The Dutch Spice Fleet, laden with fabulous…

The Anglo-Dutch conflicts have proved useful for the VOC for driving out its competitors, the EIC, from the Indonesian archipelago, by force of arms.

According to the Treaty of Westminster ending the First Anglo-Dutch War of 1652–1654, Pulo Run, the only English factory in the Spice Island, should have been returned to England.

The first attempt in 1660 had failed due to formal constraints by the Dutch; after the second in 1665, the English traders are expelled in the same year and the Dutch destroy the nutmeg trees, excluding the English from the clove trade.

The East India Company sends William Hedges to Shaista Khan, the Mughal governor of Bengal, in 1682 to obtain a firman, an imperial directive that will grant England regular trading privileges throughout the Mughal Empire.

However, the company's governor in London, Sir Josiah Child, interferes with Hedges's mission, causing Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb to break off the negotiations.

The Dutch are reaping spectacular profits from the opium trade.

Buying opium cheap in India and selling high in Java has gained the Dutch East India Company a four hundred percent profit on shipments in the 1670s.

Opium, moreover, proves to be an essential trade good that attracts Asian merchants to Batavai, by 1681 representing thirty-four percent of the cargo on Asian ships sailing from here.

The peace is in many respects also strange, for rather than settling Java into a calm "traditional" existence, it provides the setting for ongoing social and cultural ferment as Javanese reassesses not only their past but also their present.

The literary reflections of this crisis have been insufficiently studied, but works ascribed to the Surakarta court poets Yasadipura I (1729-1803) and his son Yasadipura II (? -1844), for example, suggest that efforts to reexamine and revitalize old histories fail, not least because the ability to read them accurately had been lost, and that attempts to understand the Java—and "Javaneseness"—of their own day lead frequently to searing critiques of their own social hierarchy and customs, as well as those of foreigners and Islam.

This sort of questioning and restlessness is not necessarily fatal, however, and might under different circumstances have permitted a continuation of the equilibrium already achieved or even conceivably have led to a kind of Javanese renaissance and a different, more advantageous relationship with the Dutch, but changes in the larger world determine otherwise.

The VOC and the court of Mataram, at the same time rivals and allies, are by the mid-eighteenth century exhausted by war.

The dying ruler, Pakubuwono II (r. 1726-49), with his kingdom still threatened by rebellion from within and his court deeply divided over the proper course for the future, cedes Mataram to the company, perhaps thinking in this way to save it.

The treaty is of little importance because it cannot be enforced and the VOC is incapable of ruling Java, but it is followed in 1755 by the Treaty of Giyanti, which imposes a different solution.

Mataram is to be ruled by two royal courts, one at Surakarta (also known as Solo) and one at Yogyakarta, out of which the junior courts of Mangkunegaran (1757) and Pakualaman (1812), respectively, later evolve by apportioning appanage rights among them.

This division produces an extended period of peace lasting well into the nineteenth century, from which the Javanese populace benefits economically.

The courts, particularly that of Yogyakarta, make use of their considerable autonomy and grow in prosperity and power, while the VOC consolidates its control over the Pasisir and pursues its commercial ventures.

Although clearly recognized (and often resented) as the paramount power, the company interests itself in the courts' affairs and plays a role in choosing who reigns but refrains from meddling too deeply.

It is a strange conquest.

The last in a series of Anglo-Dutch wars cost the Netherlands, including the VOC and its far-flung interests, dearly in the early 1780s.

Nearly half the company's ships are lost, and much of their valuable cargoes; enormous debts accumulate, which, despite state loans, cannot be repaid.

While the company certainly is burdened with other fiscal and administrative problems, among them a high level of corruption among its employees, the British war seems to have been the critical factor in its fiscal collapse.

In 1796 the VOC is placed under the direction of a national committee until the end of 1799, when it is liquidated, its debts and possessions absorbed by the Dutch government.

During the seventeenth century, under the reign of Sultan Iskandar Muda, Aceh’s influence extended across most of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula.

Aligned with both the Ottoman Empire and the Dutch East India Company (VOC), Aceh played a key role in the struggle against Portuguese Malacca and the Johor Sultanate.

However, Aceh’s military power gradually declined, and by the eighteenth century, it ceded its territory of Pariaman in Sumatra to the Dutch.

By the early nineteenth century, Aceh had regained prominence, leveraging its strategic position to control regional trade. In the 1820s, it produced over half of the world’s black pepper supply, making it an essential player in global commerce.

The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 marked a turning point, as Britain ceded its colonial possessions on Sumatra to the Dutch. Despite having no actual control over Aceh, the British inaccurately listed the sultanate as one of their possessions in the treaty.

Initially, the Dutch agreed to respect Aceh’s independence, though this commitment would later be challenged as Dutch ambitions in the region grew.

The British, while peace negotiations are under way in Europe in 1796, assume Sri Lanka will eventually be restored to the Dutch.

By 1797 however, London has decided to retain the island as a British possession.

The government compels the British East India Company to share in the administration of the island and guarantees the company a monopoly of trade, especially the moderately profitable—but no longer robust—cinnamon trade.

The governor of the island is responsible for law and order, but financial and commercial matters are under the control of the director of the East India Company.

This system of "dual control" lasts from 1798 to 1802.

After the Dutch formally cede the island to the British in the 1801 Peace of Amiens, Sri Lanka becomes Britain's first crown colony.

Following Lord Nelson's naval victory over the French at Trafalgar in 1805, British superiority on the seas is unchallenged and provides new security for the British colonies in Asia.

The Dutch and the Kingdom of Kandy eventually settle down to an uneasy modus vivendi, partly because the Dutch become less aggressive.

Despite underlying hostility between Kandy and the Dutch, open warfare between them occurs only once—in 1762—when the Dutch, exasperated by Kandy's provocation of riots in the lowlands, launch a punitive expedition.

The expedition meets with disaster, but a better-planned second expedition in 1765 forces the Kandyans to sign a treaty that gives the Dutch sovereignty over the lowlands.

The Dutch, however, maintain their pretension that they administer the territories under their control as agents of the Kandyan ruler.

After taking political control of the island, the Dutch proceeded to monopolize trade.

This monopoly is at first limited to cinnamon and elephants but later extends to other goods.

Control is vested in the Dutch East India Company, a joint-stock corporation, which had been established for the purpose of carrying out trade with the islands of Indonesia but was later called upon to exercise sovereign responsibilities in many parts of Asia.