User:Mhatopzz/Zelfbestuur Landschappen (Dutch East Indies)

A Zelfbestuur (Wilayah Swapraja, borrowed from Sanskrit) or formally Zelfbestuur Landschappen, was a type of indigenous self-governing territory within the Dutch East Indies that was ruled by a monarch (i.e. a sultan, sunan, or raja), usually referred as princes, simmilar to those princely states in British Raj. These self-governing territories were established by a long-term treaties or agreement between the Dutch East Indies government and the indigenous monarch and were first regulated by the Dutch East Indies constitutional law ("staatsinrichting van Nederlandsch-Indië") of 1855. These indigenous self-governing territories had limited autonomy and were put under Dutch protectorate status, usually the monarchs were allowed to excercise their government under the supervision of a controleur or resident, and sometimes a governor for the case of Vorstenlanden territories in Java.

The special relations between the Dutch East Indies government and Indigenous kingdoms in pre-colonial Indonesia existed as early as the 17th century when the Dutch East India Company made several kind of agreements with the indigenous kingdoms, these kingdoms were then bounded to the Dutch colonial government until the Independence of Indonesia in 1945, where many of them would be abolished or incorporated as autonomous regions.