The History of Java, v. 1-2

by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

From authentic accounts it appears, that they attempted to destroy and eradicate from a vast range of countries the most advantageous produce of the land, in order to favour their own petty traffic, and burnt a large proportion of the residue, in order to keep up their monopoly price in Europe on a small proportion of this produce. Against errors of this kind, it is to be hoped the more enlightened policy of the present era will be an effectual preventive; but there are others, so interwoven with the interests of these islands, and so local in their nature, that they may not so easily attract the attention of the governing power.

One feature of the Dutch policy in the Eastern Isles seems to have been the exclusion of all foreign trade, whether European or native; excepting at certain specified ports under their own immediate control. This policy was as much connected with the general government of the country, as with the commercial profits of the Company; for in an Archipelago of such unparalleled extent, inhabited by tribes of such various characters, formidable in a high degree from their very want of civilization, it was necessary to bring forward some of the most powerful and most favourably situated of these numerous states, and to hold them answerable for the proceedings of the several districts under their influence. Such views gave rise to the establishment of certain regular and determined trading ports, and led to the vigilant suppression of all attempts at competition and independence on the part of the inferior states.

Had this measure been combined with a liberal encouragement of the home trade, as it may be denominated, between these privileged ports established by the Dutch, and the various countries under their influence, little doubt can be entertained that it would have tended materially to promote the civilization and general improvement of all the neighbouring nations. Very different, however, was the object of the Dutch agreements with the different rajas of the Eastern Archipelago. In some cases it was to secure a monopoly of all the tin, pepper, camphor, and other saleable articles produced in their dominions; in others it was to bind the chiefs themselves to destroy the only saleable articles that their country could furnish, lest the monopoly price of the Dutch should be injured by a greater quantity of such produce being brought to market. The Dutch genius, though exclusively devoted to commerce, has never yet been able to discover the truth of the maxim, that in the long run it may be as gainful "to make small profits on large sales as large profits on smaller sales;" their policy, on the contrary, has not been inaptly compared to a man putting out one of his eyes to strengthen the sight of the other.

It must be admitted, that the line of conduct pursued by the English towards the Malayan nations, had by no means been of a conciliatory or prepossessing character. Our intercourse with them had been carried on almost exclusively through the medium of adventurers little acquainted with either the country or people, who have been frequently more remarkable for boldness than principle[69]. Indeed, the want of any settled basis of traffic, and the long indifference of the British government to the complaints of either party, had produced so many impositions, reprisals, piracies, and murders, that any eastern trader must have felt himself very much in the situation of a dealer in spirits, tobacco, and blankets, among the Indians of North America. It was the remark of Mr. Farquhar, than whom no man is more extensively acquainted with the interests and resources of East insular India, that the indifference of the British government must have originated solely in the want of information or incorrectness of knowledge; since it is not improbable, that the riches of Sumatra and Borneo are equal to those either of Brazil or New Spain; and it is only from the disadvantages under which we had hitherto entered into the competition, that these great sources of wealth had so long been engrossed by other nations[70].

The doctrine, that a colony should always be considered a distant province of the mother-country, has been foreign to the political creed of the Dutch; and at any rate the radical want of strength in the government of Batavia may have prevented them from venturing to act upon it. Of course, they must always have contemplated the prosperity of the eastern tribes with the invidious regret of a rival shopkeeper, and regarded their progress in civilization with the jealousy of a timid despot. The fact sufficiently establishes the truth of this remark.

Independently of the effects of the European influence just described, the causes which have tended most to the depression of the Malayan tribes, and the deterioration of their character, are the civil commotions to which every state is liable, from the radical want of strength in the sovereign; the constant wars between the petty chieftains and heads of villages; the ill-defined succession to the throne, from the doctrine of primogeniture being imperfectly recognized; the prevalence of piracy in all the Eastern Seas; the system of domestic slavery, and all its concomitant evils, as wars for the purpose of procuring slaves, and the want of confidence between family and family, man and man; the want of a generally-established, and recognized system of laws, civil and criminal; the want of a similar system of commercial regulations respecting port duties, anchorage, and other charges, to prevent arbitrary exactions and impositions in the various Malayan ports; and, finally, the monopoly of the trade assumed by the Malayan rajas. Had Java remained permanently annexed to the British crown, the redress of these evils would have been, in a great measure, in the power of the English nation: the undertaking would have been worthy of their general character, and there was no other nation that could have possessed the means in an equal degree, even if it had indeed possessed the inclination.

The prevalence of piracy on the Malayan coasts, and the light in which it was viewed as an honourable occupation, worthy of being followed by young princes and nobles, is an evil of ancient date, and intimately connected with the Malayan habits. The old Malayan romances, and the fragments of their traditional history, constantly refer with pride to piratical cruizes.

In addition to other causes, which I shall not stop to specify, the state of the eastern population, and the intolerant spirit of the religion of Islam, have eminently tended to increase the practice. The Arab Sheikhs and Sayeds, whatever doctrines they failed to inculcate, never neglected to enforce the merit of plundering and massacring the infidels; an abominable tenet, which has tended more than any other doctrine of the Kóran to the propagation of this religion. Numerous and various are the tribes of the Eastern Isles which have not embraced the religion of Islam to this day, and consequently are reckoned infidels: cruizes against such were, and are, constantly certain of receiving the approbation of all the Arab teachers settled in the Malayan countries. The practice of piracy is now an evil so extensive and formidable, that it can be put down by the strong hand alone; though precautions against its recurrence might be taken, by rendering, under the system of acknowledged ports, every chieftain answerable for his own territory.

Connected with this evil, though of much wider extent, is the system of slavery in the Malayan countries, which, to apply the energetic language of Mr. Pitt to this subject, has been none of the least efficient causes of keeping down these regions "in a state of bondage, ignorance, and blood." In the beginning of the year 1805, the Marquis Wellesley abolished slavery throughout India; and, on the 4th of June, 1811, the Earl of Minto, by an order to emancipate all the government slaves at Malacca, and to direct that hereafter no slaves should be purchased or received on account of government, gave to the Malayan nations an earnest of his sentiments on the subject. It is certainly to the credit of our countrymen in the East, that they have ever opposed all attempts to introduce the abominable slave traffic into our settlements there. It was prohibited at Madras by an act of the Governor and Council, of so early a date as 1682.

The sources of slavery in the Malayan countries are chiefly piracy at sea, captivity in war, manstealing along the coast, and the penalties enacted in the Malayan law respecting debts and sundry misdemeanors. The surviving crews of vessels which fall into the hands of the pirates are generally disposed of by sale at the first market. The captives taken in the constant wars which the Malayan chieftains carry on against each other, are generally employed in domestic occupations, tending cattle, and cultivating the ground, where there is no opportunity of bringing them to market. This, however, is seldom the case, since such numbers are constantly required by the Arabs and Chinese traders, and heretofore by the Dutch. Many of the Arab trading vessels are almost exclusively navigated by the slaves of the owner; and in their progress from island to island, they find little difficulty in recruiting their crew, by receiving presents of slaves, or if that should fail, by kidnapping the unfortunate natives. This forms a strong argument against admitting the unrestricted range of the islands to either Chinese or Arab traders; for while this is permitted, the abolition of the system of kidnapping would be absolutely impossible. The pagan tribes in the vicinity of the Mahometans, such as those on Báli, and some of the tribes of Celebes, the Harafúras, the black Papúas or oriental negroes, the original inhabitants of Hálamahíra, Coram, and other easterly nations, are in a great measure the victims of the kidnapping system, and being infidels are considered as fair booty.