IMR

Volume 41 Number 2 (Summer 2007):511–536

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© 2007 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-7379.2007.00077.x

Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.Oxford, UKIMREInternational Migration Review0197-9183© 2007 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved412Original Article

Emergence of an Indies-Dutch Migration CircuitInternational Migration Review

Sailing through Suez from the South: The Emergence of an Indies-Dutch Migration Circuit, 1815–1940

1

Ulbe Bosma

International Institute of Social History

This paper shows the importance of colonial garrisons and colonial migra-tory circuits in the history of European migration. During the nineteenthcentury the overwhelming majority of European-born migrants to theDutch East Indies were military personnel. Rapidly decreasing mortalityrates and a large influx of European military personnel in the decades ofcolonial wars were responsible for the remarkable growth of the Europeancolonial population throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.As a consequence an extensive colonial-metropole migration circuit emerged.Contrary to expectations, neither the opening of the Suez Canal nor impe-rialist expansion resulted in a significant increase of white civilian emigrationto colonial Indonesia in the late nineteenth century. Instead, sailings throughSuez went north as frequently as south. It was only at a much later stage,following the end of World War I, that the tobacco and rubber plantationsas well as the oil industry of the Outer Regions of the Indies archipelagogenerated an unprecedented demand for expatriate labor.

INTRODUCTION

Two salient features of colonial migration to the Dutch East Indies have beenlargely ignored. The first of these is the importance of European military.Members of this group comprised an important factor in European settlement,for many of them did not return when their term of service was over, but choserather to settle where they had served. In this regard the Dutch East Indies arefar from exceptional. Marshall and Arnold have emphasized the significant pro-portion of military personnel in European settlements in British India, Dominydemonstrated the same for Natal, while Moreno Fraginals and Moreno Masófound a large “residue” of Spanish military men who neither returned to Spainnor died, but found a place in Cuban Creole society (Arnold, 1982–1983; Marshall,1992; Moreno Fraginals and Moreno Masó, 1993:101, 136; Dominy, 1997).

1

The research of this article was made possible through a grant by the Netherlands Organisationfor Scientific Research (NWO).

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The second feature was the fact that the Dutch East Indies became oneof the colonies with large migration circuits of Europeans (many of whom wereAsian-born or so-called

Creoles

) who sent their children to Europe for theireducation and began to travel increasingly between the colony and themetropole. Since many of these Creoles, possibly even the majority, were oftendescended from an Asian mother or grandmother, the migration circuits haveimportant implications for an understanding of how lines of (racial) distinc-tion were drawn between colonial rulers and indigenous subjects (Stolerand Cooper, 1997). The prime mover of this circular migration, as ElizabethBuettner has recently argued for the British Raj, was the fact that metropoleeducation rather than metropole birth was pivotal in maintaining Europeancolonial boundaries (Buettner, 2004). The ways peripheral bourgeoisies repro-duced themselves through their orientation toward the metropole, and theways colonial-metropole divisions of labor were structured, are not just of his-torical interest. They are crucial to understanding the geography of migratorycircuits in postcolonial times (Grosfoguel, 2003:2).

Recognition of the importance of circular migrations also requires us torevisit some of the markers of colonial history, such as the opening of the SuezCanal in 1869. The importance of this event and its relationship to colonialismare multidimensional. For the Dutch East Indies – and probably British India– it accelerated and broadened an already existing Creole migration circuit butdid not immediately attract large groups of metropole newcomers.

2

In view ofthe paucity of demographic data on Europeans in British India, the Dutch databecome even more important for gaining insight into this phenomenon(Marshall, 1992).

So far, Asian colonial migration circuits and military (labor) migrationhave largely remained outside the purview of migration studies.

3

Swierenga, ina 1993 article in the

International Migration Review

, tried to frame Dutch colonialand transatlantic migration in a single explanatory model: he attributed a centralrole to the relatively late industrialization of the Netherlands. Industrializationand urbanization caused a shift in Dutch (civilian) emigration from agriculturalto labor migrants, from low-skilled workers to highly educated ones, and con-comitant with these, from a migration whose destination was the United States

2

The emigration tables published by Willcox and Ferenczi (1929–1931:627, 743) do not showany direct relationship between the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and migration to theDutch East Indies or British India.

3

Studies by Marshall on British India and Lucassen on Dutch migration are notable exceptions(

see, for example

, Lucassen, 1995; Lucassen and Lucassen, 1994; Marshall, 1992).

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to one that went to colonial Indonesia. Swierenga emphasizes the fact that inthe early twentieth century people leaving for the Indies were remarkablywell educated. Included among these educated groups were teachers, doctors,engineers, lawyers, and other professionals that could not be trained in theDutch East Indies, because higher education was almost impossible to obtainthere. The Dutch sociologist J. A. A. van Doorn once calculated that theNetherlands Indies absorbed 28 percent of the engineers and half of theagricultural specialists trained in the Netherlands (Willcox and Ferenczi,1929–1931:424–425; Swierenga 1980:390–405, 1993:409, 416, 421; VanDoorn 1994:118–119; Lucassen, 1995:24–25; Galema, 1996:23).

Although we agree with Swierenga’s observation that migrants leaving theNetherlands for the colonies were highly skilled in the early twentieth century,we would like to make two caveats to this argument. First, it does not recognizethe existence of a large colonial migration circuit, but instead takes for grantedthe fact that all emigrants from the Netherlands were born in the Netherlands.In fact, ongoing research on the university town of Utrecht suggests that morethan 30 percent of those who left the town for the Dutch East Indies between1880 and 1900 returned to their country of birth.

4

Though this example is farfrom representative, it at least shows that many of these “emigrants” were justtraveling back and forth between colony and metropole. Second, only a smallportion of the large military migration that lasted until 1906 was included inthe data Swierenga used. These military were labor migrants too, one mighteven say indentured labor migrants, of whom a certain percentage stayed in thecolonies after their indentureship.

5

Perhaps they did not intend to settle, butroughly 20 percent did stay, a percentage which is comparable to the net migra-tion of Indian labor migrants in the Caribbean (Davis, 1951:100).

Our argument is as follows. Up to World War I the migration flow to theIndies was dominated by the military and an Indies family and businessnetwork. The civilian migration to the colonies in the nineteenth centuryamounted to 60,000, far less than the 150,000 Dutch migrants who migrated

4

We are basing ourselves on data generously provided by Mrs. G. H. T. Dorenbosch. Shecompared the 131 departures mentioned in the “Landverhuizerslijsten” compiled by Swierengawith her own list of residents of Utrecht who had a wife and/or children born in the Indies ties.Of this group of 70 “emigrants” to the Indies 19 returned to their country of birth, two camefrom the Dutch West Indies, and 47 were born in the Netherlands.

