Introduction: In 1619 the Dutch occupied Jakarta, ruled by the Kingdom of Banten. It was officially changed to Batavia on 18 January 1621. Batavia rose rapidly and replaced Malacca as the center of trade in the Far East. Until it was replaced by Kolkata, controlled by the British East India Company, in the late 18th century, the Far East of Batavia, the center of trade lasted for more than 100 years. In the 17th and early 18th centuries Batavia was a symbol of the dutch commercial hegemony of the Far East. It flourished with the prominence of the Netherlands and also declined with the decline of the Netherlands.
<h1>The rapid rise of Batavia</h1>
Batavia was originally called Galapa, meaning "coconut" Batavia was already the center of trade in the Far East long before the fall of Malacca, controlling the trade in the Far East. Overseas Chinese call it "Coconut City". It was renamed Jakarta around the 16th century, meaning "Fort of Victory and Glory". The port belonged to the Bachachara dynasty in the 14th century. In 1522, the Kingdom of Banten conquered the area and established a city. On June 22, 1527, it was renamed Jayagarda, meaning "Triumphal City", or Jakarta for short.
Later the Dutch came here and conquered it in 1619, and on January 18, 1621 Jakarta was officially renamed Batavia. Batavia had been established as the center of the Dutch colony in the Far East, so that the Dutch power over the Portuguese in the Strait of Malacca was in a favorable position to attack and retreat. Batavia then reached its full-fledged status in 1638. Japan closed trade with Portugal, but remained open to merchant ships of the Dutch East India Company. Thus the capital of the commercial kingdom and the main network control of "regional trade" remained in the South Sea Islands, and Batavia's position would remain unchanged while the Dutch East India Company maintained its flexible, prudent and arbitrary commercial advantages. In this way, Batavia's position remained for more than a century. In the Far East, there was no need to worry about the effects of the economic crisis from Europe, and in the 17th century india as a whole was a period of economic prosperity and population growth.
A corner of the city of Batavia in 1632
Batavia was a prominent symbol of dutch commercial hegemony in the Far East in the 17th century. The Batavia Town Hall was built in 1652 and dominates the city center with its three-storey buildings. Several canals divide the city, the streets and alleys intersect vertically like a chessboard, the reinforced city wall has four gates, and the upper society has twenty-two bunkers. Merchants from all over the world gathered here. Outside the walls are Javanese and Ambon settlements, and there are also a number of country houses, but mainly rice paddies, sugar cane plantations and canals. Along a remediated river, there are many water mills. Grinding wheat, sawing wood, making paper, making gunpowder or sugar, brick factories, tile cellars, and so on. The city was neatly clean and orderly: markets, shops, warehouses, butcher shops, fish shops, guard houses, spinning mills, and prostitutes were punished for spinning. Dutch colonial society was very wealthy, sluggish and lazy.
A surgeon, Graf, arrived in Batavia on a long journey in 1668 and witnessed the affluence and hedonism of the time, existing in Goa around 1595 and later In Kolkata. This is a sign of economic success.
<h1>The decline of Batavia</h1>
From the beginning of the 18th century, the vast commercial machines of the Netherlands began to malfunction. Some blame this on the East India Company's support for growing malpractices. However, the clerks of the British East India Company in the same period were no less than the Dutch in this regard, but it did not prevent the British East India Company from reaching its glory after 1759. Is it because the reversal of trends in the mid-18th century led to larger economic activity everywhere, increased trade volumes, and created the conditions for change, rupture and revolution? This view is indeed quite tempting. There was a redistribution of international opportunities in Europe, and Britain's leading position was quickly established. In Asia, India attracted the economic center of gravity of the entire Far East, but it was under British supervision that India came first for British interests. Holden Fauber's long-published book brilliantly describes this process of transformation. The British East India Company defeated the Dutch East India Company because the latter lost the game in Bengal and India in the 1770s, and because the latter failed to gain leadership among the foreign merchants in Guangzhou as China gradually opened its doors. Holden Forber's view is not without merit. But a French witness who was harshly critical of the French East India Company claimed that in Guangzhou around 1752, the Swedish East India Company and the Danish Asian Company were better at steering than other companies, although they were small and extremely lacked the conditions for success. But the British ultimately won because of their own strength and India's enormous weight. After the Battle of Placi in 1757, the British East India Company completed not only the political conquest of India, but also the conquest of Indian commercial channels. These trade routes were close to the coast of the Indian subcontinent, leading to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf at one end, and the Nanyang Islands at the other end, which soon reached Guangzhou. Indian captains built many ships aliased "Indians" not only for the needs of regional trade, but also for long voyages to China. According to Forber, the total tonnage of the Fleet flying the British flag for trade in the Indian Ocean was 4,000 tons in 1780, rising to 25,000 tons in 1790. But the actual pace of development was not so fast, because during the War of Integrity in 1780, it was a contest between Britain and France in the Far East because of the radiation of the American War of Independence, when British merchant ships were cautious and sailed with Portuguese, Danish or Swedish flags. After the war, they restored their flag.
Batavia in 1780
As Dutch power declined and influence shrank, batavia's position and influence also shrank. After the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, the Far East Trade Center was transferred from Batavia to Kolkata. The rise of this large city at the mouth of the Ganges is a testament to the decline of the Dutch East India Company. Since then, Batavia has experienced more than 100 years of vicissitudes, and was once occupied by the Japanese army during World War II. After Indonesia declared its independence on August 17, 1945, Batavia was restored to Jakarta and designated as the capital of Indonesia.
Resources:
Material Civilization, Economy, and Capitalism in the 15th and 18th Centuries (Volume III)
● Modern history of Indonesia