Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/597

 JAVA 577 ruled the island, one in Java and the other in Sunda. When the Netherlands government acquired the Dutch East India company's title to its possessions in the East, it appropriated to the crown all unoccupied lands, and secured to the descendants of the native sovereigns and their vassal rulers their titular rank and the rights of regents; hut placed with each a Dutch resident, whose " recommendations " have always been obeyed as orders. The gov- ernor general acts as viceroy, receiving his directions from the Hague, and is assisted by a vice president and a council of four appointed by the king of Holland. The governors of Amboyna, Borneo, Celebes, and Sumatra, and the army and navy in the Dutch possessions in the archipelago, are under his orders. In Batavia there is a high court of appeal for criminal and civil cases among the Europeans, and the Javanese have native courts, presided over in some instances by Europeans. There are government primary schools in all the large towns, and in each residency there are salaried vaccinators and physicians. While the native rulers, who receive large annuities from the government, have the name of regents, the residents or assistant residents, with a controller, all of whom must be natives of the Netherlands, superintend the govern- ment plantations, directing what seed shall be sown, the wages to be paid, when the harvest shall be gathered, and the prices of products. This culture system, introduced in 1832, satisfies and employs the natives, defrays the entire expense of the local administration, and returns an annual revenue of $5,000,000 to the treasury at the Hague. In 1872 the total revenue of the colony was 121,258,300 guilders, and the total expenditure 108,164,690 guilders, leaving a surplus in guilders of 13,093,- 610 for that year. The culture system involves the forced labor of the natives in the cultiva- tion of coffee and sugar, but the legislature of Holland has enacted a law by virtue of which the forced cultivation of the sugar cane will cease in the year 1890. The title to the greater part of the land in the country is in the gov- ernment. The history of Java previous to the llth century of our era is involved in fable and obscurity. It is only certain that long be- fore that period the Javanese had acquired a considerable degree of civilization. About the llth century, or, according to some conjec- tures, seteral centuries earlier, Java was visited by the Hindoos, either as emigrants or conquer- ors, who founded kingdoms and converted the natives to Brahmanism. Java was first made known to the western world in the latter part of the 13th century by Marco Polo, who, however, did not visit the island. Luigi Barthema (Var- tomanus) was the first European who landed at Java. He passed 14 days there in 1506 ; and he represents the natives as cannibals who even sold their children to be eaten by the buyers. The Hindoos and their religion remained dom- inant in the island from the end of the 13th to that of the 15th century, when Mohammedan- ism, which had for a century or two been zealously propagated by Arabs, Persians, Ma- lays, and Hindoo Mohammedans, who came as merchants or settlers, gained a complete as- cendancy over Brahmanism. In 1475 a Mo- hammedan prince raised himself to supreme power over nearly the whole island, and found- ed a dynasty which still exists in the small kingdoms which are permitted by the Dutch to remain in nominal independence. Bantam, the last of the Hindoo states, was conquered in 1480. The Portuguese visited Java in the 16th century, and entered into commercial negotia- tions with the natives. The Dutch first came to Java about 1595 as traders. In 1610 they obtained permission to build a fort at the na- tive village of Jacatra, near the site of the pres- ent city of Batavia. Both the Portuguese and the English, who had established a factory at Bantam, yielded to their supremacy. They soon became involved in war with the native rulers, and in 1677 obtained a considerable ter- ritory. From that period to 1830 they carried on four great wars with the natives, the first of which, begun in 1674, lasted for 34 years; the second, which began in 1718, for 5 years ; the third, which began in 1740, for 15 years ; and the fourth, which began in 1825, for 5 years. The third was begun Sept. 26, 1740, by a dreadful massacre of the Chinese settlers at Batavia, of whom 10,000 were killed in two days. In 1749 the principal Javan monarch conferred the sovereignty of the island upon the Dutch, by an official deed to the Dutch East India company. In 1811 the British, being at war with Holland, then a portion of the French empire, sent a fleet and army against Java, which was conquered without much opposition and held till 1816, when it was restored to Holland. By a decree of the Dutch government, slavery was totally abolish- ed on Sept. 20, 1859, in all their colonies in India. It had never prevailed among the native Javanese, and the number of slaves in the island amounted only to a few thousands, mostly natives of other islands of the archipel- ago and of Africa, and held by European mas- ters. In 1860 the Swiss auxiliary -soldiers, aided by natives, mutinied ; they were soon re- duced to submission, and many were executed. Sir T. Stamford Kaffles's " History of Java " (2 vols. 4to, London, 1817) is a standard work. The natural history of Java has been treated by Blume, Flora Java neenon Insularum Ad- jacentium (3 vols. fol., Brussels, 1826-'86), and by Dr. T. Horsfield in his " Zoological Re- searches in Java and the Neighboring Islands " (London, 1824). Junghuhn is the author of several works on the natural history and geog- raphy of Java, the most important of which was published in Amsterdam in 1850 (3d' Ger. ed., Leipsic, 1852). Interesting recent de- scriptions of Java are given by Albert S. Bick- more, in "Travels in the East Indian Archi- pelago " (New York, 1869) ; by A. R. Wallace,