Macarthur, on his way to England for trial over the duel with Colonel Paterson, had seen his ship put in for repairs in Indonesia, where he meets and offers timely advice to the young and inexperienced British Resident at Amboyna, Sir Robert Farquhar, son of the Physician in Ordinary to the Prince of Wales, Sir Walter Farquhar.

Sir Walter becomes an important patron and friend to Macarthur.

For example, when William Davidson, later Macarthur's business partner in New South Wales, applies for land next to Macarthur's holdings at Parramatta, he will carry with him a letter of introduction announcing his Royal connections as nephew to Sir Walter Farquhar.

Bangka (or sometimes Banka), lying east of Sumatra, is the ninth largest island in Indonesia.

The Kota Kapur inscription, dated from 686 CE, will be found in Bangka in 1920, showing Srivijayan influence on the island around the seventh century.

The island was eventually conquered by an expedition from Majapahit, led by Gajah Mada, which appointed local rulers and established social structures.

As the empire declined, Bangka fell into neglect.

Bangka was recorded in the 1436 Xingcha Shenglan, compiled by the Chinese soldier Fei Xin during the treasure voyages of Admiral Zheng He.

Contemporary records show that the area—close to the busy Strait of Malacca and waters of the Musi River—had significant presence of Chinese traders.

Later on, the island was taken over by the Johor and Minangkabau Sultanates which introduced Islam to the island.

It continued to pass to the Banten Sultanate before it was then inherited by the nearby Palembang Sultanate sometime in the late seventeenth century.

Soon after, around 1710, tin was discovered on the island which attracted migrants from across the archipelago and beyond.[6] Descendants of the Chinese immigrants, mainly from Guangdong, still form a large portion of modern Bangka's inhabitants.

As tin mining developed further, the Palembang Sultanate sent for experts in Malay Peninsula and China.

The Dutch East India Company managed to secure a monopolistic tin purchase agreement in 1722, but hostilities began to develop between the Sultan and the Dutch.

During the British Invasion of Java in 1811, then-Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin, had attacked and massacred the staff of the Dutch post on the island.

He was later deposed and executed by the British.

His successor had ceded Bangka to Britain in 1812, but in 1814 Britain exchanges it with the Dutch for Cochin in India following the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814.

Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies blows its top explosively during an eruption, killing upwards of ninety-two thousand people, and propelling thousands of tons of aerosols (Sulfide gas compounds) into the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) from April 5 to 12, 1815.

The high level gases reflect sunlight, and will cause the widespread cooling (known as a volcanic winter) and heavy rains of 1816, causes snows in June and July in the northern hemisphere, widespread crop failures, and subsequently famine, which is why 1816 will later be known as the Year Without a Summer.

The Galunggung volcano erupts on West Java on October 8 and is followed four days later by a second, more violent outburst; the two events kill more than four thousand people and destroy one hundred and fourteen villages.

Mount Galunggung is about eighty kilometers (fifty miles) southeast of the West Java provincial capital, Bandung (or around twenty-five kilometers/sixteen miles) to the east of the West Java town of Garut).

The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, also known as the Treaty of London, signed between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in London on March 17, 1824, is to resolve disputes arising from the execution of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814.

It is signed by Hendrik Fagel and Anton Reinhard Falck, and for the UK, George Canning and Charles Williams-Wynn.

Designed to solve many of the issues that had arisen due to the British occupation of Dutch properties during the Napoleonic Wars, as well as issues regarding the rights to trade that existed for hundreds of years in the Spice Islands between the two nations, the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 addresses a wide array of issues and does not clearly describe the limitations of expansion by either side in the Malay world.

The British establishment of Singapore on the Malay Peninsula in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles had exacerbated the tension between the two nations, especially as the Dutch claim that the treaty signed between Raffles and the Sultan of Johore is invalid, and that the Sultanate of Johore is under the Dutch sphere of influence.

