A Dutchman with an Indonesian woman is on the veranda of the house with their two Indo (half-blooded) children in Java around 1906. All of them wore traditional Indonesian clothes, called batik. This was a sight that was quite often seen in Java during the Dutch colonial period.
After the opening of the Suez Canal in 1850s, the flow of people and goods from Europe to Asia increased. Coupled with the discovery of steamboat and telegraph technology, the distance between the Netherlands and its colonies was even closer.
The ease of transportation and communication made many Dutch companies invested their money in Indonesia. More and more Dutch people came to work in Indonesia, most of them are men.
The Dutch men who worked in the plantation, mining, financial and military industries later married Indonesian women and gave birth to half-blooded offsprings, called Indo.
The photograph above is the colorized version, below is the original one.
(Herbert George Ponting/Popperfoto)
