The Practice of Policy and Social Order:
The relationship between the revenue farming system and ethnic
opposition in Java, from 1840s to1920s
Name: Mingyu Yue
Supervisor: Dr. Anjana Singh Student Number:3989046
Phone Number: +86 19988437046 E-mail: yuemingyu02@icloud.com Date:20 September 2020
Degree Program: Ma. History Today Wordcount:21，248
CONTENT
CHAPTER1: INTRODUCTION ... 7
1.1 BACKGROUND AND HISTORICAL PROBLEM ... 7
1.2 RESEARCH QUESTION AND STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS ... 13
1.3 COLONIAL TAX POLICY AND ETHNIC CONFLICT: THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS 15 1.3.1 The definition and origin of Revenue farming system ... 15
1.3.2 Theories about ethnic conflict ... 17
1.4 HISTORIOGRAPHY ... 19
1.5 ARCHIVES AND SOURCE ... 22
CHAPTER 2: CHINESE ECONOMY AND DUTCH COLONIZATION IN JAV，BEFORE 18TH CENTURY ... 24
2.1 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CHINESE ECONOMY IN JAVA ... 24
2.1.1 Immigration history of Chinese in Java ... 24
2.1.2 The early formation of the Chinese economy in Java ... 27
2.2 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF DUTCH COLONIZATION IN JAVA ... 28
2.2.1 The establishment and limitations of early colonial rule ... 29
2.2.2 Establishment and transformation of taxation policy ... 32
2.3 COOPERATION BETWEEN CHINESE AND DUTCH：CAPTAIN SYSTEM AND REVENUE FARMING SYSTEM ... 34
2.3.1 Establishment of Captain system ... 34
2.3.2 Relationship between the Captain system and revenue farming system .. 36
2.4 CONCLUSION ... 37
CHAPTER 3: CHANGES IN STATUS AND THE EMERGENCE OF CONFLICTS, 1740-1830 ... 39
3.1 FROM MIDDLEMAN TO MIDDLEMAN:THE TRANSFORMATION OF CHINESE MERCHANTS ... 39
3.1.1 The transformation of the Chinese economy in the 17th and 18th centuries
40
3.1.2 Production and trade under the cooperation of the Dutch ... 42
3.1.3 The reason why the Chinese can become Dutch partners ... 43
3.2 THE EMERGENCE OF SOCIAL DIVISION OF LABOR IN JAVA ... 44
3.3 ETHNIC CONFLICT AND VIOLENCE: THE BATAVIA MASSACRE,1740 ... 47
3.4 CONCLUSION ... 50
CHAPTER 4: THE OPERATION OF CHINESE FARMERS IN COUNTRYSIDE AND THE BURDEN OF JAVANESE ... 52
4.1 ACCUMULATION OF WEALTH OF CHINESE TAX FARMERS ... 52
4.2 OPIUM FARMS AFTER 1830 ... 53
4.2.1 Opium farms and opium smuggling ... 54
4.2.2 Chinese opium farmers and opium smuggling... 56
4.3 SMALL TAX FARMS AFTER 1830 ... 58
4.3.1 The development of small tax farms ... 58
4.3.2 Small tax farms and smugglers ... 60
4.3.3 Chinese tax farmers and moneylenders ... 62
4.4 CONCLUSION ... 63
CHAPTER 5: MORAL EVALUATION AND REALITY OF CHINESE IMMIGRANTS，1900-1920 ... 65
5.1 THE ECONOMIC SITUATION OF THE CHINESE IMMIGRANTS ... 65
5.1.1 Risks of operating a farm ... 65
5.1.2 The life of ordinary Chinese immigrants ... 67
5.2 CHINESE IMMIGRANTS AFTER THE TAX FARM SYSTEM ... 71
5.3 THE RISE OF JAVANESE NATIONALISM AND THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF ECONOMIC ISSUES ... 74
5.4 CONCLUSION ... 75
PRIMARY SOURCE ... 81 LITERATURE ... 81
List of Tables
Table 1: Price of Tiban and Siram, 1834-1854 ... 55 Table 2: The number of various types of economic cases in the Batavia Chinese community, 1787-1790 ... 69
List of Figures
Figure 1：The Income from revenue farms in the Netherlands Indies, 1816-1895 ... 33 Figure 2: Signature of So Bing Kong ... 35 Figure 3: Population data of Chinese in Dutch East India, 1870-1930 ... 67 Figure 4： Proportion of various types of economic cases in Batavia Chinese community, 1787-1790 ... 69
CHAPTER1: INTRODUCTION
The East Asian economy was basically a Chinese economy...Although the Chinese in Southeast Asian countries have assimilated with the locals to varying degrees, the latter often hold anti-Chinese sentiments. This situation can
sometimes lead to violence.1
1.1 Background and historical problem
The economic status and living conditions of the Chinese in Southeast Asia have attracted the attention of many historians and sociologists. At the same time, Chinese immigrants did not gain much social respect, instead, they suffered from long-term exclusion and discrimination from European colonists and Southeast Asian residents. This was especially serious during the 20th century. At that time, restrictions on Chinese people extended to many aspects of Indonesia's politics and economy. In the Sukarno era, the Indonesian government issued about 30 laws restricting and repelling the overseas Chinese economy, restricting and supervising domestic trade, importing companies, automobile firms, rice milling, and timber industries, and prohibiting Chinese who were engaged in overseas retail business in the countryside.2 In
particular, Presidential Decree No. 10 of 1959 issued by the Sukarno government banned Chinese from doing business in all countryside of Indonesia from the
following year, causing more than 500,000 Chinese to lose their livelihoods and over 100,000 Chinese people to be repatriated.3
After entering the 21st century, although the number of violent incidents against the Chinese have decreased, it was undeniable that the anti-Chinese sentiment among the indigenous people in Southeast Asia was still continuing.
1 Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 2011), 106.
2 yang (杨阳) Yang, “Indonesian Government’s Chinese Policy and Chinese Participation in Politics
after World War II（《二战后印尼政府的华人政策与华人参政 》）,” Southeast Academic Research（东南学术） (2003): 89, http://www.cqvip.com/qk/81374X/200302/7739289.html.
3 Nanjing (周南京) Zhou, Dictionary of Overseas Chinese in the World（《世界华侨华人词典》）
Many scholars try to explore the reasons for this long-term ethnic conflict. Since most of the riots were concentrated in the middle and late 20th century, scholars like Purdey and Barr mainly focused on analyzing the ethnic contradictions in the Suharto period after Indonesia's independence in the 20th century.4 Many people tend
to think that nationalism and religious factors were the root causes of anti-Chinese.5
Some argue that it was the failure of Chinese cultural adaptation, and some people attribute the cause to the education and Chinese outlook of the Indonesian nation. But in fact, differences in religious beliefs and conflicts between different cultures have very limited impact on the relationship between the two parties.
First of all, this cultural and religious difference was always existing before the arrival of the Dutch, and it did not result in large-scale violence. Chinese actually did not have strong and firm religious consciousness and beliefs. On the contrary,
according to the Archive of Kong Koan, due to the serious imbalance in the ratio of men to women in the Chinese community, most Chinese men chose to marry indigenous Islamic families. Many Chinese have chosen to believe in Islam and Christianity while maintaining their traditional habits and built mosques in the Chinese community.6 Although many Chinese communities have retained the
traditional wedding and funeral customs from China, they have not fully assimilated with the local residents.7 They have formed a unique and inclusive customs and
habits. Therefore, even if conflicts between religion and culture exist, it was not sufficient to cause large-scale violence to some extent.
