On 17 August 1945, Sukarno, the leader of the Indonesian Nationalist Party, declared Indonesia’s independence from the Dutch East Indies. This momentous event was the culmination of a long and bloody struggle for independence that had begun in the early years of the twentieth century.
In the early nineteenth century, the Dutch East Indies was a valuable colony for the Dutch Empire. The territory, which stretched from present-day Indonesia to Australia, was rich in resources such as tea, coffee, rubber, …