Western Imperialism and Colonialism in Southeast Asia

• Dutch East Indies– Indonesia comprised of 17,000 islands, half uninhabited.– Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, and New Guinea are the

largest and most populated.– Settled by Austronesians, and by – 700 Buddhist kingdoms had been built.– Sumatran kingdom dominated commercial trade in spices.– Indonesians converted to Islam by 1300.

• In 1511 Portuguese built a trade fort at Malacca.

• Dutch East India Company, chartered in 1602, used Java as its trade center.

Indonesiaand the

Dutch East Indies

• Dutch took over Java by dominating local Islamic protectorates.

• Economic collapse of Dutch company led to government of Netherlands taking over the colonial holdings in 1799.

• After Belgium broke from Netherlands in 1830, Dutch turned to a cultivation system in Indonesia.– Forced natives to grow commercial crops or work

Dutch plantations.– Rice paddies converted, leading to famine.– Commercial success led to further colonization in

Indonesia.

• Spain used Manila as a port for Chinese trade and silver exports from America.– Philippines are a collection of 7,000 islands settled by Austronesians.– Farmers paid rents in rice and animals to support Manila.– Early eighteenth century Spain began to further colonize Philippines.

• Philippines difficult to control due to native resistance and English interference.

• Spain shifts from silver to commodities, led to class division between wealthy minority and mass of landless rural and urban workers.

• Colony was an economic drain for Spain: no revenue and costly administration.

• Leaders of Katipunan resistance group exiled to Hong Kong, brought back by Americans during Spanish-American War 1898.– Emilio Anguinaldo, leader of Katipunan

• U.S. took Manila in 1899, with other Spanish territory in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

• Philippine–American War, 1899 – 1902. – Deaths:• 4,200 US troops• 34,000 Filipino soldiers • 200,000 civilians

• Moro Rebellion. 1899 – 1913

• France took over southern Vietnam, “Cochinchina,” in 1858–1862 as a protectorate.– Claimed French missionaries and Vietnamese converts

were tortured.– 1884–1885 France took over rest of Vietnam, and built

plantations for coffee, tea, and rubber, as well as rice.

• Vietnamese nationalist resistance led by Phan Boi Chau– Organized Vietnamese in Japan until expelled in 1909.