Slavernij in Nederlandsch-Indië (slavery in the Netherlands Indies) was the institution of chattel slavery that persisted in the outer provinces (Buitengewesten) of the Netherlands Indies throughout the nineteenth century, despite the undertaking given by the Dutch government in the Verdrag van Londen of 1814 to combat it with vigour. The institution, together with the associated practices of zeeroverij (piracy) and landroverij (land-piracy), is the central subject of Ir. J. Frijling’s 1946 sketch Een stukje geschiedenis der Indische Buitengewesten, which traces the failure of the Dutch to suppress slavery from 1814 to the pacification of Atjeh around 1900 and identifies the institution as one of the principal causes of the Atjeh-oorlog.
The Undertaking of 1814 and its Non-Fulfilment
By the Verdrag van Londen of 1814, by which the Netherlands recovered most of the colonies that Britain had occupied during the Napoleonic period, the Dutch government promised “de slavernij in Ned.-Indië met kracht te zullen tegengaan.” Frijling records that “het bleef bij een belofte” — the promise was not kept. The British government’s irritation at this failure was, “althans de reden genoemd,” the reason why London broke off the 1820 conversations with the Hague over the exchange of Billiton for Singapore and twice refused to resume them.
The Cause of the Failure: On-macht rather than On-wil
Frijling defends the Dutch failure on the ground of on-macht (powerlessness) rather than on-wil (ill-will). The Netherlands of 1814, after the French occupation, was almost as poor as it would be in 1945 after the German. The territory over which it had recovered sovereignty extended from the 95th to the 142nd degree of longitude east — more than an eighth of the Earth’s circumference measured along the equator. The Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, whose rights the Dutch state had inherited, had been able to enforce its authority over no more than ten per cent of the total area of the archipelago; over the whole of Java, but in the Buitengewesten only at a few widely separated posts. The army of officials needed for an actual administration was simply not to be had, quite apart from the enormous recurring costs.
The Niet-inmengingspolitiek and its Consequences
Throughout the nineteenth century the Dutch government followed a policy of niet-inmenging — non-intervention — in the affairs of the native states of the Buitengewesten. In the absence of effective authority, the native princes and headmen fell into increasing mutual discord, “een strijd van allen tegen allen, leidende tot grenzenloze onderdrukking van bevolkingen.” Slavery flourished, and both zeeroverij (piracy) and landroverij (land-piracy — rampok- and ketjoepartijen, plundering and extortion) assumed unheard-of proportions. Foreign merchant ships were also among the victims; the American bombardment of 1831 and the British bombardment of 1844 were direct foreign reprisals against Atjehese piracy.
The Atjeh War as the Resolution
The Sumatra-contract of 1871 gave the Netherlands a free hand over the whole of Sumatra but laid on it the obligation to suppress the Atjehese slave trade and piracy. The Dutch decision of 1872 to take military measures led directly to the first Aceh expedition of April 1873 and to the protracted Atjeh-oorlog of 1873–1904. The final pacification of Atjeh by Van Heutsz around the turn of the century, and the subsequent reforms by which Van Heutsz preserved native self-government under a thin layer of properly prepared Dutch administrators, gave the Netherlands for the first time the effective authority over the Buitengewesten that it had lacked since 1814 — and with that authority, the means to suppress slavery.
See Also
- Zeeroverij
- Niet-inmengingspolitiek
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1871
- American bombardment of the Atjehse coast (1831)
- Bombardment of the Atjehse coast by the British (1844)
- Dutch military measures against Atjehse piracy (1872)
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- J. B. van Heutsz
- J. Frijling
- Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
- Aceh War
- Acheh
- Sumatra
- 1814
- 1873
- 1900
- 1946
Source
J. Frijling, Een stukje geschiedenis der Indische Buitengewesten, voor wie dat niet overbodig mocht zijn (1946), pp. 1–8. Koninklijke Bibliotheek shelfmark 0465 0898.