Assimilation Out: Europeans, Indo-Europeans and Indonesians seen through Sugar from the 1880s to the 1950s

Dr Roger Wiseman, History, University of Adelaide

Paper presented to the ASAA 2000 Conference, University of Melbourne, July 3-5, 2000

Session: Colonial Southeast Asia - 3

Abstract

During the Late Colonial Period in the history of Indonesia the state and society used a tripartite racial classification of 'European', 'Native' and 'Other Foreign Oriental'/'Chinese'. Overt social, legal, political and economic differentiation largely followed these lines with the tiny European caste massively advantaged relative to the Natives, who comprised most of the population.

Although the construction and maintenance of this system is usually explained in terms of general European racism and class interests a closer examination of who the Europeans were indicates more complicated dynamics. The great majority of those identified as 'European' were always Indo-Europeans (or Chinese-Europeans). Using evidence from the Java sugar industry and from State employment it is suggested that the racialised colonial system was operated more in the interests of the Indo-Europeans than of the European-born - until most 'Europeans' left after the 'Natives' victory over the Dutch colonial state.

 

 

Outline

1. Colonialism and Racism

It is unnecessary to point out that all colonial relationships involve some ethnicised ideologies in which the colonisers are ascribed superior characteristics and the various colonised inferior, with varying mixtures of genetic and cultural development characteristics used to justify why the colonisers should continue to rule and tutor the colonised for at least the immediate future. In the Dutch East Indies the mixtures were varied by different Europeans and at different times as were the interpretations of positive or negative effects of European control but the  needs and responsibilities of tutelage were widely accepted.

 

2. Racist prejudice and racial discrimination

Rather than interest in revealing the varieties of racist beliefs that were freely available for use a concentration on the interests and the non-belief resources involved in the actual practices of racialised discrimination could be more useful in understanding the operating of colonial societies.

 

3. Colonists and mestizos in the Dutch East Indies: Totoks and Eurasians/Indo-Europeans

The great majority of those classified as 'European' in the Dutch East Indies were actually Indo-Europeans. The definition changed and there were eventually several ways in which people were 'European'. There were great advantages in being so defined in political representation and influence and in economic assumptions of rightful rewards and lifestyle. (See 'Substantiation Notes 3' below).

 

4. Changing range and positions of Indo-Europeans

There were many social, educational, economic and political differences among Indo-Europeans. (See 'Substantiation Notes 4')

 

5. 'Dutchification' and Assimilation

There were strong tendencies for the 'European' segment of Indies society to become more European in lifestyle and cultural orientation from the late Nineteenth, early Twentieth Century as Europe and America became more 'modern', with similar modernising trends and expectations among many Natives[1]. This included a clear 'Dutchification' among Indo-Europeans in their varying assimilations into acceptance into the expanding European segment of society. ('Notes 5')

 

6. The colonial dual labour market

Due to the lack of adequate local supply filling many positions in the modernising society required recruitment in the Netherlands' labour market. This provided a powerful reason for Indo-Europeans to attempt to maintain a continuing 'European' segmentation of society and attach themselves to this overseas rather than to the local labour market. ('Notes 6')

 

7. Indo-Europeans in government employment

The combined effects of the operating of this colonial dual labour market and the increasing provision of schooling to Natives are shown in the diminishing position of Indo-Europeans in the middle and lower ranks of government employment, their traditional major place. ('Notes 7')

 

8. Indo-Europeans in the sugar industry

The most well-rewarded positions in the important Java sugar industry were effectively reserved for Europeans and largely filled by Indo-Europeans (from half or more near the top to dominatingly at the lower 'European' levels). Association or joint action with Native workers was rejected as was an attempt by employers to split salary schemes into two classes based mainly on training which would have put the majority of Indo-Europeans into the lower class and open to potential subsequent recruitment competition from less expensive Native workers. ('Notes 8')

 

9. Politics and Indo-Europeans

There was a succession of organising Indo-Europeans for their perceived interests. After tensions and splits from the variety of competing identifications and ideologies in the suppressive and increasingly polarised colonial situation the main organisation was a moderate, largely loyalist vehicle for self-consciously ethnicised interests.

 

 

10. Collapse and flight

The Dutch needed to discriminate racially to preserve their rule through disproportionate representation on the increasing number of municipal, national, residency, regency and provincial councils set up, although representation or appointment for such as achieved position, economic/industrial significance, recognised expertise or education could have substituted at last partly for this. The Indo-Europeans with similar financial, educational and other cultural resources to Europeans could have shared in this. However, for the great majority of them a racialised discrimination and segmentation of the society was at least a significant advantage and for many necessary to preserve their interests.

As the basis for ethnicised segmentation was destroyed by the Japanese occupation (1942-5) then the success of the subsequent anti-colonial struggle (1945-9) the Indo-Europeans' position as assimilated into 'Europeans' was lost and most of those who had not previously or later assimilated into 'Indonesians' left with the remaining immigrant colonial Dutch - thereby assimilating out of Indonesia.