5

I follow here Lucassen and Lucassen who questioned the usefulness of existing dichotomiesbetween free and forced, and temporary and permanent migration (

see

Lucassen and Lucassen,1997).

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to the United States.

6

Moreover, migration to the Asian colony and the UnitedStates was very different in terms of net migration. And yet, the number ofDutch involved that made the journey to the Dutch East Indies may have beenroughly comparable to the emigration flow to the United States, if we add tothe 60,000 civilians the 85,000 military who were sent to the Dutch EastIndies.

7

The increasing frequency of Indies families that traveled generated acircular migration flow. The influx of young Dutch professionals to this areawithout any Indies roots began after World War I, when economic opportunitiesfor the educated middle classes in the Netherlands seriously declined. It was atthat juncture when the burgeoning plantation economy of the Outer Regionsrequired (white) labor. But even this influx probably did not exceed the annualnumber of people returning from the home country to their Indies country of birth.

Our argument is based on census data published in the Colonial Reports,archives of the Ministry of Colonies, and some aggregate data from the CentralBureau of Statistics. Although there are major lacunae, the material is rich andfar more detailed than what is available for the British Raj: it demonstrates thepreponderance of military migration to the Indies throughout the nineteenthcentury, as well as the relatively smooth absorption of the immigrants by the eliteand middle strata of colonial society, who used the military cadre to reproducethemselves. Intensive contacts with the metropole were a crucial part of this process.

MILITARY PERSONNEL AS IMMIGRANTS

History would have been much more straightforward if colonialism haddeveloped to the same rhythm as Western industrialization, expanding at thepace of steam, telegraph cables, and modern weaponry. But the past is notunilinear, and the Netherlands is a case in point. Migration to its greatly contractednineteenth-century empire in Asia was modest compared with previouscenturies. Between 1800 and 1900 fewer than 200,000 Europeans went to theIndies, whereas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries more than a millionmen had sailed to Asia for the East Indies Company (Lucassen, 1991:172).

6

Swierenga counted 87,000 Dutch migrants to the U.S. for 1835–1880 (Swierenga, 2000:301).In addition the Dutch emigration statistics report 70,000 Dutch leaving for the U.S. between1880 and 1900 (Willcox and Ferenczi, 1929–1931:741).

7

For the numbers of the Dutch military leaving for the Dutch East Indies,

see

Bossenbroek(1992:79, 105, 123, 1986:192). For the civilians,

see

Bosma (2005:21, 22, 36) and Figure IV ofthis article. On the basis of the latter article the following estimates have been made for the yearlyDutch civilian emigration to the Indies: 1815–1825: 75, 1825–1830: 0, 1831–1835: 150,1836–1840: 200, 1841–1855: 250, 1856–1864: 300.

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While the Company’s factories in Asia had employed more than 18,000European men in the late eighteenth century (of whom about half were bornin Europe) (Gaastra, 1982:83), the number of European-born civil servants inthe Indies Archipelago was only 605 in 1856 (compared with 1,602 who hadbeen born in the Indies and were Europeans or Creoles).

8

Even in 1900, at theapogee of imperialism, only 42 civil servants were sent from the Netherlandsto fill the vacancies in the Indies administration (

Volkstelling 1930

, 1933:32).From 1815 to 1899 141,530 subaltern military personnel from all over Europe

and 5,929 officers, as well as an unknown number of civilians, sailed to theDutch East Indies. A rough estimate is that 47,000 civilian men and 17,000women immigrated to the Dutch East Indies, but even this may be an over-estimate, as we will see below (Lucassen, 1991:app. 4.1, 4.3; Bossenbroek,1986:193). Although military personnel made up the overwhelming majorityof European immigrants, they comprised a smaller part of the European popu-lation than was true in British India (Marshall, 1992:183). Dutch presence inthe Indies Archipelago was older. Particularly the inner regions of Java and theMoluccan Islands were dotted with small local Creole societies, often groupedaround fortresses. These societies were able to absorb military who had com-pleted their service. Colonial statistics clearly separate the military staff fromcivilians, but military personnel spent only part of their lives in the Indies colo-nial army (the average time in the nineteenth century was about nine years).Moreover, an army constitutes (by definition) a self-reliant society: it has its owntailors, cooks, administrators, telegraphers, and engineers, topographers, and med-ical doctors. These professions were also in high demand outside the garrisons.

Of course, military men had relationships with Indonesian or Creolewomen. In the Dutch East Indies the social environment and military authoritiesallowed concubines. About 20 percent of the military could afford to maintaina female partner financially. In 1901, 42.8 percent of the sergeants and 17.2percent of the other subaltern military men lived with an Indies woman in thebarracks. Data on officers are not available, but they, too, lived with concubines,which was understandable in that permission to marry was difficult to obtain.Until 1862 only unmarried military men below the rank of junior officer wereaccepted for service to the Indies.

9

In the course of their careers many officers

8

KV, 1857 (HTK 1858–1859) 410, KV, 1902 (HTK 1902–1903) Bijlage A, IV, 14–15; NA,MvK I, inv. no. 3097, Klapper Stamboek Oost-Indische Ambtenaren, 1815–1836.

9

Having concubines among officers was strongly discouraged from 1904 on. In 1901, 8.6percent of the total European military force was officers, 10.3 percent sergeants, and 5.5 percentcorporals (KV, 1902 (HTK 1902–1903) Bijlage B. “Legerstatistiek”, 20; Ming, 1983:70; GB10–3-1862,

Staatsblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië

, no. 24).

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were able to enter the higher echelons of Creole society, since their light skinmade them attractive partners for daughters of rich Creole families anxious toincrease their status through lighter complexions. The noncommissionedmilitary were usually considered to be riff-raff, but their low status was onlytemporary. After their army service was completed, they could become part ofEuropean society in the Indies, together with their children – but their Indo-nesian partners were less accepted. The former military men were active in verydifferent walks of life, ranging from retired corporal tailors, retired sergeantschoolmasters, retired captain doctors, and retired colonel sugar estate owners.

The military was the dominant European immigrant group in colonialIndonesia during the nineteenth century. Dutch settlements were not encour-aged, if not prohibited outright.

