The Black Armada () was a name applied to

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...

and military vessels which were prevented from sailing to the newly proclaimed independent

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

from

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

ports due to waterfront strikes or 'black bans' by maritime

trade unions A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

from 1945 to 1949.

End of World War II

On 15 August 1945, the

Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...

announced its surrender, bringing to an end both World War II and the

Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies The Empire of Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) during World War II from March 1942 until after the end of the war in September 1945. In May 1940, Germany German invasion of the Netherlands, occupied the Netherlands, and ma ...

. Two days later, on 17 August,

Indonesia proclaimed its independence The Proclamation of Indonesian Independence (, or simply ''Proklamasi'') was read at 10:00 Tokyo Standard Time on Friday 17 August 1945 in Jakarta. The declaration marked the start of the diplomatic and armed resistance of the Indonesian Nati ...

, however the Netherlands refused to recognise the claim and sought to re-assert Dutch control over its former colony.

"Black ban" on Dutch shipping

The ban began on 23 September when Indonesian crew members of four Dutch ships berthed in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

held a

sit-down strike A sit-down strike (or simply sitdown) is a labour strike and a form of civil disobedience in which an organized group of workers, usually employed at factories or other centralized locations, take unauthorized or illegal possession of the workpl ...

, refusing to work on Dutch-flagged or chartered vessels, over a pay dispute and claiming that the material on the ships was intended to be used to suppress the independence movement. The Indonesian sailors made a request to the

Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia Waterside may refer to: Places Canada * RBC Waterside Centre, a commercial development in Halifax, Nova Scotia * Waterside, New Brunswick Nigeria * Aba River (Nigeria), also known as Waterside United Kingdom * Waterside, East Ayrshire * Water ...

to join the boycott. WWF federal secretary Jim Healy later said the union would not be a party to aiding in the suppression of an elected independent Indonesian government. The next day, three ships in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

were held up by the bans, as well as the in Melbourne. The disputes committee of the

Trades and Labour Council A labour council, trades council or industrial council is an association of labour unions or union branches in a given area. Most commonly, they represent unions in a given geographical area, whether at the district, city, region, or provincial or ...

endorsed the unions' ban, declaring six vessels in Brisbane to be "black". On 25 September 1945, a meeting of some 1400 waterside workers in Brisbane endorsed the black ban on Dutch ships (with no dissenting voice) and declared "that the Dutch Government in Australia shall not interfere with the Government as at present established by the Indonesian people themselves". This boycott by the Waterside Workers Federation speedily extended to bans by other unions: boilermakers, engineers, ironworkers, ship painter and dockers, carpenters, storemen and packers, tally clerks, and tug crews. The Netherlands East Indies government-in-exile responded to this with the use of Dutch troops to load the ''Van Heutz'' with the Australian government's permission. In his 1975 book ''Black Armada'', journalist

Rupert Lockwood Rupert Ernest Lockwood (10 March 1908 – 8 March 1997) was an Australian journalist and communist activist. Lockwood was born in Natimuk, Victoria, to newspaper proprietor Alfred Wright Lockwood and Alice Francis. He became a journalist in 1930, ...

emphasised the unprecedented nature of this intervention: The Dutch government responded to the boycotts, insisting that any military materiel and personnel on the ships was for the purpose of fighting pro-Japanese militia in Indonesia. Commander Huibert Quispel of the Netherlands Indies Government Information Service stated that the vessels were "mercy ships" carrying food, clothing and medical supplies for the Indonesian people, and that by boycotting them, Australia's militant trade unions were only aiding the Japanese, and the "

Quisling ''Quisling'' (, ) is a term used in Scandinavian languages and in English to mean a citizen or politician of an occupied country who collaborates with an enemy occupying force; it may also be used more generally as a synonym for ''traitor'' or ...

Jap-sponsored government" of Indonesia. In December 1949, after Dutch recognition of Indonesian independence, a conference of 17 trade unions passed a motion raised by Healy to lift the black ban on Dutch shipping, ending the dispute which had run for over four years.

What the boycotts meant

"Indonesian seamen walked off ships,..., refusing to carry troops, munitions, archives, currency and other paraphernalia of colonial rule... Waterside workers ... refused to load Dutch cargoes, tug-crews would not provide tow-ropes, shipyard unions denied repairs to Dutch ships, Royal Netherlands Airforce aircraft and Navy craft.... The boycott extended to Dutch transport, stores and depots ashore." The number of ships subject to the bans included in total 559 craft: corvettes, submarines, troopships, passenger liners, merchant ships, tankers, barges, lighters and surf landing craft, all necessary for the Dutch re-occupation of Indonesia after its

declaration of independence A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...

on 17 August 1945.

Effect of the boycotts

Lockwood believes that the "schedule-wrecking" delays to Dutch war plans for the newly declared

Indonesian Republic Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian and Pacific oceans. Comprising over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guinea, Indo ...

gave the fledgling government sufficient time to create the administrative capacity which allowed it to weather the "foreign-promoted carnage and disorder of the 1950s", thus preventing the Indonesian archipelago from becoming another

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...

References

External links