4 See J. Purdey, “Anti-Chinese Violence and Transitions in Indonesia: June 1998–October 1999”
(2005), https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/669576da5f828333b2e8567681878036abe8eeda; Barr, “Anti-Chinese Violence in Indonesia: 1996-1999.,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 53 (2007): 162–163; A. Heryanto, “Ethnic Identities and Erasure: Chinese Indonesians in Public Culture” (1998), https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/11bb8a8ad54b75fa2afdebf6e89ce7c8de866292; Samsu Rizal Panggabean and Benjamin Smith, “Explaining Anti-Chinese Riots in Late 20th Century
Indonesia,” World Development 39 (2011): 231–242.
5 J. Bertrand, “Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia” (2004),
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/902cdc77c6662d3ec1dee53237b8e24c3f0885fa; F. Noor, “Riots, Pogroms, Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia,” Religion, State and Society 38 (2010): 432– 434.
6 Qiang Ma, Chinese Cultural Identity of the Ethnic Chinese in Batavia：Focusing on Gong An Bu
（《吧城华人的中国文化认同——以《公案簿》为中心》） (Jinan: Jinan University Press, 2012), 43–50.
More scholars point out that economic disputes and nationalism were the causes of mass violence. According to Marxism, the origin of social problems was the problems of production relations and economic systems. The proportion of the Chinese economy in the economies of Southeast Asian countries cannot be ignored. In Indonesia, this dominant position has become more prominent under the political and economic privileges granted by the Dutch. In the later period of moral politics, the Dutch emphasis that Chiense were "the bloodsuckers of the Javanese" (de bloedzuigers der Javaanen) which further deepened the Indonesians' view that the Chinese were equal to the economically privileged class.8 Taking the Jakarta riots
in May 1998 as an example, it shows that the outrage of the urban poor was largely directed at cultural symbols that symbolize the lifestyle of the wealthy middle class.9
As one critic put it, these young urban poor not only have a tendency to exclude Chinese, but they were also hostile to the entire modern economic system on which they were increasingly difficult to gain a foothold: They vent their anger on symbols that were beyond the reach of the rich, for example, banks, ATMs, supermarkets, car sales offices, hotels, and Chinese cars. In addition, the retail industry sweeping the country continues to anger those who rely on traditional markets for their
livelihoods—in contrast, the damage to traditional markets during the riots was not particularly severe.10The Chinese nation was not only a kind of culture identity and
racial identification, but also a kind of economic identity. The perceived economic gap in reality was transformed into social estrangement and hostility in ideology and reality.11
In July 1998, Indonesian scholar H. Mohammod and J. Syahbon analyzed the May 1998 riots of Indonesia in May of that year and proposed that all anti-China riots
8 M. R. Fernando and David Bulbeck, eds., Chinese Economic Activity in Netherlands India: Selected
Translations from the Dutch (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1992), 23.
9 Arief Budiman, “Friend or Foe?,” Inside Indonesia 54, September 2007,
https://www.insideindonesia.org/friend-or-foe?highlight=WzE5OTgsIjE5OTgnLiIsIjE5OTgnIiwiMTk5OCcsIl0%3D.
10 Yaoyao Hu, “The Political-Economic Analysis on Indonesia Anti-Chinese Riot: Acasde Study Fom
Javanese Anti Chinese Roiot in the Late 1800s-Earlying 1900s” (Masters, Xiamen Univerisy, 2007), 12.
11 Stuart Hall, “The Problem of Ideology-Marxism without Guarantees,” Journal of Communication
and riots were historical heritage, and the economic transition controlled by foreign citizens was the 1998 riots caused the violence.12 This has made many Chinese
scholars realize that they must turn their sights further into the 18th century. Only by analyzing the historical activities of Chinese immigrants in Indonesia can they further understand the reasons for this anti-Chinese sentiment.
According to the political and economic status of the indigenous people in Java, the development of the ethnic relationship between the Chinese and the indigenous people in Indonesia can be divided into three stages:
The first stage was before the 17th century. The ethnic relations at this stage were relatively peaceful, and the indigenous people of Java were actually controlled by the island.13 At that time, due to the influence of the Chinese government's maritime
prohibition policy, Chinese immigration to Southeast Asia was restricted.14 The
Chinese immigrants entering Southeast Asia were mainly involved in local business activities rather than political struggles.15
The second stage is from the establishment of Batavia in the Netherlands to the rise of the national independence movement, from the early 17th century to the early 20th century. This stage was a period when the Netherlands strengthened its colonial rule over Java. The Dutch chose the Chinese as their partners, which broke the original situation of equal cooperation between Chinese and Indonesians. 16 The
massacre against the Chinese began at this period. In 1740 Batavia massacre, the colonial authorities ordered the overseas Chinese in the city to surrender all their weapons under the pretext of searching for arms, sent troops to search for overseas Chinese, and encouraged local residents to slaughter and looted the overseas Chinese.
12 H. Mohammod and J. Syahbon, “Riots Are a Legacy of History,” trans. Rongjun Jiang, Digest Of
Foreign Social Sciences（《国外社会科学文摘》）, no. 3 (1999).
13 Jean Gelman Taylor, R. Anderson Sutton, and Thongchai Winichakul, The Social World of Batavia :
Europeans and Eurasians in Colonial Indonesia (Madison, UNITED STATES: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 3, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rug/detail.action?docID=3444841.
14 Menghong Chen, De Chinese gemeenschap van Batavia, 1843-1865: een onderzoek naar het Kong
Koan-archief, Studies in Overseas History ([Leiden]: Leiden University Press, 2011), 14, accessed August 7, 2020, http://site.ebrary.com/id/10498832.
15 Burung Saleh, “Chinese Who Lived in Indonesia before the Dutch East India Company,” trans.
Kundian Liao, Southeast Asian Studies, no. 3 (1957): 83–88.
16 Writser Jans Cator, The Economic Position of the Chinese in the Netherlands Indies (University of
The massacre lasted for 7 days. Nearly 10,000 overseas Chinese were killed in the city.17 However, such kink of large-scale riots were rare in 18th and 19th century.
The third stage was from around the 1920s to the 21st century. This stage was a period of concentrated outbreak of anti-Chinese riots. From October 31 to November 1, 1918, the Indonesian aborigines in Kudus ran an serious anti-Chinese activities. Chinese shops and houses were looted and burned. In the conflict, 11 Chinese were killed.18 This violence against the Chinese did not end with the departure of the
Dutch colonists but became more and more serious. After the Independence War in 1945, six large-scale anti-Chinese riots occurred one after another. The large-scale riots made the Chinese problem even one of the most serious problems in Indonesian history.19
From the perspective of the above-mentioned development of the relationship between the indigenous people of China and Indonesia, the study of the economic activities of Chinese immigrants in the second stage was crucial. First of all, during the short century of the third stage, anti-Chinese violence broke out on average every 10 to 20 years. This kind of explosive collective violence reflects that the riots at this stage were likely to be the result of the suppression of the conflict in the previous stage, rather than the root cause of the conflict. During the Dutch colonial rule, although large-scale slaughter activities against the Chinese decreased, the relationship between the Chinese and the Indonesians was not as peaceful as it seemed. Second, the Dutch policy at this stage led to a large number of Chinese businessmen entering Java.20 Original Chinese businessmen broke through the
traditional trade model of the past and were forced or actively participated in the European colonial economy. In this process, Chinese immigrants realized the accumulation of wealth in contemporary Chinese society and the modernization of
17 Thomas Stamford Sir Raffles, A History of Java. Volume 1, Cambridge library collection. East and
South-East Asian History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 253, accessed August 7, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511783050.
