Cultivation System
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The Cultivation System (Dutch: cultuurstelsel), or less accurately the Culture System, was a Dutch government policy in the mid-nineteenth century for its Dutch East Indies colony (now Indonesia). Requiring a portion of agricultural production to be devoted to export crops, Indonesian historians refer to it as Tanam Paksa ("Compulsory Planting").
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[edit] Background
Despite increasing returns from the Dutch system of land tax, Dutch finances had been severely affected by the cost of the Java and Padri Wars. The Dutch loss of Belgium in 1830 brought the Netherlands to the brink of bankruptcy, and a concerted Dutch exploitation of Indonesian resources commenced to make quick returns. In 1830, a new governor general, Johannes van den Bosch, was appointed to make the Dutch East Indies pay their way.
[edit] Implementation and effects
It was primarily implemented in Java, the center of the colonial state. Instead of land taxes, 20% of village land had to be devoted to government crops for export, or alternatively, peasants had to work in government-owned plantations for 60 days of the year. In order to allow the enforcement of these policies, Javanese villagers were more formally linked to their villages, and were sometimes prevented from travelling freely around the island without permission. As a result of this policy, much of Java became a Dutch plantation.
The policy brought the Dutch and their Indonesian allies enormous wealth through export growth, averaging around fourteen percent. It brought the Netherlands back from the brink of bankruptcy and made the Dutch East Indies self-sufficient and profitable. The Cultivation system is widely linked, however, to greatly increased hunger and poverty on Java in the late nineteenth century. Cash crops such as indigo and sugar, had to be grown instead of rice, and Java suffered famines and epidemics in the 1840s, firstly in Cirebon and then Central Java. Political pressures in the Netherlands resulting from these problems eventually led to its abolition (circa 1870) and replacement by the so-called "Liberal Policy".
The impact of the cultivation system on the standard of living of indigenous Javanese has in recent years been disputed. R.E. Elson, among others, has argued that the cultivation system directly contributed to the impoverishment of Javanese peasants, but indirectly improved their standard of living.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Witton, Patrick (2003). Indonesia. Melbourne: Lonely Planet, pages 23-24. ISBN 1-74059-154-2.
[edit] Further reading
- Ricklefs, M.C. (1991). A Modern History of Indonesia, 2nd edition. MacMillan, pages 119-24, 126, 128. ISBN 0-333-57690-X. id:Tanam paksa
nl:Cultuurstelsel
