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
Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies The Japanese Empire occupied the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, during World War II from March 1942 until after the end of the War in September 1945. The period was one of the most critical in Indonesian history. The Dutch East Indies had been a colony of the Netherlands (the Dutch) since 1819. However, the Netherlands itself had been occupied by Germany, and thus had little ability to defend its colony against the Japanese army, and less than three months after the first attacks on Borneo, the Japanese navy and army overran Dutch