Decline
After conflict with the Dutch over the pepper trade in 1619, the Dutch East India Company Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen took the port of Jayakarta from Banten. He founded Batavia (now Jakarta) on the ruins of this Javanese town, which became the center of VOC operation and a serious rival for Banten, later contributing to its decline. During the middle of 17th century several conflicts between Banten and the Dutch in Batavia, just 60 miles separated along the northern coast of Java, occurred.
In 1628-1629 Mataram Sultanate was involved in power contest with Dutch East India Company (VOC) and launched sieges on Batavia. Later Mataram was gradually weakened through struggle of successions of Javanese princes and Dutch involvements in internal Mataram court affair.
At Banten, meanwhile, Palace disputes erupted between Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa and his son and co-sovereign Sultan Haji. Sultan Ageng wished to maintain a policy of free-trade with all European powers, but his son wanted close relations with the Dutch in Batavia. Ageng's independence is shown in the letter to the Danish king mentioned above, offering to trade pepper from Banten for firearms and gunpowder.
With Sultan Haji allied with the VOC, a war broke between Batavia and Banten in the 1670s and 1680s. The result was disastrous for Banten: the VOC gained Bogor and Priangan Highlands (now West Java) and reduced Banten's power substantially, making it a protectorate of the VOC. Although nominally independent, its power was gone.
In 1752, the Dutch annexed territories on western Borneo and southern Sumatra formerly held by Banten.
In 1808 Herman Willem Daendels, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies in 1808-1810, commissioned the construction of Great Post Road to defend Java from incoming British invasion. Daendels ordered Sultan Aliyuddin II of Banten to move the capital to Anyer and to provide labor to build a new port planned to be built at Ujung Kulon. The Sultan refused Daendels' command, and in response Daendels ordered the invasion of Banten and destruction of Surosowan palace. The Sultan, together with his family, was arrested in Puri Intan and held as a prisoner in Fort Speelwijk, and later sent into exile in Ambon.
On 22 November 1808, Daendels declared from his headquarters in Serang that the Sultanate of Banten had been absorbed into the territory of the Dutch East Indies. In 1813 Banten Sultanate ceased to exist when Thomas Stamford Raffles forced Sultan Muhamad Syafiuddin to give up his throne. This was the final blow that marked the end of Sultanate of Banten.
Read more about this topic: Sultanate Of Banten
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