The opening of the Buitengewesten was, in du Croo’s phrase, “four words for a concept that brought a complete change in colonial policy” — the abandonment of the policy of non-intervention and the bringing of the whole Netherlands Indies archipelago under effective Dutch authority, accomplished under Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz as Governor-General between 1904 and 1909.
Van Heutsz’s beginselprogram
Van Heutsz’s insights were laid down in his beginselprogram:
- (a) that the judicious extension of Dutch influence in districts where existing conditions place obstacles in the way of the social freedom, welfare, civilisation and development of land and people be regarded as a duty of the Government;
- (b) that in connection with that requirement the policy of abstention from the internal affairs of the landschappen left in greater or lesser degree in the enjoyment of self-government be abandoned;
- (c) that by peaceable means it be attempted to bring about in the political relation to the zelfbesturen such changes as may prove necessary in order to obtain satisfactory guarantees for a gradual improvement of administration and justice;
- (d) that in particular, where this may prove necessary, the financial management be placed under effective supervision, so that the revenues of the country may accrue in full measure to the benefit of land and people;
- (e) that while avoiding on the Dutch side every occasion for violent action, the position be nevertheless firmly taken that in the landschappen left in the enjoyment of self-government too, the endeavour of the administrators must be directed to developing the natural sources of the country’s prosperity and improving the economic and social condition of the native population;
- (f) that incorporation of landschappen left in possession of the right of self-government into government territory take place only at the request of the chiefs and population concerned, or if it proves unavoidable in the interest of the population.
“It stands there in stiff official words, in official ink on official paper, but through the long rows of stiff words there nevertheless shines the gleam of a new and better insight: thus and not otherwise would our administration henceforth be conducted and administrative direction be given.”
Men and means
But for the practical application of his principles van Heutsz needed more than ink and paper: men and means. For almost everywhere in the Buitengewesten — in Borneo and Celebes, in Palembang and Djambi, in the Groote Oost, on Bali and Lombok and Timor — the policy of abstention with its sham authority had created conditions that could not be tolerated under a proper colonial administration.
C. Lulofs, who as adviser for the Buitengewesten could leaf through the archives of that sham authority during his journeys through the eastern part of the archipelago, recorded countless things and deeds of that inglorious time in his pamphlet, “and that anthology makes no refreshing reading.” The colonial consolation, du Croo added, remains that many if not all colonisers sinned along with the Dutch, “and once that sin had been confessed and the road to improvement taken, then the Netherlands, at an unprecedentedly rapid pace, not only made up the arrears but also placed itself unchallenged at the head of that “colonial platoon”.”
Van Heutsz had formed in his school young men with daring and a sense of responsibility, who understood and applied his insights with their whole personality and with a minimum of men and means: ""everything is possible” became their motto too.” He had grafted onto them his daring and perseverance, his will-power and consciousness of his own strength; he had taught them how the swift, hardened native troops of the Indies army, well led and enthusiastically commanded, were irresistible even in the smallest formations. He had equally taught them how their administrative work must be built up slowly and gradually with the aim of winning the confidence of chiefs and population, creating order, rest and security, and applying justice and honesty, but always and everywhere resting on a firm maintenance of their authority.
“Thus it became possible for those men to achieve the almost impossible… as a perfectly ordinary performance”: educated in that school, H. N. A. Swart could bring about a complete reversal in Borneo in a year, pacify Celebes in a few years, and as the closing piece of his eastern service make the apparently more than reckless undertaking against Bima and Soembawa with a handful of marechaussée into a classic example of rapid and conclusive pacification.
Atjeh as the school
“Atjeh formed the great and complete reversal, and at the same time the training school in which Van Heutsz and his men could test their insights against the practice of a new school of soldiering and of government.”
Progress
With the Korte Verklaring the “Sesam opent U!” was applied at an ever-quickening tempo: Djambi, Korintji, Midden Sumatra and the South and East Division of Borneo opened the series. As soon as van Heutsz took office as Governor-General in 1904, supported by the minister of Colonies Idenburg, the tempo was accelerated still further, so that at his retirement he could acknowledge with satisfaction that the task had been accomplished and Sumatra wholly brought under Dutch authority.
Significance
The opening of the Buitengewesten (“Outer Provinces”) was the framework within which Swart’s whole career after 1905 took place: the pacifications of Borneo, Celebes and Soembawa were exercises in it, and the pacification of Atjeh was its completion in the province where it had begun and where it had cost most.
See Also
- Joannes Benedictus van Heutsz
- Non-interventiepolitiek
- Korte Verklaring
- H. N. A. Swart
- C. Lulofs
- Buitengewesten
- Alexander Willem Frederik Idenburg
- Zelfbestuur
- 1904
Source
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter V, pp. 30–35.