_______________________________________________________________

 

Substantiation Notes

3. Colonists and mestizos in the Dutch East Indies: Totoks and Eurasians/Indo-Europeans

In 1880 the 'European' resident population on Java and Madura included only about 44,000 people, growing by about a quarter to a third over each of the next two decades  then much faster over the first three decades of the Twentieth Century before slowing in the Thirties (55,000 by 1890, 72,000 by 1900[2], 133,000 by 1920, 189,000 by 1930, c240,000 by 1940) - a total increase of over 500% in sixty years. By then it was a largely urban segment of the population, with only about a third living outside urban municipality areas in 1930. About a third were in paid employment (about 80,000 by 1930). Numerically it continued to be an overall insignificant proportion of the total Java population, a little more than half of one per cent.

 

Even a quick look at photographs of ordinary Indies government and private employees and their families (even those with more direct connection with the Netherlands who went on leave there in the 1920s), in school classes, sports teams, dances, small town club life, military and police classes as well as sugar industry employees demonstrate that the 'Europeans', with their 'Dutch' names (or, rarely in Java, 'Portuguese'-sourced names) were largely Indo-Europeans[3].  (In more personally poignant settings the same faces can be seen in the photographs of the 'Europeans' leaving Indonesia and being settled in the Netherlands in the years during and after the bersiap Independence struggle in the late 1940s and 1950s.)

 

From the beginning the great majority had been born in the Indies, only about a quarter being immigrants who had been born in Europe, the 'totoks'[4].  In the late 1890s it was claimed that more than a half of the totoks were in the Dutch Colonial army[5] although only about half of these had been born in the Netherlands rather in other European countries[6]

 

These proportions were not simply indications of where people had been born but also of who they had been born from. Since the early stages of the C19  "the  European population of the Dutch Indies was for the greatest part mixed-blood" and also "many children disappeared into the kampongs and increased the number of mixed-bloods among the Indonesian population" (Van der Marle 1951-2: 499).

Although a small proportion were, and a larger proportion claimed to be, descended from the earlier Dutch colonists the 'European' element in most Indo-European families would not have been more than two or three generations in the Indies, frequently less. The genealogy of the older Indo-European families was likely to be complicated[7].

 

The most detailed and thoughtful analysis and report of the legal and numerical measures of the 'Europeans' within the Indies population up to 1940 was given, post-Independence, by Van der Marle. He demonstrated how complex and changing had been the classification process. Included within the category were the overseas-born of clearly European-birth and their descendants if legally acknowledged by their fathers, but also a variety of others who or whose descendants for earlier reasons of religion (being Christian), international politics (such as the recognition of the Japanese and those from their possessions as 'European' by the Dutch government at the end of the C19), and having previously been classified as 'European' in other non-European Portuguese or Dutch colonies (in Africa, India, Ceylon) had been  continued to be so throughout the changes over the period, with marriage to a European being another way for women to become 'European' from 1898. From the early C20 people could be granted official classification as 'equivalent to European'[8] - at first mainly taken advantage of by people from the 'Chinese' ('Foreign Easterner') legal classification then increasingly by some in the 'Native'. The number of such successful applications grew from about 200 in 1913 to about 600 by 1916, particularly from Chinese from the notable families wanting the 'European law' to apply to them and their activities. In 1920 the classification as 'equivalent to European' was closed to new applicants, being replaced with the possibility that individuals who were not 'European' could be treated legally as if they were.

 

The proportion of legal Christian marriages between people (mostly men) classified as 'European' and 'non-Europeans' was about 10-15% from the 1860s to early this century then rising to 20% by 1917 (with a maximum of 27.5% in 1925 then a drop back to 1 in 5 by 1940), in part involving a decrease in concubinage plus a legalisation of existing relationships (the proportion of children born to a 'European' father and 'non-European' mother being legal increased to about half after 1920 from less than a quarter around 1900). After several years of argument about gender, race and law from 1898 a wife's future classification generally became that of her husband so many non-European women became 'European' through marriage as did their, now-legal, children (without needing him to legally recognise them). The proportion of these marriages involving 'Chinese' women was small but rose from what for some decades had been a steady roughly 1 in 12 to 1 in 8 of 'European' men's marriages by the end of the 1920s and steadily increasing through the 1930s to be more than 1 in 5 by 1938-1940 (much higher in Batavia)[9].

 

For a mixture of reasons there were clear differences across Java. In 1929-31 the proportion of marriages of  'European men' to 'Native' women in the Principalities of Djokjakarta and Surakarta; in the rest of Central Java; in West Java; and East Java  were 30% and 29%; 23%; 20% and 14%, with a total Java average of 19% (dropping to 14% during the 1930s). Van der Marle (pp327-330) suggested that the more long-lasting and integrated presence of a 'European' settler society and a relative lack of educational provisions in the Principalities could have been influential, as could the relative lack of the newer 'modern' cities and the increased possibilities and pressures of 'Dutch' life-styles in them.

