The History of Java, v. 1-2

ACCOUNT
OF
THE SEVERAL PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS
OF
JAVA AND MADURA.

In several parts of this work, and in particular when treating of agriculture and revenue, reference has been made to the changes introduced by the British government in the internal management of the country, and to the information of a statistical nature which was collected with regard to its resources.

It may not be uninteresting to the reader to possess, in a compressed form, the result of the surveys and inquiries which were then set on foot, as far as the same were completed at the close of the British administration on Java. The Appendix L. contains a copy of the proclamation and of the general instructions issued by the government; the latter will sufficiently explain the principle on which the tables for the eastern districts were compiled.

BANTAM.

Bantam, once rich in its pepper plantations and the emporium of the Archipelago, had, in consequence of the restrictions of the Dutch company and the vicinity of Batavia, lost all its trade and importance, long before the arrival of the British.

The succession of the throne of Bantam was generally disposed of by the influence of the Dutch government: but the administration of the country and the collection of the port duties were till very lately entirely entrusted to him. This European influence, though strongly resisted in the first instance, had been long acquiesced in, till an attempt of the Dutch government, in the year 1808, to draw additional benefit from this province, gave occasion to an insurrection. The successive measures of introducing the cultivation of coffee into that part of the island, of opening the communication by means of new roads, and of constructing a new harbour, first at Mew Bay, and afterwards at Merak Bay, imposed new and unusual burthens on the people; and so many deserted from the public works that an order was issued to the Resident, requiring him to inform the sultan that his first minister should be held responsible for the due execution of the public task assigned to the sultan's subjects. The desertion still continuing, an order still more peremptory was issued to the Resident, requiring him to call upon the sultan to deliver up his first minister immediately. In carrying these orders into execution, the Resident having imprudently risked his person, was murdered. This fatal accident was the occasion of sending a considerable military force to Bantam, by which an immediate and thorough change in the native government was effected. The reigning sultan was removed from the throne and banished to Amboina, and a relative was raised to the sovereign power.

This prince was placed under regulations dictated by the Dutch; for so fallen had the sovereigns of this once flourishing and powerful kingdom now become, that the form and solemnity of a treaty was not deemed necessary. The sultan ceded part of his territories to the westward, adjacent to the environs of Batavia, the bad administration of which had frequently given occasion to disturbances in the Batavian districts. The new sultan was allowed to administer the rest of his dominions under the superior rule of the Dutch government.

The public works to be carried on in Bantam, and the unusual burthens they imposed on the people, continued however to excite, from time to time, disturbances and insurrections. On one occasion a detachment, consisting of a lieutenant and eighteen dragoons, were surprised and murdered by the inhabitants. Several native Pangérans and chiefs fell victims to the same spirit of discontent and revenge, and another change in the person of the sultan was thought advisable; the new sultan was in consequence allured on board a vessel, and conveyed to Batavia, and in his place another chief was installed sultan of the high lands of Bantam, the Dutch reserving to themselves the direct administration of the low lands.

The country, however, remaining still in a disturbed state, the Pangéran Akmet united under his banner the discontented people of all descriptions, in a more regular opposition to the European authority. From this time an extraordinary military force was constantly kept in Bantam: all attempts, however, to arrest the person of Akmet failed. His influence increased so much that proposals were made to him of a cession of part of the country: these, however, not being listened to, it was determined to abandon the interior to his depredations, until the inhabitants themselves, wearied of his arbitrary proceedings, might seek refuge with the European government.

The Dutch force being withdrawn from Bantam, Akmet availed himself of the presence of the British cruizers, during the blockade in 1811, to strengthen his influence by an intercourse with them, which he easily effected by furnishing them with supplies plundered by him from the inhabitants. By the cruizers he was considered as an unfortunate prince, maintaining his independence against the Dutch; and when the British troops landed, the sultan was his prisoner, and all Bantam under his controul.

At the conquest of Java by the British forces the extensive tracts of this fertile province were thus in the hands of a lawless rebel, the inhabitants were in a state of revolt, and universal anarchy and distrust had prevailed for several years. All idea of raising a revenue on account of government had been abandoned; and the general settlement of the country under European controul, was the most that could be hoped for.

In the year 1813 the sultan voluntarily resigned the administration of the country into the hands of the British government, in consideration of an annual pension of ten thousand Spanish dollars. With the detailed system of land revenue introduced into this province, an accurate survey was made of all the northern divisions; and a settlement having been made with each individual cultivator, the extent of population stated in the annexed table, as far as these districts are concerned, may be considered as in general correct. The population of the southern districts is estimated; and it may be observed, that the total population rather exceeds than falls short of what is stated.

BATAVIA.

