2010/01/01 by R. H. Barnes · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Asian Studies and History
paper · doi:10.4000/moussons.180
openalex publication_date 2010/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
The Dutch deposed Raja Lorenzo II of Larantuka, Flores, in 1904 and exiled him to Java. After his son Servus reached maturity, they appointed him Raja. By then the office had largely been reduced to a principally administrative function at the bottom of the colonial bureaucracy, although the Dutch called the rajas in the Dutch East Indies “self-governors”.Servus seems to have been demoralized by an attack on his life which he survived only after six hours of swimming in the sea. Eventually both the Dutch officials and the local Catholic missionaries became dissatisfied with him and he was forced to resign. Later the Dutch were forced to leave and the Indonesian state completed the job of bureaucratizing local administration by abolishing the office of raja.