18 “Koedoes,” Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad, November 21, 1918.
19 Hu, “The Political-Economic Analysis on Indonesia Anti-Chinese Riot: Acasde Study Fom Javanese
Anti Chinese Roiot in the Late 1800s-Earlying 1900s,” 4.
capitalism, becoming an important period for Indonesia's economic privileged class subjectively and objectively.
In order to understand the economic activities of the Chinese in Java, it is necessary to discuss the VOC and the revenue farming system implemented by the Dutch colonial government. revenue farming system was once a very common economic system in Southeast Asian Chinese society during the colonial period.21 In
the Dutch East Indies, it, together with the Captain system and the pass and district system, constituted the main content of the Chinese policy of the Dutch-Indian colonial government. The close links between these systems have jointly shaped the modern Chinese community.22 However, unlike the Captain system and the pass
system, the revenue farming system was a system that Chinese immigrants have extensively participated in and actively dominated, rather than forcefully imposed on Chinese immigrants by the Dutch. Since Chinese businessmen generally actively participate in this system, studying the economic activities of Chinese tax farmers in the tax farming system will help us understand the changes in the economic strength and social status of Chinese immigrants after the implementation of colonial rule and understand the Chinese in the late 19th century. Rejected to historical roots in
Indonesia.
Behind this complex ethnic conflict, the more important historical issue that this article considers is, what was the impact of policy formulation on the future social order? In essence, ethnic conflict is a manifestation of social disorder. Government policies are an important tool for stabilizing and balancing social order. Therefore, if the design of policies does not consider balancing the interests and needs of different ethnic groups at present or in the future, social chaos will follow.
In summary, this study aims to prove that the revenue farming system was closely related to the ethnic relationship of colonial society. By tracking the economic
21 Ma Jun(马骏), “包税制度的兴起和衰落：交易费用与征税合同的选择,” Economic study, no. 6
(2003): 71.
22 Shen Yanqing（沈燕清）, “The Dutch and Indian Colonial Government’s Opium Taxation Policy
and Its Influence on the Javanese Chinese Society (《荷印殖民政府鸦片税收政策及其地爪哇华人 社会的影响》）” (Xiamen Univerisy, 2011), 20.
activities of Chinese businessmen under colonial taxation policies, including analyzing and comparing the views of Chinese, Dutch, and Javanese on these economic activities in different periods, explore how colonial taxation policies and ethnic relations from the mid-18th century to the 1920s were related.
1.2 Research Question and structure of the thesis
The main issue of this research was to explore the correlation between the taxation policies of the colonies and the changes in ethnic relations in Java from the 1840s to the 1920s. In order to find the relationship between the revenue farming system and ethnic opposition, it was necessary to analyze the principles and practices of the system’s operation in Java from the beginning, to clarify the different roles played by the Chinese, Dutch, and indigenous peoples under the same system, and to track the changes in the attitudes and evaluations of the three parties towards this system. Therefore, this thesis needs to answer the following questions: Why did the Dutch colonists need to establish this system? What role did the Chinese and Javanese play in this system? How did the different roles lead to the unequal economic status of the two parties? Did the economic inequality lead to the hatred of the indigenous
Javanese towards the Chinese in Java? To sum up, this thesis mainly needs to explain the two aspects of the system’s practice in Java: first, how the practice of revenue farming system has different impacts on different social groups; Second, whether these influences caused tension and opposition in ethnic relations.
In order to answer the above questions, this thesis try to sort out and analyze the impact of the revenue farming system on the economic activities and ethnic relations of Chinese businessmen in chronological order. Scholars usually regard the Dutch's victory in the Java War (1825-1830) as the demarcation point for the development of the Revenue Farming System.23 Before the Java War, the system was in the initial
stage of establishment. The tax farms at this stage were mainly opium farms, and the number was limited. After the Dutch's victory, the region entered the stage of high
23 Ibid., 52; Abdul Wahid, “From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly: The Political Economy of
colonialism, which was usually considered to be a stage of mature development of the Revenue Farming System. Tax farms at this time have been expanded to every corner of Java. Not only were there a large number of farms, but their taxation projects were also very complicated.
According to the different stages of the development of the Revenue Farming System, the research was divided into the following parts:
The second chapter mainly introduces the basic situation and development of the Chinese economy and taxation policies in Java. This part was dedicated to
understanding the original intention of the establishment of this system and the reasons why the Chinese actively participated in it.
The third chapter focuses on the period from the mid-18th century to the 1830s, which was the initial establishment and formation period of the system. The core question of this chapter was what kind of changes has been brought about by the establishment of the revenue farming system to the economic exchanges between Chinese businessmen and the indigenous Javanese? Therefore, this part needs to compare the differences between the commercial trade activities of Chinese
merchants and indigenous peoples in Java before and after the establishment of the Revenue Farming System, including changes in their main trade and social division of labor. Another theme was to discuss the ethnic relations between different groups at the time by analyzing the violence between Javanese, Dutch and Chinese at that time.
The fourth part needs to track the economic interaction between Chinese and Javanese and their evaluation of each other under the operation of the revenue farming system from the 1830s to the early 20th century. At this stage, the Chinese became the dominant force in the Revenue Farming System. The sub-questions that need to be answered include, In the middle and late 19th century, what kind of economic activities did Chinese immigrants carry out by relying on the Revenue Farming System? What benefits did these economic activities bring to Chinese immigrants? Did these economic benefits affect the lives of Javanese? What do Javanese think of the Chinese as tax farmers at the time?
revenue farming system from 1890 to 1920. Based on the policy and report of Dutch official’s investigation and related policies in the later period of moral politics, this part of the research mainly discusses the extent to which the Dutch definition of revenue farming system has affected the Javanese's view of the economic status of the Chinese.
1.3 Colonial tax policy and ethnic conflict: the conceptual frameworks
1.3.1 The definition and origin of Revenue farming system
Several Revenue farming generally refers to the fiscal policy that paying the government a fixed price in exchange for the monopoly right to operate a certain activity.24 Dick defines it as：
A system by which the state leased, through auction to the highest bidder, the monopoly right to conduct a particular service, collecting taxes in particular, or to engage in a particular activity for profit, in return for an agreed fixed price paid in advance to the state on a routine basis.25
Batavia’s revenue farms started from the 1604 and were abolished in 1895. In this city, the VOC and the colonial government generally use auction to select the tax farmers in the year. The tax farmer was called pachter, in China it was called Puguan (Chinese: 贌官).26 According to the agreement, they would pay a sufficient amount of tax to the
government at one time, and then taxed the taxpayers with a higher amount. This kind of tax collection method generally adopts short-term, fixed rent contracts, which can not only reduce the government's operating costs, but also protect the government's tax revenue to a certain extent. Therefore, in the colonial society of Southeast Asia at that
24 Anthony Reid, “The Origins of Revenue Farming in Southeast Asia,” in The Rise and Fall of
Revenue Farming: Business Elites and the Emergence of the Modern State in Southeast Asia, ed. Howard Dick and John Butcher (New York: St. Martin Pres, 1993), 69.