10

Sanitary conditions in the Indies wereappalling in the early nineteenth century, but there was another, stronger argu-ment against settler colonies. The colonial government was anxious to halt thedevelopment of a large proportion of European landowners on Java. It fearedthat this would destabilize the Javanese peasantry and jeopardize Dutch colo-nial rule. This was also the reason why immigration in the Dutch East had beencarefully regulated since 1823.

11

Prior to 1860 permanent residence was onlygranted to Dutch citizens if they provided two names of respectable Indiesresidents willing to stand surety for them. Foreign Europeans (includingAmericans and Persians) had to have served in the Indies government or asarmy officers for at least ten years to be eligible for these permits. Retired officersand pensioned civil servants were automatically granted permission to stay.

12

The immigration laws favored families already present in Java in the earlydecades of the nineteenth century, and these were in the best position to benefitfrom new economic opportunities. They were able to control many of the jobsin the colonial civil service, had a considerable share in the plantation economy,

10

An important factor in this decision was the failed experiment of sending a colony of 397settlers to Surinam in 1845, of whom 180 died within six months. This made the Dutchgovernment reluctant to send colonists either to the West or the East Indies (

see

Lucas, 1955:57;Copijn, 1855:Table 1 and Appendix I).

11

GB, no. 3, 1834, 10 January. “Publicatie van den 28en Augustus 1818, houdende debepalingen omtrent de aankomst en het verblijf op Java.”

Staatsblad van Nederlandsch-Indië

1818, no. 60. “Publicatie van den 20sten mei 1823, houdende bepalingen omtrent het verblijfen het landbezit op Java.”

Staatsblad van Nederlandsch-Indië

, 20 mei 1823, no. 20.

12

Until 1860 military personnel below the rank of officer were in principle only allowed to settleif they had served the twelve years that entitled them to a small pension. Otherwise they had toapply in the same way as any other immigrant and have two Indies residents to act as sureties(see KB 29 October 1860, no. 68,

Staatsblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië

, no. 40 and no. 41;

see also

Oost-Indische Besluiten in Bosma, 2005:22–23).

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and acted as gatekeepers for European immigrants precisely because they hadto stand surety for them. The yearly number of residence permits issued did notexceed 300 until 1860. The permits issued in the first half of the nineteenthcentury included about 450 army officers, 1,500 ordinary military personnel,100 civil servants (most in the higher echelons), and about 200 technicians and200 employees of trading houses. Many of those who took jobs at tradinghouses or on plantations and lived in Java around 1819 were related to thesmall population of about 2,700 men, of whom only 1,200 had been born inEurope.

13

Others were wives of important civil servants, children with theirnannies, or Javanese servants who were part of the traveling household. A smallcontingent consisted of women who were married in the Netherlands to anofficer or civil servant in the Indies. These women were “married with theglove,” an expression coined because a single glove was used to represent theabsent groom at the wedding ceremony.

14

Around 1860 the small European population in the colony began toopen up. An important factor in this was the Sepoy Mutiny in British India of1857, which made the British and Dutch governments anxious to maintain astrong white European presence in their Asian colonies (Reports from the selectcommittee, 1857–1859; Verslag aan den Koning, 1858). From the late 1850son, the Dutch government allowed more private entrepreneurs to lease land onJava and liberalized its strict immigration laws. In 1860 it was no longer requiredthat two persons act as sureties for applicants for a permit of residence, and after1871 military personnel were permitted to settle in the Indies when they hadcompleted their service. This latter provision became particularly important as itcoincided with strong military campaigns in Aceh.

15

NET IMMIGRATION OF MILITARY PERSONNEL TO THE INDIES

Lifting some of the immigration restrictions, developing a plantation economy,and allowing an influx of military personnel in European society all took placesoon after the mid-nineteenth century. These developments coincided with

13

The data are obtained from the “Oost-Indische Besluiten (Decisions by the governor-generalof the Netherlands-Indies) NA, MvK I, 2450–2763 and Oost-Indische Besluiten van degouverneur-generaal in Rade NA, MvK I, 2838–2763. They are published in: Bosma, 2005:22.

14

Information about female immigrants and servants is derived from NA, MvK I, inv. no. 3161“Register van verleende paspoorten [1816–1840]”.

15

KB 29 October 1860,

Staatsblad

, 1860, no. 68,

Staatsblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië

, 1861, nos.40 and 41; KB 15 September 1871, no. 15, GB 12 March 1872,

Staatsblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië

,1872, nos. 38 and 39, and GB 5 March 1879,

Bijblad

, no. 3428, article 3a.

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sharply declining mortality rates for colonial military personnel. The emergenceof migration circuits and modern colonialism are closely linked to the mortalityrevolution that Curtin pointed to in his

Death by Migration

. As in manytropical colonies before 1850, military personnel could hardly have contributedto the growth of the European population in the Indies. For the period between1819 and 1836 Curtin cites an annual mortality rate of 170 per thousand,which means that following an average nine-year service period, only 20.7percent of the men survived army service.

16

Health conditions for the civilpopulation were hardly better than those of the military. Figures for malaria-infested Batavia suggest that its European population remained stagnant ataround 2,900 in the 1820s and 1830s, mainly due to the extremely highmortality rate.

17

The mortality rate of the European troops in colonialIndonesia rapidly declined to 50 per thousand in the 1840s.

18

From then onthe mortality rate went down to 30 per thousand per year in the early 1870s,and reached the low twenties in the 1890s.

The mortality revolution was followed by a social revolution in the accept-ance of military personnel into civilian society. During much of the nineteenthcentury the officers constituted an unusually large part of the militarypersonnel that obtained residence permits. Apart from social factors andimmigration regulations, this disproportion may be related to the bettersurvival rates for officers.

19

In the Dutch East Indies it is possible to trace about61 retired officers in the census records of the early 1820s, against only 50 retiredsergeants, corporals, and soldiers.

20

Mid-nineteenth century colonial reports

16

Curtin, 1989:8. A contemporary source, Dr. W. Bosch, arrived at an even more pessimistic 13percent. See

Verslag aan de Koning

, 1858:34.

