Plantation Coolies in North Sumatra, 1900s

Foto: Carl Josef Kleingrothe/National Gallery of Australia

When the flow of Dutch private capital flocked to the Dutch East Indies, many plantations were established in Java and Sumatra. Uniquely, plantations in Sumatra took coolies from other areas. Initially, coolies were imported from China because they were cheap. When things changed, Javanese coolies were brought in to work on plantations in Sumatra.

The photo above shows a group of plantation coolies from Java in North Sumatra around the beginning of the 20th century. There were not only male coolies, there were also female coolies. This photo was taken by Carl Josef Kleingrothe, a German who lives in North Sumatra, and the archive is kept by the National Gallery of Australia.