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Some Statistical Evidence on Javanese Social, Economic and Demographic History in the Later Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

M. C. Ricklefs
Affiliation:
Monash University

Extract

The pre-colonial Javanese kingdom was an unstatistical sort of state. Naturally it counted soldiers, taxes, wives, concubines and children, but it rarely kept detailed social and economic statistics. Nevertheless, some statistical records survive, largely through being preserved in Dutch East India Company (VOC) archives. Comparison and analysis of these, plus one or two leaps of imagination, enable one to build some historical hypotheses upon these materials and thereby to illuminate something of Javanese social history after the mid-seventeenth century and particularly in the eighteenth century. For the period from the mid-eighteenth century to 1812, important demographic and economic data relating to the kingdom of Yogyakarta alone will be made available in a forthcoming volume edited by Dr P. B. R. Carey and to be published by the British Academy.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 FrValentijn, , Oud en nieuw Oost-Indiën: Vervattende een naaukeurige en uitvoerige verhandelinge van Nederlands mogentheyd in die geweslen…, 8 vols (Dordrecht and Amsterdam: J. van Braam & G.onder de Linden, 17241726Google Scholar). The figures for the Javanese kingdom are given in vol. IV [pt 1]. pp. 2453Google Scholar. There one finds lists and computations which do not always result in the totals claimed. In his enthusiasm for Java's fruitfulness Valentijn also claims, for example, that the former court city of Mataram had at least 60,000 households (p. 33), which by his usual calculations would give it a population of at least 300,000 souls, an improbable figure and one which is inconsistent with the other records consulted for this article. Similarly unlikely figures are given for other areas, such as Kaduwang (p. 35: 50,000 households, whereas the sources cited in Table 1 give it consistently as 2,000). On the whole, there seem few grounds for regarding Valentijn's statistics seriously.

2 de Graaf, H. J., De regering van Mangku-Rat I Tegal- Wangi, vorst van Mataram 1646–1677 (YKI vols 33, 39; 's-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961, 1962), vol. I, p. 90.Google Scholar

3 I was therefore wrong to have suggested in 1974 that ‘presumably some sort of census must have been compiled before the division of the Javanese kingdom at Gijanti’; Ricklefs, M. C., Jogjakarta under Sultan Mangkubumi,1749–1792: A History of the Division of Java (London, etc.: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 158.Google Scholar

4 Cnoll, , Report, 15 07 1706, in dj VIII, 286.Google Scholar

5 Cnoll, , Dagregister, , 3 May 1708, in VOC 1764 (OB 1709). The něgara agung areas were also given greatly reduced levies at this time.Google Scholar

6 Hertog, , Sěmarang, , to Batavia, , 29 06 1716, in VOC 1886 (OB 1717).Google Scholar

7 Mataun, Tg., Jipang, , to Danurěja, , Kartasura, , received at Sěmarang 15 11 1722, in VOC 1984 (OB 1723).Google Scholar

8 Ceesjong, , Kartasura, , to Sěmarang, , 22 11 1725, in VOC 2035 (OB 1726)Google Scholar; idem, 27 Nov. 1726, in VOC 2056 (OB 1727).

9 Danurěja, , Kartasura, , to Sěmarang, , received 22 05 1727, in VOC 2080 (OB 1728).Google Scholar

10 Tersmitte, , Memorie for Coijett, , Sěmarang, , 25 07 1730, in VOC 2169 (OB 1731).Google Scholar

11 Smit, , Pasuruan, , to Sěmarang, , 19 12 1732Google Scholar (apart); idem, 9 Jan. 1733; Duijvensz, ., Sěmarang, , to Duirvelt, , Kartasura, , 30 01 1733 (apart); in VOC 2257 (OB 1733).Google Scholar

12 Danurěja, , Kartasura, , to Sěmarang, , received 30 12 1724Google Scholar; Laval, , Těgal, , to Sěmarang, , 20 02 1725Google Scholar; in VOC 2035 (OB 1726).

13 Walling, , Memorie for Damius, , Těgal, , 1 Sept. 1717, in VOC 1898 (OB 1718)Google Scholar; Walling, , Kartasura, , to Sěmarang, , 9 07 1718, in VOC 1914 (OB 1719).Google Scholar

14 Eg. Translaat Javaanse order brieff, shown at Kartasura 10 Feb. 1728, in VOC 2080 (OB 1728). In this royal command it is said that if a lord faithfully reported an increase in the population under his authority he would remain in control of this population, but if the increase were reported by a subordinate official the lord would lose both the increased number of people and a portion [the same number?] of the people previously accredited to him.

15 Coijett, . Kartasura, , to Batavia, , 19 08 1733Google Scholar (apart), in VOC 2294 (OB 1734), refers to the consultations then going on among the ‘Rijxgrooten’ to arrange a new distribution of the cash and rice obligations under the 1733 treaty.