Of the splendour and magnificence which procured for this capital the title of the Queen of the East, little is now to be found. Streets have been pulled down, canals half filled up, forts demolished, and palaces levelled with the dust. The state-house, where the supreme court of justice and magistracy still assemble, remains; merchants transact their business in the town during the day, and its warehouses still contain the richest productions of the island, but few Europeans of respectability sleep within its limits.

The following table comprises all fixed residents within the city and its immediate suburbs, to the distance of about two miles. The municipal regulations of this part of the island having been continued in force, and the execution of them, for the most part, delegated to Dutch authorities, it is to be apprehended that the return of the population now given may be found deficient in accuracy. A poll-tax being levied on the Chinese, and other town duties rendering it the interest of the parties to withhold information as to the exact numbers, it is also probable that the total amount considerably exceeds that now given: certainly it does not fall short of it.

ENVIRONS OF BATAVIA.

The lands comprehended under the denomination of the Batavian environs (Ommelanden), originally formed the principal part of the Jakátra dominions. The native chiefs were early deprived of the administration by the cautious policy of the Dutch, and the lands subsequently sold in property to Europeans and others. According to an official valuation in 1813, the amount of property in houses and lands, belonging to individuals, in the city of Batavia and its environs, including the private estates near Buitenzorg, exceeded eleven millions of rix-dollars silver, and the taxes were levied on that estimate. Various systems of government had been attempted in this district before the arrival of the British in 1811, but so inefficacious were they, that it was considered unsafe for Europeans to travel without arms. As a measure of police, a portion of this division, formerly comprized within the Ommelanden, was recently annexed to the regency of Buitenzorg, and formed into a separate administration. For the population of these two divisions, as they now stand, see General Table, Vol. I, page 62, Table II.

BATAVIAN OR PRIANGEN REGENCIES.

Each of these regencies was administered by a native chief, immediately dependent on government, and without any power beyond his district. The chiefs, however, were mostly allied by frequent intermarriages, and traced their descent from different chieftains of the ancient empire of Pajajáran. Separated, on the one hand, from the dominions of the Susúnan and sultan by the country of Chéribon, and on the other from Bantam by the Batavian environs, their power never became formidable to the European government. The coffee monopoly in the Western Districts having been maintained on its former principle during the period of the British administration, the inhabitants of these districts were precluded from feeling the effects of the system introduced into the more eastern districts; but as it was in contemplation, eventually, to render the change general throughout the island, preparatory measures were taken, and a survey of these districts being made, the annexed statistical table was framed. The produce stated in the table is estimated according to the native returns; these districts likewise furnish an annual quantity of about seventy-five thousand hundred-weight of coffee for the European market.

CHERIBON.

Chéribon fell under the European influence in the year 1666, and has now been subject to it one hundred and fifty years. It was among the first cessions made to the Dutch by the princes of Matárem.

This province had, like Bantam, been in a state of continued insurrection for many years preceding the arrival of the English. The importance of the town of Chéribon has considerably declined, partly in consequence of these commotions, and partly of epidemic fevers which prevailed some years ago.

The extensive and fertile province of Chéribon did not, under the administration of the Dutch Company, yield those profits which were expected from its great natural resources; especially of indigo, coffee, and teak timber. The Sultans of Chéribon, descended from one of the founders of the Mahomedan religion on Java, and on that account objects of religious veneration among the more orthodox Mahomedans, were always left in the entire management of the native administration. The coffee and other produce exacted from the people, was delivered by the Sultan, and paid for to him. Under this system, the residents of Chéribon enjoyed an annual income of from eighty to one hundred thousand dollars (£23,000), while the Sultans were every year more and more impoverished. At length an insurrection broke out in 1800, the ostensible reason of which was the unjust removal of Sultan Kanóman, who had been banished by the Dutch to Amboina, and the real cause probably the great oppression of the common inhabitants, occasioned by the distress of the Sultans, and the indiscriminate admission of too many Chinese in the interior of the country. The reinstallation of Sultan Kanóman, in 1808, by Marshal Daendals, did not appease the minds of the people; and the unwillingness or inability of that prince to restore the public tranquillity, led to an entirely new organization of the country.

When the island was conquered by the British troops, the rebel, Bágus Rángen, still maintained himself in the eastern parts of Kráwang, in perfect defiance of the power of government, sternly rejecting the offers of pardon and oblivion which were on that occasion offered to him, and eluding or defeating all attempts to destroy or ensnare him. Such was the veneration in which this man was regarded by the people of these districts, and such the dread in which he was held by the native chiefs (through whose means alone his apprehension was to be accomplished), that he remained in perfect quiet and security, maintained a correspondence with the disaffected throughout the province, secured his regular supplies of ammunition and provisions from all parts, and even from the town of Chéribon, and tranquilly prepared for the ensuing rainy season, to appear again in arms and ravage the country.

