Sultanates, city states, local kingdoms and tribes were all connected through trade, creating a mixed Hindu-Buddhist-Islamic culture, and Malay as a lingua franca throughout the region.

[19] To their original monopolies on nutmeg, peppers, cloves and cinnamon, the company and later colonial administrations introduced non-indigenous cash crops like coffee, tea, cacao, tobacco, rubber, sugar and opium, and safeguarded their commercial interests by taking over surrounding territory.

[21] Dutch slaves worked in agriculture, manufacturing, and services, but most were used as domestic servants including housemaids and houseboys, cooks, seamstresses, musicians, and concubines.

In certain cases the VOC stirred up ethnic tensions between rivalling populations in the hope they could cheaply buy war captives at slave markets after the conflict.

[32] In 1811 Daendels was replaced by Governor-General Jan Willem Janssens, but shortly after his arrival, British forces occupied several Dutch East Indies ports including the Spice islands in 1810 and Java the following year, leading to Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles becoming Lieutenant Governor.

Graaf van den Bosch's governor-generalship (1830–1835) confirmed profitability as the foundation of official policy, restricting its attention to Java, Sumatra and Bangka.

[40] Towards the end of the 19th century, the balance of military power shifted towards the industrialising Dutch and against pre-industrial independent indigenous Indonesian polities as the technology gap widened.

[37] Military leaders and Dutch politicians believed they had a moral duty to free the native Indonesian peoples from indigenous rulers who were considered oppressive, backward, or disrespectful of international law.

[45] Southwestern Sulawesi was occupied in 1905–06, the island of Bali was subjugated with military conquests in 1906 and 1908, as were the remaining independent kingdoms in Maluku, Sumatra, Kalimantan and Nusa Tenggara.

The system proved disastrous for the local population; at its height, over 1 million farmers worked under the Cultuurstelsel and the extreme incentive for profit resulted in widespread abuses.

In contrast to Dutch repression of Indonesian nationalism, the Japanese allowed indigenous leaders to forge links among the masses, and they trained and armed the younger generations.

The Politionele Actie did not achieve its goals,[clarification needed] and international pressure forced the Dutch government to accept a cease-fire and the Renville Agreement (17 January 1948).

Six councils of justice (Raad van Justitie) dealt mostly with crime committed by people in the European legal class[note 1] and only indirectly with the indigenous population.

The campaign quickly drove out the Sultan, but across Aceh numerous local Muslim leaders mobilised and fought the Dutch in four decades of expensive guerrilla war, with high levels of atrocities on both sides.

[94] The KNIL hastily and inadequately attempted to transform them into a modern military force able to protect the Dutch East Indies from Imperial Japanese invasion.

Termed cultuurstelsel (cultivation system) in Dutch and tanam paksa (forced plantation) in Indonesia, farmers were required to deliver, as a form of tax, fixed amounts of specified crops, such as sugar or coffee.

The Martavious Company's tin mines off the eastern Sumatra coast was financed by a syndicate of Dutch entrepreneurs, including the younger brother of King William III.

The Dutch introduced coffee, tea, cacao, tobacco and rubber, and large expanses of Java became plantations cultivated by Javanese peasants, collected by Chinese intermediaries, and sold on overseas markets by European merchants.

The Dutch East Indies produced most of the world's supply of quinine and pepper, over a third of its rubber, a quarter of its coconut products, and a fifth of its tea, sugar, coffee and oil.

Journalists and civil servants observed that the majority of the Indies population were no better off than under the previous regulated Cultivation System economy and tens of thousands starved.

This started under the reign of governor-general Daendels who forced tens of thousands of locals to work on the construction of the great post road across Java and extended throughout the entire colonial period.

[126] The colonial government sought to standardise Malay based on the version from Riau and Malacca, and dictionaries were commissioned for governmental communication and schools for indigenous peoples.

Masterpieces of this genre include Multatuli's Max Havelaar: Or The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company, Louis Couperus's Hidden Force, E. du Perron's Country of Origin, and Maria Dermoût's The Ten Thousand Things.

Examples include the Javanese prince and poet Noto Soeroto, a writer and journalist, and the Dutch language writings of Soewarsih Djojopoespito, Chairil Anwar, Kartini, Sutan Sjahrir and Sukarno.

[151] Dutch colonial families, through their domestic servants and cooks, were exposed to Indonesian cuisine, and as a result they developed a taste for native tropical spices and dishes.

Modernistic buildings, including train stations, business hotels, factories and office blocks, hospitals and education institutions, were influenced by international styles.

[160] A lack of development in the Great Depression, the turmoil of the Second World War and the Indonesia's independence struggle of the 1940s, and economic stagnation during the politically turbulent 1950s and 1960s meant that much colonial architecture has been preserved through to recent decades.

[164] Later on in the history of the Dutch East Indies, as a new wave of Europeans were brought into the colony, many adopted Indonesian styles, and many even went so far as to wear traditional Javanese kebaya at home.

However, their journey was cut short in the first round, as they suffered a 0–6 defeat against the Hungary national football team at Vélodrome Municipal Stadium, Reims, France.

[171] Moreover, since the 18th century Dutch literature has a large number of established authors, such as Louis Couperus, the writer of "The Hidden Force", taking the colonial era as an important source of inspiration.