JAKARTA, THE CAPITAL CITY Indonesia’s Capital City Lies Along A Flat Coastal Plain Between The South China Sea, Studded With Coral Islands, And The Verdant Highland Interior, Dominated By A Twin Peaked Volcano Visible From The City On Any Clear Day. Thus No Matter Which Way The Jakarta Looks, He Faces Factors Of Enormous Importance In Indonesia’s Past And Present. The Sea Has Tied This Archipelago Nation Together And Provided A Path To And From The Outside World, While The Volcano’s Of Java’s Interior Contributed The Fertility Which Enables This Island To Support The People Who Live Here Today. Although, Jakarta Is On Java, The People Of His Hinterland Are Not “The Javanese” Proper, Who Inhabit The Eastern And Central Portions Of The Island, But Another Important Ethnic Group, The Sundanese, With Its Own Language And Cultural Tradition. Nevertheless, Jakarta Is Not A Sundanese City, The Way In Which Yogyakarta, In Central Java, Is Javanese. It Is A Rich Cross-Cultural Potpourri Of All The Peoples And Traditions In The Eastern Isles, Spiced By Influences From The Middle East. From Europe And From China. HISTORY Inscriptions Of Trauma, One Of The Earliest Hindu Kingdoms In Indonesia, Dating From The 5th Century, Have Been Found Near Tanjung Priok, The Modern Jakarta Fort Area. However, Little Is Known Of The History Of Trauma, And In Succeeding Centuries Down To The Arrival Of The First Europeans, There Was Never Any Significant Kingdom At The Mouth Of The Ciliwung River, Jakarta’s Chief Stream. By The 6th Century The Future Site Of Indonesia’s Capital Lay Between Important Moslem Sultanates Of Banten And Cirebon, To The West And East Respectively. The Portuguese, Who Preceded The Dutch And English As The First Of A Wave Of Aggressive European’s Looking For Commercial Bases On Java, Discovered In 1522 That The Site Of Jakarta ( Then Called Sunda Kelapa ) Was Inhabited By A Minor Prince Who, Unlike His More Powerful Neighbors At Cirebon And Banten, Had Not Yet Converted To Islam, But Was Still A Hindu. Since Potuguese Saw Themselves As Anti-Moslem Crusader, They Made An Agreement With This Raja Of Sunda Kelapa To Allow Them To Establish A Trading Station. But When They Finally Sent Another Expedition In 1527, Sunda Kelapa Had Just Been Conquered By The Hostile Islamic Sultanate Of Banten, Which Of Course Refused To Honor The Earlier Agreement. The Bantenese Called The Settlement “Jayakarta” (Great Victory), From Which The Modern Name Jakarta Is Derived. The Birthday Of The City, Celebrated Every Year On June 22 With Which Fanfare, Is Dated From Their Conquest Of The Site. Banten Rule Was Short Lived. In 1619 The Dutch, Under An Enormously Energetic, Competent And Ruthless Captain Named Jan Peterzoon Coen, Established Their Chief Base On Java At This Site, Which They Renamed Batavia. From This Point The Dutch East India Company Managed A Prosperous Trading Empire, Successively Excluding Their European Rivals And Monopolizing The Lucrative Trade In Spices Originating In The Islands Of Eastern Indonesia. It Should Not Be Imagined That The Dutch Immediately Conquered Java, Much Less The Entire Archipelago. What They Controlled From Batavia Was At First No More Than A Chain Of Trading Posts Linked By A Powerful Navy. Only The Fact That Their Numerous Indonesians Enemies Could Never Unite Against Them ( Although Batavia Was On Several Occasions Besieged By Powerful Javanese And Sundanesse Forces ) Insured The Survival Of The Dutch In These Early Years. Many Individual Ethnic Groups And Areas, And Even Whole Islands, Remained Independent. Not Until The Early 20th Century Did Batavia Truly Become The Capital Of All The Territory That Now Comprises Indonesia. Batavia Castle, The Nerve Center Of The Dutch Empire, Was Located Near The Present Site Of Pasar Ikan ( Fish Market ) At The Extreme Northern Edge Of The City. From This Region The City Has Been Growing Southward Ever Since, Away From The Increasingly Congested Coastal Areas (Once Also Fever-Ridden And Unhealthy) And Toward The Distant Volcanic Uplands. Much Of The City’s Modern Commercial