 

The overall situation was further complicated by the much more integrated society in the Molukkas and other places outside Java, particularly in the ex-Portuguese areas, where 'Christian-Natives' and 'Christian-Europeans' had mixed more comfortably than 'Europeans' and 'Native' elsewhere for many decades, thus the mixed-marriage rate was over double outside Java than within it[10]. As many of these Christian-Natives could be granted classification as 'Native Europeans' and there was a continuing strong tradition of Ambonese and Menadonese men serving in the Dutch colonial army and other government service there was a flow on from the Molukkese situation (where over a third of 'European' men were 'Europeans of native character') to the presence of higher numbers of 'Europeans of native character' among the 'Europeans' in the exceptionally governmental cities of Batavia (particularly in the Indo-European area of Mr Cornelis with its large army base) and Bandung and in military towns such as Magelang. The so-called 'Europeans of native character' and 'Europeans of Chinese character' were mainly concentrated in government service, particularly the former, with the Natives more in the lower and middle, the Chinese in upper levels[11]. Elsewhere in Java the proportions, and numbers, were very low, although some of the ex-military Ambonese 'Europeans' were employed as guards by plantations.

 

Most of the 'mixed marriages' between 'Europeans' and 'Natives' involved women out of the lower classes of the latter (women in higher classes being more effectively sequestrated) although there were some notable examples involving daughters of prijaji families as well as European women marrying Native and, it was suggested, more often Chinese or Arab men[12]. However, these were statistically exceptional and given the predominant proportion of 'European' men being Indo-European it would be incorrect to give an impression that mixed-marriages were usually between totok 'Dutch' men and 'Native' women. However, it is perhaps remarkable that overseas-born Europeans at least at some times did tend to marry 'Native' women more than did Indies-born 'Europeans - the former being involved in 40% of the 'European men' marrying in 1930 in Java but in 44% of their mixed-marriages.

It is also clear from Van der Marle's careful analyses that a significant proportion of mixed-marriages were a legalisation of a long-standing and child-producing relationship.

 

It is possible that the dynamics of Indo-European communities are more important to the evolution of 'European society' in the Indies than is revealed by concentrating on the changes in the increasing totok communities.

 

(The large increase in immigration of Dutch-born women from the early years of this century had a demographically significant but narrow effect - the ratio of European-born women to men increased from less than 1 in 5 of these men in 1900 to nearly 3 in 5 by 1930. Their numbers increased from 4,000 in 1905 to about 26,000 in 1930. However, many of these women were accompanying their husbands.)

 

Although the great majority of 'European' males had been born in the Indies the pattern of Dutch males marrying Indo-European females by 1930 there were as many 'European' families legally headed by overseas-born European fathers as by Indies-born.

 

Although a consideration of marriages and children born within them is essential to understanding the evolving of the 'European' segment of Indies society nevertheless mixed concubinage was at least as important. Even after a decrease in this practice by 1940 there were still about as many 'European' men with a 'non-European' mistress as with an originally 'non-European' wife. As well as in the military, where the largest numbers of native mistresses had worked and thus from where the largest number of Indo-European children were produced, it was still a normal practice in the last quarter of the nineteenth century for officials at all levels to have Indonesian or Indo-European women living in their quarters, and into last century it could still be reported that, at least in some rural areas, most unmarried European men lived in concubinage or that young men who can little follow a Western life-style take a 'maid' and soon have children.

 

The proportion of 'European' children who were born legally (within marriage) rather than acknowledged and/or legalised retrospectively rose from 28% in the C19th to 40, 57, 68 and 65% respectively in the first four decades of the C20th.

 

Certainly it was believed that the rise of the effectiveness of the early stages of the nationalist movement, through the Sarekat Islam, produced pressure against the mixed-concubinage partly on religious grounds and partly with a rejection of Indonesians being 'extraordinary servants' or 'wearing out her days deep in the kampong as mother of children of the well-off' . There were arguments for and against whether njais (Native mistresses of Europeans) were exploited and about allegations regarding their relationships with other members of their own race  There was clearly increasing nationalist opposition in general to the practice but what this involved at the personal and local levels is little known or researched.

 

Children born from these relationships would be classed as 'European' if the father legally acknowledged them (or if the mother could convince an official). From 1895 to 1940 about 30,000 were recognised.

It is unknown how many others were not, including when non-European mistresses were rejected and sent away when they were pregnant with no subsequent acknowledgment of the child by the father or attempt by the mother to seek official recognition of the child as 'European'.[13]

 

In summary, the increase in the 'European' segment of the Indies population was strongly aided by additions from the non-European segments both directly, by the including of 'Natives' and 'Chinese' as legally 'equivalent to Europeans' and by non-European women marrying 'European' men and thereby being classified similarly themselves, and indirectly, by the birth of children with 'European' fathers to originally ]Native' or 'Chinese' mothers either within or outside marriage. The children of these Indo-European children could then continue the processes of adding more 'Europeans'. to the population.

Van der Marle (p500) estimated  the different components of the increase other than from direct immigration in 'Europeans' over the period 1881-1940 as: by gaining 'equal legal status' 16,500 people; by mixed marriage 16,000; by birth from a mixed marriage 29,000; by acknowledgment 48,000; by birth from a non-mixed marriage 210,000.   

