Last modified: 2018-12-15 by rob raeside
Keywords: nhm | cultuurstelsel |
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image by Jaume Ollé, 15 Jan 2003
See also:However, after the VOC (United Eastindian Company) was dissolved in 1798, imports from the Dutch East Indies couldn't be guaranteed any more. The English took the East Indies over, and Mr. Raffles set up his own system, fighting monopoly and slavery. Although the East Indies were handed back to the Netherlands in 1815, it was only c. 1830 that formal control was established.
Around that time a new system was initialized in the Dutch East Indies:
the "Cultuurstelsel" (culture system). It's probably better translated
in "cultivation system". Native peasants were required to give 20 % of
the harvest to their sovereign. For convenience's sake that was changed
to 20 % of the farmer's territory; that was to be cultivated with products
the NHM deemed useful. It became thus a progressively more brutal form
of forced labor. Petty residents required far more than 20%.
Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker) was one of those residents, and was
disgusted about that kind of exploitation. He wrote his impressive "Max
Havelaar", a major cause of the downfall of the "cultuurstelsel". In 1865
the (meagre) cultivation of indigo, cochenille, tobacco and tea was stricken
from that system. Only in 1920 the last remnant (coffee) disappeared.
After the "cultuurstelsel" was finished the NHM became a banking
institution, with its own cultivation enterprises. In 1964 it merged with
the Twentsche Bank into the "Algemene Bank Nederland NV" (ABN), now ABN/AMRO.
Source: "Nijhoff's Geschiedenislexicon Nederland en België",
1981.
The flag was sent to the Vexillum-list on 15 Jan 2003 by Jaume Ollé,
after Steenbergen (c. 1860).
Jaume wrote: "49 Netherland, Comercial society (Handel Maatschappij,
perhaps translated as Canal lighters)".
It is red, in center connected "NHM", in canton "34", at fly and bottom
mysterious items, all white.
I have my doubts about this flag - but I think that it is important
to have a reminder of the Dutch not so glorious colonial past.
Jarig Bakker, 3 Jun 2006