On August 17, 1945, Sukarno declared Indonesia's independence. Get rid of the oppressive colonizer from the distant Netherlands and take matters into your own hands! The Dutch East Indies had been an economically profitable region for centuries and the population was not spared. Slavery was even more prevalent here than the better known variety in the western colonies.
In our collective memory, slavery is the forced employment of Africans under brutal conditions on cotton plantations in (South) America. This image is mainly created by American literature and films. The Dutch variant of this is slavery on the plantations in Suriname and the Caribbean Islands. The abolition of slavery on July 1, 1863 in these areas is celebrated annually during Keti Koti, the casting off of the chains.
Slavery came to an end in the Dutch East Indies on January 1, 1860. We in the Netherlands do not think about this, let alone that slavery in the East is in our collective memory. And that while slavery in the Dutch East Indies started earlier and was more extensive than in the western colonies. In the year 1750, for example, there were 75,000 slaves in establishments of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) compared to 64,000 in Suriname and the Caribbean.
Despite the abolition of slavery, the lack of freedom continued in the Dutch East Indies with the culture system (1830-1870), in which the Netherlands forced the starving population to produce products for export to the Netherlands. The profit disappeared into Dutch pockets, just like in the days of the VOC.
Misleading sources
The reasons why slavery in the eastern colonies is much less well known than in the west have to do with historiography, among other things. Historians have long suggested that slavery in the East would have taken place mainly in urban households where the 'servants' enjoyed a lot of freedom of movement. This domestic slavery would mainly have given the owner status and be a milder variant of the heavy labor – including beatings – on the plantations in Suriname.
Researcher Matthias van Rossum (International Institute of Social History) contradicts this. He also argues that historians have also focused too much on the VOC and its small share in the slave trade and slavery. It was indeed not large, but if you look beyond the company, you will see that the employees – from officer to sailor – earned large numbers of private individuals from the slave trade. And for that they used the ships and the trade network of their employer, the VOC.
How extensive slavery was in the east is apparent from travel descriptions, among other things. The travelers notice that not only the important VOC officials had slaves (often hundreds), but that the lower ranks such as VOC soldiers or craftsmen in the city often owned a few slaves as well. All these slaves not only did household chores, but were used as porters to load and unload ships, in the mines, in agriculture and for heavy jobs in industry. The terminology in historical sources has also long misled historians, according to Van Rossum. Where they read about working in the gardens, which still has something idyllic, hard labor on coffee and sugar plantations was meant.
Robbed
Where did all these people come from? Slave trade existed in these areas before the Europeans showed up. The demand for slaves posed a standard threat to the inhabitants of these areas. During a raid by a neighboring tribe, they could be kidnapped and sold and captured in case of war. When the demand for unfree labor was great, that was even a reason to start a war.
With the arrival of the Europeans, the demand for slaves increased and more Asian areas and their inhabitants came into contact with the slave trade and raids. Due to this shift, trade flows in slaves mainly ran from the fringe areas under the influence of the VOC in the north and east to the urban areas on Java. Most slaves ended up in the capital and large VOC settlement Batavia (now Jakarta) and on the surrounding islands.
The VOC itself only had a small share in the slave trade, but it did try to keep slavery under control. As with the trade of goods, the VOC levied taxes on the importation of slaves and the sales were recorded. For this, the seller had to sign a deed, the slave ola, have it drawn up at the notary. The latter had to ask the slave whether the seller was actually his master. Furthermore, slaves wore certain clothes to recognize them as such. Certain groups that could raise doubts, for example because they were not Europeans, were required to carry a license showing that they were not runaway slaves and could not be sold (again) into slavery. Servants of the VOC and other Europeans themselves ran little risk of falling into the hands of slave traders as long as they were in VOC territory. It was forbidden for a Christian to buy or sell an enslaved Christian. Outside of that, there was also the chance that they would be robbed and sold into slavery.
Divide and conquer
The hundreds of slaves in the service of high VOC servants have long been proof to historians that slaves in the East were merely a status symbol. In his research, Van Rossum shows that the opposite is the case. Here too, the slaves mainly had an economic function and were mainly used as labor.
When the owner himself had no work for his slave, the slave had to earn his living as a day laborer and hand in the (largest part of) his wages. Or he was deployed with the VOC, whereby the compensation went to the owner. This mainly involved heavy work under supervision, such as loading and unloading ships, carrying and construction work in the cities, agricultural labor on plantations or working in mines. In the gold mines on Sumatra almost exclusively slaves worked under the supervision of the VOC.
Besides the heavy lifting, there was nothing "gentle" about their treatment. The punishments were harsh and runaway slaves faced a beating to the point of bleeding. Tied to a pole, their deep wounds were also smeared with salt.
Punishing slaves in the household could also be brutal, although the slaves had the opportunity to report abuse. This was largely a sham. The complaining slave was still whipped when his complaint was deemed unfounded.
The slave owners controlled their slaves with brutal punishments and small rewards through a divide-and-rule tactic, in which one slave was given the position of overseer over the rest. In exchange for a reward, slaves would hunt for their runaway fellow slaves and also slaughter them. The owner barely had to get his hands dirty. This kind of horrific practice did not only occur on the plantations in the western colonies.
There are still plenty of sources to investigate in the context of slavery in the Dutch East Indies, but Van Rossum's research makes it clear that we need to revise our view of slavery in the former colony. Just like the Dutch atrocities during the police actions to regain control of the rebellious colony after the declaration of independence in 1945, slavery in the East also appears to be a neglected child in Dutch historiography.