ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses on their work, using legal history to trace significant features that were sewn into the fabric of the colonial state and have yet to unravel. Law is an especially rich lode for this kind of mining, because it records the structure of the state and reflects the distribution of political, social, and economic advantages. The author deals with four topics: plural legal and judicial organization in the colony; adat law policy; private legal roles; and the transmission of colonial legal tradition into the independent state. The raw argument is that colonial law, which established the genetic pattern of the Indonesian state, was intended primarily to make exploitation efficient. The logic of Indies pluralism and indirect rule required that Dutch and Indonesian communities be well equipped with the institutions they needed to play their appointed roles, but that the Indonesian side must be readily subordinated to that of the Dutch.
