Van den Bosch took over the government from Du Bus de Gisignies on 16 January 1830. This event meant the end of the new colonial order which Daendels, Raffles and Van der Capellen - each in their totally own way - tried to establish over the Indies. "What the local population concerned, their spiritual health doesn't seem good to me," wrote Van den Bosch in February 1830 to J.C. Baud, the high servant of the department of navy and Colonies with which he had a private communication. "In the last 25 years, just as many experiments were done on her, that they have become unhappy with it; for sure the new rules have had their effect for the common wealth, the policy and other things, but many things were a surprise to the locals and a unhappy spirit leads to unrest and unhappiness." Enlightened and liberal ways of ruling were probably the best things to do, but they had eventually only resulted in a severe disruption of the social order.

On which way the Dutch Indies should be rules, was clear to Van den Bosch: "The Indies have to the profit of the Netherlands," he wrote a year later with a great emphasis, "the population over there has to be governed with the biggest justice. We shouldn't breach their communal and religious integrity, protect it from all negative influences and their interests should be totally that of the Netherlands." It couldn't be more obvious: the Indies were there for the Netherlands and not the other way around and the government should abolish anything that could disrupt the society. These thoughts were at the base of two complementary actions: the start of the cultivation system and the re-feodalisation of the government.

When starting with the cultivation system, Van den Bosch thought that all estates on the islands of Java actually belonged to the colonial government and that those who cultivated the land were allowed to gain a certain interest. He didn't really want to get money from the farmers, but agricultural products which were meant for exports. Every desa had to use one fifth of their area for the cultivation of products like indigo, sugar and coffee. The government also got the rights over the labor of the Javanese farmers, in which was decided that they worked a certain period in one year at the products for the export, 66 days, which they were not allowed to surpass. Van den Bosch supposed that a system like this would eventually also be good for the wealth of the Javanese population. The farmers were given a fee for most delivered products (the 'planting fee'), while they wouldn't have to pay to the government when they had a failed harvest. "I want to soften the faith of many Javanese, by letting them do what they want with the profits from his fields. He can buy himself free from the estate interests," would the governor write in 1831.

Van den Bosch first aimed at the cultivation of indigo in 1830, because raising the production of this dye seemed very easy. There were already many indigo gardens the Preanger regencies. The newly named "provisional inspector of the indigo-cultures" was given 200,000 guilders to build factories in this area and to extend the plantation areas of indigo as well. The inspector succeeded: within a short amount of time there were 18 indigo factories working. Besides this, an effort was made to introduce the indigo cultivation in the residence of Cheribon. This was obstructed by the local population. The production of indigo could only start there after Van der Bosch paid a high amount of money to the leaders and had organized big parties for the planters.

Potentially more important than the production of indigo was the sugar cultivation, which had gotten into decay before the arrival of Van den Bosch in the Indies. The total export of sugar was less than 100,000 pikol (a pikol is about 61 kg) in 1830. Now there wasn't the technical knowledge among the government as well as under the farmers to increase the sugar production quickly. The existing production lay in the hands of a few Chinese investors which owned several primitive factories. Van den Bosch stimulated his residents to prepare rice fields for the production of sugarcane. The processing of the sugarcane should be done by private firms, which Van den Bosch tried to interest by offering contracts in which the government obliged the Javanese farmers to grow sugarcane on one hand and gave Javanese farmers into labor for the private investors on the other hand.

The investor accepted that he had to process the sugarcane and sell the sugar for a fixed price to the government. Interested parties for such a 'sugar-contract' were hard to find in 1830: the sugar cultivation had a bad name and European servants weren't prepared to trade their relatively safe life as a worker for the government for something named a 'sugar contractor'. This resulted in the fact that of the 175 to 180 sugar contracts which were signed, about 75 per cent fell in the hands of Chinese (which had sometimes signed under strong pressure by the resident) and no more than thirty on the name of European investors.

