Asian Art

French and British interregnum in the Dutch East Indies

The French and British interregnum in the Dutch East Indies took place between 1806 and 1816. The French ruled between 1806 and 1811, while the British took over from 1811 to 1816 and transferred its control back to the Dutch in 1816. However Java and Sumatra were only returned in July 1821. The French invaded the Dutch Republic and established the Batavian Republic by 1795, and then the Kingdom of Holland in 1806. The fall of the Netherlands to Revolutionary France and the dissolution of the Dutch East India Company led to some profound changes in the European colonial administration of the East Indies, as one of the campaigns of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was fought in Java. This period, which lasted for almost a decade, witnessed a tremendous change in Java, as vigorous infrastructure and defence projects took place, followed by battles, reformation and major changes of administration in the colony.

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See also

• ▸Bangladesh–China relations
• ▸Benjamin Greenleaf
• ▸Grid plan

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Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.