 

4. Changing range and positions of Indo-Europeans

As the classic account of Taylor (1983) showed the background and lifestyles of Europeans in the Dutch East Indies had long involved Eurasian elements. It was also firmly associated with government, governing or working for it. From early in the C19th an employed Indies-born 'European' was already typically a government clerk  (Mansvelt 1932: 293). However, these few opportunities in the Civil Service were closed off in 1839 when positions were reserved for only those brought up in Europe as, it was claimed, only these would have developed the character, feelings and loyalties, as well as the skills, necessary to fit the position of representatives of the Dutch in the Indies. These characteristics could be gained from succeeding in the academic courses set up initially only in the Netherlands from 1842 but for decades these were available to only those few whose families or sponsors could afford for them to live and study in a Dutch city for several years, only later on a limited scale in Batavia. However, these was for the higher levels of administrator and, although most Indo-Europeans were limited to the lower ranks, at the general office level, these grew rapidly from towards the end of the last century, as did work in the railways and similar semi-government areas, and employment in these required only the Dutch-language Indies schooling made available, mostly, only to 'Europeans'.

Nevertheless, during the C19th widespread poverty and very low wages in the Netherlands sent many Dutch born and educated men to look for work in the Indies thereby competing for and taking the relatively few clerk and similar limited positions there from the lesser qualified locally born sons of officials and the 'socalled Native children'[14]. Early attempts to provide training opportunities for local 'European' youth military and sea-going professions (1818-26 and 1835-43 respectively) did not continue, with official reports that they wanted only positions as officials in government service.

However, many did succeed (although among these were descendants of the already successful Indische families). By the last third of the C19th it was claimed that there were many Indo-Europeans in high civil and secondary occupations, including 'mixed-bloods'[15] on equal footing with 'pure blood Nederlanders', unlike previously or as had continued to be the case in the British Colonies. There was more and more assimilation, from equality in rank and education, also from marriage, and from membership of the influential Lodge . Although the assimilation originally had a strong 'Indische' flavour in custom and daily life, after the great invasion of totoks from 1901 and especially that of many 'pure-blood' European women it took a 'Dutch' direction (ibid: 299).

 

However, although a minority of the 'goede oud-Indische Europese' families and Indo-Europeans in the higher professional, government and business ranks could move into these newly Dutch circles this process largely excluded the majority of the lower and middling Indo-Europeans, particularly the 'boeng kecil' or 'kleine Indos', whose ability to differentiate themselves from the Natives was essentially based on the race policy of the government. Moreover, in spite of a legal equalisation of status as 'Europeans' between Dutch and Indies-born (and a large number of examples of Indo-Europeans in the highest official positions) there was a continuing preference in general for appointing Dutch-born at the higher levels of government (possible apart from in the Colonial Army) and, more so, in business circles[16].

 

However, it had been different for the lesser Indo-Europeans, that is the great majority. In 1872 a committee cited inadequacies in a wide range of factors (including in parenting, elementary education, religious education, any satisfactory means of existence other than as an official, measures against begging and vagrancy, medical provisions) as increasing the poverty among Indo-Europeans. The committee's recommendations for more education, provisions for poverty relief and the setting up of an establishment to provide practical agricultural education to form an Indo-European farming class were not followed by the government. Nevertheless, during the last two decades of the C19th several institutions for 'Europeans' (in practice, Indo-Europeans, particularly those of the 'lowest class in Indo-European society') were set up[17]. Moreover, the general Lower Schools for Europeans were expanded with a right of education being given them from 1893.

There was an intention behind this to prevent the growth of a mestizo society (feared from at least the beginning of the C19th) with its own language, culture and identity, by educating the Indo-Europeans towards the higher level of a 'purer European' society with at least the higher levels of the population group oriented towards the Dutch culture. However, this cultural hope was unlikely to be successful without an improvement in the economic situation of a large proportion of the Indo-European group. Another committee investigated poverty among 'Europeans' in 1902 and again laid special emphasis on promoting the development of agriculture among them, suggesting the granting of small pieces of land.

 

However, this became redundant with the growth of European business in the Indies from early in the C20th and the rapid increase in the scale of the government apparatus as the 'Ethical' principles of more active intervention and provision was put into practice. Both business and government needed increased numbers of lower-level Dutch-speaking employees and large numbers of these were provided by Indo-Europeans, more or less solving the problem of their unemployment and poverty. This was not completely and not perpetually but the assumption that a large part of the Indo-European segment of the 'European' population were living in poverty disintegrated from about this time.

 

There are two vital points to be noted about this. One is that this standard of living and expectations for a large number of Indo-European families was attained only during this period. A reality and possibility of poverty was not long behind many. The second is that what was called, feared and scorned as,  'poverty' by the 'Europeans' was accepted as the normal standard of living for the great majority of 'Natives', who were almost all those living in the Indies.

 

5. 'Dutchification' and Assimilation

An increasing 'Dutchification' in numbers, culture (including language use), life style, residential segregation and social closure and isolation during the C20th has been reported about the 'Europeans' in cities[18].

Previous considerations of the 'European' culture and its changes over the period have been focussed, often explicitly, on the large cities and the more comfortable sections of it (sometimes with claims that there were little difference between, for example, affluent city or rural European women). If Europeans living in rural areas are referred to as different this will be in their continuing longer with previous 'Indische' practices and being slower to take up the latest 'Western' styles.

 

An important element of this was the assimilating (or part-assimilating[19]) of Indo-Europeans into Europeans. An overtly visible aspect of 'Europeanisation' was the wearing of 'Western' clothing used by Indo-Europeans[20] to mark themselves as 'European' and not 'Native'[21]. Moreover, quieter colours might be chosen to differentiate themselves from the Natives who were also starting to adopt Western fashions - the more European one felt the more subdued the colors[22].

