JAVA COFFEES. I 29 



Java is a generic term applied to all coffees grown in 

 the Eastern Archipelago, and is almost a synonym for 

 coffee. While the coffee plant, which is only known in 

 Java by its European appellation and its intimate relation 

 with European despotism, was first introduced into that 

 island by the Dutch at the close of the seventeenth 

 century, and has ever since remained one of their chief 

 articles of exclusive monopoly. The labor by which it 

 is planted and its produce collected is included among 

 the oppressions or " forced services " of the natives at 

 inadequate rates. Previous to the year 1808 the cultiva- 

 tion of coffee in Java was principally confined to the 

 Sunda districts, there being, up to that year, but few 

 plantations comparatively in the eastern districts, the 

 product of which they were capable of yielding not 

 amounting to one-tenth of the whole. But under the 

 rapacious administration of the Dutch East India Com- 

 pany and government the cultivation of coffee has 

 usurped the soil of almost the entire island, otherwise 

 destined for yielding the subsistence of the people, the 

 cultivation of all other products being made subservient 

 to it and the withering effects of a government monopoly, 

 extending their influence indiscriminately throughout 

 every province and district in the island. In the Sunda 

 districts particularly each native family is compelled to 

 care for 1,000 coffee plants, and in the eastern districts, 

 where new and extensive plantations are being formed 

 from time to time in soils and situations in many instances 

 by no means favorable to its profitable culture, 650 

 plants is the prescribed allotment. No negligence can 

 be practised in the performance of this duty, the whole 

 operations of planting, picking and pulping being 