17

Bleeker, 1846:461, 472. NA, MvK I, inv. 3043, “Batavia 1838.” As far as public health conditionsgo, Batavia was probably the worst city on Java’s coast. Semarang, the second city of Java at the time,had a much lower mortality rate than Bavia. Census figures suggest that its European populationbetween 1834 and 1843 increased from 1,294 to 1,954 (

see “Staat der bevolking,” 1846:327).18In 1853, military authorities concluded that following a serious cholera epidemic in thegarrisons of Java’s northern coast, and the expedition to Bali, the mortality rate was back at itsprevious level, between 50 and 55 per 1,000 (see KV, 1853 (HTK 1853–1854), 22).19According to Curtin, mortality rates of officers in British India in the mid-nineteenth centurywere 38‰ and ordinary military 69‰ (see Curtin, 1989:4). Marshall agrees with this conclusion(see Marshall, 1992:186). The scant data on the Indies, however, present a somewhat mixedpicture. This is shown in a published survey of the files of the Luxembourgian military personnelin the colonial army. Of the 84 Luxembourgian military personnel sent to the Indies between 1810and 1830, the survival rate among the 33 military men holding the rank of corporal or higher was44 percent, whereas for ordinary privates it was 39 percent (Bossenbroek, 1992:364; Ispert, 1944).20NA, MvK I, inv. nos. 3106–3124.

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still give evidence of the strong presence of retired army officers and non-commissioned officers in the European colonial society there.21 As long as mor-tality rates were high and immigration rules tight, the net migration among themilitary was heavily skewed toward the elite.

The overwhelming preponderance of officers among the military settlersbegan to be offset through the declining mortality rates, which closed the gapbetween officers’ and soldiers’ mortality rates, and the easing of immigrationregulations. In the 1850s, immediately before the immigration regulationswere eased, military personnel had been transported to the Indies in large num-bers (Bossenbroek, 1992:132). The European contingent in the colonial army,which had been fewer than 7,000 following the Java War, began to rise in the1850s and reached 20,000 during the first years of the war in Aceh. It taperedoff at around 15,000 in the last few decades of the nineteenth century.Although Curtin points to the continuing high mortality among militarypersonnel during the Aceh War, this was true only during the first year. Forthe colonial authorities this period was a disaster: 37 percent of the 2,221 Acehtroops were killed in the single year of 1875. Nevertheless, it did not reversethe overall trend of declining mortality rates. Added to this, the army was sig-nificantly reinforced.22 Overall, the mortality revolution and military cam-paigning resulted in more than one thousand military personnel leaving thearmy every year between 1869 and 1870 (see Figure I). It is possible to say that,while in the early decades of the nineteenth century the Indies offered prospectsof careers for impoverished aristocrats and patricians, after 1860 job opportu-nities were more democratic, and sons of all ranks probably began to see thearmy as a good way to a promising career. Hundreds were able to enter the ranksof corporals and sergeants, and each year a few dozen sergeants were admittedto the military cadre school in Meester Cornelis, near Batavia, to be trained asarmy officers. For corporals and sergeants, career perspectives outside the armyincreased, too. When the plantation economy developed, the army became a

21The Colonial Report of 1856 counted 104 retired army officers and 493 from the lower ranks– overwhelmingly immigrant Europeans – living in the Indies. These numbers increased withsome fluctuations to respectively, 225 and 616 in 1872 (KV, 1856 (HTK 1857–1878) Bijlage160e vel, 634; KV, 1872 (HTK 1872–1873) “Aantooningen betreffende de Bevolkings-statistiek”, nos. 5, 9).22Curtin, 1989:81–83. The Aceh debacle also induced military authorities to make a greatereffort to reengage soldiers for another term in service; many of these veterans signed on for onlytwo or even one year. Reenlisting for another twelve months was an opportunity offered for thefirst time in 1873 (KV, 1878 (HTK 1878–1879), 42).

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first step in a colonial career. Stories exist about military personnel who enlistedin order to obtain free passage to the Dutch East Indies. The French poetArthur Rimbaud is perhaps the best known among those who joined thecolonial army, only to escape immediately upon arrival in Java. He wentthere for a tour, not for a job. It has also been suggested that military men whohad skills that were in high demand deliberately misbehaved so they wouldbe dismissed from the army, obtaining a less dangerous and much moreprofitable job outside of the military. There is no way to know how manyactually took this course.23

23See Bijblad, no. 3428, article 5. It was possible to get a certificate of “good behaviour” or theletter “B” in red ink on a passport, which was an indication that the bearer had committed a“misdemeanour.” From 1879 on, even military with a “notice of dismissal” were allowed to stay inthe Indies (see Bijblad, no. 3428, article 41 c). Desertion is another factor that could potentiallydistort the statistics. But according to one source, only twelve European soldiers deserted duringthe Padri War (1831–1834). From 1882 to 1892, 38 Europeans and five Indies-born Europeanstried to escape. Some were seduced by war propaganda from the people of Aceh trying to convincethem to join them (Vink, 1892:478–479; see also “Het algemeen voorschrift,” 1884:493).

Figure I. Mortality Rates and Number of Military Leaving the Colonial Army

Source: KV, Bijlage B. “Nederlandsch Oost-Indisch Leger. Formatie en sterkte onder ultimo . . . [1860–1929].”

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It is very difficult, if not almost impossible, to account for the number ofcolonial soldiers who eventually settled in the Indies after being released fromthe army. They are not included in any immigration statistics. But for the DutchEast Indies, we can estimate the number of former military personnel from Europewho either did not return or died in service. These figures do not, however, includeofficers.24 Migration statistics are not flawless, and we will never know how manyformer military personnel lived in the Indies without having the proper docu-ments (Figure II). For the early nineteenth century there are no good statistics,and after 1871 authorities eased controls on former military personnel.25 These

24As Oomens rightly points out, it is almost impossible to establish the net migration of officers,since many had been appointed in the Indies. We would add that between 10 and 20 percent ofthe officers were born in the Indies. Oomens presents some estimates in Oomens, 1989:23.25In addition, in 1882 a new regulation allowed former soldiers to remain eligible for a freereturn passage within three years after completing their service. The colonial government hadconcluded that destitute military personnel roaming the streets and kampungs was detrimentalto colonial prestige. The regional administrative head, the Resident, received the authority tomake the necessary decisions to alleviate the fate of military paupers (GB, 6 September 1882,Staatsblad van Nederlandsch-Indië, 226, no. 5).

Figure II. (Subaltern) Military Staying in the Indies, Year of Recruitment 1815–1929

Source: Bossenbroek, 1992:357 and Table 1, p. 523. The estimates about the numbers of former military settling in theIndies have been projected back in time by nine years (the average time in service) to give an idea of the relationshipbetween recruitment and net migration.

