Johannes, count van den Bosch

Johannes, count van den Bosch (born Feb. 2, 1780, Herwijnen, Neth.—died Jan. 28, 1844, The Hague) was a statesman who expanded the poor-relief system and instituted the paternalistic Dutch East Indies Culture System, by which vast riches in export crops were extracted from 1830 to about 1860.

In his early years (1798–1810), Bosch served in the army in Batavia (now Jakarta, Indon.) in the Dutch East Indies, and on this experience he based his Nederlandsche bezittingen in Azië, Amerika, en Afrika (1818; “Dutch Possessions in Asia, America, and Africa”), in which he argued against a liberal colonial system and for a strongly paternalistic one, claiming that people unaccustomed to a work ethic needed strong guidance. From 1828 to 1833, he was governor-general in the Dutch East Indies, and, from 1834 to 1839, minister of the colonies. He instituted a “Culture System” that made Indonesian noblemen semiautonomous rulers, exacted compulsory labour from villagers, and required each village to devote at least one-fifth of its land to export crops.