Colonial police in the Dutch East Indies the case of the Ambonese armed police (1897-1942)

Abstract

This dissertation argues that during the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Ambonese, an amalgamation of ethnic minorities in the colonial state of the Dutch East Indies, constituted an essential presence in a special unit of colonial police called the armed police. The work of the Ambonese in their own homelands helped to create the basis of a colonial state that would help to form East Indonesia which would itself serve as a unit in the future state of Indonesia. In bringing together a region under the banner of an archipelago-wide state the Ambonese armed police were strengthening the state as well as cohering a larger identity for peoples in the colonial state. The story of the Ambonese armed police in their homelands is that of an amalgamation of ethnic groups, largely minorities, in the periphery of what would become a nation-state working in the colonial structure of policing in a way that brought disparate groups together. The armed police were the crucial element in helping to spread the colonial state as an institution that fostered integrated service for peoples throughout the archipelago. This is a case study of a colonial police constabulary as well as an exploration of an articulation of unity in diversity in a colonial state that would become Indonesia.