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