25 Howard Dick, Michael Sullivan, and John Butcher, The Rise and Fall of Revenue Farming:
Business Elites and the Emergence of the Modern State in Southeast Asia (New York: St. Martin Pres, 1993), 4.
26 Leonard Blussé and Dening Nie, The Archives of the Kong Koan of Batavia, vol. 04 (Xiamen:
time, this tax farming system existed widely.
The tax farming system was not a unique policy of the Southeast Asian colonies at the time. Ancient Athens and the Roman empire made use of similar systems. For example, in Athens, both individuals and companies could act as tax farmers. They prepaid the country’s tax for the year, and then collected taxes from the provincials within a certain range.27 The Roman empire also need Publicani to collect tax from
provincials. These Publicani, chosen from the knightly class, acted as a tax farmer and collect taxes in an organized manner.28
By the 16th century, this tax collection method became standardized in many European countries. Since the 19th century, the tax farming system has been widely implemented in Southeast Asia.29 But the revenue farming system had regional
variations. Butcher pointed out that in Southeast Asia, the tax farming system generally had four methods:
First, by giving tax farmers the exclusive right to buy up particular commodities; second, by granting the right to collect a tax on the means of producing a certain commodity; third, by delegating the authority to collect import, export and transit duties; and four, by issuing licenses for the exclusive right to provide certain commodities or services such as the distribution of opium, liquors, salt, the operation of opium dens and pawnshops.30
The main body of tax farmers in different regions was also very different. For example, in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, domestic businessmen were
27 Gerhard Friedrich and Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans.
Geoffrey. W Bramiley, vol. VIII (W.B. Eerdmans, 1985), 86.
28 Predrag Turudija Bejaković, For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization,
second edition. (Lanham: Madison Bookd, 1999), 79; H. H. Scullard, A History of the Roman World 753-146 BC, 2002, 69, accessed August 18, 2020,
http://www.tandfebooks.com/action/showBook?doi=10.4324/9781315782812.
29 John Butcher, “Revenue Farming and the Changing State in Southeast Asia,” in The Rise and Fall of
Revenue Farming: Business Elite and the Emergence of Modern State in Southeast Asia. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 35.
30 Wahid, “From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly,” 4; Butcher, “Revenue Farming and the
mainly used as contractors, while in Germany, French financiers were once the main tax farmers. In Southeast Asia, Chinese businessmen became the partners of choice for the colonists.31
1.3.2 Theories about ethnic conflict
At present, there were many theories on how to explain ethnic conflicts. This thesis mainly selects three important theories to explain and discuss their applicability in this research.
The first theory was the classic Marxist proposition about ethnic conflict: the essence of ethnic conflict was class conflict.32 The essence of ethnic conflict was that
class conflict refers to the private ownership of the means of production and class differences were the root of national exploitation, national oppression, and national inequality. In this theory, private ownership and class inequality were set as
dependent variables of ethnic conflicts. It was believed that the more intense ethnic exploitation, ethnic oppression, and ethnic inequality, the more intense ethnic
conflicts. This view was widely used in explaining the conflict between Chinese and Indonesian residents. For example, Ien Ang pointed out that ethnic issues in Indonesia belong to a class issue, not a race issue. Under the special social context of Indonesia, the Class problem was to be disregarded as a race problem.33 Wertheim also
mentioned that the ethnic conflicts were more likely to occur when they were in an environment of economic competition. In this case, when the Chinese compete with the locals for limited business opportunities, they usually conflict or even go to war.34
31 Ma Jun(马骏), “包税制度的兴起和衰落：交易费用与征税合同的选择,” 73–74.
32 Compilation and Translation Bureau of the CPC Central Committee (中共中央编译局), Selected
Works of Marx and Engels(《马克思恩格斯选集》), 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1995), 308.
33 Ien Ang, “Trapped in Ambivalence : Chinese Indonesians, Victimhood and the Debris of History,”
“race” panic and the memory of migration (2015), accessed September 16, 2020, http://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws:2110.
34 W. F. Wertheim, “Indonesia The Indonesian Killings 1965–1966: Studies from Java and Bali.
Edited by Robert Cribb. Clayton, Vic: Monash University, Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash Papers on Southeast Asia, No. 21, 1990. Pp. 279. Illustrations, Maps, Glossary, No,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (1993), accessed September 16, 2020,
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=4444472&fulltextType=B R&fileId=S0022463400001661.
But obviously, It was not enough to set private ownership and class inequality as the dependent variable of ethnic inequality. Early attempts in Indonesia proved that even if private ownership was abolished and the Dutch colonists were driven out, the inequality between regional ethnic groups could not be eliminated immediately. The inequality also can be affected by many factors such as historical cultural and development factors.35
The second theory was Huntington's theory of clash of civilizations. Huntington pointed out that it was the commonalities and differences of culture that affect the interests, confrontation and union between nations and nations.36 In the process of
discussing anti-Chinese sentiment in Southeast Asia, Huntington pointed out that the loyalty of Southeast Asian Chinese to their ancestral country rather than their country of birth led to anti-Chinese sentiment in Southeast Asia. While the Chinese have strong economic strength, they choose to continuously invest in mainland China, Hong Kong and other regions, which was an action of "capital flight" for Indonesian residents.37 However, Malaysian scholars pointed out that the applicability of this
theory in Southeast Asia was limited, because he ignores the phenomenon and facts of the harmonious coexistence between heterogeneous cultures and the bloody conflict between homogeneity in Southeast Asia.38 Therefore, perhaps this argument was
more suitable for discussing the future than studying the past.
The third theory was that Ning Sao analyzes ethnic conflicts from the perspective of modernization. The theory believes that ethnic conflict was essentially a
contradiction between the construction of a nation-state and the development of ethnic groups.39 Modern ethnic conflicts mostly occur in developing countries and countries
whose political and economic systems were undergoing a transformation. The current social, economic, and political system of the nation-state at this stage was always
35 Sao ning, “On Roots of Ethnic Conflict(《论民族冲突的根源》),” Chinese social sciences
quarterly (Hongkong)·Summer (1995): 79.
36 Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 8. 37 Ibid., 104–110.
38 Dela Zhen, “Can Confucianism and Islam Threaten Western Countries?,” Sinchew Daily (Malay,
September 19, 1993).
dominated by the dominant, dominant, and dominant ethnic group in the country during the specific decision-making process. Therefore, there was always a gap between the construction of the nation-state and the self-development requirements of different ethnic groups. This antagonism often evolves into large-scale bloody
conflicts triggered by unexpected and sudden events.40 Basically, this view still
agrees that the imbalance of interests or the unequal distribution of resources was an important cause of ethnic conflicts, but from the perspective of modernization, it can make up for the neglect of historical and human factors in the first theory to a certain extent.
In summary, combining the imbalance of economic interests with the needs of different ethnic groups in the process of establishing a nation-state may better explain Indonesia’s anti-Chinese sentiment at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Therefore, the analysis of this research will not only discuss how the revenue farming system has caused the economic imbalance of different ethnic
groups, but also need to combine the new needs caused by the rise of Indonesian nationalism at the end of the 19th century and the conflict of this economic imbalance.
