‘Traditional’ versus ‘Modern’ Administrative Concepts: Dutch Intervention and its Results in Rural Banten, 1760–1790

Abstract

From 1763 to 1790 the Dutch East India Company attempted to promote pepper production in rural regions of Banten, the western tip of Java. This was the first Western intervention into Banten's local agrarian economy, and at the same time it was also a political attempt to introduce ‘modern’ administrative concepts into a ‘traditional’ society. In this paper I shall discuss the discrepancy and conflict between the ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ administrative concepts, and concomitant changes in the political configuration in the local society. Special focus will be directed to the following questions: how the ‘traditional’ administrative system functioned; how the Dutch tried to modify it; how the Dutch promotion policy of pepper production was carried out and what result it attained; and what sort of changes, as a result, occurred in the political configurations in the local society.