The Effects of Imperialism Upon Indonesia

Essay by tonko1992High School, 10th gradeA-, March 2008

download word file, 5 pages 3.0

After studying the two cases of imperialism; one of India, and one of several countries in Africa, for my project I have decided to research the nineteenth century colony of Indonesia. I feel very motivated about researching this country, especially since I spend 3 years of my life living there. Unfortunately, while I was live there, I was both unable and too young to pick up o the local history, and I only managed to get a grasp of what had happened to this great country that I was living in. That is why for this investigation , I have decided to research the colonization of Indonesia, using the internet as my main resource, along with one class period spend in the school library.

NARRATIVE: The Dutch control in Indonesia started as early as the 17th century. However, for a long time there was a fierce competition, and later with the Chinese, and it wasn’t until the 19th, and part of the 20th, century when the Dutch were able to run the colony like they really wanted, and to make the immense profits that were originally expected.

The English started to focus their efforts elsewhere, and the Dutch now had almost free reign to take control, and run this colony like they intended too.

Originally, during the period in which the British were still interfering with the plans of the Dutch, there were trading activities occurring under the control of a state-supported monopoly, which was the Dutch East Indies Company. Their original interest was in the trading of spices, which were abundant in this particular colony. Unfortunately, as they quickly started to realize, it was impossible to predict and calculate the supply and amount of spice available, which made it hard to assure the great profits which were expected.