Especially the sugar cultivation meant a heavy load on the Javanese population quickly. The construction of the sugar factories was done against a low reward and sometimes in forced labor. Furthermore, working on the sugarcane fields, the cutting of the canes and the transport to the sugar mills was very labor intensive. One of the results was that the production of rice was hampered. Locally the population resisted the introduction of the sugar cultivation. In the residence of Besoeki, sugarcane fields were set afire, to prevent the cutting of the canes and transporting them. In Pasoeroean thousands of Javanese protested in front of the house of the resident, which could only calm the population by telling them that there didn't have to be any production of sugarcane for one year, a promise which wasn't kept by the government.

Inside the government, there also was protest against the cultivation system. The main opponent of Van den Bosch was the influential member of the Council of the Indies Pieter Merkus, which thought it was not right that the interests of the Javanese were less important than those of the Dutch government. Merkus was also worried about the future of the private industry, but was mainly worried about the fact that the introduction of the cultivation systems with forced cultivation would be the cause of more and larger obligations and suppression.

While the colonial government had the task to protect the local population, the 'honest planter and merchant' didn't have anything to do against 'any force,' so he would write in 1835 in Blik op het bestuur van Nederlandsch-Indië onder den gouverneur-general J. van den Bosch. The indigo cultivation in the Preanger was evidence of this, since many pregnant women were "often put to hard labor on the indigo-fields while they gave birth to their children or that prearranged marriages took place." Van den Bosch didn't really react on the criticism of Merkus.

The (rare) resistance of the local population and the opposition of Merkus were not enough for Van den Bosch to drop his ideas. From the Netherlands he was clearly supported by King Willem I, which gave him the right, when needed, to act as commissioner-general with it's full rights. Strengthened by this, Van den Bosch went on. He founded the Department of Cultures, which was lead by his friend J.L. van Sevenhoven. From the department, several Dutch servants were given the ordered to plant certain crops, build factories and to demand forced labor. From 1832, the production of coffee was brought under that department as well, while there were also experiments with tobacco, tea, pepper, cinnamon and cotton.

Eventually Van den Bosch would spend four years to introduce the cultivation system, from June 1833 as a commissioner-general and assisted by Baud, which was named governor-general ad interim. In March 1834 the foundations of the cultivation system were published in the Staatsblad van Nederlandsch Indië (State newspaper of the Dutch Indies), what didn't lead to uniform rules. Between the different residences on Java, there were still differences, but Van den Bosch didn't bother about that, since he was never aiming at introducing a single system. "That what is good for the ironworker," he declared, "isn't always right for the tailor, and this also goes for agriculture."

Meanwhile not everything went as wished. The production of indigo lagged behind, especially because the Preanger Regencies had chosen the wrong estates, not fertile enough and to remote from those villages which had to maintain those estates. The production of sugar only increased slowly. This wasn't a miracle after all: the start of the cultivation system took place with a lot of improvisation. Planting the crops wasn't always possible and the Dutch servants didn't always know whether a certain piece of land was good for the cultivation of sugar. Only the production of coffee increased strongly during Van der Bosch's leadership period, from 288,000 pikol in 1830 to 360,000 in 1833, but this was mainly the result of the trees that were planted during the period of Du Bus de Gisignies. However it may be, Van den Bosch succeeded in making the Indies a profitable possession. He could do this because he continued demanding estate interests, which were paid more easily by the farmers because of the planting fee. Already in 1831 there was a surplus of 200,000 guilders, after years of big shortages a remarkable result.

To make the cultivation system into a definitive success, cooperation of the local Javanese leaders was crucial. Van den Bosch thought that the Javanese population would like to do something for their leaders, and giving them their 'splendid honor' and they listened to 'all orders, as long as it matched their adat'. Key figures were the regents, which he wanted to connect to the government by giving them better positions than they had ever had. Van den Bosch started the re-feodalisation of the government. So, the regents got a part of their salary in rice fields and other estates, they got control over their own militia (barisan) and their job was made heritable. This last thing was very important. Normally the regents under the Javanese royal rulers were never certain of their position, but now their offspring were guaranteed a pretty powerful position in the local society.