 

In relation to this differentiation of themselves from 'Natives' it is remarkable that several of the most widely read 'advice' books for (European) women in the Indies were written by Indo-European women[23]  and appear to carry feelings of such strong suspicion, distaste and sense of pollution about the 'native servants'.

 

There is a tendency for Dutch writers to be sweeping about the 'Dutchification' (or at least 'Europeanisation') of the European community with this being portrayed as both all inclusive and rapidly destructive of any previous Indische elements (clothing, language, supernatural beliefs, life-style, recreations, ...) with little importance given to differences within the community. However, there are counters to this from some writing from a consciously Indo-European perspective[24]. A continual thread in these portrayals of Indische life is a differentiation of social levels within it, a presentation of a heterogeneity rather than a homogeneity. Van der Veur has more formally analysed and described the 'Eurasian[25] community' in its general characteristics, language use, beliefs, literary and artistic achievements (particular stressing the music, first the older traditions of 'kerontjong' derived from the Portuguese then the enthusiasm for jazz from the United States of America[26]). Nevertheless, these distinctive cultural elements were diminishing during this century as Indo-Europeans increasingly identified and modelled themselves on the strengthening 'totok' culture being brought into the Indies by the immigrating Dutch minority and, inter alia, by closer communication with the commercial consumption cultures of the West. Moreover, he pointed out that "the local environment could not help but have a major influence upon Eurasians, especially those in lower-middle and lower class living in the smaller towns" (Van der Veur 1968a: 53). As the increase in (partly protected) government and private employment from just after the beginning of this century enabled the general upward social mobility of the Indo-Europeans "new social strata emerged and the social distance between the group's various components became more pronounced" (Van der Veur 1968b: 194). In particular, the proportionately and absolutely small number who shared the 'top end' of Indies society with totoks tended to be lost to the wider Indo-European community by a 'dual drainage' of considering itself an integral part of the more homogenous Dutch group and by taking advantage of pensions, education and private wealth to leave the Indies and settle in the Netherlands (Van der Veur 1961: 85, 1968b: 195; Mansvelt 1932: 290[27]).

 

One central element of the 'Dutchification' of the 'Europeans' was the 'Dutchification' of the language they used.

By the middle of the C19 when lower schooling for 'Europeans' were being extended it was clear that many of the 'Europeans' were not using Dutch as their main language. For many 'Europeans' it was the schools that taught their children Dutch, that were vital in this crucial basis for their 're-Dutchifying'. This was slow and only partially successful. A 1900 inquiry reported that 29.3% of the 'European' children starting school knew only a little Dutch while 41.5% had none (Brugmans 1937: 50, 52) apparently indicating that only about a quarter of  'European' families used anything like 'competent Dutch' or approaching 'pure Dutch' with their children. There were various vernaculars being used based in the local languages and Dutch which were perfectly adequate for communication within the community or between communities which people lived in but these were not the 'Dutch' required by 'European schools' in the Indies (certainly not for the schools in the Netherlands to which some families sent their children (sons?)). They were also not the 'Dutch' required by the growing government and business occupations at other than the lowest levels. These would not have been effectively available for a large proportion of the Indo-European population until their levels of spoken and written Dutch had been improved. Via the expanded European schooling system and given the massive inducement of gaining 'European' employment these levels were raised widely and effectively during the early part of this century [28]so that, in general, the 'European' population came to be characterised as 'Dutch-speaking'[29] (and writing)[30]. However, the 'Dutch' commonly used by many Indo-Europeans continued to be versions of an Indies-Dutch which was utilised for mockery by the totoks and those identifying with them. It seems unlikely to have been a simply standardised, homogenous or stable language or dialect given the great variety of historical situations and contemporary contexts which formed and pressed its users[31].

An overall simplified summary would be that, at the beginning of the period only a small minority of Indo-Europeans would have had much if any competence in the Dutch of the Netherlands while at the end of it most would be competent in it but in ways readily distinguishable from that of the totok Dutch - and would probably be able to call on varieties of Indies-Dutch in personal communication with other Indo-Europeans.

 

6. The colonial dual labour market

During and just after the end of the colonial Indies there was an attempt to explain its economics through a model of a 'dual society', in which two different economies, imported and native, modern and traditional, formal and informal co-exist in the single society. This dualistic model, crafted by Boeke (final version 1953), has been decried for its racist-cultural assumptions and its simplistic dichotomising dual (rather than plural) theorising, with some replacements in the field of development studies presenting proposed alternative segmenting within undeveloped or less developed societies. However, in understanding the basis of the racialising of occupations in the colonial Indies a dualistic model is essential. This is a model of a dual labour market. As long as there were insufficient educational facilities in the Indies to produce enough of the trained employees demanded by colonial government, business and industry they would have to be imported from elsewhere. In several areas the technological and associated cultural expertise required meant that these employees could only come from a developed country - and thus would have to offer pay and conditions at least competitive with those expectable in such countries. Given the language skills required for working with a predominantly Dutch-speaking management and comparable co-workers and the availability of not only a pool of suitable young employees but also of existing networks of contacts and interests it is not remarkable that it would be the Netherlands from which these employees would be recruited. To get these Dutch recruits at least as attractive as current Dutch employment conditions would have to be provided.

