Dutch East Indies

The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies, was a Dutch colony that became Indonesia in 1949. Based on the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, the Dutch have ceded the Dutch Malacca to Britain, which was before a governorate of the Dutch East Indies. This has consolidated modern-day rule to Malacca state of Malaysia. The Dutch East Indies was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Dutch government in 1800. During the 19th century, the Dutch fought many wars against indigenous rulers and peoples. At the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, the Dutch reign reached the greatest territorial extent in the early 20th century. The Dutch East Indies was one of the most exploited colonies under European rule. Using exploitative labour, the colony contributed to Dutch global prominence in spice and cash crop trade in the 19th century, and coal and oil exploration in the 20th century. The colonial social order was rigidly racial with the Dutch elite living separately from but linked to their native subjects. The term Indonesia was used for the geographical location after 1880. In the early 20th century, local intellectuals conceived Indonesia as a nation state, and set the stage for an independence movement. Japan's World War II occupation dismantled much of the Dutch colonial state and economy. Following the Japanese surrender on 15 August 1945, Indonesian nationalist leaders Sukarno and Hatta declared independence instigating the Indonesian National Revolution. The Dutch responded by building up of an army of nearly two hundred thousand troops which defeated the Indonesian nationalists by attrition warfare. Heavy pressure from the United States threatened to terminate the financial aid for the Netherlands and lead to the recognition of Indonesian sovereignty at the 1949 Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference. Indonesia became one of the leading nations of the independence movement after World War II. During the Indonesian Revolution and after Indonesian independence, almost all Dutch citizens repatriated to the Netherlands.