Ethnic Colonial Policy — Indonesia

For most of the long period of Dutch involvement in Indonesia, colonial authorities made clear administrative distinctions between ethnic groups. The sharpness of these distinctions and the extent to which it was possible to cross the boundaries varied, however, over time.

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) avoided having direct administrative control over non-Europeans, preferring to rule via traditional elites or by appointing other Asians—especially Chinese— to be agents, often called kapitan. Because few European women traveled to the Indies, many Europeans married or cohabited with local women, though from time to time laws were introduced to ban such practices. Their descendants were seen as European if they were Christian and recognized by their fathers; consequently, European society in the Indies was very much mestizo (of mixed ancestry) in culture and appearance. Christian Indonesians were close to Europeans in status.

After the end of rule by the VOC in 1795 and the imposition of direct rule by the Netherlands, a formal legal distinction between Europeans and "natives" (inlanders) began to harden. This distinction enabled the Dutch to restrict land ownership to natives, and after about 1830 it was almost impossible for any European to buy land. This was partly to protect the native population, partly to enable natives to be tied to the land for tax purposes, and partly to preserve many elements of traditional law, culture, and social structure. It also allowed discrimination against Indonesians in employment conditions and in civil and political rights (especially in criminal procedure). This discrimination contributed to the eventual emergence of nationalism. As in VOC times, legitimate children produced by marriages of Europeans and natives followed the heritage of their fathers, while illegitimate children followed their mothers'. Those who were neither European nor native were attached to one category or the other for different purposes until a third category, "foreign Orientals" (vreemde oosterlingen), was developed in the late nineteenth century. Natives and foreign Orientals could legally acquire European status if they were culturally Europeanized or had legal need of the status, for example, as owners of businesses. In the late nineteenth century, many Dutch policy makers proposed abandoning such classifications to encourage modernization, but they were blocked by conservatives and supporters of traditional law.

In 1899, Japanese diplomatic pressure forced colonial authorities to grant Japanese subjects European status. There was increasing pressure from China to do the same for resident Chinese, especially in the 1930s. This led to a gradual change in emphasis from "racial" categories to various categories of citizenship.

The Dutch also distinguished among native ethnic groups, such as the Javanese, Balinese, and Timorese, particularly in matters of civil law and recruitment into the colonial army. These legal distinctions were, however, never legislatively defined and disappeared with Indonesian independence.

Cribb, Robert, ed. (1994) The Late Colonial State in Indonesia: Political and Economic Foundations of the Netherlands Indies, 1880–1942. Leiden, Netherlands: KITLV Press.

Taylor, Jean Gelman. (1983) The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.