ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the history of Dutch colonial extraction in the Indonesian archipelago in a long-term perspective. The gradually increasing intensity of Dutch involvement in the indigenous economies and polities since the late sixteenth century highlights one of the key distinctions from the extension of Belgian domination over the Congo, which evolved in a much shorter period of time. The chapter starts with a discussion of the bilateral monopoly that the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-indische Compagnie, henceforth VOC) obtained on the spice trade in the Moluccas in the early seventeenth century. The VOC's control of the spice trade took the form of a monopsony on the purchase of spices cultivated by the local population and a monopoly on the sale of these spices in the Dutch Republic. The chapter then addresses the change in extractive institutions during the expansion of state rule under the Netherlands Indies government after the Napoleonic wars, focusing on the development of the infamous Cultivation System (Cultuurstelsel, CS) in Java (1830–70) and the debate concerning the welfare effects of the CS.