16 Hertog, et al. , Sěmarang, , to Batavia, , 6 04 1716Google Scholar, in VOC 1886 (OB 1717); Batavia, to H. XVII, 7 03 1734, in dj IX, 221.Google Scholar

17 Gobius, , Sěmarang, , to Batavia, , 5 Nov. 1721, in VOC 1965 (OB 1722) (the Rds 60 referred to prices in Pasuruan).Google Scholar

18 There are scribal errors in the translated Javanese Resolution in AN Solo 53' and Cnoll's, DagregisterGoogle Scholar, but it is possible to correct these. The cash figures fail to add up, but since the pasisir total (Rds 6933) agrees with that given elsewhere by Cnoll, (dJ VIII, 360–2Google Scholar), the error must be in the Kartasura and moncanagara figures. If the moncanagara: pasisir cash ratio was 1:2 (as was the case with rice) then the moncanagara cash figure should be Rds 3466½ (rounded to 3467). Kartasura is given as paying Rds 5500, which produces a total of Rds 15,900 rather than the contracted Rds 15,600. Hence Kartasura is corrected to Rds 5200, which gives that region a burden which is approximately half cash and half rice, like the rest of the kingdom.

19 Ricklefs, , Mangkubumi, pp. 159–60. See also pp. 25–6 below.Google Scholar

20 Pěkalongan, Surabaya, West Madura, Těgal, Děmark, Pamalang, Grěsik, Japara, Kaliwungu and Batang together produced a total cash equivalent of Rds 10,929 as compared to Kartasura's Rds 10,560.

21 The text of the treaty of 11 Nov. 1743 is printed in dJ IX, pp. 434–47.Google Scholar

22 They are listed separately in ‘Lijst der thans in wezen zijnde kinderen, broeders en susters … van den Soesoehoenan Pakoeboewana, de hooftregenten … die zig aan 't hoffzoo aan de stranden als binnen en bovenlanden bevinden’, Kartasura, Nov. 1743, in AN Solo 42.

23 The sources cited in notes 4–11 above give examples from the Kartasura period of declining population which would have been caused by a combination of flight and death because of warfare and disease. For the nineteenth century, see Van Niel, Robert, ‘Measurement of change under the Cultivation System in Java, 1837–1851’, Indonesia no. 14 (10 1972), pp. 102–3Google Scholar; Fernando, Merennage Radin, ‘Peasants and plantation economy: The social impact of the European plantation economy in Cirebon Residency from the cultivation system to the end of first decade of the twentieth century’ (Monash University Ph.D. thesis, 1982), especially p. 197Google Scholar; Elson, Robert Edward, ‘Sugar and peasants: The social impact of the Western sugar industry on the peasantry of the Pasuruhan area, East Java, from the cultivation system to the Great Depression’ (Monash University Ph.D. thesis, 1979), especially pp. 115–18Google Scholar; Suryo, Djoko, ‘Social and economic life in rural Semarang under colonial rule in the later igth century’ (Monash University Ph.D. thesis, 1984), esp. ch. I.Google Scholar

24 Thus, Art. 16 of the 1743 treaty stipulated an increase in the price to be paid for cotton. On the other hand, the same article offers still higher prices (Rds 50 and 40) for any cotton produced in addition to the contracted amount of 300 pikuls.

25 There is little that can be said with confidence about Kudus and Kaliwungu. One can, however, take their conventionalized population figures (Table 2) and express these as a multiple of one of the known moncanagara areas such as Kaduwang (2000 cacahs in Table 1). Then one can similarly express their pea and bean production as a multiple of Kaduwang's, which may shed some hazy light on their movements relative to Kaduwang:

This exercise gives some grounds for believing that Kudus was growing relative to Kaduwang (itself an area increasing somewhat) and that Kaliwungu was declining. While this is consistent with the picture in Map B of relative growth in the Děmak—Kudus—Pathi—Juwana area, there are too many uncertainties here to support much analysis.

26 DJ VIII, 362–3.

27 See the sources cited in nn. 10 and 11 above for examples.

28 E.g. see Peper, Bram, ‘Population growth in Java in the 19th century: A new interpretation’, Population Studies vol. 24, no. 1 (1971), pp. 7184Google Scholar; Nitisastro, Widjojo, Population Trends in Indonesia (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1970), pp. 147Google Scholar; Boomgaard, P., ‘Bevolkingsgroei en welvaart op java (1800–1942)’, pp. 3552 in Kamerling, R. N. J. (ed.), Indonesië toen en nu (Amsterdam, 1980).Google Scholar

29 See Ricklefs, , Mangkubumi, pp. 157–60Google Scholar; dJ XI, pp. liv–lvi n. 1.

30 The figures for 1755 are given in dJ X, 373–5; these include several (mostly small) areas which are not listed in Table 1 above because they do not appear in the other materials used in this article.

31 Hageman, J., ‘Geschied- en aardrijkskundig overzigt van Java op het einde der achttiende eeuw,’ TBG vol. 9 (1860), p. 267.Google Scholar

32 Apparently these figures are based on very rough estimates by Nederburgh for the Javanese states and a VOC survey of some sort for the coastal areas; see Widjojo, , Population trends, pp. 1517.Google Scholar

33 For a brief general account see Ricklefs, M. C., A History of Modern Indonesia c. 1300 to the Present (London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1981), ch. 8.Google Scholar