The questions surrounding the fate of Dutch trading rights in British India and formerly Dutch possessions in the area also have become a point of contention between Calcutta and Batavia.

In 1820, under pressures from British merchants with interests in the Far East, negotiations to clarify the situation in Southeast Asia had begun.

Negotiations between Canning and Fagel started on July 20, 1820.

The Dutch are adamant on the British abandonment of Singapore.

Indeed, Canning is unsure of the exact circumstances under which Singapore had been acquired, and at first, only non-controversial issues such as free-navigation rights and the elimination of piracy were agreed upon.

Discussions on the subject were suspended on August 5, 1820, and did not resume until 1823, by which time the commercial value of Singapore was well-recognized by the British.

The negotiations resumed on December 15, 1823, by which time the discussion had become centered around the establishment of clear spheres of influence in the region.

The Dutch, realizing that the growth of Singapore cannot be curbed, press for an exchange in which they abandon their claims north of the Strait of Malacca and its Indian colonies in exchange for the confirmation of their claims south of the strait, including the British colony of Bencoolen, a British possession in Sumatra based in the area of what is now Bengkulu City.

The British East India Company (EIC) had established a presence there in 1685, and in 1714 the EIC built Fort Marlborough there.

Originally a Presidency within British India, in 1785 it was downgraded to Bencoolen Residency and placed under the Bengal Presidency.

On October 15, 1817, Stamford Raffles had been appointed Governor-General of Bencoolen.

During his time as Governor-General, Raffles had  enacted major reforms, including the abolition of slavery, as well as creating Singapore to provide a new trading port in the region.

In 1823, Singapore had been removed from the control of Bencoolen.

The final treaty is signed on March 23, 1824 by Fagel and Canning.

General Hendrik Merkus de Kock lifts the siege of Yogyakarta, the first major action of the Java War, on September 25, 1825.

The proximate cause is the Dutch decision to build a road across a piece of Prince Diponegoro's property that contained his parents' tomb.

Among other causes is a sense of resentment felt by members of the Javanese aristocratic families at Dutch measures intended to restrict the renting out of land at high prices.

Finally the succession of the throne in Yogyakarta is disputed: Diponegoro is the oldest son of Hamengkubuwono III, but as his mother was not the queen he is not considered to have the right to succeed his father.

Diponegoro's rival to the throne, his younger half brother, Hamengkubuwono IV, then his infant nephew Hamengkubuwono V, are supported by the Dutch.

Being a devout Muslim, Diponegoro is alarmed by the relaxing of religious observance at Yogyakarta court, the rising influences of the infidel Dutch in the court, as well as by the court's pro-Dutch policy.

The forces of Prince Diponegoro had been successful in the early stages of the war, taking control of the middle of Java and besieging Yogyakarta.

The Javanese population is supportive of Prince Diponegoro's cause, whereas the Dutch colonial authorities are initially indecisive.

The Javanese peasantry has been adversely affected by the implementation of an exploitative cultivation system, which requires villages to grow export crops to be sold to the government at fixed prices.

As the Java war becomes prolonged, Prince Diponegoro has difficulties in maintaining the numbers of his troops.

The Dutch colonial army, however, is able to fill its ranks with indigenous troops from Sulawesi, and later on with European reinforcements from the Netherlands itself.

Southeast Asia (1828–1971 CE)

Colonial Grids, Island Arcs, and the Long March to Independence

Geography & Environmental Context

Southeast Asia in this framework comprises two fixed subregions:

• Southeastern Asia: the Indochinese peninsula (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam), the Malay Peninsula, and the great archipelagos of Sumatra–Java–Borneo–Sulawesi and the Philippines.

• Andamanasia: the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal and the outer-island arc off Sumatra—Aceh, Simeulue, Nias, the Batu and Mentawai Islands (excluding the Mergui Archipelago and Thailand’s west coast).