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factors, however, do not significantly affect the overall picture of net immigra-tion and settlement for former military personnel. Members of this groupappear to have been evenly distributed among the European civilian popula-tion, gradually increasing until 1880 and afterward diminishing. We see fromthe above figure that recruitment after the Crimean War (1854–1856) markedthe beginning of a period when large numbers of military personnel enteredcolonial society. In addition, the colonial economy became much more liberalafter 1861, encouraging settlement. This constant influx of military personnellasted until the general reduction in European troops after 1906.

While net military immigration may seem to be only a small percentageof the thousands of troops sent to the Indies, it is nevertheless considerablecompared to the relatively few European-born civilian immigrants. Formermilitary personnel dominated European immigrant society and its labor force:around 1870 they accounted for more than half of the civil labor force andabout half of the entire population of 4,104 adult male European immi-grants.26 This estimate may seem incredibly low, but it is realistic. The strongmilitary component was a salient feature not only for Netherlands India butalso for other colonies such as British India and Natal (Dominy, 1997). Moreover,we have already seen that annual figures for independent European immigra-tion to the Indies in the first half of the nineteenth century only averaged a fewdozen men. During the entire nineteenth century only 30 to 40 civil servantswere sent to the Indies each year, in addition to a few lawyers, schoolteachers,and missionaries (Fasseur, 1993:155–157). There is good reason for these lowfigures. Neither government nor private enterprise was anxious to recruithighly paid personnel from Europe if they could employ people at much lowersalaries in the Indies. In 1870 both government and private enterprise togetheremployed no more than 2,718 male European immigrants, of whom probablymore than half were former military personnel.27 These former military men

26Our estimate is based on the following. We noted that retired officers and (subaltern) militarypersonnel constituted 26 percent of European immigrant society in 1872, on the eve of the AcehWar. We also estimated that about 2,585 military personnel who had enlisted between 1850 and1859 stayed in the Indies after leaving service (see Table 1, next page). The estimate that formermilitary personnel made up almost half of the 4,104 adult male European immigrants in 1872is a conservative one. To this we should add a few hundred army officers, as we already identified225 retired officers, most of whom were probably still active. This would leave us with only 1,500to 2,000 adult male residents born in Europe who had not gone to the Indies to serve in themilitary.27KV, 1870 (HTK 1871–1872) Bijlage 5766, table 5; KV, 1902 (HTK 1902–1903), Bijlage A,IV, 14–15.

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were to be found in crucial sectors of the nascent colonial economy. The firstrailway of Java, from Semarang to Surakarta (1863–1870), for example, wasconstructed by military engineers (Van Doorn, 1994:112). Most, however, wentto the newly emerging railways, postal services, and telegraph. Employmentopportunities for former military personnel increased greatly in all sectors ofthe colonial economy, albeit many of them lived in miserable circumstances(Bosma and Raben, 2003:231).

HOW TO EXPLAIN THE RAPID GROWTH OF EUROPEAN COLONIAL SOCIETY?

Though we can subscribe to Swierenga’s thesis that the rising number ofimmigrants to the Dutch East Indies was (partly) a consequence of industrializationand urbanization in the Netherlands, we also know that part of these“immigrants” were simply returning to their country of birth. The European

TABLE 1ESTIMATES OF FORMER MILITARY SETTLING IN THE INDIES ON THE BASIS OF MORTALITY RATES AND

REPATRIATION FIGURES

1 2 3 4

1 Year of Recruitment Estimated Number of Survivors (after 9 Years)

Estimated % of Repatriated

Estimated Number of Military from Europe

Staying after Leaving Service2 1815–1819 (8.587) 20% (1,717) 15% (?) (1,228) 5% (429)3 1820–1829 (25.968) 20% (5,194) 15% (?) (3,895) 5% (1,298)4 1830–1839 (9.181) 25% (2,295) 15% (?) (1,377) 10% (918)5 1840–1849 (10.525) 45% (4,736) 30% (?) (3,157) 15% (1,579)6 1850–1859 (15.204) 52% (7,907) 35% (5,321) 17% (2,585)7 1860–1869 (15.511) 61% (9,462) 45% (6,979) 16% (2,481)8 1870–1879 (23.846) 64% (15,261) 45% (10,730) 19% (4,530)9 1880–1889 (16.477) 75% (12,357) 56% (9,227) 19% (3,130)10 1890–1899 (19.916) 83% (16,530) 54% (10,755) 29% (5,775)11 1900–1909 (10.641) 88% (8,364) 50% (5,321) 38% (3,043)12 1910–1919 (9.554) 93% (8,885) 60% (5,732) 33% (3,153)13 1920–1929 (5.721) 95% (5,434)

Notes: Kruisinga has provided us with some precise figures between 1867 and 1888, which suggest that about 66% of theretired military and 52% of those who left service (“gepasporteerd”) returned to Harderwijk (see Kruisinga,1896:257). On the basis of these figures and the statistics of the colonial army in the KV we calculated that 4,937military repatriated between 1860 and 1869, 6,611 between 1870 and 1879, 8,031 between 1880 and 1889, and8,168 between 1890 and 1899. This is a total of 27,747, which we can compare with our own estimates in column3, namely 32,257 between 1850 and 1889. Though there is a discrepancy, the figures derived from two differentmethods and sources are roughly comparable. Our estimation in this table of the number of military who settled inthe Indies is probably erring on the safe side.

Sources: Column 1: Bossenbroek, 1992:357; Volkstelling 1930, 1933:32.Column 2: Colonial Report; Curtin, 1989:9; own estimates of period until 1850.Column 3: Oomens, 1989:21–23; Bossenbroek, 1992:364.Column 4: Column 1 – (Column 2 + Column 3) = Column 4. The number of military who received a permit of

residence according to MvK II, 7105–7500, was 264 between 1820 and 1829, 596 between 1830 and 1839, 1,083 between 1840 and 1849, 1,938 between 1850 and 1859, and 2,381 between 1860 and 1869.

