By the time of the Renaissance, the islands of Java and Sumatra had already enjoyed a 1,000-year heritage of advanced civilization spanning two major empires.

All but one of the Portuguese holdings in Indonesia was overtaken by the Dutch and the British in the 17th century. . . . In 1824 the London Treaty was signed, giving the Dutch control over all British possessions in Sumatra in return for a Dutch surrender of establishments in India and Singapore. Dutch attempts to subdue the recalcitrant Acehnese resulted in a long drawn out struggle. The Aceh War, which lasted intermittently from 1873 to 1942, was the longest war ever fought by Holland, costing the Dutch more than 10,000 lives. . . . Dutch interest in Indonesia was primarily economic but was marked by frequent and sometimes bloody conflicts particularly in Sumatra and Java. The Dutch were, however, able to achieve control over the spice trade in the East Indies during the 17th Century. During the late 18th and 19th centuries . . . uprisings in Java nearly overthrew Dutch rule and crippled the Dutch economy in Indonesia. This economic difficulty renewed Dutch interest in the cultivation of natural resources in Indonesia. The Dutch instituted a strange tax on all land in Java. This tax was not payable in money or crops but in labor. Thirty-three percent of all labor expended by the Javanese was to be dedicated to the Dutch. This system quickly turned into a system of plantations and forced labor. The latter half of the 19th century was marked by Dutch military suppression of Indonesian laborers. This suppression resulted in the virtual enslavement of most of the Javanese peasant laborers. Because of Dutch oppression, Indonesian nationalism began to grow significantly in the early 20th century.