Editing Transmigration program (section)

===Under the Dutch===
[[File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Javaanse koelies keren na werkzaamheden op Sumatra verricht te hebben terug naar Java TMnr 10001443.jpg|thumb|Javanese contract workers in plantation in Sumatra during [[Dutch East Indies|colonial period]], cirica 1925.]]
The policy was first initiated by the [[Dutch East Indies|Dutch colonial government]] in the early nineteenth century to reduce crowding and to provide a workforce for plantations on [[Sumatra]]. The program diminished during the last years of the Dutch era (the early 1940s) but was revived following Indonesian independence, in an attempt to alleviate the food shortages and weak economic performance during [[Sukarno]]'s presidency in the two decades following World War II.

In the peak year of 1929, in the Sumatra's east coast, more than 260,000 contract workers were brought, 235,000 of them from Java. Workers entered into a contract several years long as coolie; if a worker asked for the early termination of the contract in the company ('desertion'), he could be punished with [[hard labour]]. The mortality rate was very high among the coolies and abuse was common.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}}