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population in the Indies grew rapidly, and it became the prime source of aburgeoning colonial-metropole migration circuit. Probably half of theprestigious corps of the Civil Service trained in the home country was born inthe Indies, just as it was in British India in the mid-nineteenth century.28 Insome professions the proportion of Creoles increased in the later part of thenineteenth century; this was the true, for example, of the military cadre inthe Indies. In the early 1870s only 8 percent of the officers had been born in theIndies, a figure that rose to 20 percent in the early twentieth century.29 In therapidly expanding sugar industry in Java only a few specialists and administratorscame from Europe. The other employees had generally been born in the Indieswell into the twentieth century (Bosma and Raben, 2003:289–290). Much hasbeen written about poverty among “Eurasians” in the colonial society of theIndies. What is generally neglected, however, is the fact that ordinary militarymen made up an important percentage of the “poor whites.” This was particularlytrue for those who had been physically and mentally injured after years ofcampaigning. The discourse on poverty and racial marginalization of the“mixed bloods” does not do justice to Creole European society, with its hundredsof plantations, and a few hundred upper- and middle-rank civil servants. Thesecommunities were affluent compared to the Netherlands, and they werestrongly oriented toward the metropole. The fact that senior governmentofficials, army officers, and the upper echelons of the banks and plantationswere entitled to regular leave contributed to this loyalty. Moreover, this societygrew rapidly in the late nineteenth century. While the Dutch population in theNetherlands multiplied by 2.5 between 1810 and 1900 (i.e., more thandouble), the European civil population in the Indies quintupled, from 15,000in 1815 to almost 80,000 at the turn of the century. The demographic increaseonly began around 1850, when mortality rates declined significantly.

Except for the early 1860s and early 1890s, the locally born Europeanpopulation grew faster than did the European immigrants during the course ofthe nineteenth century (Volkstelling 1930, 1933:18). Apart from the mortalityrevolution, there is another factor that made for the fast growth in the Euro-pean population that had been born in the Indies. It is well known that migrantsocieties generally try to blend in with their environment. Thus, in the Indies

28Fasseur, 1994:155. The coveted positions of British India were taken by members of 50 or 60families, and 35 percent – in the 1850s, 45 percent – of the civil servants were sons of fatherswho had served in India. Their influence extended to the 1870s (Cohn, 1966:106, 111).29KV, Bijlage B. “Nederlandsch Oost-Indische Leger. Formatie en sterkte onder ultimo.[1870–1929].”

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the poorest segment of the descendants of Europeans became invisible to theofficials. This was particularly true in the first half of the nineteenth centurywhen schools and churches had not yet become omnipresent in European colo-nial society.30 Although civil registration for Jews and Christians had beenimplemented by 1828, many of the European descendants only began toregister in the 1850s. At that time elementary education, which had previouslybeen limited to European children, became generally available. It was a longtime before members of the old Creole communities not involved in theWestern-oriented economy or colonial bureaucracy were included in the censusrecords, and some were never included (Bosma and Raben, 2003:135, 162).At the same time, the number of “natural” children recognized by their Euro-pean fathers rose from 9.2 per thousand in the 1850s to 13.7 in the last decadeof the nineteenth century (Van Marle, 1951–1952:489–492). Thus the steepslope of the population curves for those born in the Indies is the result ofimproved health conditions, improved educational facilities, and a growingnumber of children born in the garrisons. These factors explain why the numbersof Europeans born in the Indies could easily match white immigration, exceptfor the early 1860s and early 1890s.

The long nineteenth century (which lasted effectively until World War I)was the Creole century par excellence for the Dutch East Indies. This is sup-ported by the abundance of demographic figures in the nineteenth-centuryColonial Reports. In 1861 the end of the tight immigration regulations didindeed create an early influx of immigrants, but they were still mainly militaryveterans. The Agricultural Law of 1870, usually considered the beginning ofthe modern plantation economy in the Dutch East Indies, and the opening ofthe Suez Canal in 1869 coincided with an accelerated increase in Europeancolonial society. This was not, however, because of a sudden influx of metropoleEuropeans, as Figure III shows. It is clear that the increase in the Europeanimmigrant population was very gradual up to the first decade of the twentiethcentury. The opening of the Suez Canal did not change the composition ofEuropean society in colonial Indies. Its gender composition continued asbefore; the number of female European immigrants remained insignificanteven in the first years of the twentieth century. For European immigrants the

30The census of 1835, for example, registered only 10,050 European “souls” on Java, whereasour extrapolation from 1845 back to 1815 suggests that about 14,000 European civilians shouldhave been living on Java in 1835 (MvK, inv. no. 3040, “Aantooning van bedrag der onderstaandemiddelen (en bevolking) op Java per ziel. 1835”). The census of 1845 counted 16,000 Europeans(Bleeker, 1847:39).

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male-female ratio stayed more or less constant between 1885 and 1895 at 6:1,and was still about 5:1 in 1905. This is the logical outcome when militarypersonnel are predominant in the immigrant population.31

SAILING THROUGH THE SUEZ CANAL FROM THE SOUTH

Although the data in the Colonial Reports do not show a sharp increase in thenumber of immigrants to the Dutch East Indies after the Suez Canal opened,data from the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics do show that significantly

31Volkstelling 1930, 1933:20. The only significant change this figure shows is the sharpincrease of Indies-born women in the last five years of the nineteenth century. This can easily beexplained by the new government regulation of 1898, which stipulated that women followedtheir husbands in their legal status (Van Marle, 1951–1952:319; Staatsblad 1898, no. 160,ordonnantie 1–12–1898).

Figure III. European Civilian Population of the Dutch East Indies, 1815–1905 (with Intrapolations)

Sources: On the basis of the highly incomplete figures of Raffles’ (1817) History of Java one can estimate that the Europeanpopulation on Java at about 10,000. The same figure can be cited from the first census of 1835. In 1847 Bleekerestimates the European population of Java at 16,000 (NA, MvK I, inv. no. 3040, “Aantooning van bedrag deronderstaande middelen (en bevolking) op Java per ziel. 1835”; Bleeker, 1847). Since we know that 80% of theEuropean population lived on Java until the mid-nineteenth century, we added 25% to the figures we obtained forJava. For the second half of the nineteenth century, we have the KV, Bijlage B. Staat der bevolking opultimo . . . [1854–1857], Bijlage A. “Algemeene Staat der bevolking van Java en Madura . . . [1858–1895], BijlageA “Statistiek betreffende de bevolking en den veestapel van Nederlandsch-Indië . . . [1900 and 1905]”. Thesereports cover both Java and the Outer Regions.

