HOW STRANGERS BECAME KINGS

Abstract

This paper analyses the interaction between Mataram-Java and the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the 17th and 18th centuries. In contrast to the previous discussions that tend to adopt opposing categories like European versus Asian, coloniser versus colonised, and strangers versus indigenous as their analytic frames, the paper attempts to identify the specific interests and conflicts at play during the 17th and 18th centuries. It seeks to determine how these changed through time, which groups and individuals among the Javanese sought the involvement and support of the Company, and why. It traces the nature and contours of the Company's territorial expansion and examines the circumstances under which its administrators were reluctant to assume rule, and the circumstances under which they actively did so.

Notes

¹See for example, VOC 2633 Tegal's resident Cornelis Breekpot to Batavia high government, 12 January 1744, ff. 56–9; Nagtegaal, 1996, p. 183. The ‘VOC’ numbers in the footnote refers to the Dutch East India Company archives kept in the National Archives, The Hague.

²One koyang of rice is approximately 1,750 kg.

³VOC 2611, commissioner and plenipotentiary Verijssel presently in Kartasura, 12 October 1743, ff. 38–9; arts. 11–4 of the Company-Mataram treaty on 11–3 November 1743, Corpus 5: 367–70; Company-Mataram treaty on 18 May 1746, Corpus 5: 423–24; Batavia high government to Gentlemen Seventeen, 31 Dec 1746, Opkomst 10: 62–3.

⁴The two princes had fallen out at the end of 1752, ‘presumably because of conflicting personalities and ambitions’ (Ricklefs 1974: 58).

⁵Used as a measurement of land it was reckoned as the area needed to support a family.

⁶13 Feb 1755, Opkomst 10: 298–303; Semarang governor to Batavia high government, 25 April 1792, Opkomst 12: 273.

⁷VOC 3364, Van der Burgh to Batavia high government, 7 March 1772, f. 23.

⁸Greeve's dagregister, extracts 21 October-1 December 1790, in Opkomst 12: 209–10. Commander Staringh, commander of the state squadron, agreed to ship 180 men for field duty in Pasuruan. See further details in the document and Batavia high government to Gentlemen Seventeen, 15 October 1789, Opkomst 12: 165–75.

⁹Batavia high government secret resolution, 20 June 1786, Opkomst 12: 76–79; Batavia high government to Gentlemen Seventeen, 31 January 1794, Opkomst 12: 319; van Overstraten to Nederburgh, 9 May 1796, Opkomst 12: 400–1.

¹⁰VOC 3968, Van Overstraten to Batavia high government, 15 July 1792, pp. 14–5; Van Overstraten to Batavia high government, 22 July 1796, Opkomst 12: 406–15.

¹¹For the figures, see appendix on the various cash crops, 1795–1801, compiled from Opkomst 13: 234–40.

¹²Batavia high government to the Committee to the Matters of East Indian Trade and Possessions [Comité], 13 November 1798, Opkomst 12: 452–53.

¹³Report of the commissioners-general to Gentlemen Seventeen on the prospects of the Company in the Indies, Batavia, 4 July 1795, Opkomst 12: 342–43.

¹⁴Ibid.: 343; Van Overstraten to Nederburgh, 9 May 1796, Opkomst 12: 400.