Center North Of Merdeka Square Dates Only From The 18th Century. As Recently As That Period The Area Of Pasar Senen, Now One Of The Most Congested In The World, Contained The Country Estate Of A Dutch Governor General. Proceeding Southward, Menteng, Where The American Embassy And The Hotel Indonesia Are Located, Is Largely The Product Of The Late 19th And Early 20th Centuries. Further South Still, The Planned Satellite Town Of Kebayoran Baru Was Laid Out By The Dutch Only After World War II, And It Became Part Of The City Of Greater Jakarta As Recently As 1950. THE POPULATION Through Out Most Of The Dutch Period, The Population Of Greater Jakarta Grew Very Slowly, From 32,068 In 1673 To 47,217 In 1815, To 110,669 In 1893. But By 1930 The Population Had Reached 1.636,098 And In The Subsequent 40 Years It Has More Than Tripled Again- To The Grand Total Of 4,638,642 In December, 1973. At First, Malaria And Other Diseases Held The Growth Rate Down, For Batavia Was Notoriously Unhealthy. In The Period Between 1735 And 1780, There Were 17 Different Years, According To Official Records, When More Europeans Died In The City Than Lived There As Permanent Residents. This Alarming Statistic Is Explained By The Fact That Many Of The Epidemic Victims Were Crew Members On Ships Who Succumbed With Terrible Swiftness To Local Fevers. By The 19th Century, However, Sanitation Measures Had Greatly Reduced The Death Rate, While Colonial Prosperity Attracted An Influx Of Population. More Recently, Since World War II, The Population Of Jakarta Has Been Swollen By Refugees From Revolutions And Insurgencies Elsewhere On Java. And Above All By The Familiar Process Of Urbanization Farmers Fleeing The Over - Populated Countryside To Seek Cash Income In An Increasingly Overcrowded City. In The Early Days Of Dutch Rule The New Overlords Were Suspicious Of The Local People, With Whom They Were Frequently At War, And The Number Of Sundanesse And Javanese Who Were Allowed To Live In Batavia Was Carefully Limited. Much Of The Population Consisted OfJAKARTA, THE CAPITAL CITY Indonesia’s Capital City Lies Along A Flat Coastal Plain Between The South China Sea, Studded With Coral Islands, And The Verdant Highland Interior, Dominated By A Twin Peaked Volcano Visible From The City On Any Clear Day. Thus No Matter Which Way The Jakarta Looks, He Faces Factors Of Enormous Importance In Indonesia’s Past And Present. The Sea Has Tied This Archipelago Nation Together And Provided A Path To And From The Outside World, While The Volcano’s Of Java’s Interior Contributed The Fertility Which Enables This Island To Support The People Who Live Here Today. Although, Jakarta Is On Java, The People Of His Hinterland Are Not “The Javanese” Proper, Who Inhabit The Eastern And Central Portions Of The Island, But Another Important Ethnic Group, The Sundanese, With Its Own Language And Cultural Tradition. Nevertheless, Jakarta Is Not A Sundanese City, The Way In Which Yogyakarta, In Central Java, Is Javanese. It Is A Rich Cross-Cultural Potpourri Of All The Peoples And Traditions In The Eastern Isles, Spiced By Influences From The Middle East. From Europe And From China. HISTORY Inscriptions Of Trauma, One Of The Earliest Hindu Kingdoms In Indonesia, Dating From The 5th Century, Have Been Found Near Tanjung Priok, The Modern Jakarta Fort Area. However, Little Is Known Of The History Of Trauma, And In Succeeding Centuries Down To The Arrival Of The First Europeans, There Was Never Any Significant Kingdom At The Mouth Of The Ciliwung River, Jakarta’s Chief Stream. By The 6th Century The Future Site Of Indonesia’s Capital Lay Between Important Moslem Sultanates Of Banten And Cirebon, To The West And East Respectively. The Portuguese, Who Preceded The Dutch And English As The First Of A Wave Of Aggressive European’s Looking For Commercial Bases On Java, Discovered In 1522 That The Site Of Jakarta ( Then Called Sunda Kelapa ) Was Inhabited By A Minor Prince Who, Unlike His More Powerful Neighbors At Cirebon And Banten, Had Not Yet Converted To Islam, But Was Still A Hindu. Since Potuguese Saw