An outline, era by era

Southeast Asia

European trading posts and colonies (Dutch East Indies, Spanish Philippines)

Early Modern Era · ~1500 – ~1800

Southeast Asia is the region of mainland and island Asia between India and China, including present-day Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and the countries of the mainland. In the early modern era, from about 1500 to 1800, it lay on the sea routes that carried spices, pepper, textiles and silver between Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Europeans arrived in search of this trade, and they set up fortified trading posts and, in places, colonies.

The Portuguese took Melaka in 1511. Spain founded a colony in the Philippines from 1565, with Manila as its capital. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) built its base at Batavia in 1619, and over time its trading posts grew into the Dutch East Indies. Elsewhere, such as in Siam, Vietnam and Burma, local kingdoms stayed independent and traded with Europeans on their own terms. Even in the archipelago, European control was often limited to ports and coasts until the nineteenth century.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Portuguese capture Melaka

    Event

    What happened

    In 1511 a Portuguese fleet under Afonso de Albuquerque attacks and takes Melaka, the main trading port of the Malay world on the strait of the same name. Sultan Mahmud Shah withdraws and the Portuguese build a fortress there, called A Famosa. Melaka had been a meeting place for merchants from India, China, Arabia and the archipelago.

    The rest is history

    The Portuguese held Melaka for 130 years, but they could not control all the trade that had passed through it. Many Asian merchants moved to other ports such as Aceh, Johor and Banten. In 1641 the Dutch East India Company, with its Johor allies, captured Melaka after a siege. The Portuguese conquest began the pattern of European forts guarding Asian trade routes.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryPires, Tomé. Suma Oriental. Portuguese account of the East, written c. 1512-1515. Translated by Armando Cortesão, 2 vols. London: Hakluyt Society, 1944.
    2. BookAndaya, Barbara Watson, and Leonard Y. Andaya. A History of Malaysia. 3rd ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

  2. Magellan's voyage reaches the Philippines

    Event

    What happened

    In March 1521 Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for Spain, reaches the central Philippines. He allies with the ruler of Cebu and is killed in battle on Mactan island on 27 April 1521 by forces of Lapulapu. One ship of the expedition, the Victoria under Juan Sebastián Elcano, completes the voyage round the world in 1522. Antonio Pigafetta, a member of the crew, writes an account.

    The rest is history

    The voyage showed Spain that the Spice Islands could be reached by sailing west. Later expeditions followed, and Spain claimed the islands, which were named for King Philip II. Miguel López de Legazpi arrived from Mexico in 1565 and founded the first Spanish settlement, at Cebu. The Spanish crown ruled the islands from Mexico for most of the next 250 years.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryPigafetta, Antonio. Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo. Italian account of Magellan's voyage, written c. 1522-1525.
    2. BookScott, William Henry. Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994.

  3. Manila founded and the galleon trade

    Event

    What happened

    In 1571 Miguel López de Legazpi takes the settlement of Manila from its local rulers and makes it the Spanish capital of the islands. From 1565 Spanish ships cross the Pacific between Manila and Acapulco in Mexico. Chinese merchants bring silk and porcelain to Manila and are paid largely in silver from American mines.

    The rest is history

    The Manila galleons linked Asia and the Americas by regular trade until 1815. Silver flowed to China through Manila, and American crops and goods reached Asia. Spain also brought Catholic missions and a colonial system, and the Chinese community in Manila grew large and was at times the target of violence, as in the massacre of 1603. The colony was funded largely by this trade rather than by exports from the islands themselves.

    Sources

    1. BookSchurz, William Lytle. The Manila Galleon. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1939.
    2. ArticleFlynn, Dennis O., and Arturo Giráldez. "Born with a 'Silver Spoon': The Origin of World Trade in 1571." Journal of World History 6, no. 2 (1995): 201-221.

  4. The Dutch East India Company is founded

    Event

    What happened

    In 1602 the States General of the Dutch Republic grants a charter to the United East India Company, known as the VOC, giving it a monopoly on Dutch trade east of the Cape of Good Hope. It may make treaties, wage war and build forts. Dutch ships had first reached Banten in Java in 1596 under Cornelis de Houtman.

    The rest is history

    The VOC was one of the first large joint-stock companies, with shares that could be traded. It took forts from the Portuguese and made contracts with local rulers for spices such as cloves, nutmeg and pepper. It became the dominant European power in the archipelago. The company was dissolved at the end of 1799, and its possessions passed to the Dutch state.

    Sources

    1. BookGaastra, Femme S. The Dutch East India Company: Expansion and Decline. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2003.
    2. BookRicklefs, M. C. A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1200. 4th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

  5. Batavia and the Banda Islands

    Event

    What happened

    In 1619 Jan Pieterszoon Coen captures the port of Jayakarta on Java and builds the VOC headquarters there, named Batavia. In 1621 Dutch forces conquer the Banda Islands, the only source of nutmeg and mace in the world at that time. Most of the Bandanese population is killed, enslaved or driven out.

    The rest is history

    The conquest of Banda gave the VOC control of the nutmeg trade, and the islands were repopulated with enslaved labour on plantations. Batavia became the centre of Dutch Asian trade, and it is now Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. The Dutch pattern of seizing the production of a single valuable crop was repeated with cloves in Ambon. The company's methods were violent, and historians still discuss them.

