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The Sultanate of Jogjakarta and the Kraton

In the book, Indonesia Peoples and Histories, Jean Gelman Taylor tells us of how Arabs established trading posts in Indonesia, which made it possible for “learned men to travel from one end of the Islamic world to another. Some settled in foreign ports to head mosques or set up a school.” (at, p. 66) Eventually, the rulers of small communities in the Indonesia archipelago converted to Islam and began calling themselves sultans. “In 1641 the ruler of the archipelago’s largest kingdom, Mataram in Java, advertised his rule as Islamic by taking the title of sultan.” (Ibid) “In the seventeenth century Indonesian sultans…extended their power by their tried methods of slavery, raids, and marriage alliances, and they added a new method: they employed and allied with the Dutch.” (Id., p. 142) “In Java, Mataram’s kings hired Dutch soldiers to preserve their throne against rivals.” (Id., p. 144) This paved the way for Dutch trade in Indonesia through the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) or the United East Indies Company, which was composed on various Dutch commercial companies that merged. Eventually, Dutch not only traded in Indonesia but colonized it as well.

Meanwhile, in the late eighteenth century, there were a series of wars of succession to Mataram Kingdom, which led to its division. Through that division, the Jogjakarta Sultanate was created. The first sultan of Jogjakarta is Hamengkubuwono I. The present Sultan of Jogjakarta who lives in the Kraton his descendant, Hamengkubuwono X.

While I am still trying to grapple with Indonesian history, particularly, Javanese history, my trips to several museums in Jogjakarta and my tour of the city, all care of Danang, gave me the impression that, although Java was colonized by the Dutch, their rule did not dilute the deeply routed Javanese traditions. For one, the Javanese continue to speak their own language. Although I am sure that a number of Javanese speak Dutch, I never heard it spoken by them. Also, the Javanese tradition of making batik and playing the gamelan (Javanese musical ensemble) still lives on. In Jogjakarta, the Sultan remains to be “the center of his palace (Kadatuan or Kraton), which [is] in turn the center of the city. The city [is still] the center of the King’s own patrimonial domain (Vanua), which [is] surrounded by a circle of submitted neighbours…” (Munoz, Early Kingdoms of the Indonesian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula, p. 308 [c 2006].) I suspect it was this way even when the Dutch had ruled Indonesia as I noticed that the structures built by the Dutch in Jogjakarta were outside of the Kraton.

Although we were allowed entrance to the Kraton, we only saw a a fraction of it.  As the present Sultan, Hamengkubuwono X, and his family still live in the Kraton, many areas there are off limits.  Strangely, for all its grandeur, my favorite part of the Kraton is the entrance - the simple wooden doors that open up to the world inside the Kraton. This entrance is guarded by an old gatekeeper who did not hesitate to have his picture taken by me.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 10th, 2009 at 12:08 am and is filed under My Indonesian Experience. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.