HISTORY
Powerful and ancient kingdoms, such as Tarumanegara, Pajajaran and Cirebon, have risen, ruled and fallen in the history of this Province and provide fascinating studies for students of archaeology and history.
West Java was one of the first, contact points in Indonesia for Indian traders and their cultural influences and it was here that the Dutch and British first set foot in Indonesia.
The Dutch moved their center of operations to Sunda Kelapa (now Jakarta) after fierce competition and rivalry with the British, only to return at a later date.
Early Sunda History
The earliest written records of Javanese history make mention of the land of Sunda , that is, West Java . Somewhere on the banks of a river east of Jakarta was the capital of the kingdom called Tarumanagara, and in the 5th century A.D. King Purnawarman was its ruler.
He apparently initiated the construction of an irrigation canal for rice fields and left stone inscriptions for later generations. One of these inscriptions was discovered on a boulder in a river bed near Bogor; a replica of it is on display in the West Java Provincial Museum in Bandung. Chinese and Indian sources indicate that there were commercial relations between Tarumanagara and China at that time.
Evidence of this is in records about Java and its kingdoms compiled by the Buddhist monk Fa Xian, who traveled from Sri Lanka to China in 413 A.D. Also, a number of envoys traveled between China and a Javanese kingdom called He Luo Dan, which may have been identical with Tarumanagara.
Like many other Southeast Asian kingdoms of that era, Tarumanagara drew heavily upon Indian elements of culture, literature, and philosophy, blending them with local elements into a unique synthesis. We do not know what finally happened to the kingdom of Tarumanagara, only that within the next three centuries it disappeared, perhaps because of the rise of the Sriwijaya Empire in south Sumatra . Among the smaller kingdoms that succeeded it were those of Kuningan, northeast of Bandung; Galuh, whose capital was southeast of Bandung near Ciamis, and Pajajaran, whose capital was near Bogor . These kingdoms eventually united under the banner of Pajajaran.
The Arrival of New Times
The 16th century brought two great turning points in the history of Java, including the land of Sunda: the rapid spread of Islam starting from the port cities on the north coast, and the arrival of the Dutch just before 1600, following the earlier voyages of the Portuguese and Spanish.
In 1596 four Dutch vessels arrived in Banten after a stormy voyage around Cape of Good Hope, thus ushering in 350 years of Dutch hegemony.
Six years after their arrival, the East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC) was founded in order to create a spice monopoly, which benefited Dutch traders to the detriment of local producers. The VOC established itself at Banten and developed the port of Sunda Kelapa, which became Batavia, the hub of later colonial rule.
In the First Javanese War of Succession in the early 18th century, the VOC helped Pakubuwana to ascend to the throne, and he in turn ceded the whole Parahyangan region to the VOC. This was the first major territorial acquisition of the Dutch in Indonesia. The Dutch government took over the administration of the East Indies, whereupon one of its first major undertakings was the construction of a trunk road through the whole length of Java from 1808 to 1810. Its incredible 1,000-km route took it from Anyer at its westernmost point to Pamanukan in the east. Tragically, an estimated 30.000 Javanese coolies died in forced labor during its construction. Though it was called the Groote Postweg ( Great Post Road ), its primary significance was military. The Dutchman who managed the project was Governor General Marshal Daendels, who overcame considerable physical and political obstacles to complete the project. A particularly memorable stretch of road is just northeast of Bandung where a dramatic historical confrontation took place between Daendels and the local ruler, Prince Kornel.
The Rise of Bandung One of the earliest known maps of Bandung shows that by 1825, just fifteen years after the city's formal establishment, considerable development had taken place along JI. Asia Afrika (the Groote Postweg), JI. Braga and JI. Merdeka. At the center was the Alun-alun, where the Pendopo (the regent's residence), the mosque and the post office were located.
Whereas the Groote Postweg was clearly responsible for the city's location, the prosperous plantations in the area were the engines of its early growth. just as Java had been called the Garden of the East, the Preanger region came to be known as the Garden of Java , an exceptional agricultural area whose productivity excelled even that of its fertile neighbors.
Coffee had been cultivated in the region since 1700, but not until the early 19th century did coffee planters such as Andries de Wilde and Pieter Engelhard manage to make a product known as "Javakoffie" appealing to European tastes. Previously exported coffee from the area was notorious for its foul taste and dubbed "Le Mauvais Cafe de Batavia." Another of these figures was Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn, a pioneering agriculturalist on Java who established large quinine plantations. He succeeded where others had failed by introducing South American varieties to the area in the 1850's.
The next major impetus for city growth was the arrival of the railway from Batavia (Jakarta) on 17 May 1884. Ten years later the railway extension to Surabaya was completed and Bandung became a stopping-off point along the trans-Java route as well as a popular tourist destination in its own right. By 1934 the National Railway Company (Staats Spoorwegen/SS) was running four trains daily between Batavia and Bandung.
The trip took just a couple of hours, compared to a journey of three days along Daendels' Groote Postweg. Their motto was "4S"-"Staats Spoor Steeds Sneller"(National Railways always faster) When the trains first arrived, Bandung 's infrastructure was poorly developed and the hinterland was still a wilderness. Up to the end of the century there were reports of rural roads made dangerous by tigers and blocked by herds of rhinos. The last rhino was shot in the Preanger region in 1935 and its remains are now on display in the Zoological Museum in Bogor. As late as 1920 there was a report of a panther descending from the hills and running amok in the streets of Bandung , an event causing considerable panic.