At the same time, for the great majority of most government,  business and industrial occupations no such technological needs existed as they could be adequately filled from the lowest ranks by people with initially relatively basic trained skills who then gain extra skills, if required, from experience or limited in-service training as or if they are promoted. There were plenty of applicants available locally for this who were competing in only a local labour market needing to offer only relatively very low conditions. The operating of these two underlying labour markets for employment in the Indies, a 'European' one effectively based in the Netherlands the other 'Native' one in Java, were quite distinct and unavoidable in such a colonial relationship. Such a colonial dual labour market was an essential element of any colonial relationship as long as not enough of the technological transfer of training existed in the colony[32].

The immigrant Europeans and the sons of the wealthier layers of the Indische European population who could be sent to stay in the Netherlands for an appropriate education were definitely in the European labour market of the Netherlands. Almost all Natives in the Indies were in the Indies market. So would be the great majority of the Indo-Europeans - if they could not attach themselves to the actors in the Dutch market. The only way to do this was through racialisation and having a common, shared identity (and thus needs and rights) as 'Europeans' accepted. For many years this was not so needed as the Dutch-language schooling provided was almost entirely only for Europeans so in this restricted local labour market they could more or less monopolise the positions requiring the skills they taught[33]. However, this changed as more Dutch-language schooling was provided.

 

 

7. Indo-Europeans in government employment

These racialising processes can be seen in government employment.

The position of the general majority of the Indo-Europeans was fragile, dependent on the maintenance, principally by the government, of a discriminatory race policy in employment and conditions of employment in the government itself, as the largest work provider for Indo-Europeans. This was continuously apparent even from the beginning of the 'new prosperity' of the Indo-Europeans early this century as the C20th expansion of the Dutch-language schooling provisions for Indonesians and Chinese produced a rapidly swelling competition from two or three times as many Indonesians and Chinese for the lower clerical and similar jobs that were opening up and the Indo-Europeans had moved into (Mansvelt 1932: 307). In 1900 the heads of local government started employing Indonesian clerks at wages much lower than those paid to 'Europeans'. However, the 1902 committee on European pauperism argued against this asserting that it was not in the public interest for the government to 'speculate on the labour market' as private employers did, but that a maintenance of the European wage standard should be a matter of social policy. A decade later, in 1913, after years of fierce debate, the government changed its policy from having two separate 'Native' and 'European' civil services and pay scales to a three scale but technically non-discriminatory 'equal pay for equal work', with the top scale for a few higher and technical positions including a 'European bait', and the middle assuming the cost needs of living in the Indies in a European style[34]. This meant that these Indonesian civil servants became a newly affluent class, earning several times as much as previously. 'Whole neighbourhoods, previously occupied by Indo-Europeans, were filled by Native clerks, who went dressed and with shoes like Europeans, who lived in houses with furniture in the Western style, sending their children to Western schools ...; in short a class who in life style were but little different from the Indo-Europeans' (Mansvelt 1932: 307). 'Indianisation' proceeded steadily such that by 1928 nearly half of all government positions classified in the middle salary scale (originally expected by Indo-Europeans), mainly clerks and similar, were held by 'Natives' and 'Foreign Easterners'[35]. The 'Indianisation' continued even more widely during the 1930s[36] with the supply of qualified applicants being very obviously well above demand.

 

From 1929 the rapid deterioration in the financial position of the State lead to urgent debates on the possibility of reversing the government's policy from 1913 of 'unification up' (that is assimilating all wages towards the higher 'European' levels in the society) to 'unification down' (assimilating towards the native levels). Of course, to the 'Indo-Europeans, Christian-Natives and the old and new prijajis who had been lifted up by the government's previous wages-policy into an artificial sphere of prosperity, these changes would have been a disaster' (p 310-11). For those in the lower and middle occupations a European life-style would be impossible, even if the wage levels were at some theoretical 'average income' of the population. There were, understandably, loud and wide protests against any such changes. A central element of debate was how high the arbitrarily-set 'Indische' level should be above the market-set 'Native' level. The tension was between what was the minimum the government could provide and what was considered to be necessary for the lower civil servants, including the mass of Indo-Europeans, to continue to live as 'Europeans' rather than be forced to live as 'Natives'. The government considered that those doing simple office work had too high expectations for salary, promotion and leave[37] but recognised that for each reducing of salary the crisis forced on the government the application of the 'equal pay for equal work' principle would press most heavily on those with the highest cost of living - which among those in the lower and middle ranks were the Indo-Europeans. Those in the higher ranks would have less problems as they could move into the spaces left by the previously imported officials but the others were threatened with reduced prosperity, especially those who would not be able to find an official job and not know how to obtain an independent existence in the company world. The spectre of Indo-European pauperism was threatening again (p 311).

