Book contents
- Frontmatter
- INTRODUCTION
- Contents
- TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS
- NETHERLANDS INDIA
- AUTHOR'S PREFACE
- LIST OF GENERAL REFERENCES
- GLOSSARY
- MEASURES AND CURRENCY
- THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO, IN COMPARISON WITH EUROPE
- Chapter I INDONESIA, TO 1600
- Chapter II THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, 1600–1800
- Chapter III THE YEARS OF CONFUSION, 1795–1815
- Chapter IV THE YEARS OF UNCERTAINTY, 1815–1830
- Chapter V THE CULTURE SYSTEM, 1830–1850
- Chapter VI THE TRANSITION TO LIBERALISM, 1850–1870
- Chapter VII LIBERALISM, 1870–190
- Chapter VIII EFFICIENCY, WELFARE AND AUTONOMY
- Chapter IX ADMINISTRATIVE AND POLITICAL REFORMS
- Chapter X ECONOMIC PROGRESS
- Chapter XI SOCIAL ECONOMY
- Chapter XII SOME EFFECTS OF THE CRISIS OF 1929
- Chapter XIII PLURAL ECONOMY
- INDEX OF REFERENCES
- GENERAL INDEX
Chapter II - THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, 1600–1800
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- INTRODUCTION
- Contents
- TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS
- NETHERLANDS INDIA
- AUTHOR'S PREFACE
- LIST OF GENERAL REFERENCES
- GLOSSARY
- MEASURES AND CURRENCY
- THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO, IN COMPARISON WITH EUROPE
- Chapter I INDONESIA, TO 1600
- Chapter II THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, 1600–1800
- Chapter III THE YEARS OF CONFUSION, 1795–1815
- Chapter IV THE YEARS OF UNCERTAINTY, 1815–1830
- Chapter V THE CULTURE SYSTEM, 1830–1850
- Chapter VI THE TRANSITION TO LIBERALISM, 1850–1870
- Chapter VII LIBERALISM, 1870–190
- Chapter VIII EFFICIENCY, WELFARE AND AUTONOMY
- Chapter IX ADMINISTRATIVE AND POLITICAL REFORMS
- Chapter X ECONOMIC PROGRESS
- Chapter XI SOCIAL ECONOMY
- Chapter XII SOME EFFECTS OF THE CRISIS OF 1929
- Chapter XIII PLURAL ECONOMY
- INDEX OF REFERENCES
- GENERAL INDEX
Summary
1. The Coming of the Dutch. When, for a second time, it seemed that political and economic power in the archipelago would pass to Islam, the course of events was changed by the arrival of the Dutch. The Dutch never wanted to come East; they were forced to come by the policy of Philip, who profited by his succession to the throne of Portugal in 1580 to close the Portuguese harbours to his rebellious Dutch subjects. This was a grievous blow. For close on a hundred years the Dutch fleets, sailing with their cargoes of herring to the Mediterranean, had brought back from Portugal spices and other tropical produce for the peoples of northern Europe, and these luxuries had become a necessary means of livelihood to the Dutch merchants. Despite the orders of Philip and the protests of their English allies, the Dutch went on trading for some years but, when they found themselves subject “to arrests and all manner of unbearable tyrannies by the King of Spain”, they were compelled to seek new harbours. They tried to make the Indies by the western route, but the English freebooters, Drake, Frobisher, and others, did them more mischief than the most formidable of the Spanish captains. Even after, as Dutch children still learn at school, they had defeated the Armada, they preferred the hazards of the frozen North to challenging the power of Spain in southern seas; not until a succession of disasters frustrated their attempts to find a north-east passage to India did a few merchants of Amsterdam resolve to risk the dangers of the southern route.
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- Netherlands IndiaA Study of Plural Economy, pp. 20 - 53Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010