British Indonesia

Faeelin

Banned
In their habit of snapping up everything surrounded by water, during the Napoleonic Wars the Brits took Jakarta, and for a while considered annexing Indonesia outright.

They didn't OTL, of course, and instead Raffles went on to found Singapore. But suppose the Brits had?

More coffee drinking among the British?
 

BlackMage

Well, Indonesian indentured labour could be used in Australia, since there's that huge pool of untapped labour just a few hundred kilometres off the coast. Maybe some of the wilder schemes for colonies in Northern Australia, to take advantage of the trepang trade, could get approved.

So we get a large under-class of Indonesian labourers in Australia, in a sort of apartheid system. By the time of Federation, we could see a butterflying away of White Australia. Of course, there's likely to be continued racism and inequality.
 

pa_dutch

Maybe once independence comes around, there would be a united Indonesia and Malaysia, and a united New Guinea. Perhaps Indonesia would be more stable, and from there it could become a superpower.
 

MarkA

BlackMage said:
Well, Indonesian indentured labour could be used in Australia, since there's that huge pool of untapped labour just a few hundred kilometres off the coast. Maybe some of the wilder schemes for colonies in Northern Australia, to take advantage of the trepang trade, could get approved.

So we get a large under-class of Indonesian labourers in Australia, in a sort of apartheid system. By the time of Federation, we could see a butterflying away of White Australia. Of course, there's likely to be continued racism and inequality.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Would Australia develop more along apartheid lines like South Africa? Would we have an American-like segregation? More than in OTL. No kanakas

WWII would be interesting if we got all nervous about the north full of potential Japanese sympathiers.
 

Flocculencio

Donor
Well you'd have a united and much more stable Malay cultural sphere for one thing. This political unit would have the potential to carry quite a lot of weight internationally- at least as much potential as Brazil, I'd think
 

Wendell

MarkA said:
Interesting. Would Australia develop more along apartheid lines like South Africa? Would we have an American-like segregation? More than in OTL. No kanakas

WWII would be interesting if we got all nervous about the north full of potential Japanese sympathiers.
Click to expand...

Might these suspected Japanese sympathizers be sent to relocation centers during the war? The Americans did it with much of their Japanese after Pearl Harbor until about 1943.
 

Wendell

Flocculencio said:
Well you'd have a united and much more stable Malay cultural sphere for one thing. This political unit would have the potential to carry quite a lot of weight internationally- at least as much potential as Brazil, I'd think
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Might the British East Indies have functioned and been run similarly to India ITTL? Maybe, these areas will be affixed to British India ITTL...
 

Flocculencio

Donor
Wendell said:
Might the British East Indies have functioned and been run similarly to India ITTL? Maybe, these areas will be affixed to British India ITTL...
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Nah- no point administering them together with British India. It makes it too unwieldy (which is the reason why the Straits Settlements were peeled off from Indian sovreignty in the mid-19th C).

I'd say that the government would be modelled on that which the British used IOTL in Malaya. There were far fewer areas directly controlled by the British in Malaya than in India. IOTL Malaya was divided into the Federated Malay States (administered centrally by a Resident-General at Kuala Lumpur with a British Resident overseeing each state) and the Unfederated Malay States who each had seperate treaties with Britain and seperate British "advisors". The only directly governed areas of Malaya were the Straits Settlements (Penang, Malacca and Singapore).

I would suggest that British Indonesia would be run along the same lines. Possibly each of the major regions would have a Resident-General (as with Malaya) so you might have Residents-General of Peninsular Malaya, Sumatra, Java etc. Any areas that Britain chose to govern directly might well be incorporated into the government of the Straits Settlements. I would suggest that instead of the Straits Settlements the crown colony would be renamed the British East Indies.

Thus, you'd have a Governor-General of the British East Indies governing the directly-ruled territories from Singapore. Under him would be the Residents-General of each region who would have responsibility for the indirectly-governed states.
 

Wendell

Flocculencio said:
Nah- no point administering them together with British India. It makes it too unwieldy (which is the reason why the Straits Settlements were peeled off from Indian sovreignty in the mid-19th C).

I'd say that the government would be modelled on that which the British used IOTL in Malaya. There were far fewer areas directly controlled by the British in Malaya than in India. IOTL Malaya was divided into the Federated Malay States (administered centrally by a Resident-General at Kuala Lumpur with a British Resident overseeing each state) and the Unfederated Malay States who each had seperate treaties with Britain and seperate British "advisors". The only directly governed areas of Malaya were the Straits Settlements (Penang, Malacca and Singapore).

I would suggest that British Indonesia would be run along the same lines. Possibly each of the major regions would have a Resident-General (as with Malaya) so you might have Residents-General of Peninsular Malaya, Sumatra, Java etc. Any areas that Britain chose to govern directly might well be incorporated into the government of the Straits Settlements. I would suggest that instead of the Straits Settlements the crown colony would be renamed the British East Indies.

