European markets almost exclusively relied on Caribbean sugar produced by slave labor until abolitionist campaigns began around 1800. Thereafter, importing Asian sugar and transferring plantation production to Asia became a serious option for the Western world. In this book, Ulbe Bosma details how the British and Dutch introduced the sugar plantation model in Asia and refashioned it over time. Although initial attempts by British planters in India failed, the Dutch colonial administration was far more successful in Java, where it introduced in 1830 a system of forced cultivation that tied local peasant production to industrial manufacturing. A century later, India adopted the Java model in combination with farmers' cooperatives rather than employing coercive measures. Cooperatives did not prevent industrial sugar production from exploiting small farmers and cane cutters, however, and Bosma finds that much of modern sugar production in Asia resembles the abuses of labor by the old plantation systems of the Caribbean.

"Village Java Under the Cultivation System 1830-1870 is a pioneering attempt to understand and explain the transformations undergone by the peasants of Java under the system of forced crop cultivation imposed upon them by the Dutch colonial government. Based on extensive archival research in Indonesia and Holland, it paints a detailed portrait of Javanese village life in the early years of the nineteenth century and analyses the system of forced cultivations - from rapid expansion to stagnation and then decline. The last half of the book looks in detail at how peasant social and economic life in Java was affected by decades of forced labour. Village institutions, leadership and changing styles of land tenure, new social groups, changes in labour relations, domestic cropping and land use, the development of trade and industry, changes in living standards, population growth and mobility are all examined. In the course of his analysis, the author also comments upon the numerous controversies relating to peasant social change in Java in the recent past." "This book will be of value to all students of Indonesia's history, culture and development, as well as those interested in social and economic development in general. It provides a uniquely documented and expansive analysis of a crucial period of change in the history of modern Java."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The development of the Cultivation System from the years 1840 to 1860 is the focus of this work by the Dutch scholar Cornelis Fasseur. The author presents a general overview of Dutch po y and decision-making, and considers how these policies influenced the evolution of the Cultivation System and how the system itself altered Dutch views of governance in Java.

‘This book makes an important contribution to the history of household labour relations in two contrasting societies. It deserves a wide readership.’ —Anne Booth, SOAS University of London, UK ‘By exploring how colonialism affected women’s work in the Dutch Empire this carefully researched book urges us to rethink the momentous implications of colonial exploitation on gender roles both in periphery and metropolis.’ —Ulbe Bosma, the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands ‘In this exciting and original book, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk exposes how colonial connections helped determine the status and position of women in both the Netherlands and Java. The effects of these connections continue to shape women’s lives in both colony and metropole today.’ —Jane Humphries, University of Oxford, UK Recent postcolonial studies have stressed the importance of the mutual influences of colonialism on both colony and metropole. This book studies such colonial entanglements and their effects by focusing on developments in household labour in the Dutch Empire in the period 1830-1940. The changing role of households’, and particularly women’s, economic activities in the Netherlands and Java, one of the most important Dutch colonies, forms an excellent case study to help understand the connections and disparities between colony and metropole. The author contends that colonial entanglements certainly existed, and influenced developments in women’s economic role to an extent, both in Java and the Netherlands. However, during the nineteenth century, more and more distinctions in the visions and policies towards Dutch working class and Javanese peasant households emerged. Accordingly, a more sophisticated framework is needed to explain how and why such connections were – both intentionally and unintentionally – severed over time.

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