Volcanic chains, folded highlands, alluvial deltas (Irrawaddy, Chao Phraya, Mekong, Red), mangrove coasts, and reef-fringed islands create one of the world’s most diverse human ecologies.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

Monsoons dictated seasons; ENSO cycles brought episodic droughts and floods. Cyclones battered the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea littorals; great rivers shifted with silt loads from hillside logging and war-time disruption. Along the Sunda trench, earthquakes and tsunamis periodically struck Aceh–Nias–Mentawai; volcanic eruptions (e.g., Krakatoa, 1883) altered coastlines, fisheries, and global climate. Colonial plantations cleared forest belts; 20th-century damming and irrigation reworked paddies and dry fields.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Rice heartlands in Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Java intensified wet-rice (irrigated) and rain-fed systems; canals and dikes extended deltas.

• Plantations & mines reoriented landscapes: rubber and tin in Malaya; coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco in the Dutch archipelago; sugar, hemp in the Philippines; nickel, coal, oil in parts of Indonesia.

• Andamanasia balanced copra, sago, cloves, and pepper with fishing; the Andaman & Nicobar served the British Raj as a penal settlement (Port Blair), while Aceh’s uplands and coasts supported pepper gardens and Islamic scholarly towns.

• Urban hubs—Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Bangkok, Rangoon/Yangon, Singapore, Batavia/Jakarta, Manila—grew on port and railway grids; Banda Aceh, Padang, Medan, and Port Blair tied Andamanasia into colonial networks.

Technology & Material Culture

Steamships, lighthouses, and telegraph cables stitched coasts to metropoles. The 19th century laid roads, rails, canals, and irrigation schemes (e.g., Cochinchina’s canal grids; Java’s irrigation works). Rubber tapping, tin dredging, and oil rigs transformed work rhythms; mission and vernacular presses fostered literacy. After WWII, airfields and highways expanded; small engines and outboard motors changed coastal livelihoods. Tiled mosques, wats, and churches stood beside longhouses, kampong stilt houses, and shophouse streets.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• Diasporas reshaped society: Chinese and Indian migrants fueled plantations, mines, and trade in Malaya, Burma, Thailand, and the Indies; Javanese and Chinese migrated intra-archipelago.

• Pilgrimage & scholarship flowed through Aceh—the “Verandah of Mecca”—and port cities; Andaman & Nicobar saw convict, guard, and trader circuits of the Raj.

• War corridors: Japanese occupation (1941–45) militarized ports, rails, and airstrips; Allied return routes cross-cut deltas and hill country; postwar insurgencies made jungles and mountains strategic spaces.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

Theravāda Buddhism (Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia), Islam (Malaya, Sumatra/Aceh, parts of Borneo), Catholicism (Philippines, Vietnam enclaves), and Confucian and indigenous traditions intertwined. Reformist presses and schools incubated national literatures: Vietnamese quốc ngữ journalism, Indonesian and Malay novels, Filipino propagandists, Burmese and Thai reformers. In Andamanasia, Acehnese ulama sustained Islamic learning and resistance; Nicobarese and Andamanese kept island cosmologies even as penal and mission regimes pressed in.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

Intensive rice ecologies (terraces, bunds, dikes) buffered monsoon swings; swidden–wet rice mosaics in uplands spread risk. Island communities hedged with copra gardens, lagoon fisheries, breadfruit, sago, and inter-island reciprocity. After cyclones or war, kin networks and temple or mosque charities organized rebuilding; post-1960s “Green Revolution” seeds and fertilizers began to alter village agronomy.

Political & Military Shocks

• Colonial consolidation (19th–early 20th c.):

  • British in Burma and Malaya/Singapore; French in Indochina; Dutch in the East Indies; U.S. in the Philippines; Siam/Thailand remained formally independent but ceded buffer territories.

  • Aceh War (1873–1904): a long anti-Dutch jihad reshaped Sumatra’s northwest; Mentawai and Nias folded into Dutch rule with missionization and pax colonia.

