The Dutch Colonial Business Elite at the Turn of the Century

Itinerario ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maarten Kuitenbrouwer ◽  
Huibert Schijf
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Limited Liability ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Insurance Companies ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Legal Form ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Business Elite ◽  
Indonesian Archipelago ◽  
Netherlands East Indies

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Dutch economy experienced a fresh take-off. Up-to-date steamships plied the shipping routes to the Netherlands East Indies; in the Netherlands the network of railways and canals was greatly expanded; modern insurance companies, commercial banks and other financial institutions were founded. The resultant growing need for external capital led to a new legal form of financing, the joint-stock or limited liability company, and the 1870s and 1880s saw the establishment of a relatively large number of newly founded companies of this type. Generally speaking, these companies represented business activities with a long-standing tradition in Dutch economic life: trade, banking and transportation. The economic take-off was also reflected in the growing number of joint-stock companies pursuing economic activities in colonial Indonesia, often with their headquarters in the Indonesian Archipelago itself. According to J. à Campo the number of such newly founded corporations was more than hundred for each year after 1896, reaching its highest level in 1910, when no less than 326 were founded.

From Cultuurstelsel to Komedie Stamboel

2021 ◽  
pp. 96-119
Author(s):  
John T. Sidel
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Transportation Network ◽  
Resource Exploitation ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Indonesian Archipelago ◽  
Netherlands East Indies ◽  
The World ◽  
Market Relations

This chapter begins by detailing the rise of multiple new initiatives in the realm of political action during the early twentieth century in the Netherlands East Indies. It explores how the deepening incorporation of the Indonesian archipelago within the world economy over the course of the nineteenth century entailed advanced forms of exploitation in commercial agriculture, commodity processing, natural resource exploitation, and the elaboration of a modern transportation network. The chapter then discusses the internationalization of the Indonesian archipelago's economy in the increasing prominence and problematic position of diverse diasporic immigrant communities, most notably the so-called Chinese. It further analyses how the commercialization of agriculture and extension of market relations in the hinterlands of Java and other islands of the Indies during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries unfolded through the intermediation of local compradors — immigrant Hokkien-speaking merchants, moneylenders, and rice millers — who were discouraged from assimilation into native society and designated as “foreign orientals.” Ultimately, the chapter highlights the broadening of transregional and transoceanic networks of diasporic and religious circulation, the deepening incorporation of the Indonesian archipelago within the world economy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and its impact on the intensifying immersion of the Netherlands East Indies within diverse currents of cosmopolitanism.

“Asia for the Asians,” Bushido, and Japanese War Crimes in the Netherlands East Indies, 1942 to 1946

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred L. Borch
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
East Asian ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
White Race ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
Netherlands East Indies ◽  
Important Exception ◽  
Political Economic

The 300,000 Europeans and Eurasians residing in the Indies in March 1942 soon learned that the Japanese occupiers planned to implement political, economic, and cultural policies that would integrate the newly “liberated” colony into the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.” This goal of “Japanization” was to transform everyone living in the Indies into loyal subjects of the Emperor, with one important exception: “Asia for the Asians” meant there was no place for the white race in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI). Additionally, the Japanese in the archipelago were true believers in the warrior code of Bushido, which led to widespread mistreatment of prisoners of war and spilled-over into the treatment of civilian internees. This chapter explains how the Japanese intended to eradicate Dutch civilization and how the “Asia for the Asians” philosophy and Bushido code of behavior resulted in the commission of horrific war crimes, especially against whites and Eurasians.

Setting the Stage

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred L. Borch
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Japanese Occupation ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Indonesian Archipelago ◽  
Ethical Policy ◽  
Netherlands East Indies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
The Impact

Explores the role of the Dutch in the Indies from 1595, when sailors from Amsterdam first arrived in the islands, to 1942, when the Japanese invaded the colony and inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Dutch. The history of the Dutch in the Indonesian archipelago is critical to understanding the impact of the Japanese occupation after 1942, and the nature of the war crimes committed by the Japanese. This is because the ultimate goal of the Japanese occupiers was to erase all aspects of Dutch culture and influence the islands. The chapter begins with an examination of the early Dutch settlement of the islands, and the development of the colonial economy. It then discusses the so-called “Ethical Policy,” which sought to unify the islands under Dutch rule and implement European ideas about civilization, culture, and prosperity. The chapter looks at the colony’s social structure prior to World War II and closes with a discussion of the colony’s preparations for war with the Japanese in 1942. A short postscript explains what occurred between August 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, and December 1949, when the Netherlands East Indies ceased to exist.

Exile, Mobility, and Re-territorialisation in Aceh and Colonial Indonesia

Itinerario ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Joshua Gedacht
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Netherlands East Indies ◽  
Training Schools

For centuries, trading companies and colonial officials have sought to manipulate indigenous Asian kingdoms by banishing recalcitrant elites, thereby discouraging resistance and ensuring compliance. Less examined by scholars is how colonial officials adapted this tool in their efforts to manage mobility and achieve territorialisation at the turn of the twentieth century. Applying Josiah Heyman and Howard Campbell's framework of “re-territorialisation” to make sense of how states harness mobile flows for the purpose of redrawing boundaries and producing new political spaces, this article will examine Dutch strategies for incorporating the sultanate of Aceh into the Netherlands East Indies. Site of an infamous multi-decade war of insurgency and pacification between 1873 and the early 1900s, this Sumatran kingdom had long resisted imperial subjugation. Dutch authorities eventually moved to complete its elusive ambition of conquest by leveraging distance and forcibly sending Acehnese elites to “training schools” in Java. By fusing exile with pedagogy, colonial officials hoped to transform Acehnese elites into loyal servants of the colonial centre. Rancorous debates about the deposed Acehnese sultan, however, illustrated the limitations of such re-territorialisation schemes and the resiliency of alternative Asian geographies.

Japan's Drive against the Netherlands East Indies

1942 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-40
Author(s):  
Karl J. Pelzer
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Netherlands East Indies
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