Toward a Transborder, Market-Oriented Society Changing Hinterlands of Banten, C

chapter 7 Toward a Transborder, Market-Oriented Society Changing Hinterlands of Banten, c. 1760–1800* Atsushi Ota Introduction The Sultanate of Banten (1520s–1813) has been viewed as a typical port polity. Scholars have focused mainly on its external trade, cosmopolitan cultures in the port city and trade impacts on state formation, while almost entirely neglecting hinterlands.1 Because of the excessive focus on the port and trade, they have also generally neglected the period after 1684, when the Dutch East India Company (voc) made the sultanate its vassal state and its external trade began to decline, apart from pepper exports under voc monopoly.2 These ten- dencies in previous studies give an impression that the hinterlands of Banten were detached from outside economies, especially after 1684. This paper discusses the hinterlands of Banten in the late eighteenth century, aiming to argue that they experienced considerable socio-economic transformation because of their close connection to the outside world. I focus on two factors, which I argue brought about the transformation. The first factor * This chapter reconsiders some issues discussed in my previous work that propel new per- spectives based upon new data. Atsushi Ota, Changes of Regime and Social Dynamics in West Java: Society, State, and the Outer World of Banten, 1750–1830 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006). I am grateful to Siung-Ming Liao for creating the maps for me. 1 M.A.P. Meilink-Roelofsz, Asian Trade and European Influence in the Indonesian Archipelago between 1500 and about 1630 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), pp. 239–258; Freek Colombijn, “Foreign Influence on the State of Banten, 1596–1682,” Indonesian Circle, 50 (1987), pp. 19–50; J. Kathirithamby-Wells, “Banten: A West Indonesian Port and Polity during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in J. Kathirithamby-Wells and John Villiers (eds.), The Southeast Asian Port and Polity: Rise and Demise (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990), pp. 107–125; Claude Guillot, The Sultanate of Banten (Jakarta: Gramedia, 1990); Claude Guillot, “Libre entreprise contre économie dirigée: guerres civiles à Banten, 1580–1609,” Archipel, 43 (1992), pp. 57–72; Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450–1680; Vol. 2. Expansion and Crisis (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993). 2 Works discussing the post-1684 period of Banten are Johan Talens, Een feodale samenleving in koloniaal vaarwater: Staatvorming, koloniale expansie en economische onderontwikkeling in Banten, West-Java 1600–1750 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1999); Dinar Boontharm, “The Sultanate of Banten ad 1750–1808: A Social and Cultural History” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Hull, 2003); and Ota, Changes of Regime. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004283909_009 <UN> Toward a Transborder, Market-Oriented Society 167 was the voc policy to promote pepper cultivation in the hinterlands of Banten from 1763 to 1790. Though this policy was not very successful in terms of production increase, it significantly affected local society because it provided cash income to local elites and cultivators. Local elites first augmented their influence through pepper cultivation, but later they and ordinary cultivators began to look for other means to gain income, abandoning pepper production. The second factor involved the sugar industry, which had gradually migrated from the ommelanden (environs) of Batavia under voc jurisdiction to the Sadane River area (borderland between the ommelanden and the Banten Sultanate) at the eastern edge of the Banten hinterlands. The industry attracted Chinese and Sundanese migrant workers, who developed ‘clandestine’ trade with outside traders. Production of pepper and sugar was closely linked to the world economy. Along with tin, pepper was a principle Southeast Asian export item that the voc strongly promoted for the Chinese market. China increasingly attracted European attention because of the lucrative tea trade. Provision of popular Southeast Asian products for the China market helped the Dutch, who did not have many trade items to offer the Chinese, to buy tea without using large quantities of silver.3 Sugar was an important export commodity from Java to the Netherlands and to various places in Asia, including Gujarat.4 In order to increase production, the voc first took the initiative to promote pepper and sugar cultivation in the hinterlands of Banten. However, I will show that production of these crops soon went beyond state control, as it encouraged migra- tion and transborder trade. After describing the setting of the region in question, I discuss the economy and ruling system of hinterland society of the Banten region in the pre-1760 period. The Banten region (or Banten) refers to the tip of Java Island west of the Sadane River (Map 7.1).5 Hinterland areas (or hinterlands) of Banten are taken here as areas apart from the northern coastal plain (or the lowland area). I then explain how the voc started its policy to promote pepper production, and what sorts of impact it had on hinterland society. In a subsequent section, I discuss 3 Els M. Jacobs, Merchant in Asia: The Trade of the Dutch East India Company during the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: cnws, 2006), p. 185. 4 Ota, Changes of Regime, p. 134; Ghulam A. Nadri, Eighteenth-Century Gujarat: The Dynamics of Its Political Economy, 1750–1860 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), pp. 111–116. 5 The Banten region in this paper is therefore larger than the Banten Province in the colonial period, of which the western border lay on the Ci Durian. The capital of the sultanate, also called Banten, is referred to as Kota Banten in this paper, in order to distinguish it from the Banten region. <UN>.

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