    Sources

    1. BookHanna, Willard A. Indonesian Banda: Colonialism and Its Aftermath in the Nutmeg Islands. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978.
    2. BookTaylor, Jean Gelman. The Social World of Batavia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.

  6. The Dutch take Mataram's coast and Makassar

    Event

    What happened

    In 1667 the VOC, with allies, defeats the sultanate of Gowa at Makassar in Sulawesi and forces it to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which gives the company trade control. In 1677 and 1678 Dutch forces help Amangkurat II of Mataram put down the Trunajaya revolt. In return he grants the VOC lands and trading rights on Java.

    The rest is history

    Makassar had been a free port that traded with English, Portuguese and Asian merchants and so escaped the Dutch monopoly. Its fall helped the VOC close off the spice trade. The Mataram agreements drew the company into the politics of Java, and it gradually became a ruler of the island's courts. In 1755 the Treaty of Giyanti divided Mataram into two courts.

    Sources

    1. BookRicklefs, M. C. A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1200. 4th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
    2. BookReid, Anthony. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988-1993.

  7. The Batavia massacre of 1740

    Event

    What happened

    In October 1740 tension rises in Batavia over the Chinese population, which the Dutch authorities fear is plotting rebellion. Dutch soldiers and others kill many of the Chinese residents inside the city over several days. Survivors flee, and some join a Chinese rising that spreads across Java.

    The rest is history

    Estimates of the dead run to thousands, and the figure is debated. The violence led to a war in Java in which Chinese and Javanese fighters opposed the VOC, until about 1743. The VOC kept its hold on Batavia but the war was costly. The massacre is one of the best-known episodes of colonial violence in the region.

    Sources

    1. BookBlussé, Leonard. Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia. Dordrecht: Foris, 1986.
    2. BookRicklefs, M. C. A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1200. 4th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

  8. Siam expels the French and keeps its independence

    Event

    What happened

    In the 1680s King Narai of Ayutthaya in Siam receives French envoys and Jesuits, and French troops garrison Bangkok and Mergui. After Narai falls ill in 1688, the official Phetracha seizes power in a palace revolution. The French garrison at Bangkok is forced to leave.

    The rest is history

    Siam then limited its dealings with Europeans, though it kept trading with the Dutch and with Asian partners. It remained one of the few Southeast Asian states never colonised by a European power. Ayutthaya was destroyed by Burmese armies in 1767, and Siam was rebuilt under a new dynasty at Bangkok in 1782.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryLa Loubère, Simon de. Du royaume de Siam. French account of Siam, Paris, 1691.
    2. BookWyatt, David K. Thailand: A Short History. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

  9. The Spice Islands cloves smuggled out

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that the Dutch guarded their monopoly so fiercely that they burned spice trees and tried to keep clove and nutmeg plants from leaving the Moluccas, until a Frenchman smuggled seedlings out.

    The rest is history

    This is partly true. The VOC did limit growing to certain islands and had trees cut down elsewhere in what were called extirpation expeditions, to keep prices high. In 1770 Pierre Poivre, a French administrator, succeeded in taking clove and nutmeg seedlings to Mauritius, and they later spread to other tropical colonies. The monopoly was thus broken by the end of the eighteenth century, though its decline had other causes too.

    Sources

    1. BookMilton, Giles. Nathaniel's Nutmeg. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1999.
    2. BookGaastra, Femme S. The Dutch East India Company: Expansion and Decline. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2003.

  10. Three hundred years in a convent

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Filipinos are often told that the Philippines were ruled for 300 years in a convent and 50 years in Hollywood, a saying that suggests friars governed daily life for the whole Spanish period.

    The rest is history

    The phrase is a modern slogan, not a historical record. Spanish rule did last from 1565 to 1898, about three centuries, and friars of the Augustinian, Franciscan, Jesuit and Dominican orders held great influence in the countryside. But Spanish control was uneven, and in many regions it was thin for long periods, with the Muslim sultanates of the south never conquered. The colonial government also rested on local leaders and on trade with China.

    Sources

    1. BookPhelan, John Leddy. The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses, 1565-1700. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1959.
    2. BookConstantino, Renato. The Philippines: A Past Revisited. Quezon City: Tala Publishing, 1975.

  11. Lapulapu as the man who killed Magellan

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    Lapulapu, chief of Mactan, is told of as the hero who stood against the Spanish and killed Magellan with his own hands in a single battle in 1521, becoming the first Filipino to resist foreign rule.

    The rest is history

    Pigafetta's account does record that Magellan died in the fighting at Mactan, and it names Lapulapu (Cilapulapu) as a chief who refused to submit. Who struck the fatal blow is not stated in the sources. The image of Lapulapu as a national hero is largely a modern development, and a 'Filipino nation' did not exist in 1521. Today a statue marks the site on Mactan.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryPigafetta, Antonio. Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo. Italian account of Magellan's voyage, written c. 1522-1525.
    2. BookScott, William Henry. Barangay: Sixteenth-Century Philippine Culture and Society. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994.

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