_Portuguese and Spanish Ascendancy, 1511-1595._--Ptolemy and other
ancient geographers describe the Malay Archipelago, or part of it, in
vague and inaccurate terms, and the traditions they preserved were
supplemented in the middle ages by the narratives of a few famous
travellers, such as Ibn Batuta, Marco Polo, Odoric of Pordenone and
Niccolò Conti. Malay and Chinese records also furnish material for the
early history of individual islands, but the known history of the
archipelago as a whole begins in the 16th century. At this period a
civilization, largely of Hindu origin, had flourished and decayed in
Java, where, as in all the more important islands, Mahommedanism had
afterwards become the dominant creed. But the smaller islands and the
remoter districts, even of Java and Sumatra, remained in a condition of
complete savagery.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to colonize any part of the
archipelago. A Portuguese squadron under Diogo Lopes de Sequeira arrived
off Sumatra in 1509, explored the north coast for some distance, and
noted that the inhabitants of the interior were cannibals, while those
of the littoral were civilized and possessed a gold coinage. The main
object of the Portuguese was to obtain a share in the lucrative spice
trade carried on by the Malays, Chinese and Japanese; the trade-routes
of the archipelago converged upon Malacca, which was the point of
departure for spice merchants trading with every country on the shores
of the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. In 1511 the Portuguese under
Alphonso d'Albuquerque occupied Malacca, and in November of that year an
expedition under Antonio de Abreu was despatched to find a route to the
Moluccas and Banda Islands, then famous for their cloves and nutmegs.
The explorers reached Amboyna and Ternate, after gaining some knowledge
of Java, Madura, Sumbawa and other islands, possibly including New
Guinea. During the return voyage the second-in-command, Francisco
Serrão, was shipwrecked, but succeeded in making his way in a native
boat to Mindanao. Thus the Philippines were discovered: In 1514 a second
Portuguese fleet arrived at Ternate, which during the next five years
became the centre of Portuguese enterprise in the archipelago; regular
traffic with Malacca and Cochin was established, and the native raja
became a vassal of Portugal.
Meanwhile the Spanish government was considering whether the Moluccas
did not fall within the Spanish sphere of influence as defined by the
Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494; and in August 1519 an expedition
commanded by Ferdinand Magellan (q.v.) sailed from Seville to seek a
westward passage to the archipelago. After losing the commander in the
Philippines and discovering Borneo, the two surviving ships reached the
Moluccas late in 1520. One vessel returned to Seville by the Cape route,
thus completing the first voyage round the world; the other attempted to
return by the Pacific, but was driven back to Tidore and there welcomed
by the natives as a useful ally against the Portuguese. Reinforcements
from Spain arrived in 1525 and 1528; but in 1529 a treaty was concluded
between the emperor Charles V. and John III. of Portugal, by which, in
return for 350,000 gold ducats, the Spanish claim to the Moluccas was
withdrawn. The boundary between the Spanish and Portuguese spheres was
fixed at 17° E. of the Moluccas, but by a geographical fiction the
Philippines were included within the Spanish sphere. Further disputes
occurred from time to time, and in 1542 a Spanish fleet came into
conflict with the Portuguese off Amboyna; but after 1529 the supremacy
of each power in its own sphere was never seriously endangered.
Though the Portuguese traders frequented the coast of Java, they annexed
no territory either there or in Sumatra; but farther east they founded
numerous forts and factories, notably in Amboyna, the Banda Island,
Celebes and Halmahera. Ternate remained the seat of the governor of the
Moluccas, who was the highest official in the archipelago, though
subordinate to the viceroy or governor of Portuguese India. The first
attempt to enter into relations with the states of Borneo was made by D.
Jorge de Menezes, who visited Brunci in 1526, and in 1528 sent an envoy
to its raja. The embassy failed in a curious manner. Among the gifts
sent by Menezes was a piece of tapestry representing the marriage of
Catherine of Aragon to Arthur, prince of Wales. The raja was persuaded
that these mysterious figures were demons under a spell, which might
come to life and kill him as he slept. The envoy was therefore
dismissed.
In 1536, after a period of war and anarchy caused by the tyrannical rule
of Menezes, Antonio Galvão, the historian, was appointed governor of the
Moluccas. He crushed the rebellion and won the affection of the natives
by his just and enlightened administration, which had no parallel in the
annals of Portuguese rule in the archipelago. He returned to Europe in
1540 (see PORTUGAL: _Literature_), after inaugurating an active
missionary movement, which was revived in 1546-1547 by Francis Xavier
(q.v.). At this period the Portuguese power in the East was already
beginning to wane; in the archipelago it was weakened by administrative
corruption and by incessant war with native states, notably Bintang and
Achin; bitter hostility was aroused by the attempts which the Portuguese
made to establish a commercial monopoly and to force Christianity upon
their native subjects and allies (see PORTUGAL: _History_). From 1580 to
1640 Portugal was itself united to Spain--a union which differed from
annexation in little but name.