In a few months after the establishment of a British resident in the district, the person of Bágus Rángen was secured, and the country reduced to a perfect state of tranquillity, in which it remained during the whole period of the British administration.

The following extracts from the report of the gentleman[279] intrusted with the introduction of the land revenue system into Chéribon, may serve to illustrate the state of this province:​—

"There is, perhaps, with the exception of the environs of Batavia and Bantam, no part of the island of Java which has so severely felt the bad effects of mismanagement as the district of Chéribon. These effects are visible in the character of the people, who, even among the Javans, are remarkable for a careless indifference to the pursuit of gain, for indolence, for want of energy, and for a credulity and ignorance, rendering them perpetually a prey to delusion. Within the last forty years, in particular, a series of mismanagement and oppression is said to have wrought a most unfavourable change in the character of the people, to have destroyed the habits of industry, and consequently to have changed even the aspect of the country, so that it is no longer to be recognized as the fruitful district which it is once represented to have been. Within the last seven years, famine, mortality, and civil commotion, have contributed to aggravate the evils of mismanagement, and in one or other form have desolated some of the finest parts of the district.

"The history of the civil commotions alluded to afford a striking illustration of the character of the inhabitants. It certainly gives no countenance to the representation of those observers who ascribe to the Javans in general a character of the most invincible apathy, stupidity, and indolence, as if these qualities had been irrevocably engrafted upon their very natures. A better knowledge of their real character enables us to draw very different inferences, and to ascribe to them a much larger share of sensibility, than could from reasoning be expected to result from the apparently overwhelming causes which contribute to degrade their faculties and blunt their energies and exertions.

"It is an instructive fact, highly worthy of remark, that the successive commotions and insurrections which have for many years disturbed the peace of Chéribon, have uniformly had their origin in the Javan districts, where the rights of private property in the soil were almost entirely overlooked, that they have only occasionally extended from the Javan to the Súnda districts, and have never reached the Priang'en lands, where property in the soil is fully acknowledged and respected.

"The taxes which fell upon agriculture were so various, and at the same time assumed such a variety of shapes, that it is impracticable to state in a word the actual portion which by law or custom fell to the share of the sovereign.

"The most material, however, are comprehended in the following catalogue, to which are added, others falling equally upon agricultural industry, though not constituting a direct source of revenue to government:

"1. The contingent, called in the language of the country, gántang. This is usually estimated at fifteen parts in one hundred of the rice crop; but it was, in truth, arbitrarily assessed, according to a rough conjecture of the capability of the country. In such of the Priang'en lands as continued to be directly administered by their own native chiefs, the amount paid to the latter was determined with some accuracy to be one tenth of the gross produce, embracing, as in the first case, the rice crop only.

"2. A poll tax, or rather a tax on families, called by the natives of this part of the country, pagalántang. Part was levied on account of government, and part on account of the chiefs.

"3. Market duties or tolls. These were literally levied on every article vended in the markets, embracing as well the whole produce of their agriculture, as that of their petty arts and manufactures.

"4. A tax on the slaughter of buffaloes, necessarily affecting the price of food, and discouraging the rearing of an animal indispensable to a successful prosecution of the labours of agriculture.

"5. The charge of lodging and feeding travellers, and transporting troops, baggage, and stores of all descriptions. This is termed in the native language, súguh, or the rites of hospitality.

"6. The obligation to construct and repair bridges, roads, and public buildings, throughout the country.

"7. The obligation to cultivate and deliver, at inadequate rates, certain foreign productions, which the actual condition of the country, the habits of the people, and still less their interests, could never have prompted them to undertake, if permitted freely to pursue their own interest. Coffee was the chief of these products.

"8. In speaking of the taxes which fall upon the husbandman and the land, the Zakat must not be forgotten. This is nominally a tithe, or tenth. The payment is indeed optional, but from religious motives seldom withheld. Every tenth sheaf of the rice crop is allotted to religious purposes, but every man measures its size according to his own piety. Its amount was of course very variable, but almost always materially smaller, and generally indeed not half the size, of the ordinary sheaf. This practice gives rise to a well known distinction between the ordinary sheaf and that allotted for the clergy, when the grain is brought to market."

The table annexed was framed on the introduction of the detailed system; but it not being practicable, on account of the extent of the province, for the European officer to visit every part of the district, many of the particulars are stated upon estimate; particularly the quantity of cultivated land and amount of produce, which, it is to be apprehended, are rather over-rated. The return, however, of the population may be considered more accurate.