page_title: Dutch Empire
section_title: Indonesia
hierarchical_section_title: Dutch Empire / History / Decolonization (1942–1975) / Indonesia
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Repronegatief. Op 21 juni 1845 komt het eerste schip met Groningse boeren immigranten binnen in Suriname, de Susanna Maria.. Groep Nederlandse kolonisten op de boerderij van de heer van Brussel ter gelegenheid van het herdenkingsfeest op 21 juni 1920
context_page_description: The Dutch colonial empire comprised the overseas territories and trading posts controlled and administered by Dutch chartered companies—mainly the Dutch West India Company and the Dutch East India Company—and subsequently by the Dutch Republic, and by the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands after 1815.
  It was initially a trade-based system which derived most of its influence from merchant enterprise and from Dutch control of international maritime shipping routes through strategically placed outposts, rather than from expansive territorial ventures.
  With a few notable exceptions, the majority of the Dutch colonial empire's overseas holdings consisted of coastal forts, factories, and port settlements with varying degrees of incorporation of their hinterlands and surrounding regions. Dutch chartered companies often dictated that their possessions be kept as confined as possible in order to avoid unnecessary expense, and while some such as the Dutch Cape Colony and Dutch East Indies expanded anyway, others remained undeveloped, isolated trading centres dependent on an indigenous host-nation.
context_section_description: In January 1942, Japan invaded the Netherlands East Indies. The Dutch surrendered two months later in Java, with Indonesians initially welcoming the Japanese as liberators. The subsequent Japanese occupation of Indonesia during the remainder of World War II saw the fundamental dismantling of the Dutch colonial state's economic, political and social structures, replacing it with a Japanese regime. In the decades before the war, the Dutch had been overwhelmingly successful in suppressing the small nationalist movement in Indonesia such that the Japanese occupation proved fundamental for Indonesian independence. However, the Indonesian Communist Party founded by Dutch socialist Henk Sneevliet in 1914, popular also with Dutch workers and sailors at the time, was in strategic alliance with Sarekat Islam (q.v.) as early as 1917 until the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence and was particularly important in the fight against Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies in the Second World War. The Japanese encouraged and backed Indonesian nationalism in which new indigenous institutions were created and nationalist leaders such as Sukarno were promoted. The internment of all Dutch citizens meant that Indonesians filled many leadership and administrative positions, although the top positions were still held by the Japanese.
  Two days after the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Sukarno and fellow nationalist leader Hatta unilaterally declared Indonesian independence. A four and a half-year struggle followed as the Dutch tried to re-establish their colony. Dutch forces eventually re-occupied most of the colonial territory and a guerrilla struggle ensued. The majority of Indonesians, and – ultimately – international opinion, favored independence, and in December 1949, the Netherlands formally recognized Indonesian sovereignty. Under the terms of the 1949 agreement, Western New Guinea remained under the auspices of Netherlands New Guinea. The new Indonesian government under President Sukarno pressured for the territory to come under Indonesian control as Indonesian nationalists initially intended. Following United States pressure, the Netherlands transferred it to Indonesia under the 1962 New York Agreement.
caption: Dutch colonists in Suriname, 1920. Most Europeans left after independence in 1975.
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