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.
French and British interregnum in the Dutch East Indies Java, called Jalur Pantura. The thousand-kilometre road was completed in only one year, during which thousands of Javanese forced labourers died. The reign of Catholic King Lodewijk in the Netherlands ended the centuries-old of religious discriminations against Catholics both in the Netherlands and in the East Indies. Previously the Netherlands only favour Protestantism. The Catholics were permitted freedom of worship in the Dutch Indies, though this measure was mainly intended for European Catholics, since Daendels ruled under the authority of Napoleonic France. This religious freedom would be consolidated later by Thomas Raffles. Daendels — known as an avid Francophile —