History of Indonesia :: essays research papers

Early empiresBy the time of the European Renaissance, the islands of burnt umber and Sumatra had already enjoyed a thousand-year heritage of civilization spanning two major empires. During the 7th to fourteenth centuries, the Buddhist kingdom of Srivijaya flourished on Sumatra. Chinese traveller I Ching visited its capital, Palembang, close to 670. At its peak, the Srivijaya Empire reached as far as West coffee tree and the Malay Peninsula. Also by the 14th century, the Hindu Kingdom of Majapahit had arise in east Java. Gajah Mada, the empires chief minister from 1331 to 1364, succeeded in gaining allegiance from near of what is today modern Indonesia and much of the Malay archipelago as well. Legacies from Gajah Madas time entangle a codification of law and an epic poem. Reasons for the fall of these empires remain obscure. Islam arrived in Indonesia sometime during the 12th century and, through assimilation, supplanted Hinduism by the end of the sixteenth century in Java a nd Sumatra. Bali, however, remains overwhelmingly Hindu. In the eastern archipelago, both Christian and Islamic missionaries were active in the 16th and seventeenth centuries, and, currently, there are large communities of both religions on these islands. Colonial eraBeginning in 1602 the Dutch gradually established themselves as rulers of what is now Indonesia, exploiting the fractionalization of the small kingdoms that had replaced Majapahit. The most notable exception was Portuguese Timor, which remained under Portuguese rule until 1975 when it was invaded and occupied, becoming the Indonesia province of East Timor. The Netherlands controlled Indonesia for almost 350 years, excluding a shortsighted period of British rule in part of the islands after Anglo-Dutch Java fight and the Japanese occupation during World War II. During their rule the Dutch developed the Dutch East Indies into one of the worlds richest colonial possessions. During the first tenner of the 20th century a n Indonesian independence movement began, and it expanded rapidly between the two World Wars. Its leaders came from a small sort of young professionals and students, some of whom had been educated in the Netherlands. Many, including Indonesias first president, Sukarno (1945-67), were imprisoned for governmental activities. World War IIIn May 1940 the Netherlands surrendered to Germany (see World War II). The Dutch East Indies declared a state of siege and in July re-directed exports for Japan to the US and Britain. Negotiations with the Japanese aimed at securing supplies of aviation fuel collapsed in June 1941, and the Japanese started their conquest of Southeast Asia in December of that year.