In the waning days of the VOC as the ruler of the Dutch East Indies the political power in Batavia, the capital city of the colony, had come into the hands of a corrupt clique around the families of Willem Arnold Alting, Pieter Gerardus van Overstraten, and Johannes Siberg,[a] all at a time Governor-general of the Dutch East Indies in the period between 1780 and 1807, and their hangers on.
[b] After the VOC was nationalized under the Batavian Republic the political power position of these people was jeopardized by the successive reformers the Mother country sent out: first Herman Willem Daendels, and (under the British governor-general Stamford Raffles) Herman Warner Muntinghe, and later the Commissioners-General of the Dutch East Indies.
A new class of colonial civil servants gained ascendance, known colloquially as the "Baren" ("new people", with the connotation of Carpetbaggers.
[4] Already in the period 1817-1819 during which the Dutch East Indies were ruled by the Commissioners-General the Oudgastenpartij and the Barenpartij were at each other's throats.
This intensified after Godert van der Capellen and the new High Government had come into power in 1819.