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increased travel through the canal both broadened the circle of people going toand from the metropole and increased its frequency. The Suez Canal also madetravel between colony and metropole more democratic, as it drasticallyshortened the distance and, with the introduction of (larger) steamships, madethe journey cheaper. By the end of the nineteenth century even (subaltern)military personnel could visit relatives in the Netherlands before reenlisting inthe army.32 The greater frequency of travel was also a result of the increasingimportance of education. The professionalization of the colonial bureaucracyas well as jobs in private enterprise made obtaining an education in theNetherlands a prerequisite for a career in colonial society. Even thoughsecondary education became available in Batavia, Semarang, and Surabaya inthe 1870s, vocational training was still almost unknown. The significantimprovement in elementary education and the emergence of secondaryeducation probably raised the age when children were sent overseas, but(combined with the opening of the Suez Canal) it lowered the emotional andfinancial barriers to sending children to the Netherlands for higher education.

The metropole pattern of sending children away to be educated wasestablished by the elite families in Indies society, who were largely civil servants.Some of these families had been employed in these capacities for several gen-erations, first by the East Indies Company and later by the Indies government.The civil servants and their wives reproduced during their active years in Asia.Earlier, staff in the upper echelons sent their children to Europe, sometimeseven when they were only four years old. The children returned to Asia, andtheir parents resettled in Europe after their retirement. These “Empire Families,”as Elizabeth Buettner so aptly calls them, managed to stay on the European sideof the colonial boundaries, even if they were Asian or part Asian, because theywere members of the imperial migration circuit (Buettner, 2004). In Java, Creoleplanters became part of this circuit in the 1860s, when the first generation ofpioneers had grown old and left the management of their estates to their sonsor daughters and sons-in-law. Although employment for Europeans in theplantation economy and colonial bureaucracy developed slowly, it was suffi-cient to produce an elite entitled either to paid leave or affluent enough totravel to the Netherlands more than once in their lifetimes. As early as 1849 afew hundred Indies men were at school, on leave, or in retirement in theNetherlands, and the women joined their husbands. Later, an increasing numberof women born in the Indies also went to school in Europe, a practise that had

32We found, for example, that quite a few of the Luxembourg group went to Europe betweentwo army terms from 1870s on (Ispert, 1944).

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been usual among the highest circles of colonial civil servants in the eighteenthcentury. After the opening of the Suez Canal in the 1870s, the number of womenin this group began to exceed the number of men. In 1849, 13.7 percent (1,493)of the Indies-born males and 13 percent (1,391) of the females lived in theNetherlands, and it is entirely likely that some who had lived abroad in Europewere not included in these figures. For 1879 the percentages are, respectively,19 percent and 20 percent, which provides evidence of impressive mobility.33

This mobility would further increase in the twentieth century, as Figure IVshows (the figure is not cumulative) that net migration from the Netherlandsto its colony was negative most of the time: “Suez was sailed from the Southeven more than from the North.” Net female emigration from the Netherlandsto the Indies was consistently negative until World War I, which can be explainedby the fact that successful European bachelors often married women born inthe Indies, and they returned to Europe with their wife when they retired.There is also a sharp contrast between the even slope of female migration andthe sharp peaks of male migration before 1914. These occurred largely becauseprior to World War I young men without a solid position usually went to theIndies as bachelors. The volatility of the Indies plantation economy resulted insharp peaks in immigration figures for males. In contrast, female migrationdeveloped fluidly and in step with the growth of the colonial elite, whose positionsbefore 1910 were less affected by economic ups and downs. Afterward, femalemigration became part of the general economic and political cycles. That accountsfor the periods of positive net female migration in the 1920s and 1930s.

Male migration followed the patterns of heavy military recruitment andthe economic booms of the early 1880s, 1890s, 1905–1913, 1920, and 1925.The troughs in this pattern were shaped by economic crises, such as that in1922 and later the Great Depression, which caused many of the expatriates toreturn immediately. In this respect the twentieth century is similar to the nine-teenth, when migration was determined by the needs of the Indies labor mar-ket. A new feature was the increasing integration of the Dutch and Indies labormarkets for highly skilled and technical labor, since the impediments of hightravel costs and high mortality rates were drastically reduced. From 1910 on,the Indies usually offered considerably higher salaries than Europe, and it beganto attract new categories of (highly) skilled immigrants, as Swierenga rightlyobserved. Deteriorating economic prospects in the 1920s and 1930s drovemany young families to the Indies, which accounts for the rapid resumption

33These percentages are based on comparisons between the data in the Volkstelling 1930,1933:19 and the data in the Colonial Reports.

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of immigration to the Indies in the early years of the Great Depression. Itreached an all-time high in 1936 and continued for several years. While con-ditions in the Indies were not good, they were even worse in the Netherlandsfor qualified labor.34

The Central Bureau of Statistics data do not differentiate between Dutch-born emigrants or Indies-born returnees. As a consequence they hide many

34The ten most frequent professions listed on the immigration forms by nongovernmentemployees entering the Indies in 1931 were: tradesmen (1,022), tobacconists (259), factoryworkers (115), teachers (100), engineers (88), engine drivers (56), female teachers (56), medicaldoctors (41), and priests (40) (Indisch Verslag II, 1931:37).

Figure IV. Migration to Dutch Overseas Territories, Including Net Migration, 1865–1940

Sources: CBS for 1902–1937. The CBS figures are only available until 1937, as in 1936 it was stipulated that colonial migra-tion no longer counted as international migration. These figures, however, do include military migration. For 1865to 1909 we used Wilcox and Ferenczi (1929–1931:743), which also include military from 1880 onward. For1880–1909 we deducted the military on the basis of Bossenbroek (1992:357), for 1910–1932 on the basis of thefigures of the Volkstelling 1930 (1933:32), from 1933–1936 on the basis of Indisch Verslag. The migration figuresfor 1938–1940 are derived from the Indisch Verslag II, 1940:47, 54 and Indisch Verslag II, 1941:47. We may assumethat about 94% of the migratory movements to the Dutch colonial possessions involved the Dutch East Indiesaround 1900, a percentage that must have gone up rapidly in the twentieth century. As regards the share of the DutchWest Indies, which includes Surinam, about 1,100 Dutch born residents and less than 500 military lived here in the earlytwentieth century whereas 11,000 Netherlands-born citizens and 14,000 military were stationed in the East Indies.Hence we may assume that the migration flow to the West Indies was less than 6% of total migration between theNetherlands and its colonies (KV, 1902 (HTK 1902–1903) “Statistiek van de bevolking, de geboorten, de sterfgevallenen de huwelijken in de kolonie Curaçao over de laatste zes jaren”, Bijlage B, 4; KV, 1902 (HTK 1902–1903) BijlageE. “Militair Beheer” and Bijlage O; Benjamins and Snelleman, 1914–1917:58, 144, 254, 666).