Thus, you'd have a Governor-General of the British East Indies governing the directly-ruled territories from Singapore. Under him would be the Residents-General of each region who would have responsibility for the indirectly-governed states.
Click to expand...

I mentioned the Indian model because of the extent of Dutch control by 1812 of our timeline. Yes, I think that, to some degree, the Malay administrative model would work, but such (when applied to Indonesia) would involve a few more areas governed like the Straits Settlements, as you suggest above. Further, I like your proposed nomenclature for these additional settlements.
 

Flocculencio

Donor
Wendell said:
I mentioned the Indian model because of the extent of Dutch control by 1812 of our timeline. Yes, I think that, to some degree, the Malay administrative model would work, but such (when applied to Indonesia) would involve a few more areas governed like the Straits Settlements, as you suggest above. Further, I like your proposed nomenclature for these additional settlements.
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Thank you :D

Yes, I think that it would work out to be something about halfway between the OTL Indian and Malayan models of administration.
 

BlackMage

MarkA said:
Interesting. Would Australia develop more along apartheid lines like South Africa? Would we have an American-like segregation? More than in OTL. No kanakas

WWII would be interesting if we got all nervous about the north full of potential Japanese sympathiers.
Click to expand...

Well, I was thinking more along Fiji lines; a large foreign population brought in as manual labour, largely disenfranchised. With a huge pool of labour to tap, you could bring into motion those large-scale northern development programs that still get brought up occasionally-the Bradfield Scheme and its ideological spawn. It could make for interesting ramifications along the track; remember the first and second Fiji coups were because an Indian-dominated government was elected. With a large Indonesian population to the north, we could see politics developing along racial lines. Perhaps a white supremacist Labo(u)r Party, dedicated to 'keeping white jobs' and protecting 'white' workers?

Wendell said:
Might these suspected Japanese sympathizers be sent to relocation centers during the war? The Americans did it with much of their Japanese after Pearl Harbor until about 1943.
Click to expand...

Well, again, it depends on how many people come. If there's large-scale migration to the north, you could have tens of thousands of people to relocate, many of whom could be vital to the economy.
 

Flocculencio

Donor
BlackMage said:
With a large Indonesian population to the north, we could see politics developing along racial lines. Perhaps a white supremacist Labo(u)r Party, dedicated to 'keeping white jobs' and protecting 'white' workers?
Click to expand...

Well that could cause troubles after Independence (if Independence goes along roughly as per OTL). Now, let's assume this newly independent state decides not to join the Commonwealth as a Dominion. Lets call it the United States of the East Indies with, one assumes, a federal capital at Singapore. Now, the USEI has two important factors differentiating it from OTLs Malaysia and Indonesia respectively.

Firstly, by including the Indonesian Archipelago, you take away the relatively unified Malay culture that modern Malaysia has (as the Malays of the Archipelago are much more culturally diverse than those of the Peninsula). Secondly, you take away Java's dominance (as Java now has the Peninsula to balance it demographically).

This gives us a federal republic which, like India, probably has an Anglicised elite running the place. Thanks to the British, the vast Archipelago is probably somewhat more developed than the Dutch left it IOTL. This gives us a big, relatively stable, relatively prosperous nation in SE Asia. One which, incidentally, will probably be a very good ally for the US during the Cold War (assuming, of course, that that isn't butterflied away by British dominance over the East Indies during the 19th and 20th C). In any case, it gives Australia a quite well developed and much larger Northern neighbour. I don't know if an apartheid type policy would go down so well in those circumstances.
 

BlackMage

Flocculencio said:
Well that could cause troubles after Independence (if Independence goes along roughly as per OTL). Now, let's assume this newly independent state decides not to join the Commonwealth as a Dominion. Lets call it the United States of the East Indies with, one assumes, a federal capital at Singapore. Now, the USEI has two important factors differentiating it from OTLs Malaysia and Indonesia respectively.

Firstly, by including the Indonesian Archipelago, you take away the relatively unified Malay culture that modern Malaysia has (as the Malays of the Archipelago are much more culturally diverse than those of the Peninsula). Secondly, you take away Java's dominance (as Java now has the Peninsula to balance it demographically).

This gives us a federal republic which, like India, probably has an Anglicised elite running the place. Thanks to the British, the vast Archipelago is probably somewhat more developed than the Dutch left it IOTL. This gives us a big, relatively stable, relatively prosperous nation in SE Asia. One which, incidentally, will probably be a very good ally for the US during the Cold War (assuming, of course, that that isn't butterflied away by British dominance over the East Indies during the 19th and 20th C). In any case, it gives Australia a quite well developed and much larger Northern neighbour. I don't know if an apartheid type policy would go down so well in those circumstances.
Click to expand...

Well, circumstances could mean there's no Australia at all, at least not as we know it. In 1815, Australia was tiny, and just 27 years old. A large influx of Indonesian immigrants could lead to an Australia with an Indonesian majority, albeit with a significant white minority.

