentieth century.

The five Antillean islands remained part of the kingdom. The Round Table Conferences of 1981 and 1983 granted the right to self-determination, which provided the opportunity for Aruba to establish a ‘‘status apart’’ within the kingdom. Polls of all Antillean residents in 1988 showed that the majority of the island population wanted to maintain the relation with the Netherlands. Dutch politicians dropped the idea of involuntary independence, and at the end of the twentieth century the Antilles not only developed into a holiday resort for the Dutch, but also into a political burden. Many young Antilleans migrated to the Netherlands, where they faced many problems finding jobs. The growing influence of drug smugglers also

contributed to repeated friction between the government in The Hague and Antillean administrators.

Financially and politically, postwar involvement with the former overseas possessions in the West was a heavy burden for the Dutch government. The legacy of the colonial past still plays an important role in internal debates in the Netherlands over topics such as Indonesian independence and slavery in the West. On July 1, 2002, a memorial to the victims of slavery was erected in Amsterdam. In particular, the descendents of slaves living in the Netherlands strive for recognition of their past, and of slavery’s consequences for modern Dutch society. In 2003 the Nationaal Instituut Nederlands slavernijverleden was founded. On August 17, 2005, for the first time ever, a member of the Dutch government—the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Bernard Bot—attended the commemoration of Indonesian independence in Jakarta. Bot declared that ‘‘the Dutch government expresses its political and moral acceptance of the Proklamasi, the date the Republic of Indonesia declared independence.’’ He also remarked, ‘‘In retrospect, it is clear that its large-scale deployment of military forces in 1947 put the Netherlands on the wrong side of history,’’ and expressed his ‘‘profound  regret for all that suffering.’’ In 2005, some 400,000 Indonesians live in the Netherlands, and some 3,000 Dutch citizens live in Indonesia.

 

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