The regents were offered so called 'culture percentages' - just like the local leaders and the Dutch servants - a fee on top of their salary of which the height was determined from the amount of sugar, coffee or indigo. Eventually this would be a high amount of money, for those who worked at the right regencies. The regional differences were big. At the end of the 1850's, residents in the Preanger were given on average 90,000 guilders per year for their culture percentages, this in contrary to their colleagues in Bantam, which only received 2,500 guilders a year. For comparison, the regular income of a resident excluding the culture percentages was 15,000 guilders.

The culture percentages caused for a lot of envy among the Dutch servants which were always on the look for a better placement. Another cause was that almost every local leader and European servant tried to make a success of the cultivation system, with all causes for the population. The Javanese aristocracy was very pleased with the new Dutch government. Directly after Van den Bosch left for the Netherlands in 1834, governor-general ad interim Baud noticed that during a 3.5 month inspection trip over Java 'all local royals and leaders (...) were happy with what happened at that time, and what certainty they had in the future.'

Besides the treasury of the Indies and the Javanese regents, the 'Nederlandse Handel Maatschappy' (NHM or Dutch Trading Firm) also profited from the start of the cultivation system. The firm was already founded in March 1824 on proposal of H.W. Mintinghe to stimulate trade between the Netherlands and the Indies, in which it was the target that they gained a monopoly on the transport of tropical products from the colony to the homeland. In 1830, the NHM was only a small-scale company, because the government of the Indies didn't want to give a monopoly to the company.

Private shipping companies were still allowed to export products from Java. With the arrival of Van den Bosch and the introduction of the cultivation system, this changed. Due to the so-called 'consignation system', the NHM now transported all products grown in order of the government - as a monopolist - to Amsterdam, where they also arranged auctions, which becomes clear in the title of the masterpiece of Multatuli; Max Havelaar of de koffieveiligen de Nederlandsche Handelsmaatschappy. The position of the NHM in the Indian archipelago did remind of the times of the VOC.

On a first look, it seemed that the old times had returned. Who looks better, discovers big differences between the time of the VOC on one hand and the period which had just started with the arrival op Van den Bosch on the other hand. The most remarkable probably was the increased power of the Dutch on Java, where oldest Javanese elite had lost from the Dutch in the Java War. After 1830 the colonial state was almost a superpower, also because Van den Bosch succeeded into connecting influential regents to him by re-feodalising the inland government.

You should not forget that Diponegoro had already shown that it was possible to start a revolt against the Dutch rulers which would be supported by people from every layer of the population. Over four years, members of the Javanese aristocracy as well as Islamic leaders and farmers had resisted against the Dutch. In that way, the Java War was also a test for the national Indonesian revolution which would take place more than a century later. In Jakarta, in front of the National Monument, there is now a statue of Diponegoro, pahlawan nasional of Republik Indonesia.

The Java War and the arrival of Van den Bosch had closed off a period of the history of the Dutch Indies, which was also branded by efforts in the Indian archipelago which were aimed at founding an enlightened and liberal colonial state. A dramatic event marked and symbolized the end of this era. In the early morning of October 10th 1834 - Van den Bosch had already left for the Netherlands by then - the western part of Java was hit by a heavy earthquake, which caused, as told by the Javasche Courant 'common disorder and big damages' in Batavia. In Buitenzorg, the quake hadn't been less destructive.

During the entire night of 9 to 10 October, shocks were felt, 'which was caused by a massive shock in around half past five in the morning that all stone houses were destroyed or heavily damaged.' The most shocking scene could be seen in the Country's Garden, where little was left of the palace of the governor-general. 'A big part of the Palace is collapsed,' the Javasche Courant reported,' and other parts were damaged so much that another lighter quake would certainly destroy the entire building.' Daendels pretentious and Napoleonic building - symbol of the new Indies - was no longer.