 

8. Indo-Europeans in the sugar industry

The major industry of the colonial Indies for most of its last century was the Java industry. Almost all of those who worked for its, eventually, nearly two hundred factories were born in Java or Madura - the great majority being casual labourers or their supervisors who worked seasonally in the fields and factories. Most of those with permanent employment were also Indies-born - the variously skilled and the unskilled Native workforce. However, even among the very small proportion who were classed as the 'European employees' about two thirds had been born in the Indies and not in Europe[38]. Their wages, bonuses and other provisions were completely different to those of the Natives, even the wages of the least qualified in the simplest supervisory occupations normally starting well above the highest granted to the most responsible and experienced Native supervisors. There was an almost complete reservation of most of the positions filled by 'Europeans' to them, including those which apparently required no special training beyond lower Dutch-language schooling. Throughout the colonial period there were no noticeable demands for any opening of such positions for Native workers and only extremely exceptional cases of such employment[39].

The lowest  'European' positions were dominated by Indo-Europeans with few if any special qualifications (with an occasional more highly qualified person temporarily in these positions to gain initial experience in the industry). However, they were not limited to these with half or many more of the upper positions[40] also filled by Indies-born employees[41]. Many of the general managers of the factory-estates had been born in the Indies. At least as many of the European employees' wives as themselves were Indies-born.

 

The employers' interest in minimising costs was shown in their proposal, in the industrial struggle, culminating in mid-1920, over the setting up of a first industry-wide European salary-scheme (with doubled salaries) of a two class scheme[42]. Every category of occupation would have two salary ranges, more or less for those working in the larger and the smallest factories, with the intention being that the employees in the larger factories could be expected to be having to work with more advanced technology, be better qualified, competent and capable of further promotion while the others would be working more simply with more limited, routine expertise based on experience and unlikely to have enough skills and initiative to progress further. This proposal was rejected loudly by the union - reportedly more particularly by Indo-Europeans as they would be predominantly among those put in the second class. It was also suggested that any such split would make it more likely in the future that they could be replaced by the far cheaper Native workers.

 

In this struggle with employers the long-established European employees' union enlisted statements of support from the fledgling Native union but then declined to actively support the latter in its own struggles for improved conditions or even to be recognised, although it did passively state its support for the latter. There was a vehement and continuing argument within the European union membership and with its leadership about relations with the Natives, involving differing ideologies on class and race, the longer-term self-interest of the European employees, and opinions about whether the Native organisations were essentially industrial or more radically political. In some ways these arguments were linked to opposing claims after the successful salary campaign about the extent to which its very success would weaken the lower level employees' future industrial power as the higher level, and now highly paid, employees would consider their interests more allied to those of the employers than to them and they would have to consider alliances with Native or Chinese employees - who could be used as much less expensive substitutes for them in the future.

 The more emphatically socialist urged solidarity while others stressed the competing interests between the masses of relatively easily replaced Native workers and those of the generality of Europeans who not only occupied the far stronger industrial positions but also whose interests would be wounded if the Native workers struggle managed to seriously impede the profit-making activities of the factories. The perceived potential damage to individual's promotional possibilities, including to the ambitions of a minority for eventual senior management positions, was portrayed within the union and pointed out by employer representatives to the union leadership, with a widespread acceptance of the ideology that the European employees and the European employers had shared major interests - more so in the colonial situation than in the Netherlands (where an ideology of class conflict was already more accepted and institutionalised). Conflicts between the more radically 'race-blind' socialist wing and the more race-differentiating non-socialist majority continued for some years until the balance of the union, by then much less industrially active, settled the matter in favour of the latter[43]. From the mid-1920s, particularly after the failed minor 'Communist' uprisings of late 1926 to 1927[44] and the increasing government suppression of any radical and much of any moderate Native nationalist activities, there were no union or other political connections between the European and the Native workers in the sugar industry. It appears the accepted view was that they did not share enough common interests for any mutual identification or coordinated activities.

This segmentation was reflected in the records of the factories, companies and central organisations of the industry which always differentiated between European and Native employees.

 

A minor implication of this was provided by cases of charitable employment in the mid-1930s. During the Depression there were various assistance schemes set up and financed by private industry, with aid going disproportionately to unemployed Europeans. The government proposed a special levy on the sugar companies to support general unemployment schemes but the industry's integrated coordinating organisations negotiated that an amount would be set aside annually from the proceeds of the operations of the central sugar marketing board with some voluntary extra donated from the industry which would be used for general relief. However, the companies were encouraged to provide work for Europeans. Records from one factory show it employed several unemployed Indo-European ex-students from one of the special educational institutions for poor Indos to fill semi-skilled positions which would normally be done by Natives, paying them above Native but only a fraction of normal European wages (with the manager commenting in 1938 that they were costing more than Natives but "could not stand comparison with full-value European workers")[45].

