The History of Java, v. 1-2

by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

If we look at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, the capitals of the British government in India: if we look at the great cities of every nation in Europe; nay, if we even confine ourselves to the capitals of the native princes on Java, we shall find that population has always accumulated in their vicinity. And why was not this the case with the Dutch capital? The climate alone will not explain it. Bad government was the principal cause; a system of policy which secured neither person nor property​—selfish, jealous, vexatious, and tyrannical. It is no less true than remarkable, that wherever the Dutch influence has prevailed in the Eastern Seas, depopulation has followed. The Moluccas particularly have suffered at least as much as any part of Java, and the population of those Islands, reduced as it is, has been equally oppressed and degraded.

It was fortunate for the interests of humanity, and for the importance of Java, that the native governments were less oppressive than the sway of their European conquerors, and that their states afforded a retreat from a more desolating tyranny. It has been ascertained, that, on the first establishment of the Dutch in the eastern part of the Island, the inhabitants of whole districts at once migrated into the native provinces. Every new act of rigour, every unexpected exaction, occasioned a further migration, and cultivation was transferred to tracts which had previously scarcely a family on them. This state of things continued down to the latest date of the Dutch government. During the administration of Marshal Daendels, in the years 1808, 1809, and 1810, nearly all the inhabitants of the province of Demák, one of the richest in the eastern districts, fled into the native provinces; and when an order was given for the rigid enforcement of the coffee monopoly, every district suffered in its population, in proportion to the extent of service levied upon it. Of the sacrifice of lives by thousands and tens of thousands, to fill the ranks of the Dutch native army, and to construct roads and public works, we shall speak more at large hereafter.

The total population of Java and Madúra appears from the Table No. II., to amount to 4,615,270, of which about four millions and a half may be considered as the indigenous population of the country, and the rest as foreign settlers. Itinerants, who are principally found along the coast in the different maritime and commercial capitals, are not included; neither is the nautical population, which cannot be estimated at less than 30,000 souls; so that the whole population of these two islands may, perhaps, be taken in round numbers at not much less than five millions. Of these not less than three millions are in the provinces immediately subject to European authority, and upwards of a million and a half in the provinces of the native princes.

While the British were in possession of Java, there is reason to believe that the population of the Island was rapidly increasing; that of the provinces immediately under the European authority was certainly augmented by the return of numerous families from emigration: but previously to that period, no such authentic registers were kept as might enable us to ascertain with precision the variations in the number of the inhabitants during the Dutch government.

Nothing can more completely shew the vague and defective information formerly attainable on this subject, than the loose and contradictory statements published by those who took most pains to be well informed, and who felt it their duty to collect all the light that could be attained. In some accounts which have met the public eye, the population of Java is placed on a level with that of the most powerful European states, and assumed as high as thirty millions, while in others, where one would expect more accuracy[39], it is rated at only a million. The most respectable authorities[40] state the population about a century ago at three millions; but the slightest reflection will convince us, that such an estimate must have proceeded upon data merely conjectural, for from our knowledge of the Dutch maxims of administration we may safely say, that until very lately, they never thought it an object to prosecute statistic enquiries, and that if ever they had done so, under the old system, they could have obtained no results deserving of confidence or credit.

About the year 1750, a certain number of families were assigned by the stipulations of a treaty to one of the native princes[41]; and on his death, about thirty years afterwards, when an account was taken of this population, it appeared that the number of families had nearly doubled. But this increase cannot be taken as the average increase of the Island, for at this period the native provinces received a considerable accession to their numbers, in consequence of the emigrations from the Dutch territories.

If any inference can be drawn from this and other corresponding circumstances, it would seem, that notwithstanding the drains on the existing race, and the preventive checks to an increase, which were experienced during the latter years of the Dutch administration, the island was actually more populous in 1811, when it was surrendered to the British, than in 1750, when at the termination of a destructive war, the Dutch acquired the greatest portion of it from the natives.

