John Palmer and plantation development in Western Java during the earlier nineteenth century
Year: 1975
Type: article
Abstract: Plantation development by European entrepreneurs in early nineteenth century Java has to be viewed against a background of significant changes in the colonial infra-structure of the island. Under Dutch East India Company rule, overseas trade was largely carried on under the control of Dutch officialdom, and (with some exceptions in the Preanger Regencies of western Java) direct European involvement in the or ganisation of commercial agriculture was kept to a minimum. The Dutch obtained most of their agricultural export (primarily coffee, rice, sugar and indigo) from levies on the local Javanese rulers who stood in a quasi-feudal relationship to the Company. In addition, a great deal of the sugar exported by the Company was supplied from plantations situated around Batavia and run, for the most part, by Chinese settlers. Private plantation enterprise by Europeans played little part in the Company's scheme of things. There were, indeed, a number of small, privately-owned estates {particuli?re landerijen) 2 in the Batavia district whose proprietors were European or Eurasian servants of the Company. For this type of landowner, however, their estates were less likely to be full-time, true commercial speculations than convenient country retreats away from the heat and stench of the colonial capital.3 Their agricultural output was almost exclusively geared to local con sumption.
Author: G.R. Knight
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2038486397