1.4 Historiography
Scholars' explanations of the causes of ethnic conflicts in Southeast Asia were diverse. Some scholars analyzed the conflict from the perspective of colonial policy. For example, The1740 Massacre of Chinese in Java: Curtain Raiser for the Dutch Plantation Economy written by A.R.T Kemasang pointed out that the root cause of the massacre in 1740 was that the Dutch-Indian colonial government created minority problems in the process of obstructing the domestic bourgeoisie.41 Aihwa Ong, in
Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality, believes that the issue of
40 Sao Ning, Nation and State: International Comparison of Ethnic Relations and Ethnic Policy
（《民族与国家——民族关系与民族政策的国际比较》） (Beijing: Peking University Press, 1995), 211.
41 A.R.T Kemasang, “The 1740 Massacre of Chinese in Java: Curtain Raiser for the Dutch Plantation
Chinese was a legacy of history.42 Tan Mely Giok-Lna, Ien Ang, and others pay more
attention to the cultural identity of the Chinese community.43 Charles A. Coppel
explained this issue from the perspective of the minority after the independence of India.44 Jacques Bertrand proposed in the Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia
that the anti-Chinese riots were related to the political transformation of Indonesian society.45
There were also many researches on the revenue farming system. From the 19th
century to the end of the 20th century, a large number of scholars conducted detailed
studies on the source and practice of the revenue farming system. Among them, some scholars extensively studied the various financial and economic policies of the Dutch in the colonies and gave some detailed or simple introduction to the revenue farming system. For example, Izaak Johannes Brugmans introduced the implementation and abolition of this policy in Java in the study of the socio-economic history of the Netherlands.46 Another group of scholars has conducted special studies on this system.
At the end of the 19th century, Theodore Thomas produced a relatively complete study on the operation of the Dutch revenue farming in Java and other places based on record written by some colonial officials.47 One of the most important works was the book
written by Howard Dick, the Rise and Fall of Revenue Farming: Business Elite and the Emergence of Modern State in Southeast Asia.48 In this book, Howard Dick defines
42 Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality - Bing 学术 (Durham &
London: Duke University Press, 1999, 1999),
https://cn.bing.com/academic/profile?id=3951d3b8d6a6a31e6b96ce72b696fb90&encoded=0&v=paper _preview&mkt=zh-cn.
43 Ang, “Trapped in Ambivalence”; Mely G. Tan and A. Dahana, The Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia:
Issues of Identity (Palgrave Macmillan US, 1997), accessed September 16, 2020,
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-137-07635-9_2; Ma, Chinese Cultural Identity of the Ethnic Chinese in Batavia：Focusing on Gong An Bu （《吧城华人的中国文化认同——以《公案 簿》为中心》）.
44 Charles A. Coppel, “Indonesian Chinese in Crisis” (1983),
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/989d1602e0c92c3140436d62818cad33aac62bbb; Charles A. Coppel, “Violent Conflicts in Indonesia : Analysis, Representation, Resolution” (2006),
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/702e67208dbad90019d5054f905856ed4ebc542e.
45 Bertrand, “Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia.”
46 Izaak Johannes Brugmans, Paardenkracht En Mensenmacht: Sociaal-Economische Geschiedenis
van Nederland, 1795-1940 (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976).
47 Theodore Thomas, Eenige Opmerking Naar Aanleiding van Het Pachtstelsel Op Java. (Leiden:
E.J. Brill., 1893).
and introduces what the revenue farming is; Anthony Reid systematically studied the origin of this fiscal policy and its practice in Java and Malay world. Besides, scholars like Abdul Wahid provides a detailed analysis of the development and changes of the system.49
With the deepening of research, many scholars began to conduct research on a single commodity and the impact of the system. Rush’s research was about the most important opium revenue farms (opiumpacht) in the revenue farming system. He not only emphasized the dominant role of the Chinese immigrants in the system, but also analyzed the changes of policy in colonial government based on the situation of opium smuggling.50 F.W. Diehl conducted a quantitative analysis of the Netherland Indies'
tax farming system and its contribution to Dutch colonial finance.51 Chinese scholars
have turned their attention more to the Chinese community in Java. For example, Shen Yanqing’s dissertation analyzed the impact of the opium revenue farm system on the economic and social status of the Chinese community. Cai Renlong analyzed the role played by Chinese businessmen in the revenue farming system.52
There were few documents discussing tax policy and ethnic relations, and the more important ones were the works of Mona Lohanda and Cator. The two discussed in detail the economic disputes and ethnic conflicts caused by the economic activities of Chinese immigrants in Java.53 Another part of scholars mentioned the changes in ethnic
relations in Java at that time in the process of studying the revenue farming system and
49 Wahid, “From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly”; Abdul Wahid, “REVENUE FARMING AND
IMPERIAL TRANSITION: AN ECONOMIC DIMENSION OF EARLY COLONIAL STATE FORMATION IN JAVA, C. 1800s-1820s,” Jurnal Humaniora 24, no. 3 (November 26, 2012): 255– 268.
50 James R. Rush, Opium to Java: Revenue Farming and Chinese Enterprise in Colonial Indonesia,
1860-1910 (Equinox Publishing, 2007).
51 F.W. Diehl, “Revenue Farmingin the Netherlands East Indies, 1816-1925,” in The Rise and Fall of
Revenue Farming: Business Elite and the Emergence of Modern State in Southeast Asia., ed. Howard Dick and John Butcher (New York: St. Martin Pres, 1993).
52 Shen Yanqing（沈燕清）, “The Dutch and Indian Colonial Government’s Opium Taxation Policy
and Its Influence on the Javanese Chinese Society (《荷印殖民政府鸦片税收政策及其地爪哇华人 社会的影响》）”; Cai Renlong(蔡仁龙), “The Revenue Farming System and Overseas Chinese in the Dutch East India Period(《荷属东印度时期的承包制与华侨》）,” Southeast Asian Affairs (1983): 3.
53 Mona Lohanda, Growing Pains: The Chinese and the Dutch in Colonial Java, 1890–1942. (Jakarta:
Yayasan Ciptta loka Caraka, 2002); Cator, The Economic Position of the Chinese in the Netherlands Indies.
other colonial policies. For instance, Shen believed that the Chinese were only a tool used by the Dutch colonists to ease the conflict with the indigenous Indonesians. They were used, exploited, and finally abandoned by the Dutch.54 Scholars like Wahid
suggested this was a kind of “double colonization” in Java.55 This "double
colonization" was seen as evidence of the exploitation and oppression of indigenous Indonesians by Chinese immigrants. James R. Rush also analyzed how the opium farms problem affects the relationship between Javanese, Chinese and Dutch officials.56
The above three types of research provide the necessary theoretical foundation and research practice for this thesis. Further exploration of The relationship between the revenue farming system and ethnic opposition in Java provides an important reference value for this research.
1.5 Archives and source
The information used in this thesis can be divided into three parts. The first part was the Dutch information from the Dutch colonial government. Including Nederlandsch-indisch plakaatboek written by J.A. van der Chijs.57 The book contains plakaats
published by Dutch colonists between 1602 and 1811. There were also biographies of colonial officials and decrees and investigation reports issued by colonial
authorities.58 Laws and investigation reports were mainly included in the book Het
onderzoek naar de werking der pandhuispacht en de proefneming met eigen beheer. The book contains colonial laws and investigation reports from 1869 to 1901.59 These
data were of great significance for studying the practice and perception of the Dutch
54 Shen Yanqing（沈燕清）, “The Dutch and Indian Colonial Government’s Opium Taxation Policy
and Its Influence on the Javanese Chinese Society (《荷印殖民政府鸦片税收政策及其地爪哇华人 社会的影响》）.”