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return migrants from the Indies, as could be demonstrated with data from theMunicipality of Utrecht. A comparison of the emigration statistics of theDutch government with the immigration statistics of the Indies colonialgovernment allows us to see the difference between emigration and return migra-tion to the Indies (see Figure V). The difference between people entering theIndies for the first time and total emigration from the Netherlands to theDutch East Indies is that of family migration, which is less subject to economicvagaries. During wartime, however, travel on furloughs, for educational pur-poses, and for retirement was severely impeded, if not almost stopped. Theincreasing importance of this “life cycle” migration circuit is demonstrated bythe fact that in 1930 (an average year) only 354 new civil servants (along withtheir families) were commissioned to the Indies. In the same year 7,003 civil

Figure V. Immigration and Repatriation in the Indies, 1902–1930

Source: For 1903–1930 we used Volkstelling 1930, 1933:18, 34. Furthermore, we have assumed that between 1903 and1940 70% of the permits of admittance were issued to Netherlands citizens, which was the average percentageaccording to the Indisch Verslag, 1930–1940. (This may explain why the figures suggest that during World War Ithe number of Dutch emigrants is lower than that of the Indies entrances – which should obviously be impossible). Forcivil servants, who did not need a permit of admittance, we used the figures of the Volkstelling between 1903 and1930 and doubled the numbers to include women and children. The basis for this doubling is in the Indische Vers-lagen of 1930–1940. For 1930–1940 we used the tables of the Indische Verslagen II, 1935:47 and Indische VerslagenII, 1940:45 on the movements of civil servants and deducted the total of departures from the Indies from the totalof arrivals in the Indies. The negative figures we obtained for 1931 to 1935 were interpreted as zero immigrationof civil servants. The figures about the number of persons entering the Indies until 1912 may be an underestimationas there was no Immigration Office until that year.

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servants and their dependents arrived, and another 6,207 departed from theIndies either on furlough or on retirement.35 Of equal importance to the labormarkets was the rapidly growing migration circuit that became part of the lifecycles of members of families involved in colonial administration and business.The considerable discrepancy (as shown by Figure V) between the number ofDutch-born people entering as immigrants in the Indies on the one hand, andthe growing number of residents in the Netherlands leaving for the Indies onthe other, bears witness to a wide network of migration based upon education,furlough, and retirement. This is corroborated by the 1930 census, which hasdata on the many young people who went to the Netherlands to study (weassume that many returned to the Indies afterward). In contrast to the past,when it was largely boys who were sent to the Netherlands, in 1930 the genderbalance was almost even (Volkstelling 1930, 1933:34). In that year 4,153 Europeanboys and 3,797 European girls had left from the Indies for education in Europe.These are impressive numbers (Volkstelling 1930, 1933), and show a significantchange in the demographic pyramid of the European population in the Indiesin the 15–25 age category.36 The pattern set by the old East Indies Company’selite became more democratic. Children were leaving for the Netherlands tostudy, and when they returned to Asia their parents went back to retire in Europe.

But there is a striking imbalance in the pattern of sending children overseasthat enables us to differentiate between two discrete migration circuits, or moreprecisely, to identify the emergence of a new migration circuit. The percentageof children of Dutch-born parents leaving for the Netherlands was four timesthat of children with Indies roots. This is because Dutch-born parents belongedto the most educated and best-paid segment in colonial society. But this wasnot only a matter of salary, it was also determined by geographical distribution.Newcomers were not evenly distributed over the archipelago: half of theexpatriates went to the outer regions, while only 20 percent of the Europeanpopulation lived there.37 The new immigrants had little choice but to sendtheir children back to their relatives in the Netherlands; educational facilities werescarce on Sumatra and Borneo, and the newcomers had few contacts in Batavia,where some educational facilities did exist. The new immigrants went to the

35Volkstelling 1930, 1933:32; Indisch Verslag II 1935:47.36In fact in the outer regions there were almost no sons over 15 whose fathers who had been bornin the Netherlands (Volkstelling 1930, 1933:23; see on this question Beets et al., 2002:27, 32, 39).37Outside Java the ratio between those born in Europe and those born in the Indies was almost50:50 for males between 20 and 45; on Java the ratio was 60:40. In fact it had not changed sincethe early 1880s, and was the same as in 1820.

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Indies for jobs in the newly developing oil and rubber industries, while the oldersugar industry and the colonial bureaucracy were still dominated by the Creolepopulation (Volkstelling 1930, 1933:10). Nevertheless, parents from both Javaand the outer regions sent their children to the Netherlands, and these childrensailed through the Suez Canal, often for the first time in their lives: from the south.

CONCLUSION

While Swierenga interpreted the shift in the composition of immigrants to theDutch East Indies in the early years of the twentieth century as a concomitantof Dutch economic development, we perceive this as resulting from economicand demographic developments in the Indies. We are able to detect three phasesin this picture. The first is the military migration (1815–1906), the secondcorresponds to the emergence of a Creole migratory circuit (1850–1940), andthe third is comprised of waves of expatriate migration (1919–1940). In thefirst decades of the nineteenth century, military migration, especially of armyofficers, dominated. This was a result of high mortality rates and immigrationrestrictions. The liberalization of the colonial economy and the increasingrecruitment efforts after the Crimean War marked the beginning of a periodof regular influx of military personnel in civil colonial society. This contributedto a low demand for skilled labor from Europe during the entire nineteenthcentury. In addition to the military migration, a Creole migration circuit emergedin the second half of the nineteenth century, marked by increasingly frequenttravel between colony and the metropole. When the demand for qualifiedlabor began to increase at the end of the nineteenth and in the early twentiethcenturies, Creole society had already anticipated the need for qualifications anduniversity degrees. Traveling back and forth to the Indies, even in the twentiethcentury, was very much a part of the life cycles of families whose economicfortunes had become linked to the colony. The third phase of expatriate migrationwas largely a new phenomenon, following the rapid emergence of the exporteconomy in the outer regions, and caused by an acute shortage of schoolteachers,doctors, engine drivers, foremen, drillers, and other skilled professionals. Forthe first time, the colonial government and private business competed forskilled labor in the labor market of the metropole and elsewhere in Europe.

ABBREVIATIONS

HTK = Handelingen van de Tweede Kamer (Records of the Dutch Parliament)KV = Koloniaal Verslag (Colonial Report)

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MvK = Ministerie van Koloniën (Ministry of Colonies)NA = Nationaal Archief (National Archive), The Hague

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