Rescued from the myths of time: toward a reappraisal of European mercantile houses in mid-Nineteenth Century Java, c. 1830-1870

Abstract

According to a still-lingering scenario, it was not until late in the nineteenth century that ‘private’ European commercial (and plantation) enterprise gained any real traction in the Netherlands Indies. As a number of scholars have noted over the last few decades, this needs to be heavily revised on several major counts. Nonetheless, the implications of such revision for an understanding of European mercantile activity in mid-nineteenth century Java have been slow to seep through. Building on the work of other scholars and exploiting a variety of original sources, in a preliminary fashion this paper sets out to repair this deficiency.