55 Wahid, “From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly.” 56 Rush, Opium to Java.
57 J.A. van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek,1602-1811, vol. II (Batavia:
Landsdrukkerij, ’s Hage, Martinus Nijhoff, 1886).
58 H. T Colenhrander, ed., Jan Pieterszoon Coen: Escheiden Omternt Zijn Bedrijf in Indië
(KITLV-KNAW, 1952); B HOETTNK, “SO BING KONG:HET EERSTE HOOFD DER CHINEEZEN TE BATAVIA (1619—1636),” Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde 79 (January 1923); William Foster, ed., The Journal of John Jourdain, 1608-1617 (Cambridge: pritnted for Hakluyt Society, 1905), https://archive.org/details/journalofjohnjou00jouriala.
59 W. P. D. de. Wolff van Westerrode, Het Onderzoek Naar de Werking Der Pandhuispacht En de
colonists on the revenue farming system.
The English materials mainly include Chinese Econon1ic Activity in Netherlands India Selected Translations from the Dutch compiled by M.R. Fernando and David Bulbeck. This series organizes and translates data and information related to Chinese economic activities in Java. This part of the data can help this study to clarify the way Chinese people participate in the Revenue farming system. Chapter 2 also collects Javanese's comments and opinions on Chinese farmers in the mid-19th century.60
Therefore, it can help understand the economic activities and ethnic relations of Chinese businessmen. In addition, the Political Thinking of the Indonesian Chinese, 1900-1995: a sourcebook, compiled by Leo Suryadinata. The book includes English historical materials on the political thoughts of Chinese Indonesians from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century and contains a large number of articles published by celebrities, associations, and newspapers of Chinese Indonesians.61
The Chinese archives mainly come from The Chinese Annals of Batavia and The Archives of the Kong Koan of Batavia. The former was the Chinese living in Batavia who chronicles the life of the Chinese in Batavia from 1610 to 1795 in detail.62 The
latter comes from the archives recorded by the Chinese Council of Batavia, which records 1787-1940. The contents of the various aspects of Chinese social life in Batavia during the year were mainly divided into two parts. One is the trial record of various cases involving the Chinese in Kong Koan once a week; the other is the important events and major events in the Chinese community in court. Record of resolutions. This thesis mainly uses the Chinese version of the archives of the Kong Koan compiled by Leonard Bulssé, Nie Dening, Chen Menghong, and others.63
60 Fernando and Bulbeck, Chinese Economic Activity in Netherlands India.
61 Leo Suryadinata, “Political Thinking of the Indonesian Chinese, 1900-1977 : A Sourcebook,”
Wanandi (1997), accessed September 16, 2020, http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA24973273.
62 Hsü Yün-Ch’iao(许云樵), “The Chinese Annals of Batavia (《开吧历代史记》),” Journal of the
South Seas Society 9, no. 01 (1953).
63 Blussé and Nie, The Archives of the Kong Koan of Batavia, vol. 04, p. ; Leonard Blussé and
Fengbing Wu, The Archives of the Kong Koan of Batavia, vol. 01 (Xiamen: Xiamen University Press, 2002); bingling Yuan and Er’meng Su, The Archives of the Kong Koan of Batavia, vol. 02 (Xiamen: Xiamen University Press, 2004).
CHAPTER 2: CHINESE ECONOMY AND DUTCH COLONIZATION IN JAV，BEFORE 18th CENTURY
The Chinese and Dutch had been active in Southeast Asia before the 17th century. Of course, the Chinese were even earlier, dating back to around the 4th century AD. Over a long period of time, Chinese immigrants gradually established their own residences in Java, and with their ability to form their own trading network in Southeast Asia. The arrival of the Dutch made a fundamental change in the politics and economy of the entire Java. In this process, the Chinese actively participated in the Dutch colonial economy and became Dutch partners.
This part mainly combs the history of Chinese immigrants and Chinese economy in Southeast Asia. In addition, another important issue is to analyze the cooperation between the Dutch and the Chinese after they entered Batavia, including the reasons and methods of cooperation.
2.1 The establishment of Chinese economy in Java
The Chinese immigrated much earlier to the islands of Southeast Asia than the Dutch, and they often came from the southern provinces of China, such as Fujian, Hainan, and Guangdong.64 Unlike the people live in inland area, Chinese in the coastal areas
relied more on marine trade and fishing for their livelihoods than on agriculture. The islands of Southeast Asia not only provided them with a broader living space, but also gave them the possibility to pursue wealth.
2.1.1 Immigration history of Chinese in Java
Even though some Chinese had visited Java at the end of the 4th century, it was generally believed that the first stage when Chinese entered and settled in Southeast Asia was around from Chinese Song Dynasty (1127-1279).65
In the Song Dynasty, activities that went overseas without returning to their
64 Saleh, “Chinese Who Lived in Indonesia before the Dutch East India Company,” 86–88.
65 LI mingxue(李学民） and Huang Kunzhang（黄昆章）, 印尼华人史 (Guangzhou: Guangzhou
Higher Education Press, 2005), 16–17; Xiaoling Hu, “Southeast Asia Chinese People Economic Networks Formation, Development and Reforming Research” (South-Central University, n.d.), 4.
hometown for more than a year were called "Zhufan" (Chinese character: 住蕃). According to records from the Song Dynasty, there were already some Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia who had not returned home for more than 10 years. 66
One of the Poet in the Song Dynasty analyzed the reasons why people from the southeast coast emigrated to Southeast Asia in his poems:
Quanzhou, Fujian is crowded with people, while the land is barren. Although people want to cultivate, there is no land for them to cultivate. In the southern part of China, the ocean is vast, and every year countless people build boats to
Southeast Asian countries. （泉州人稠山谷瘠,虽欲就耕无地辟。州南有海浩无
穷,每岁造舟通异域。——《泉南歌》）67
It can be seen that at that time, the land and economic problems of the southeast of China have become a major factor in pushing Chinese people to Southeast Asia.
From the demise of the Song Dynasty to the end of Yuan
Dynasty（1271-1368）, war became an important reason for the Chinese to settle in Java. From 1292 to 1293, Kublai Khan（Chinese character: 忽必烈） sent troops to invade Java. Although the war ended in Chinese defeat, many soldiers were unable to follow the army back to China due to injuries and illnesses after the war. They had to settle on the island of Java and intermarried with the local indigenous people, which led to the emergence of small-scale Chinese settlements in parts of Java.68
In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), because Zheng He's seven voyages and other official trades, the ties between China and Southeast Asian countries were further strengthened. When Zheng He arrived Java, he found that there was a gathering of nearly 1,000 Chinese on the island. At that time, some Chinese people even became
66 [Song(宋)] Zhu Yu(朱彧), Pingzhouketan(《萍洲可谈》) (Beijing: 中华书局, 2016), chap. 2,
http://www.guoxuedashi.com/a/7007i/83980t.html.
67 “Quan nan Poem (《泉南歌》),” Ancient Chinese Poetry Network,
https://m.shicimingju.com/chaxun/list/1238374.html.