_The English and Dutch, 1595-1674._--Pirates from Dieppe visited the
archipelago between 1527 and 1539. It is possible that they reached
Australia[2]--more than sixty years before the first voyage thither of
which there is any clear record; but their cruise had no political
significance, and the Spaniards and Portuguese remained without European
competitors until the appearance of Sir Francis Drake in 1579. An
English squadron under Sir James Lancaster came into conflict with the
Portuguese in 1591, and an expedition under Sir Henry Middleton traded
in the archipelago in 1604. But the English were simple traders or
explorers; far more formidable were the Dutch, who came to the East
partly to avenge the injuries inflicted on their country by the
Spaniards, partly to break the commercial monopoly of the peninsular
states. As middlemen they already possessed a large interest in the
spice trade, for the Portuguese, having no direct access to the
principal European markets, had made a practice of sending cargo to the
Netherlands for distribution by way of the Scheldt and Rhine. The Dutch
now sought to monopolize not only the distribution but the production of
spices--an enterprise facilitated by the co-operation of many exiled
Portuguese Jews who had settled in Holland.
The first Dutch fleet sailed from Texel, under the command of Cornelis
Houtman, on the 2nd of April 1595 and reached Sumatra on the 1st of
January 1596. It visited Madura, and came into conflict with the
Portuguese at Bantam in Java, returning to Holland in 1597. Though not a
commercial success, the expedition had demonstrated the weakness of the
Portuguese. In 1602 the Dutch East India Company (q.v.) was
incorporated, and for nearly two centuries this organization played the
chief part in the history of the archipelago. By 1604 the Dutch could
already claim to be the stronger power at sea. They had attacked the
Portuguese in Ceylon (1601), established friendly relations with Achin
(1602), and defeated a powerful fleet off Banda (1602). In 1606 they
concluded a treaty of alliance with the sultan of Johor, and in 1608
they forced the Portuguese to assent to an armistice for twelve years.
On the 29th of November 1609 Pieter Both was chosen by the
states-general, on the nomination of the Dutch East India Company, as
first governor-general of Netherlands India. In 1611 the headquarters of
the Dutch was changed from Bantam to Jakarta, which in 1619 was renamed
Batavia, and was thenceforward the Dutch capital. Meanwhile the English
East India Company, chartered in 1600, had also extended its operations
to the archipelago. After 1611 the commercial rivalry between the Dutch
and British became acute, and in 1613, 1615 and 1618 commissioners met
in London to discuss the matters in dispute. The result of their
deliberations was the Treaty of Defence, signed on the 2nd of June 1619
and modified on the 24th of January 1620, which arranged for
co-operation between the Dutch and British companies, and especially for
the maintenance of a joint fleet. But neither company could restrain
its agents in the East from aggressive action, and many fresh causes of
dispute arose, the chief being the failure of the British to provide the
naval forces required for service against the Portuguese, and the
so-called "massacre of Amboyna" (q.v.) in 1623. The Treaty of Defence
lapsed in 1637, but as early as 1634 the British made peace with
Portugal. Even without allies, however, the Dutch continued to extend
their trade and to annex fresh territory, for the British were weakened
by civil war at home, while, after 1640, the Portuguese were struggling
to maintain their independence against Spain. The Dutch company opened
up a profitable trade with Japan and China, and prosecuted the war
against Portugal with great vigour, invading Portuguese India and
capturing Point de Galle in 1640, Malacca in 1641, Cochin and Cannanore
in 1663. The war with England in 1652-54 and the renewal of the
Anglo-Portuguese alliance by the marriage of Charles II. to Catherine of
Braganza in 1661 were unable to check the growth of Dutch power; more
serious was the resistance offered by some of the native states.
Rebellions in Java (1629) and the Moluccas (1650) were suppressed with
great severity, but in 1662 the company suffered a heavy reverse in
Formosa, all its colonists being expelled from the island. A new war
between Great Britain and Holland broke out in 1672 and was terminated
by the Treaty of Westminster (February 17, 1674), by which the points at
issue between the two companies were referred first to commissioners and
finally to an arbitrator. The full details of the settlement are
unknown, but thenceforward the British company devoted its energies
chiefly to the development of its Indian possessions, while the Dutch
were left supreme in the archipelago. In 1684 the British even evacuated
Bantam, their chief settlement, and retired to Benkulen in Sumatra,
which remained for more than a century their sole territorial possession
in the archipelago.