Themselves As Anti-Moslem Crusader, They Made An Agreement With This Raja Of Sunda Kelapa To Allow Them To Establish A Trading Station. But When They Finally Sent Another Expedition In 1527, Sunda Kelapa Had Just Been Conquered By The Hostile Islamic Sultanate Of Banten, Which Of Course Refused To Honor The Earlier Agreement. The Bantenese Called The Settlement “Jayakarta” (Great Victory), From Which The Modern Name Jakarta Is Derived. The Birthday Of The City, Celebrated Every Year On June 22 With Which Fanfare, Is Dated From Their Conquest Of The Site. Banten Rule Was Short Lived. In 1619 The Dutch, Under An Enormously Energetic, Competent And Ruthless Captain Named Jan Peterzoon Coen, Established Their Chief Base On Java At This Site, Which They Renamed Batavia. From This Point The Dutch East India Company Managed A Prosperous Trading Empire, Successively Excluding Their European Rivals And Monopolizing The Lucrative Trade In Spices Originating In The Islands Of Eastern Indonesia. It Should Not Be Imagined That The Dutch Immediately Conquered Java, Much Less The Entire Archipelago. What They Controlled From Batavia Was At First No More Than A Chain Of Trading Posts Linked By A Powerful Navy. Only The Fact That Their Numerous Indonesians Enemies Could Never Unite Against Them ( Although Batavia Was On Several Occasions Besieged By Powerful Javanese And Sundanesse Forces ) Insured The Survival Of The Dutch In These Early Years. Many Individual Ethnic Groups And Areas, And Even Whole Islands, Remained Independent. Not Until The Early 20th Century Did Batavia Truly Become The Capital Of All The Territory That Now Comprises Indonesia. Batavia Castle, The Nerve Center Of The Dutch Empire, Was Located Near The Present Site Of Pasar Ikan ( Fish Market ) At The Extreme Northern Edge Of The City. From This Region The City Has Been Growing Southward Ever Since, Away From The Increasingly Congested Coastal Areas (Once Also Fever-Ridden And Unhealthy) And Toward The Distant Volcanic Uplands. Much Of The City’s Modern Commercial Center North Of Merdeka Square Dates Only From The 18th Century. As Recently As That Period The Area Of Pasar Senen, Now One Of The Most Congested In The World, Contained The Country Estate Of A Dutch Governor General. Proceeding Southward, Menteng, Where The American Embassy And The Hotel Indonesia Are Located, Is Largely The Product Of The Late 19th And Early 20th Centuries. Further South Still, The Planned Satellite Town Of Kebayoran Baru Was Laid Out By The Dutch Only After World War II, And It Became Part Of The City Of Greater Jakarta As Recently As 1950. THE POPULATION Through Out Most Of The Dutch Period, The Population Of Greater Jakarta Grew Very Slowly, From 32,068 In 1673 To 47,217 In 1815, To 110,669 In 1893. But By 1930 The Population Had Reached 1.636,098 And In The Subsequent 40 Years It Has More Than Tripled Again- To The Grand Total Of 4,638,642 In December, 1973. At First, Malaria And Other Diseases Held The Growth Rate Down, For Batavia Was Notoriously Unhealthy. In The Period Between 1735 And 1780, There Were 17 Different Years, According To Official Records, When More Europeans Died In The City Than Lived There As Permanent Residents. This Alarming Statistic Is Explained By The Fact That Many Of The Epidemic Victims Were Crew Members On Ships Who Succumbed With Terrible Swiftness To Local Fevers. By The 19th Century, However, Sanitation Measures Had Greatly Reduced The Death Rate, While Colonial Prosperity Attracted An Influx Of Population. More Recently, Since World War II, The Population Of Jakarta Has Been Swollen By Refugees From Revolutions And Insurgencies Elsewhere On Java. And Above All By The Familiar Process Of Urbanization Farmers Fleeing The Over - Populated Countryside To Seek Cash Income In An Increasingly Overcrowded City. In The Early Days Of Dutch Rule The New Overlords Were Suspicious Of The Local People, With Whom They Were Frequently At War, And The Number Of Sundanesse And Javanese Who Were Allowed To Live In Batavia Was Carefully Limited. Much Of The Population Consisted Of