THE DUTCH COLONIAL ECONOMIC’S POLICY ON NATIVES LAND PROPERTY OF INDONESIA

Abstract

This paper analyzes the historical shifts of land property rights in Indonesia's archipelago and how new land laws were formed, especially during the Dutch colonization era. After the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) established in the 18th century and proclaimed itself as a sovereign landlord over the East Indies (Indonesia), the role of indigenous law (adat law) and its rights to lands have diminished by a new form of law namely the European law system (the civil code). By adopting the European civil code, the colonial Dutch declared all uncertified lands and all forests’ resources were the Dutch colonial State's property and to be managed by the colonial authority [State’s domain]. For Adat peoples, these rights belong to them, either as individuals or as groups, and it had been recognized by their customary law (adat law) legally, which they have had since their ancestors inhabited within the land, territories, and resources. Further significant impact toward the adat rights to land, when the Agrarian Act (agrarisch wet) applied in 1870 by the colonial government, had severely impacted towards the land right of indigenous peoples in Indonesia, by which most of them had lost their adat property right to lands and forest resources. In contrast, the Dutch colonial State was gained millions of guldens for economic profit from the expropriation of the native land and from unpaid native slaves who worked in the Dutch plantation sectors.