68 【Yuan (元)】Wang Dayuan (汪大渊), Daoyizhilve [Southeast Asia Voyage Journal（《岛夷志
略》)], Nanchang, Jiangxi Province Engraved Pamphlet. (Liaoning: Liaoning Education Press, 1996), 69–72.
local leaders. According to statistics, the number of overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia in the late Ming Dynasty reached more than 100,000.69 These Chinese rely on their
own goods from the East to travel between large and small islands in Southeast Asia, most of which were concentrated in the centers of Sino-Western transportation and trade, such as the port cities of Sumatra and Java.70
In the Qing Dynasty, although some Han people went to Southeast Asia because they did not want to be ruled by the Manchus leaders, political reasons no longer became the mainstream reason for immigration.71 During this period, severe land
poverty appeared on the southeast coast of China, forcing a large number of Chinese people to flock to Java to survive. In the 18th century, while Chinese population exploded, the cultivated land did not increase significantly. This situation continued until the end of the 19th century72 Rawaki found that from the mid-17th century to the
mid-19th century, the total population in China has approximately tripled, but the total
amount of farmland had only nearly doubled.73 The scarcity of land resources and the
increase in population made families in coastal areas face an urgent need for other channels to obtain income.74 During this period, the Dutch began to establish their own
colonial rule in Java. In order to make Batavia the largest commercial city in all of East India, Dutch governors encouraged the settlement of the Chinese, who were skilled in commerce and handicrafts. The Dutch even stipulated that a Chinese sailing ship must leave a part of its crew to settle in the port when it arrived. The Dutch were even willing to use force if necessary, to ensure that the rules were enforced.75 To some extent, the
Dutch policy has pulled the Chinese immigration.
Therefore, people were willing to break the shackles of Confucianism, and even ignore the strict bans imposed by the Chinese government to turn their attention to
69 LI mingxue(李学民） and Huang Kunzhang（黄昆章）, 印尼华人史, 25.
70 Hu, “Southeast Asia Chinese People Economic Networks Formation, Development and Reforming
Research,” 5.
71 Philip A. Kuhn, Chinese Among Others: Emigration in Modern Times (NUS Press, 2008), 15. 72 Ibid., 18.
73 Susan Naquin and Evelyn Sakakida Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century (Yale
University Press, 1987), 24, accessed August 18, 2020, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt32bt70.
74 Kuhn, Chinese Among Others, 18.
oceans and trade. Some young men have begun to migrate abroad to maintain the daily living expenses of domestic families by working abroad and doing business. For this reason, many Chinese still maintained close contact with their hometown after arriving in Batavia. This connection could be used for trade between China and Batavia, but more often it was used by Chinese immigrants to send money earned in Batavia back to China to support their families.
2.1.2 The early formation of the Chinese economy in Java
Before the arrival of the Dutch, the important commercial centers of the Chinese in Java were mainly Grisee, Surabaya and Banten.76
Before the 18th century, in Southeast Asia, the trade of Chinese goods, such as silk and chinese, was dominated by the tributary system. The tributary system is usually considered to be a trade mode that combines politics and economy, that is, the Chinese government allows foreign envoys to carry goods to China for trade under the premise of paying tribute. The specific method of this system is that foreign officials and businessmen were sent to certain port cities in China with commodities, and the Chinese government will give back Chinese products of varying value based on this country's tribute. At this time, non-tribute goods were allowed to trade in the port market.77 But the affiliation implied by this trade is questionable, because
basically no Southeast Asian country considered itself a subject of the Chinese government at the time. The failure of the Kublai Khan also shows that Southeast Asians do not agree with this kind of subordination. Cator believes that Southeast Asian merchants may enter the tributary trade more for tax avoidance and smuggling purposes.78 Therefore, the tributary system has more influence on businessmen who
trade between China and Southeast Asia.
Under this trade system, the Chinese in Southeast Asia became the importers of Chinese goods and the exporters of East Indies goods in international trade at that
76 Foster, The Journal of John Jourdain, 1608-1617, 308.
77 Tang Jiahong (唐嘉弘), ed., Dictionary of Chinese Ancient Canon System（《中国古代典章制度
辞典》） (Zhenzhou: Zhongzhou Ancient Books Publishing House, 1998), 689.
time. Their footprints were not limited to Java, but to various countries and islands in Southeast Asia. This part of the merchants who were responsible for travelling and selling goods in southeast Asia. And some Chinese call them tourist merchants (Chinese character: 游商) in China. Banten was regarded as a warehouse and main supplier of Chinese goods at the time.79 The Chinese would transport goods such as
silk and pepper to Banten and other cities in Java, and then exchange money and other goods with the British and Dutch:
I presentlie concluded to buye 50,000 rialls of all kindes of silkes, all the Lankin silke included therein which; was the cause thatt I bought soe much thatt yeare, because [when?] the Chineses sawe the Hollanders to crosse us, they would not sell one without annother.80
In addition to tourist merchants, some Chinese settled in Java to engage in plantation and spice trading. Cator pointed out that the Chinese pepper plantations found in Java indicate that the Chinese had settled here before the 17th century. Because it usually takes a year for pepper to mature, which was not suitable for Chinese tourist
merchants who need to travel between different countries.81 In addition to pepper, the
Chinese were also involved in the cultivation of food necessities like rice.82 The
mixed planting of cash crops and grain has formed an economic model that combines agriculture and commerce.
2.2 The establishment of Dutch colonization in Java
From 1618-1619, Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587-1629), the Dutch governor of VOC, found the chance to control this port under the conflict between the Sultanate of
79 Foster, The Journal of John Jourdain, 1608-1617, lix. 80 Ibid., 325.
81 Cator, The Economic Position of the Chinese in the Netherlands Indies, 5.
82 HOETTNK, “SO BING KONG:HET EERSTE HOOFD DER CHINEEZEN TE BATAVIA
Bantam and Jákatra.83 They defeated the British and renamed this city as Batavia.84
Since then, the Dutch colonists gradually took control over the entire island of Java and utilized Batavia as their center.85 Although the Dutch were briefly replaced by
the British from 1804 to 1816, their long-term rule here had influenced the indigenous people and the Chinese a lot.86 Among them, for the Chinese, the most important
policy was the Captain system and the revenue farming system. The former provides political convenience for the latter, and the latter provides economic protection for the former.
Therefore, the early Chinese economy was mainly based on trade and agriculture. Some of them brought Chinese goods that were hot at the time from China to trade with the Dutch and British, and the other settled in the port cities of Java and participated in the production of food and cash crops.
2.2.1 The establishment and limitations of early colonial rule
At the end of the 16th century, the success of de Houtman and Jacob van Neck's spice business in Indonesia greatly stimulated Dutch businessmen, and some of them tried to set up trading companies to go to Indonesia.87 In 1602, in order to avoid struggles
between different Dutch companies and monopolize spice trade in Asia, the government of Netherlands decided to form the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC).88 Besides their strong-armed force and the privilege
83 Thomas Stamford. Raffles, A History of Java. Volume 2, Cambridge Library Collection - East and
South-East Asian History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 151–153, accessed August 7, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511783067.
84 Taylor, Sutton, and Winichakul, The Social World of Batavia : Europeans and Eurasians in
Colonial Indonesia, 243.
85 Leonard Blussé, “An Insane Administration and Insanitary Town: The Dutch East India Company
and Batavia (1619–1799),” in Colonial Cities, ed. Robert J. Ross and Gerard J. Telkamp (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 1985), 16–17, accessed August 16, 2020, http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-94-009-6119-7_5.
