Spanish East Indies together with the Spanish West Indies, were administered through the Viceroyalty of New Spain based in Mexico City. After Mexican independence, they were ruled directly from Madrid. As a result of the Spanish–American War in 1898, the Philippines and Guam were occupied by the United States while about 6,000 of the remaining smaller islands were sold to Germany in the German–Spanish Treaty of 1899. The few remaining islands were ceded to the United States when the Treaty of Washington was ratified in 1901. Spanish contact began on , when a Spanish expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan reached the Mariana Islands.
Batavia, Dutch East Indies new port. In 1885, the port of Tanjung Priok was finally completed, replacing the centuries-old Sunda Kelapa, which was deemed as inadequate for a long time. This would then significantly increase commercial and tourism in Batavia and the Dutch East Indies in general. The Dutch cultuurstelsel, or cultivation system, was a Dutch government policy in the mid-nineteenth century which required a portion of agricultural production to be devoted to export crops. Indonesian historians refer to it as tanam paksa, enforcement planting. The abolition of the cultuurstelsel in 1870 led to the rapid development of private enterprise in the Dutch Indies.