THE NETHERLANDS INDIES EMPIRE

Nineteenth-century Indonesia experienced not only the replacement of company rule by Dutch government rule but also the complete transformation of Java into a colonial society and the successful extension of colonial rule to Sumatra and the eastern archipelago. The modern state of Indonesia is in a real sense a nineteenth-century creation. It was during this century that most of its boundaries were defined and a process of generally exploitative political, military, and economic integration begun. Some analysts, such as Benedict R.O'G. Anderson, argue that the New Order state of Suharto is a direct descendant of the Dutch colonial state, with similar objectives as summarized in the Dutch phrase rust en orde (tranquillity and order). There was, at least, a natural historical continuity between the Dutch colonial and modern Indonesian state.