History questions not worth their own thread III

[Tee Kay]

Why did anyone even want Sumatra in the first place.

Spices.

Aceh produced at one point something like a third of all the world's pepper IIRC.

Also, other then the U.S.A. did any American States consider overseas colonization?

Chile comes to mind.

 

[Masada]

Spices.

Pepper isn't spice! And it wasn't that significant at that stage. Give it a decade or two and it will be.

 

[Traitorfish]

Why did anyone even want Sumatra in the first place.

Miniature rhinos.

 

[GoodGame]

From Wikipedia, it sounds like oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies

 

[Dachs]

From Wikipedia, it sounds like oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies

Yes, I agree: the Dutch and British were making treaties over the place in 1824 so they could properly divide the available oil reserves.

You know, because they needed oil badly for their vast fleets of modern diesel-turbine-powered warships, airplanes, and motor vehicles.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Pepper isn't spice! And it wasn't that significant at that stage. Give it a decade or two and it will be.

I thought by the time the Dutch finished getting Sumatra, spices weren't exactly valuable.

 

[Masada]

That's quite right spice wasn't important, besides which the 1824 Treaty effectively ended the Dutch monopoly on spice anyway, but pepper isn't spice and was of growing importance in the 1820s. However in 1824 the Dutch didn't have a major handle on Sumatra let alone on the massive trade in pepper. The most important consideration thus wasn't defending something they didn't have but to gain a free-hand in more pressing matters like crushing Palembang and the finishing up the Padri War (1821-38). In any case, all this talk of Sumatra is misleading in large part because Aceh was placed in the British sphere.

But what really needs to be stressed is that what followed the 1824 treaty wasn't a triumphal march of Dutch conquest but a retrenchment as the Dutch were forced to fight and finance the aforementioned Padri War and the Java War (1825-30) both of which made for hard expensive slogging. As a result the Dutch wouldn't fight a major war or make big territorial gains again until the late-1850s and even territorial gains from those tended to be more by accident than design. This was particularly pronounced in Sumatra where the Dutch position was so weak that what passed for Dutch power tended to take the form of a drive-by shooting, where Dutch forces would come into a region, punish a sultan and leave before the locals could mobilise and resist them. (This is what happened multiple times in Palembang and also in Bali as well). When the Dutch did stay around like in the Padri War the results were less than stellar: long slow grinding and ruinously expensive fighting.

Thus in essence the Dutch 'position' in Sumatra insofar as they had one could have been undone by the British with relative ease. It was undone on a few occasions notably when the British response to a proposed Dutch invasion of Aceh in the 1860s came back less than enthusiastic, so much so that the British in effect stated quite unequivocally that they wouldn't condone such an action because it would have proved detrimental to British interests. This placed the Dutch in a position where they couldn't react to Acehnese provocations, without fear of pissing the British off. The net result of which was that the Acehnese bought themselves twenty more years, and the Dutch were forced to abandon a substantial number of clients to placate British interests. The 1824 Treaty such as it was wasn't worth the paper it was written on while the pepper trade was important to British merchantile interests.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Well yeah, but I mean, when they finally got around to it, in the Aceh war, what were they exactly after?

 

[Masada]

There's two possible answers to that question: (1) the Dutch were worried about American/British/French interference in 'their' Sumatra (a fear which the Acehnese exploited routinely) or (2) the Dutch executed the conquest as an end in itself. The difference between (1) & (2) hinges on how realistic were the Dutch fears of outside interference.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Wouldn't it hinge on how serious the Dutch perception was?

 

[Masada]

Of a sort, but I'm not even sure that the Dutch decision makers on the whole were sincere in their 'fears'.

 

[ParkCungHee]

So basically "It was the 19th Century, and you can't not-invade a non-western nation"?

 

[GoodGame]

Yes, I agree: the Dutch and British were making treaties over the place in 1824 so they could properly divide the available oil reserves.

You know, because they needed oil badly for their vast fleets of modern diesel-turbine-powered warships, airplanes, and motor vehicles.

Actually, I wasn't suggesting back that far in time, so no need for veiled snarkiness.

More like about 1871 when Sumatra was more than barely colonized.

If you know better than Wikipedia, then please do correct it.


And the demand for petroleum products actually predates internal combustion engines:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#History

 

[Quackers]

Does anybody know a good book on the English civil war?
I don't want to be bogged down in tiny details but I don't want things just glossed over..?

 

[Dachs]

Actually, I wasn't suggesting back that far in time, so no need for veiled snarkiness.

More like about 1871 when Sumatra was more than barely colonized.

So, you answered a question about why the Dutch would give a rat's ass about Sumatra in 1824 with an answer that had nothing to do with 1824.

Also, there's absolutely nothing veiled about this snarkiness.

And the demand for petroleum products actually predates internal combustion engines:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum#History

Not to the extent that countries were invading other countries to get it. In 1824, if you were going after oil, you were going after whale oil, in which case you bought it from the Americans, Japanese, or Norwegians. You wouldn't invade Sumatra to acquire oil that nobody could actually get out of the ground anyway.

 

[Masada]

Yeah, oil had nothing to do with anything.

So basically "It was the 19th Century, and you can't not-invade a non-western nation"?

It wasn't economically rational, nor for that matter was just about any Dutch conquest after the 1820s. Most were a net drain on Dutch finances, the losses for which were papered over with Javanese dollars.

 

[sydhe]

Miniature rhinos.

And orangutans. An army of orangutans on rhinoback would be formidable indeed.

And pepper (black, white or green) is too a spice, as well as a condiment. We just don't think of spices as being common. Since it came from India, you don't need to go to Indonesia for it. (Wikipedia says most black pepper comes from Vietnam these days. I didn't know that.)

"Green Pepper" here is a seasoning, not to be confused with the vegetable, which came from South America.

 

[Yui108]

Yeah, how is pepper not a spice?

 

[Hornblower]

Yes we need to remember that the concept of spices in 1824 is not the same as how we perceive spices today. I'd most certainly classify pepper as an important spice for trade back then. Whether it was important enough to grab Sumatra is arguable as it has already quite rightly been pointed out... it could be sourced elsewhere much cheaper. Perhaps the rampant colonialism was just that... opportunism.

 

[aronnax]

Thus in essence the Dutch 'position' in Sumatra insofar as they had one could have been undone by the British with relative ease. It was undone on a few occasions notably when the British response to a proposed Dutch invasion of Aceh in the 1860s came back less than enthusiastic, so much so that the British in effect stated quite unequivocally that they wouldn't condone such an action because it would have proved detrimental to British interests. This placed the Dutch in a position where they couldn't react to Acehnese provocations, without fear of pissing the British off. The net result of which was that the Acehnese bought themselves twenty more years, and the Dutch were forced to abandon a substantial number of clients to placate British interests. The 1824 Treaty such as it was wasn't worth the paper it was written on while the pepper trade was important to British merchantile interests

Thanks Masada! You sorta answered my question. I blame myself for bad wording but I was wondering what was the possibility for Sumatra to fall into a British sphere of influence so that in a progressive timeline, the Dutch East Indies never held Sumatra and Sumatra was another British colony in South East Asia.

I have another Question. Why was the Cape Colony never returned to the Netherlands?