Page 241 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

590 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

An early drawing of the Dutch
colony of New Amsterdam.

liberal ideology in economic matters did
not have many adherents, nor was tax
money readily available to compensate the
slave owners. It was the revenue derived
from the cultivation system in the Dutch
East Indies that tipped the balance.After the
ending of slavery, the Dutch instituted a ten-
year period of apprenticeship (1863–1873)
and then started to import 30,000 inden-
tured laborers from British India (1873–
The Netherlands as 1916) and a similar number from Java (1890–1939).As
Colonial Power the Dutch Antilles housed no large-scale plantations,
During the period 1795–1816, virtually all the Dutch their freedmen were exempt from apprenticeship and
colonial possessions fell into the hands of the British. none of the islands imported indentured labor. At the
Eventually, the Dutch East Indies, Suriname, and the beginning of the twentieth century, the economy of the
Dutch Antilles were handed back, but not the Cape islands received a strong boost from the construction of
colony, Ceylon, Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice. In oil refineries. Similarly, Suriname experienced economic
1870 Britain bought the Dutch forts on the Gold Coast. growth by allowing the American-owned SURALCO
In the East the Dutch colonial government could not Company to mine its aluminum ore. During World War
generate sufficient income to pay for the administration II, the aluminum production in Suriname and the oil
and defense. In order to increase the colonial revenue, a refineries on the Dutch Antilles were of such importance
system of forced cropping was introduced in 1830, by to the allied war effort that the United States and the
which the Indonesian villagers would cultivate a part of United Kingdom took over the defense of these colonies
their lands with coffee and sugar to be delivered to the with the consent of the London-based Dutch government
colonial government as a tax in kind.This system was a in exile.
financial success and soon the island of Java produced so
much revenue that the major part of this income could be The End of “Empire”
transferred to the treasury in the Netherlands. In 1860 In 1942 the Japanese occupied the Dutch East Indies and
both the cultivation system in the East as well as slavery collaborated with those Indonesian politicians who were
in theWest were abolished as the prevailing liberal ideol- in favor of independence. Its 40,000 Dutch colonists
ogy in the Netherlands had become opposed to forced or were put in camps. After the Japanese had surrendered,
slave labor.After 1870 investment and private land own- the Indonesians promulgated the independent Republic
ership by European entrepreneurs increased and Dutch of Indonesia, while the Dutch tried to restore their pre-
control was extended to all of the islands of the Indone- war colonial rule. In spite of severe shortages at home
sian archipelago. In Aceh (North Sumatra) the Dutch met caused by the ravages of the German occupation, the
with fierce resistance and it was not until 1913 that the Dutch drafted a considerable army to fight the Indone-
region was brought fully under Dutch control. sian Republic. However, the U.S. government was in
In the Dutch Caribbean slavery was not abolished favor of Indonesian independence and threatened to cut
until 1863.The belated emancipation of 40,000 colonial off Marshall Plan aid to the Netherlands.The Dutch gave
slaves was due to the fact that there was no strong abo- up their efforts to restore colonial rule, and on 17 August
litionist lobby in the Netherlands and that until 1860 the 1949, the Republic of Indonesia, with the exception of