86 D. G. E. Hall, “Indonesia from the Fall of the V.O.C. to the Recall of Raffles, 1799–1816,” in A
History of South-East Asia, ed. D. G. E. Hall, Macmillan Asian Histories Series (London: Macmillan Education UK, 1981), 514–516, accessed August 16, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16521-6_29.
87 Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude, The First Mordern Economy:Success Failure, and
Perseverance of Dutch Economy, 1500-1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 383.
88 Oscar Gelderblom, Abe de Jong, and Joost Jonker, “The Formative Years of the Modern
Corporation: The Dutch East India Company VOC, 1602–1623,” The Journal of Economic History 73, no. 4 (December 2013): 1053.
of monopolizing trade, the company also had the power to sign agreements for governments and to set up judges in Batavia. These privileges and power enable VOC to surpass the definition of an ordinary commercial company and built its own political administration in Asia.89 At the end of the 18th century, the bankrupt of VOC and the
military defeat of Netherlands affected its control of Southeast Asian colonies. However, in 1816, the Dutch returned to Java. The difference was that from this time on, the Dutch government established a colonial government here, responsible for the colonial rule of Java.
Although the Dutch who entered Batavia possessed strong military power, they could not completely rule the Java by themselves. Philip Kuhn pointed out that although most colonial regimes have powerful armed forces capable of maintaining their rule, such rule was weak and incomplete.90 This weakness and incompleteness was mainly
manifested in two places: First, the Dutch East India Company lacked sufficient labor. Some scholars believe that VOC chose Chinese instead of indigenous people because the relationship between the two parties was tense at the time: the Dutch distrust the Javanese, and the indigenous people were unwilling to work for Dutch and British colonial government because of their colonialism for a long time.91 This could be one
of the reasons, but Carl’s research pointed out that Batavia and even the whole of Java were always very short of labor due to natural factors in the 17th and 18th centuries.92
Therefore, even if the Dutch trust the indigenous people, they may not be able to obtain enough labor in Batavia. In order to supplement the labor force, VOC issued a series of policies to attract or force Dutch and other Asian people to immigrate to Batavia. However, due to the harsh environment in Batavia at that time, European people did not want to abandon the comfortable life of their country and immigrate here.93
89 Arthur Weststeijn, “The VOC as a Company-State: Debating Seventeenth-Century Dutch Colonial
Expansion . , 38, Pp 13-34,” Itinerario 38, no. 01 (2014): 13.
90 Kuhn, Chinese Among Others, 52. 91 Raffles, A History of Java. Volume 2, 212.
92 Carl A. Trocki, “Chinese Revenue Farms and Borders in Southeast Asia,” in Proceedings
Expanding Frontiers in South Asian and World History, ed. Munis Faruqui (Durham: Duke University, 2006), 336.
93 George Staunton, An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the
According to the population data of Batavia in 1699, there were only 1783 Europeans and 670 Eurasian in Batavia, accounting for 18% and 7%, respectively. By 1739, the number of Europeans accounted for 17% of the total number of Batavia, which was about 500 fewer than 40 years ago; the number of Eurasian people also fell to 421, which was about 250 fewer than 40 years ago. This shows that even in the middle of the 18th century, although the Europeans already became the rulers of the city, they did not have a numerical advantage over other ethnic groups, such as the Chinese whose population accounted for 58% of the total population in 1758. 94
Secondly, Dutch colonists were restricted by culture and language, and actually did not understand how to rule and participate in the commercial trade of Southeast Asia.95
The ethnic composition of Batavia was so complex and made it difficult for the Dutch to integrate into different ethnic groups in a short time and implement effective management. In 1794, Francis Light stated that in part of the colonial area, Europeans tried to collect taxes directly, but this attempt was not successful because they were small in number and were not professional enough.96 The Dutch also stated in the
report on tax farms on pawnshop that at the beginning, the Dutch and the indigenous people did not have too many people involved. The former did lack the knowledge of taxation business in Java, and the latter lacked sufficient capital.97 Later, Raffles tried
to collect taxes directly by government officials, but it also failed.98
This explains the need for Chinese immigrants to work for them as intermediaries. Unlike Dutch people, Chinese immigrants did not use military coercion but they relied on ties of kinship and ethnicity to form an organized, knowledgeable, and capitalized group to run their business in Batavia.99 Under such circumstances, the Dutch chose to
94 Leonard Blussé, Weixia Xiong, and Guotu Zhuang, “Batavia in 1619-1740: The Rise and Fall of a
Chinese Colonial City (Part 1),” Southeast Aisan Studies: A quarterly journal of Translation, no. 01 (1992): 96.
95 Kuhn, Chinese Among Others, 52.
96 Butcher, “Revenue Farming and the Changing State in Southeast Asia,” 20–21.
97 W. P. D. de. Wolff van Westerrode, Het Onderzoek Naar de Werking Der Pandhuispacht En de
Proefneming Met Eigen Beheer, 3:59.
98 Wahid, “From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly,” 70.
99 Shen Yanqing（沈燕清）, “The Dutch and Indian Colonial Government’s Opium Taxation Policy
and Its Influence on the Javanese Chinese Society (《荷印殖民政府鸦片税收政策及其地爪哇华人 社会的影响》）,” 23–24.
rely on Chinese and other ethnic businessmen to help them collect taxes on some products and services, thus forming a revenue farming system which was dominated by Chinese tax famers.
2.2.2 Establishment and transformation of taxation policy
From the beginning of the 17th century to the end of the 18th century, the tax farm
system under the rule of VOC had a preliminary development. The tax farming system was divided into two types by Dutch: opium revenue farms (opiumpacht) and the small revenue farms (kleine verpachte middelen).
The opium trade has become one of the most prominent and profitable businesses in Java and even Asia in the 16th century. Dutch businessmen quickly joined this trade, and Batavia was the most important stronghold of the opium trade in West Java, helping the VOC and the Netherlands to obtain huge profits. From 1600 to 1707, the Netherlands gradually monopolized the opium trade in the region, and per capita use of opium increased by about 18 times.100 Although the opium trade has often
received moral condemnation, this has not stopped its development. From 1652 to 1677, only Batavia had a one-year opium farm system, which was handled by the Gebedszaal. At that time, Dutch residents were not allowed to import cloth or opium from places outside Batavia and the East India Company fortress or in cities such as Malacca without a permit.101
The tax farm system of the 19th century can be divided into two parts. Both Shen and Wahid took the Java War as the boundary and divided the development of the tax farm system into an early state formation period and a mature stage under high colonialism.102
100 J. F. Scheltema, ‘The Opium Trade in the Dutch East Indies’, American Journal of Sociology 13,
no. 1 (1907): 82–83, https://doi.org/10.2307/2762537.
101 Thian Joe Liem, Sanbaolong Lishi, Zi Sanbao Shidai Zhi Huaren Gongguan de Chexiao 1416-1931
(Riwajat Semarang, Dari Djamannja Sam Po Sampe Terhapoesnja Kong Koan 1416-1931), [ 《三宝 垄历史:自三宝时代至华人公馆的撤销》], trans. 李学民 and 陈巽华 (Guangzhou: Academy of Overseas Chinese Studies in Jinan University, 1984), 111–112.
102 Wahid, “From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly,” 60–73; Shen Yanqing（沈燕清）, “The
Dutch and Indian Colonial Government’s Opium Taxation Policy and Its Influence on the Javanese Chinese Society (《荷印殖民政府鸦片税收政策及其地爪哇华人社会的影响》）,” 52.
