Category: Text, English, Southeast Asia, Cornell University, Malaysia, New York

Historical Context The Visions collection includes the written and photographed experiences of Europeans and Americans who traveled to Southeast Asia during the period of imperialism. The peoples of Southeast Asia experienced waves of colonization beginning in 1511 when the Portuguese took Melaka, a strategic and thriving port city on the Malay Peninsula. The Spanish established a colony in the Philippines which they ruled from the 1560s until 1899 when the United States ousted the Spanish and governed the colony until Philippine independence in 1946. The Dutch gradually conquered the areas known today as Indonesia beginning in 1596 and ending after WWII.