To support the opinion of an increase within the last half century (which is every where asserted) we have the assurance, that during that period the greatest internal tranquillity prevailed in the provinces subject to native administration; that no years of scarcity and famine were experienced, and that the island was blessed with genial seasons and abundance of subsistence. But to place in the opposite scale, we have the government oppressions to which we formerly alluded, and which one would suppose sufficient to counteract the natural tendency of these advantages. As demonstrative of the strength of that principle of population, which could even maintain its stationary amount in conflict with political drains and discouragements, it may be proper to mention cursorily a few of them. Great demands were, at all times, made on the peasantry of the island, to recruit the ranks of the Dutch army, and to supply the many other wants of the public service; the severities and consequent mortality to which the troops were liable, may be calculated, from the reluctance of the unfortunate wretches, selected as victims of military conscription, to engage in the duties of a military life. Confined in unhealthy garrisons, exposed to unnecessary hardships and privations, extraordinary casualties took place among them, and frequent new levies became necessary, while the anticipation of danger and suffering produced an aversion to the service, which was only aggravated by the subsequent measures of cruelty and oppression. The conscripts raised in the provinces were usually sent to the metropolis by water; and though the distance be but short between any two points of the island, a mortality, similar to that of a slave-ship in the middle passage, took place on board these receptacles of reluctant recruits. They were generally confined in the stocks till their arrival at Batavia, and it is calculated that for every man that entered the army and performed the duties of a soldier, several lives were lost. Besides the supply of the army, one half of the male population of the country was constantly held in readiness for other public services; and thus a great portion of the effective hands were taken from their families, and detained at a distance from home, in labours which broke their spirit and exhausted their strength. During the administration of Marshal Daendels, it has been calculated that the construction of public roads alone, destroyed the lives of at least ten thousand workmen. The transport of government stores, and the capricious requisitions of government agents of all classes, perpetually harassed, and frequently carried off numbers of the people. If to these drains we add the waste of life occasioned by insurrections, which tyranny and impolicy excited and fomented in Chéribon, the blighting effects of the coffee monopoly, and forced services in the Priáng'en Regencies, and the still more desolating operation of the policy pursued and consequent anarchy produced in the province of Bantam, we shall have some idea of the depopulating causes that existed under the Dutch administration, and the force of that tendency to increase, which could overcome obstacles so powerful.

Most of these drains and checks were removed during the short period of British administration; but it is to be regretted (so far as accurate data on this subject would be desirable) that there was not time to learn satisfactorily the result of a different system, or to institute the proper registers, by which alone questions of population can be determined. The only document of that kind, to which I can venture to refer as authentic, is a statement of the births and deaths that occurred in the given general population of the Priáng'en Regencies for one year. From this account it would appear, that even in these Regencies, where, if we except Batavia, the checks to population are allowed to be greater than elsewhere, the births were to the total existing population as 1 to 39, and the deaths as 1 to 40 very nearly; that the births exceed the deaths by 618, or about 1 in 40, in a population of 232,000, and that, at that rate, the population would double itself in three hundred and seventy-five years. A slow increase, certainly, compared with England, where the births, in the three years ending 1800, were to the persons alive as 1 in 36, and the deaths as 1 to 49, and where, consequently, the nation would double itself in one hundred and sixty years (or taking the enumeration of 1811 as more correct, where the population would be doubled in eighty years): but not much slower than that of France, where, according to the statements of numbers in 1700 and 1790, about three hundred years would be required to double the inhabitants. It has been estimated that the population in some more favourable districts would double itself in fifty years. One inference cannot fail to be drawn from the register to which I have referred; that the births and deaths, though they nearly approach each other, are low, compared with the existing numbers; and that, consequently, the climate is healthy, and the marriages not very prolific, as far as this district is concerned.

In the absence of authentic documents, which would have enabled us to resolve many interesting questions regarding the population, such as the number of children to a marriage, the ordinary length of life, the proportion of children that die in infancy and at the other stages of life, the ratio between the births and deaths, and the consequent rate of increase, the effect of polygamy and multiplied divorces, the comparative healthiness of the towns and the villages, and several others,​—I shall state a few observations on some of these heads, and a few facts tending to shew, that under a better system of government, or by the removal of a few of the checks that previously existed, Java might, in a short time, be expected to be better peopled.