Herman Willem Daendels

Java Great Post Road, commissioned by Daendels.

Louis Bonaparte made Daendels colonel-general in 1806 and Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies in 1807. After a long voyage, he arrived in the city of Batavia (now Jakarta) on 5 January 1808 and relieved the former Governor General, Albertus Henricus Wiese. His primary task was to rid the island of Java of the British Army.

He built new hospitals and military barracks, a new arms factories in Surabaya and Semarang, and a new military college in Batavia. He demolished the Castle in Batavia and replaced it with a new fort at Meester Cornelis (Jatinegara), and built Fort Lodewijk (Fort Ludwig) in Surabaya. He also moved the central government from Old Batavia to Weltevreden, with a palace built in Paradeplaats. However, his best-known achievement was the construction of the Great Post Road (Indonesian: Jalan Raya Pos) across northern Java from Anyer to Panarukan. The road now serves as the main road in the island of Java, called Jalur Pantura. The thousand-kilometre road was completed in only one year, during which thousands of Javanese forced labourers died.[2]

He displayed a firm attitude towards the Javanese rulers, with the result that the rulers were willing to work with the British against the Dutch. He also subjected the population of Java to forced labour (Rodi). There were some rebellious actions against this, such as those in Cadas Pangeran, West Java.

There is considerable debate as to whether he increased the efficiency of the local bureaucracy and reduced corruption, although he certainly enriched himself during this period.

Daendels failed to stop the British Invasion of the Spice Islands in 1810 despite improving the defences.

When the Kingdom of Holland was incorporated into France in 1810, Daendels returned to Holland. He was appointed a Divisional General (Major General) and commanded the 26th Division of the Grande Armée in Napoleon's invasion of Russia.

After the fall of Napoleon, king Willem I and the new Dutch government feared that Daendels could become an influential and powerful opposition leader and effectively banned him from the Netherlands by appointing him Governor-General of the Dutch Gold Coast (now part of Ghana). In the aftermath of the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, Daendels tried to redevelop the rather dilapidated Dutch possessions as an African plantation colony driven by legitimate trade. Drawing on his experience from the East Indies, he came up with some very ambitious infrastructural projects, including a comprehensive road system, with a main road connecting Elmina and Kumasi in Ashanti. The Dutch government gave him a free hand and a substantial budget to implement his plans. At the same time, however, Daendels regarded his governorship as an opportunity to establish a private business monopoly in the Dutch Gold Coast.

In 1817, the British accused Daendels of aiding and abetting the slave trade – which had by then been prohibited by both the British and the Dutch nations – from his position at the Elmina fort which was then under Dutch control. "We deem it our duty to inform you of the conduct of General Daendels who is acting independent of his Government", the British Governor of Cape Coast, John Smith, wrote to the African Committee in Parliament in London on 5 March 1817. "Portuguese vessels are furnished with canoes, and Spaniards supplied with water. The beginning of last month a large Spanish ship was four days at anchor in Elmina roads, receiving water and bartering dollars for such goods as were suited for the purchase of slaves."[3]

Eventually none of the plans came to fruition, as Daendels died of malaria in the castle of St. George d'Elmina, the Dutch seat of government, on 2 May 1818.[4] His body was interred in the central tomb at the Dutch cemetery in Elmina. He had been in the country less than two years.