East Indies Philippine independence. The East Indies may also include the former French-occupied Indochina, former British territories Brunei and Singapore and former Portuguese East Timor. It does not, however, include the former Dutch New Guinea western New Guinea (West Papua), which is geographically considered to be part of Melanesia. The inhabitants of the East Indies are almost never called East Indians, distinguishing them both from inhabitants of the Caribbean (which is also called the West Indies) and from the indigenous peoples of the Americas who are often called "American Indians." In colonial times they were just "natives". However, the peoples of the
Dutch East Indies paintings which depicted the scene of East Indies published in Amsterdam in 1930. The term became famous in 1939 after S. Sudjojono used it to mock the painters that merely depict all pretty things about Indies. "Mooi Indie" later would identified as the genre of painting that occurred during the colonial East Indies that capture the romantic depictions of the Indies as the main themes; mostly natural scenes of mountains, volcanoes, rice paddies, river valleys, villages, with scenes of native servants, nobles, and sometimes bare-chested native women. Some of the notable "Mooi Indie" painters are European artists: F.J. du Chattel,