So, with a population base in the north (since that's where all its trade is based from and to), why shouldn't Australia join the USEI itself?
 

Flocculencio

Donor
BlackMage said:
Well, circumstances could mean there's no Australia at all, at least not as we know it. In 1815, Australia was tiny, and just 27 years old. A large influx of Indonesian immigrants could lead to an Australia with an Indonesian majority, albeit with a significant white minority.

So, with a population base in the north (since that's where all its trade is based from and to), why shouldn't Australia join the USEI itself?
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Hmm...I guess it depends on just how many white settlers end up in Australia and more importantly where they end up. I think the southern coastline wouldn't see quite as many Asian labourers since (AFAIK) temperate farming doesn't really lend itself to labour intensive plantation systems. I suppose you could see plantation systems being set up on the tropical Northern coast.

I could see the continent being divided- perhaps the Southern coastline (from Perth to Brisbane) forms the nucleus of a Commonwealth of Australia as in OTL while the Northern coastline is administered separately, first as part of the British East Indies (most likely directly governed from Singapore since there are no organised native polities to vassalise) and then as a state or states of USEI.

You might well see a high Indian population in Northern Australia- as in the Straits Settlements a lot of Indians would probably come in as manual labour, clerks, police officers and lower ranking bureaucrats as well as merchants. There'd probably also be a large Chinese mercantile and manual labourer population.

One imagines the boundary between Northern and Southern Australia would be an arbitrary line bisecting the continent.

USEI.PNG
 
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Wendell

Flocculencio said:
Well that could cause troubles after Independence (if Independence goes along roughly as per OTL). Now, let's assume this newly independent state decides not to join the Commonwealth as a Dominion. Lets call it the United States of the East Indies with, one assumes, a federal capital at Singapore. Now, the USEI has two important factors differentiating it from OTLs Malaysia and Indonesia respectively.

Firstly, by including the Indonesian Archipelago, you take away the relatively unified Malay culture that modern Malaysia has (as the Malays of the Archipelago are much more culturally diverse than those of the Peninsula). Secondly, you take away Java's dominance (as Java now has the Peninsula to balance it demographically).

This gives us a federal republic which, like India, probably has an Anglicised elite running the place. Thanks to the British, the vast Archipelago is probably somewhat more developed than the Dutch left it IOTL. This gives us a big, relatively stable, relatively prosperous nation in SE Asia. One which, incidentally, will probably be a very good ally for the US during the Cold War (assuming, of course, that that isn't butterflied away by British dominance over the East Indies during the 19th and 20th C). In any case, it gives Australia a quite well developed and much larger Northern neighbour. I don't know if an apartheid type policy would go down so well in those circumstances.
Click to expand...

I'd expect such a country to sooner be called the "United States of Indonesia" rather than the "United States of the East Indies"

Two quibbles with the map:

In this timeline, New Zealand may be part of the reduced Australia

Secondly, Mindanao, considering the POD of TLL, would likely be part of the British holdings as well, to later (perhaps) join the federation that you've created.
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Wendell said:
I'd expect such a country to sooner be called the "United States of Indonesia" rather than the "United States of the East Indies"
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I don't see why.

The name Indonesia was derived from Greek indus, meaning "India", and nesos, meaning "islands".[3] Dating back to the eighteenth century, the name far predates the formation of the Indonesian nation.[4] In 1850, an English ethnologist George Earl proposed to call the inhabitants of "Indian Archipelago or Malayan Archipelago" as either "Indunesians" or "Malayunesians"; preferring the latter term.[5] J.C. Logan, Earl's student, used "Indonesia" in the same publication as a synonym for "Indian Archipelago".[6] The Dutch academics who had an important position for the East Indies publications, however, were reluctant to use "Indonesia".[7] They used either the term of "Malay Archipelago" (Maleische Archipel), the "Netherlands East Indies" (Nederlandsch Oost Indïes), popularly Indïe, "the East" (de Oost) or even Insulinde, a term introduced in a novel by Max Havelaar in 1860. After 1900, the term Indonesia began to spread in academic circles outside the Netherlands, and Indonesian nationalist groups began to use the term for their political expression.[7] The first Indonesian scholar to use the name was Suwardi Suryaningrat (Ki Hajar Dewantara) when he established a press bureau with the name of Indonesisch Pers-bureau in the Netherlands in 1913.[4]
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So with such an early POD, why not use East Indies?
 
Thande

Thande

Donor
Wendell said:
Well, that actually makes some sense, actually. Your argument might have been better if you had used Masr and Egypt.
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That is also true.

An alternative name for Indonesia might be Insulindia, but nontheless, both of them are European (Greek) derived terms. As with India, the sheer number of local languages and names would rather preclude coming up with a satisfactory native name.

Although in the case of Indonesia, it's not so much there being many languages as the fact that there wasn't much conception of all those islands as being a single cultural unit before Europeans drew some lines in the sand (er...water). The same is true to a lesser extent of India.
 
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