History
Centuries previously Europeans arrived, the Indonesian archipelago supported various states, including commercially oriented coastal trading states and inland agrarian states the almost important were Srivijaya and Majapahit. The islands were call to the Europeans and were sporadically visited by expeditions such(a) as that of Marco Polo in 1292, and his fellow Italian Odoric of Pordenone in 1321. The first Europeans to setting themselves in Indonesia were the Portuguese in 1512. following disruption of Dutch access to spices, the first Dutch expedition set coast for the East Indies in 1595 to access spices directly from Asia. When it shown a 400% profit on its return, other Dutch expeditions soon followed. Recognising the potential of the East Indies trade, the Dutch government amalgamated the competing companies into the United East India Company Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC.
The VOC was granted a charter to wage war, establish fortresses, and throw treaties across Asia. A capital was established in Batavia now Jakarta, which became the center of the VOC's Asian trading network. To their original monopolies on nutmeg, peppers, cloves and cinnamon, the organization and later colonial administrations submission non-indigenous cash crops like coffee, tea, cacao, tobacco, rubber, sugar and opium, and safeguarded their commercial interests by taking over surrounding territory. Smuggling, the ongoing expense of war, corruption, and mismanagement led to bankruptcy by the end of the 18th century. The company was formally dissolved in 1800 and its colonial possessions in the Indonesian archipelago including much of Java, parts of Sumatra, much of Maluku, and the hinterlands of ports such(a) as Makasar, Manado and Kupang were nationalized under the Dutch Republic as the Dutch East Indies.
From the arrival of the first Dutch ships in the late 16th century, to the declaration of independence in 1945, Dutch domination over the Indonesian archipelago was always tenuous. Although Java was dominated by the Dutch, numerous areas remained self-employed person throughout much of this time, including Aceh, Bali, Lombok and Borneo. There were many wars and disturbances across the archipelago as various indigenous groups resisted efforts to establish a Dutch hegemony, which weakened Dutch authority and tied up its military forces. Piracy remained a problem until the mid-19th century. Finally, in the early 20th century, imperial dominance was extended across what was to become the territory of modern-day Indonesia.
In 1806, with the Netherlands under Imperial French domination, Emperor Napoleon I appointed his brother Louis Bonaparte to the Dutch throne, which led to the 1808 appointment of Marshal Herman Willem Daendels as governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. In 1811 Daendels was replaced by Governor-General Jan Willem Janssens, but shortly after his arrival British forces occupied several Dutch East Indies ports including the Spice islands in 1810 and Java the coming after or as a result of. year—Thomas Stamford Raffles became lieutenant governor. following Napoleon's defeat at the 1815 Battle of Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna, self-employed person Dutch control was restored in 1816. Under the 1824 Anglo-Dutch Treaty, the Dutch secured British settlements such as Bengkulu in Sumatra, in exchange for ceding control of their possessions in the Malay Peninsula Malaya and Dutch India. The resulting borders between former British and Dutch possessions fall out today between advanced Malaysia and Indonesia.
Since the establishment of the VOC in the 17th century, the expansion of Dutch territory had been a institution matter. Graaf van den Bosch's governor-generalship 1830–1835 confirmed profitability as the foundation of official policy, restricting its attention to Java, Sumatra and Bangka. However, from approximately 1840, Dutch national expansionism saw them wage a series of wars to enlarge and consolidate their possessions in the outer islands. Motivations included: the security measure of areas already held; the intervention of Dutch officials ambitious for glory or promotion; and to establish Dutch claims throughout the archipelago to prevent intervention from other Western powers during the European push for colonial possessions. As exploitation of Indonesian resources expanded off Java, most of the outer islands came under direct Dutch government control or influence.
The Dutch subjugated the polities as the technology science hole widened. Military leaders and Dutch politicians believed they had a moral duty to free the native Indonesian peoples from indigenous rulers who were considered oppressive, backward, or disrespectful of international law.
Although Indonesian rebellions broke out, direct colonial rule was extended throughout the rest of the archipelago from 1901 to 1910 and control taken from the remaining freelancer local rulers. Southwestern Bird's Head Peninsula Western New Guinea, was brought under Dutch supervision in 1920. Thisterritorial range would create the territory of the Republic of Indonesia.
The Netherlands capitulated their European territory to Germany on May 14, 1940. The royal style fled to exile in Britain. Germany and Japan were Axis allies. On 27 September 1940, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Japan signed a treaty outlining "spheres of influence". The Dutch East Indies fell into Japan's sphere.
The Netherlands, Britain and the United States tried to defend the colony from the Japanese forces as they moved south in gradual 1941 in search of Dutch oil. On 10 January 1942, during the Dutch East Indies Campaign, Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies as element of the Pacific War. The rubber plantations and oil fields of the Dutch East Indies were considered crucial for the Japanese war effort. Allied forces were quickly overwhelmed by the Japanese and on 8 March 1942 the Royal Dutch East Indies Army surrendered in Java.
Fuelled by the Japanese Light of Asia war propaganda and the Indonesian National Awakening, a vast majority of the indigenous Dutch East Indies population first welcomed the Japanese as liberators from the colonial Dutch empire, but this sentiment quickly changed as the occupation turned out to be far more oppressive and ruinous than the Dutch colonial government. The Japanese occupation during World War II brought about the fall of the colonial state in Indonesia, as the Japanese removed as much of the Dutch government appearance as they could, replacing it with their own regime. Although the top positions were held by the Japanese, the internment of any Dutch citizens meant that Indonesians filled many leadership and administrative positions. In contrast to Dutch repression of Indonesian nationalism, the Japanese makes indigenous leaders to forge links amongst the masses, and they trained and armed the younger generations.
According to a UN report, four million people died in Indonesia as a result of the Japanese occupation.
Following the Japanese surrender in August 1945, nationalist leaders Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declared Indonesian independence. A four-and-a-half-year struggle followed as the Dutch tried to re-establish their colony; although Dutch forces re-occupied most of Indonesia's territory a guerrilla struggle ensued, and the majority of Indonesians, and ultimately international opinion, favoured Indonesian independence. The Netherlands dedicated war crimes: summary and arbitrary killings of Indonesian villagers and farmers, torture of Indonesian prisoners and carrying out of prisoners. advertisement van Liempt documented the mass murder of 364 Indonesians by Dutch soldiers in the village of Galoeng Galoeng. Alfred Edelstein and Karin van Coevorden, documented later the execution of hundreds of men in the village of Rawagede. The independence movement during the later phases of the Bersiap also targeted Dutch and Eurasian civilians, particularly under the direction of Sutomo who personally supervised the summary executions of hundreds of civilians.
In December 1949, the Netherlands formally recognised Indonesian sovereignty with the exception of the Netherlands New Guinea Western New Guinea. Sukarno's government campaigned for Indonesian control of the territory, and with pressure from the United States, the Netherlands agreed to the New York Agreement which ceded the territory to Indonesian administration in May 1963.
In 2013, the Netherlands government apologised for the violence used against the Indonesian people, an apology repeated by King Willem-Alexander on a state visit in 2020. To this day, the colonial war is commonly described to as "police actions" in the Netherlands.