_Dutch Ascendancy, 1674-1749._--The weakness of Spain and Portugal and
the withdrawal of the British left the Dutch company free to develop its
vast colonial and commercial interests. In 1627 the so-called Dutch
"colonial system" had been inaugurated by the fourth governor-general,
Jan Pieterszoon Coen (q.v.). Under this system, which was intended to
provide Netherlands India with a fixed population of European descent,
Dutch girls were sent to the archipelago to be married to white
settlers, and subsequently marriages between Dutchmen and captive native
women were encouraged. As early as 1624 vast fortunes had been acquired
by trade: two members of the company who died in that year were stated
to possess seven and eight tons of gold respectively, an amount
approximately equivalent, in the aggregate, to £2,000,000. The use of
slave labour, and the application of the _corvée_ system to natives who
were nominally free, enabled the company to lower the cost of
production, while the absence of competition enabled it to raise prices.
The hardship inflicted on the native races provoked an insurrection
throughout Java, in which the Chinese settlers participated; but the
Dutch maintained naval and military forces strong enough to crush all
resistance, and a treaty between the company and the Susuhunan in
November 1749 made them practically supreme throughout the island.
_Decline of Dutch Power, 1749-1811._--In the second half of the 17th
century the monopoly system and the employment of slaves and forced
labour gave rise to many abuses, and there was a rapid decline in the
revenue from sugar, coffee and opium, while the competition of the
British East India Company, which now exported spices, indigo, &c. from
India to Europe, was severely felt. The administration was corrupt,
largely because of the vast powers given to officials, who were
invariably underpaid; and the financial methods of the company
precipitated its ruin, large dividends being paid out of borrowed money.
The burden of defence could no longer be sustained; piracy and smuggling
became so common that the company was compelled to appeal to the
states-general for aid. In 1798 it was abolished and its authority
vested in a "Council of the Asiatic Possessions." In 1803 a commission
met to consider the state of the Dutch colonies, and advocated drastic
administrative and commercial reforms, notably freedom of trade in all
commodities except firearms, opium, rice and wood--with coffee, pepper
and spices, which were state monopolies. Some of these reforms were
carried out by H. W. Daendels (1808-1811), who was sent out as
governor-general by Louis Bonaparte, after the French conquest of
Holland. Daendels, however, maintained the existing restrictions upon
trade and even made rice a state monopoly. His harsh rule aroused great
antagonism; in 1811 he was recalled and J. W. Janssens became
governor-general.
_British Occupation, 1811-1816._--Netherlands India was at this time
regarded as a part of the Napoleonic Empire, with which Great Britain
was at war. A British naval squadron arrived in the Moluccas in February
1810 and captured Amboyna, Banda, Ternate and other islands. In 1811 a
strong fleet was equipped by Lord Minto, then governor-general of India,
for the conquest of Java; a British force was landed on the 4th of
August; Batavia was captured on the 26th, and on the 18th of September
Janssens and the remnant of his army surrendered. Lord Minto had issued
a proclamation establishing British rule on the 11th of September, and
Thomas (afterwards Sir Thomas) Stamford Raffles was appointed
lieutenant-governor. Raffles (q.v.) held office until March 1816, and
introduced many important changes in the departments of revenue,
commerce and judicature. He was succeeded by John Fendall, who in 1816
carried out the retrocession of Netherlands India to the Dutch, in
accordance with the Treaty of Vienna (1814).
_Restoration and Reform of Dutch Power, 1816-1910._--Various disputes
between Great Britain and the Netherlands, arising chiefly out of the
transfer of power in Java and the British occupation of Singapore
(1819), were settled by treaty between the two powers in 1824. By this
treaty the Dutch were given almost entire freedom of action in Sumatra,
while the Malay Peninsula was recognized as within the British sphere of
influence. In 1825-30 a serious rebellion in Java involved the despatch
of a large military force from the Netherlands, and was with difficulty
suppressed. An outbreak of Mahommedan fanaticism in Sumatra also gave
much trouble.
The reform movement inaugurated by the commission of 1803 was resumed in
1830, when Governor-General Johannes van den Bosch endeavoured to
improve the conditions of land-tenure and agriculture by introducing the
so-called "culture system." The native cultivators were to be exempted
from the ground-tax, but were to cultivate one-fifth of their land as
the government might direct, the government taking the produce. This
culture-system worked fairly during Van den Bosch's tenure of office,
but gave rise to many abuses between 1833 and 1844, involving, as it
did, a combination of the _métayer_ and _corvée_ systems.
