Founding of Batavia (1619): Jan Pieterszoon Coen Takes Jayakarta

The founding of Batavia took place on 30 May 1619, when forces of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) led by Jan Pieterszoon Coen stormed and destroyed the Javanese port of Jayakarta and began to build a fortified city on its ruins. Batavia became the capital of the company’s empire in Asia and later of the Netherlands East Indies. Today it is Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.

Background

After its founding in 1602, the Dutch East India Company traded from scattered posts across the Indonesian archipelago. Its early Asian base was at Banten in western Java, a major pepper port ruled by a sultan, and at Ambon in the Moluccas. Company leaders wanted a central headquarters, or rendezvous, where ships from Europe could gather and goods from across Asia could be collected.

Jayakarta, east of Banten, was a smaller port ruled by Pangeran Jayawikarta, a prince who owed allegiance to Banten. In 1610 the Dutch received permission to build a trading post there, and the English East India Company also traded in the town. The harbour was sheltered and well placed on the route through the Sunda Strait.

Jan Pieterszoon Coen, a merchant from Hoorn, became Governor-General in 1618. He believed that the company must use force to secure its trade. A phrase from one of his letters, “Dispereert niet, ontsiet uwe vijanden niet, want God is met ons” (“Do not despair, do not spare your enemies, for God is with us”), later became famous as a summary of his outlook.

The crisis of 1618–1619

Coen began strengthening the Dutch post at Jayakarta into a fort, which angered Jayawikarta and alarmed the English. In December 1618 an English fleet under Sir Thomas Dale arrived and fought an indecisive naval engagement with Coen’s ships. Outnumbered, Coen sailed east to Ambon at the start of 1619 to gather reinforcements, leaving a small garrison behind.

The fort was besieged by Jayawikarta’s forces and threatened by the English. Its commander, Pieter van den Broecke, was taken prisoner during negotiations. Then the political situation shifted: Banten intervened, removed Jayawikarta from power and blocked the English from taking the fort. On 12 March 1619 the defenders named their fortress Batavia.

The capture of Jayakarta

Coen returned at the end of May 1619 with a fleet of about 16 to 19 ships and roughly 1,000 men. On 30 May 1619 his troops stormed the town, drove out the Bantenese forces and burned Jayakarta. The English withdrew, and the VOC was left in control of the site.

The company now held land on Java by conquest rather than by permission of a local ruler. Coen set about building a new city that would serve as the permanent headquarters of the VOC in Asia. The Heeren XVII, the company’s directors in the Netherlands, formally confirmed the name Batavia in 1621.

Building the city

Batavia was laid out on a Dutch model, with straight streets, canals, a town hall and a large stone fortress, the Castle of Batavia, by the harbour. Walls and moats surrounded the town. The Governor-General and the Council of the Indies directed the company’s Asian affairs from the castle.

Because the local population had been driven away, Coen needed people. He encouraged Chinese settlers, who became the city’s main traders and craftsmen, and a Chinese headman, Souw Beng Kong, was appointed to lead their community. Large numbers of enslaved people were brought from Bali, Sulawesi, India and elsewhere. The city also included Mardijkers, freed Asian Christians often of Portuguese-speaking background, alongside a small Dutch population.

Life in early Batavia

Batavia was above all a company town. The VOC controlled trade, justice and administration, and its officials, soldiers and sailors made up much of the European population. Few Dutch women travelled to Asia in the early years, so many company men married or lived with Asian or Eurasian women, creating a mixed society with its own customs and a strong Portuguese-based creole language in daily use.

Ships from the Netherlands arrived at Batavia’s roadstead after voyages of around eight months, and from there cargoes were sent on to India, China, Japan and the spice islands. Warehouses, shipyards and workshops grew up along the river and the canals. Outside the walls, Chinese farmers and sugar millers developed the surrounding countryside, known as the Ommelanden.

The city’s laws reflected sharp divisions by rank, origin and religion. The Dutch Reformed Church was the only officially recognised church, and different communities lived in separate quarters under their own headmen. Enslaved people, who formed a large share of the population for much of the seventeenth century, had few legal protections.

Early challenges

Batavia’s position was soon tested. Sultan Agung of Mataram, the most powerful ruler in Java, besieged the city in 1628 and again in 1629. Both sieges failed, partly because the Dutch destroyed Mataram’s rice stores along the coast. Coen died in Batavia on 21 September 1629, during the second siege, apparently of disease.

Coen’s methods were harsh. In 1621 he led the conquest of the Banda Islands, in which much of the population was killed, enslaved or driven out. His reputation has become controversial in the Netherlands, where his statue in Hoorn has been the subject of public debate.

Key people

Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587–1629) served two terms as Governor-General, from 1618 to 1623 and from 1627 until his death. Energetic and ruthless, he is remembered both as the founder of Batavia and as the architect of the violent monopoly policies of the early VOC.

Pangeran Jayawikarta was the ruler of Jayakarta under the overlordship of Banten. After the fall of his town he withdrew inland, and little is known for certain about the rest of his life.

Sultan Agung (r. 1613–1645) was the ruler of Mataram, who brought most of Java under his control. His failure to take Batavia in 1628–1629 left the Dutch secure on the coast.

Later history

Batavia grew into one of the most important ports in Asia, sometimes called the “Queen of the East”. Its canals and swampy surroundings made it unhealthy, however, and malaria and other diseases caused high death rates, especially from the eighteenth century. In 1740 tensions with the Chinese community led to the Batavia massacre, in which thousands of Chinese residents were killed.

After the VOC was dissolved in 1799, Batavia became the capital of the Dutch colonial state. During the Japanese occupation in 1942 the city was renamed Jakarta, and it became the capital of independent Indonesia. The old centre, known as Kota Tua, still preserves buildings from the Dutch period, including the former town hall.

Timeline

• 1610: The VOC obtains permission to build a trading post at Jayakarta.
• 1618: Jan Pieterszoon Coen becomes Governor-General and fortifies the post.
• 1618, December: An English fleet under Sir Thomas Dale clashes with Coen’s ships.
• 1619, 12 March: The besieged Dutch fort is named Batavia.
• 1619, 30 May: Coen’s forces storm and destroy Jayakarta.
• 1621: The VOC formally adopts the name Batavia.
• 1628–1629: Sultan Agung of Mataram twice besieges Batavia without success.
• 1629, 21 September: Coen dies during the second siege.
• 1942: The city is renamed Jakarta under Japanese occupation.

Why it matters

The capture of Jayakarta gave the VOC a permanent territorial base in Asia, from which it built a commercial and colonial empire across the archipelago. Batavia became the centre of Dutch rule in Indonesia for more than three centuries, and its successor, Jakarta, grew into one of the largest cities in the world.