When the Dutch returned to Indonesia after the Napoleonic Wars, their main concern was to make the colony at least self-supporting. During the interregnum, both exports and revenue had declined sharply, despite Raffles' hopes for his land-rent system. The costs of government in Java were rising as a result of the growing complexity of administration. In restoring their authority, the Dutch retained the main outlines of the system of residencies, regencies, and lower administrative divisions, though they did not, at first, follow exactly the attempts of Daendels and Raffles to turn the regents into salaried officials, specifically responsible to the residents. Rather, they saw the regent as the "younger brother" of the resident. This difference in theory was perhaps of slight practical effect, since the tendency in lower levels of territorial administration continued in the direction of an increasingly centralized control. Several factors contributed to the trend: one was the need to deal with a series of disturbances, particularly in Java and western Sumatra, but also on a lesser scale in Celebes, Borneo, and the Moluccas; a second was the new economic policy, adopted in 1830, which placed new economic responsibilities on local officials.

The Java War of 1825-30 sprang from a number of causes. In part, it was the product of the disappointed ambitions of its leader, Prince Diponegoro, who had been passed over for the succession to the throne of Jogjakarta. In part, it sprang from resentment among the aristocratic landholders of Jogjakarta, whose contracts for the lease of their lands to Europeans had been canceled by the governor-general. There was support, too, from Islamic leaders. And there were also, no doubt, hidden factors of the kind often to be found in cases of agrarian protest in Java--factors such as the messianic expectation of the coming of a Just Ruler who would restore the harmony of the kingdom. From these varied causes there sprang a revolt that, through the skillful use of guerrilla tactics, continued to challenge Dutch authority for five years, until the Dutch treacherously seized Diponegoro during truce negotiations and exiled him to Celebes. (see also Index: Dipo Negoro, Pangeran, Yogyakarta)

About the same time, the Dutch in western Sumatra were drawn into the so-called Padri War (named for Pedir, a town in Aceh through which Muslim pilgrims usually returned home). Basically, this was a religious struggle between revivalist Islamic leaders in Minangkabau and the adat (customary law) leaders of the community. Under Tuanku Imam Bonjol, the Padri forces resisted Dutch pressure from the early 1820s until 1837. The effect of this involvement was inevitably to strengthen the Dutch administrative commitment in western Sumatra.