In 1848 the _Grondwet_, or fundamental law of the Netherlands,
recognized for the first time the responsibility of the Dutch nation for
its colonial dependencies. The _Grondwet_ involved certain important
changes, which were embodied in an act passed in 1854 and commonly known
as the _Regulations for the Government of Netherlands India_. The
_Regulations_ substituted statute law for administrative and military
despotism, and made the governor-general in council responsible to the
minister of the colonies at the Hague. They reformed the judicature,
introduced elementary education for the natives, and abolished slavery
in Java as from the 1st of January 1860. They also prepared the way for
further legislation tending towards the gradual emancipation of the
natives from the culture system, and from semi-feudal servitude to their
native rulers. That servitude existed in many forms all over the
archipelago, but among the most curious must be reckoned the
_pandelingschap_ or "pledgedom," which originated in Borneo, and
according to which a man had the power to make his debtors his serfs
until their debts were paid.
The reform movement was aided by the publication in 1860 of _Max
Havelaar_, a romance by E. Douwes Dekker (q.v.), which contained a
scathing indictment of the colonial system. Many important financial and
agrarian measures were carried between 1860 and 1890. In 1863 Fransen
van de Putte, minister for the colonies, introduced the first of the
annual colonial budgets for which the _Regulations_ had provided, thus
enabling the states-general to control the revenue and expenditure of
Netherlands India; in 1865 he reduced and in 1872 abolished the
differentiation of customs dues in favour of goods imported from
Holland, substituting a uniform import duty of 6% and establishing a
number of free ports throughout the archipelago. The import duty was
considered so moderate that an increase required for revenue purposes
was readily conceded in 1886. In 1876 the practice of paying a yearly
surplus (_batig slot_) from the revenues of Netherlands India to the
treasury at the Hague was discontinued. The chief reforms in the land
system were those introduced by De Waal, then minister for the colonies,
in 1870. The cultivation of pepper, cochineal, cinnamon and indigo for
the government had already ceased; De Waal restricted the area of the
sugar plantations (carried on by forced native labour) as from 1878, and
provided for their abolition after 1890. He also enabled natives to
secure proprietary rights over the land they cultivated, and legalized
the leasing of Crown forest-lands to Europeans.
The extension of Dutch political power--notably in Java, Sumatra,
Celebes, the Moluccas, Borneo, the Sunda Islands and New
Guinea--proceeded simultaneously with the reform movement, and from time
to time involved war with various native states. A large expedition was
sent to Lombok in 1894, and almost the whole of that island was
incorporated in the Dutch dominions. The long and costly war with Achin
(q.v.) began in 1873 and reached its climax in the military occupation
of the country after 1905, when the native sultan surrendered and was
deported. A guerrilla war was still carried on by his subjects, but
their principal leader, the chief Panglima Polim, was captured in 1907;
in 1908-1910 the condition of Achin under the military rule of General
Swart was one of almost unbroken peace, and taxes were regularly paid.
While the Dutch were thus consolidating their authority, other countries
were acquiring new commercial or colonial interests in the archipelago.
Immigration from China and Japan steadily increased, especially towards
the end of the period 1816-1910. The enterprise of Sir James Brooke
(q.v.) led, after 1838, to the establishment of British sovereignty in
North Borneo; in 1895 New Guinea was divided between Great Britain,
Germany and the Netherlands; and the Spanish-American War of 1898
resulted in the cession of the Philippines, Sulu Island and the largest
of the Mariana Islands to the United States, and the sale of the
Caroline group to Germany. Australian and Japanese trade in the
archipelago was stimulated by the establishment of the Australian
Commonwealth (1901) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5). In 1910 the
nations most directly interested in the future of the archipelago were
the Netherlands, Great Britain, the United States, Germany, Japan, China
and Portugal.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For the period 1511-1595, the chief Portuguese
authorities are the chronicles of Barros, Corrêa, Castanheda and Couto
(see PORTUGAL: _History_), with the letters of Xavier (q.v.), and the
_Tratado_ of A. Galvão (Lisbon, 1563 and 1731), of which a translation
entitled _Discoveries of the World_ was made for Richard Hakluyt and
reprinted by the Hakluyt Society (London, 1862). See also M. F. de
Navarette, _Coleccion de los viages_ (vols. 4 and 5, Madrid, 1837).
For later history see John Crawfurd, _History of the Indian
Archipelago_ (Edinburgh, 1820), which quotes from native as well as
European records, and _Twentieth-Century Impressions of Netherlands
India_ (ed. A. Wright, London, 1910), which gives references to the
principal English and Dutch authorities. Further bibliography will be
found in J. A. van der Chijs, _Proeve eener nederlandsch-indische
Bibliografie, 1659-1870_ (Batavia, 1875). (K. G. J.)