 

9. Politics and Indo-Europeans

Starting in the 1890s there were a succession of attempts to organise the Indo-Europeans politically. The first formal organisation was the Indischen Bond from 1898. Initially it had 4000 members but this gradually dropped, particularly as work-based unions, such as the Association for Rail and Tramway Personnel (VSTP), were started among the lower ranks of the public services where many of the Indo-Europeans were employed. From 1907 another association, Insulinde, was founded, initially for only 'Europeans' then in 1911 opened up to all residents in the Indies. There were elements within it wanting to join it to the Bond as the basis for organising a solidarity between the Indische-Nederlanders, the Indische-Chinese and the Natives in a combined nationalist emancipatory movement against the Dutch. This was not acceptable to the general membership and the radical elements left to found the Indische Partij in 1912. This, with its slogan of 'Indië voor de Indiërs' and E F E Douwes Dekker as the active and prominent main leader, attracted support, diminishing that for the prior two associations. Its propaganda was, however, considered too dangerous by the government and Douwes Dekker, with his colleagues Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo and R M Soewardi Soerianingrat, were first deported to separate outer islands and then allowed to leave the Indies for the Netherlands, being permitted to return again in 1918, 1914 and 1917 respectively. Many of the most radical Indo-Europeans probably moved into the new socialist group, the Indisch-Sociaal Democratische Vereeniging (ISDV)  initially organised mainly by totok Dutch socialists from 1914. Others moved back into Insulinde which joined with the ISDV (which renamed itself the Indonesian Communist Party in 1920) and moved towards a more revolutionary direction to become the Nationaal-Indische Partij or Sarekat Hindia. The Indische Bond finally disappeared in 1917. A new overtly moderate association to articulate, organise and work for the social, moral and economic uplifting of the Indo-Europeans was founded as the Indo-Europeesch Verbond[46] in 1919 with already 21 local divisions by its first public meeting in 1920.

 

The IEV was founded to improve the position and recognise the place of the Indo-European in society. The blijvers, the Dutch who chose to stay in the Indies, were also counted as potentially among the 'Indo-Europeans', if they had the same interests. This distinction between the blijvers (settlers) and trekkers (leavers) with its implied distinction in identifications, feelings, and interests was criticised by many but continued.

The IEV's fortnightly then weekly paper started with 2000 copies rising to 13,000 at the end of the 1920s, together with a daily paper and several other divisional organs. Self-celebratory speeches after ten years asserted Indos 'were not a class but in all classes, not in one or other office or activity but all are open to him'. Opening up an IEV teacher training school[47], the IEV agricultural colonisation scheme in south Sumatra[48], Indos working as leaders and assistants in the business world, were cited as evidence that "the Indo of the present was no more the Indo of twenty five years past", '"The time is past that the Indo-European above all seeks an existence in a government position ... He can  capture an independent existence in extensive areas as an industrialist, an agriculturalist, as a trader, as well as the European import, as well as the Chinese and as well as the Native. In his competition with the Native workman, who can work cheaper, he must be seen to excel by greater expertise and by better work achievements" (IEV 1929: 110). In contrast, a leading member of the government, could claim a few years later that, for the Indo-Europeans, the reduction in administrative personnel raised the repeatedly apparent need to seek a way out in the direction of agriculture and skilled trades. 'People stayed in their traditional callings. The Indo-European is not shaped by the Indies soil. Also he does not form an economically independent group like the Chinese, but forms only an appendix of the Western production- and administrative-apparatus' (Mansvelt 1932: 304). The conventional, longstanding accusation that Indo-Europeans tended to be too restricted in their expectations, these being focussed only on the kantoorkruk (office stool), continued, including in the IEV press.

The IEV was originally was not formally a 'political party' representing the Indo-Europeans but over its first decade its interests in the new advisory People's Council (Volksraad) were initially presented by, then through, then together with the PEB (which claimed to represent all population groups without excluding any by confessional or interest group as most other parties did), gradually expanding past and replacing it[49].

In the 1920s IEV spokesmen repeatedly asserted that it was a loyal association, concerned with the development of the Indies and not opposed to any other groupings. However, with the increasing political polarisation between the Indonesian nationalists and the 'Europeans' and the consequentially increasing tensions and bitterness between Indies- and Dutch-born 'Europeans' (embodied in the founding of the Vaderlandsche Club in 1929 to represent the latter), the IEV became more overtly a political party with its own Volksraad representatives, but still tending to support the government against opposition. It became the largest organised political grouping of 'Europeans' [50] (largely of the Indo-European majority of it, the Vaderlandsche Club being allegedly supported by the great majority of the minority totok, the overseas-born, Dutch, while the national socialist party, the fascist NSB, attracted only a shortlived adherence among Indo-Europeans in the mid-1930s). Although the IEV and VC mainly acted cooperatively for general 'European' interests the pressures of the Depression and government proposals to reduce these by continuing to both reduce staff and 'Indianise' the civil service, and by refusing to put temporary limits on the immigration of young Dutch people (who successfully competed for the decreasing employment opportunities with the lesser-qualified[51] Indies-born), as well as refusing to accept that Indo-Europeans were 'children of the land' and should be given the right to own land like Natives (while the Vaderlandsche Club called for exclusive new agricultural settlement areas for the Dutch-born) lead to more schizophrenic calls both for greater unity between Dutch and Indies-born Europeans and of attacks between them. Accusations of 'totok-hate' were being countered in IEV publications by the late 1930s[52].

 

According to the IEV the Indo-Europeans were losing their ground during the 1930s[53]. The vulnerability of the Indo-Europeans' position between the Dutch above and the Natives below was becoming increasingly obvious as the Indonesian nationalist movement widened and strengthened (albeit temporarily constrained by government force). The Indo-European's public representatives[54] railed against the government for allowing, aiding or causing this while other observers with different perspectives expressed cooler and more positive views of the same phenomenon[55].

 

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