  • Andaman & Nicobar penal settlement entrenched British control in the Bay of Bengal.

• Japanese occupation (1941–45): dismantled colonial rule, mobilized labor, and built military infrastructure; famine and atrocities scarred Indochina and Burma.

• Independence waves:

  • Indonesia proclaimed 1945 (recognized 1949); Burma 1948; Philippines 1946; Malaya 1957 (Malaysia 1963; Singapore independent 1965); Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam 1953–54 (with Vietnam’s partition).

  • Konfrontasi (1963–66) rattled new Malaysia; Sukarno → Suharto (1965–66) upheaval reordered Indonesia.

  • Vietnam War escalation (1960s), Laotian/Cambodian conflicts, Malayan Emergency (1948–60), and Burmese coups (1962) defined the Cold War map.

Transition

Between 1828 and 1971, Southeastern Asia moved from plantation grids and concessionary mines under European flags to a mosaic of independent states and Cold War battlegrounds. Japanese occupation shattered imperial prestige; postwar governments asserted sovereignty but faced insurgency, partition, and economic rebuilding. In Andamanasia, the Aceh War and penal colony years epitomized the arc from coercion to contested autonomy; in the wider region, rice fields, rubber estates, and ports fed a global economy even as revolutions and wars redrew borders. By 1971, Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Saigon, Rangoon, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur anchored a transformed region—its monsoon ecologies and island arcs still the stage on which new nations balanced tradition, development, and geopolitical pressure.

The war against Aceh (1873–1903) in northern Sumatra is the most extensive and costly of all Dutch colonial conflicts in Indonesia.

The Dutch pursue this war for multiple reasons:

• Imperial rivalries with other Western powers,
• Commercial and military competition from Aceh, and
• The spread of anti-Western, anti-colonial Islamic movements originating in Aceh.

For a time, Batavia appears to align itself with the uleebalang—Aceh’s traditional, more secular elite—as it had previously done in Minangkabau. However, this proves to be a temporary strategy. In the end, the uleebalang themselves fall under Dutch control, and the colonial state ultimately annexes Aceh outright.

The struggle known as the Java War (1825-30) is led by a disaffected prince of the Yogyakarta court, Diponegoro (1785-1855).

He is a complex figure who opposes rule by both the Dutch and the complicit Javanese ruler and aristocracy, and whose rebellion must therefore be seen as a Javanese civil war—although not one primarily concerned with questions of succession, as in the eighteenth century—at least as much as an anticolonial one.

Despite his modern Indonesian status as a national hero, Diponegoro apparently seeks merely to have relations with the Dutch return to the form they had assumed in late VOC times, and certainly has no conception of a broader Indonesian nation.

Diponegoro is able, for a time, to attract the loyalty of those who feel the crumbling of the previous order in different ways and have a variety of social and moral expectations.

He is seen variously as a protector of the general populace, as both a Muslim and a traditionalist messianic figure, a Ratu Adil (just king), and as an upholder of social hierarchy under a reformed or purified aristocracy.

These alliances prove fragile, however.

There are obvious internal tensions, for example, disagreements between those who fight for religious reasons (responding to Diponegoro's declaration of a Muslim holy war, or jihad) and those, especially among the court elite, who do so for essentially secular reasons.

The difficulty of the war itself, for which the Dutch devise new military strategies and which spread destruction on a scale unseen in generations, is extreme: about two-thirds of Java is affected, a quarter of its cultivated land is laid waste; and approximately two hundred thousand Javanese and fifteen thousand government troops (eight thousand of whom are Europeans) are killed.

Backed initially by about half of Yogyakarta's ruling elite, by early 1830 Diponegoro has lost most of their support, as well as that of both his chief military commander and his most influential Muslim patron and his followers.

Abandoned by all but a few loyal comrades, he attends a peace discussion with the Dutch commander of government forces, at which he is arrested and sent into exile.

He will die imprisoned in the government fort in Makassar.