Towards the beginning of the Common Era, southern Indian merchants came into contact with the western part of Indonesia; the first certain information on these contacts is found near Ptolemy (about 150 AD) and comes from Indian sources. Over time, these contacts led to the formation of Hindu-Indonesian statelets: the first known is that of Koetei (pronounced Cutei) in Borneo; states follow in the Malacca Peninsula and in the western part of Java. In all these places documents of Polawa-Indian writing have been found, dating back to around 400 AD. C.; the fact that they are missing in Sumatra is pure chance, since this island too was Hinduized very early, and both traders and settlers must have reached it even before Borneo.
However, we must not think of a true colonization, but rather that the indigenous population made the Hindu culture their own, and this not with the same intensity in every place. Thus in Borneo the Hindu culture was soon lost; it remained instead in Sumatra, Java, and especially in the island of Bali. In Sumatra the kingdom of Śrivijaya (today’s Palembang) on the east coast, from the seventh century onwards, under the Śailendra dynasty, extended into the interior of Sumatra, also buying the island of Banka and the Malacca Peninsula, thus obtaining control of the Malacca road, the great trade route between India and China, and also exerting influence on the coast of Indochina. For a century the center of Java was also under the rule of the Śailendra. The kings of that dynasty protected Mahayanic Buddhism; a Chinese Buddhist monk, I-tsing, has left a large number of details written about the kingdom of Śrivijaya, in which he had lived for a long time. The remainder of Indonesia remained out of Hindu influence and had only rare and fleeting relations with the Chinese.
At the end of the century. X the kingdom of East Java (see Java) was considered strong enough to attack Śrivijaya; met bitter resistance, succumbed and fell into anarchy. Only when the Sumatrian kingdom in 1024 was in temporary crisis (see Sumatra), Java was able to recover. A period of equilibrium policy followed, remaining the western part of the archipelago in Śrivijaya while Java made its influence increasingly felt in the eastern part and took over the spice islands (Moluccas).
In the thirteenth century the kingdom of Śrivijaya began to weaken, until an expedition from the Javanese state of Singasari gave the Sumatran kingdom the coup de grace in 1275. Since then the state of Malaya (today Djambi) became the main state of Sumatra, but under the high sovereignty of Java. In the century XIV the Javanese state of Madjapahit, successor to that of Singasari, subdued the entire archipelago and around 1350 was the only state. The northern part of Celebes and the Philippines remained independent. Madjapahit’s dominance was not long-lasting. For Indonesia 2009, please check hyperrestaurant.com.
With Islam, which had come from Gujarat to Malacca and from there through the trade routes it had entered Indonesia, the position changed. In 1292 Marco Polo found only an Islamic state in northern Sumatra; in the first half of the century. XV this religion had reached the coasts of Java, Borneo and the Moluccas.
The Portuguese in 1511 took possession of Malacca, in 1522 of Ternate; at that time the Hindu influence waned in Java and three new states reached a certain importance: Bantam, in West Java, which soon became the main port of the archipelago; Djohore, where the sultans expelled from the Malacca Peninsula reign, and Atjeh who after 1518 subdued the small states of northern Sumatra. Both Bantam and the two Sumatran states were Muslim.
European influence was increasingly felt, especially after the arrival of the Spaniards. Magellan’s fleet reached the Philippines in 1521; he fallen, his ships went to the much desired spice islands. The difficulties between Spain and Portugal were resolved with the Moluccas treaty of 1529, whereby both these islands and the Philippines were attributed to Portugal. But as far as the Philippines is concerned, the Spaniards did not comply with the treaty, organizing three times expeditions from America. The third was successful: the founding of Manila in 1571 meant the end of Portuguese rule and the beginning of Spanish rule in the Philippines. In the Moluccas the Portuguese in 1573 were expelled by the natives of Ternate from their fortress and generally in the eastern part of archipelago had to defend their trade against Java, where in about 1580, a powerful kingdom, that of Mataram, followed the previous weak Islamic states. In the western part, the Portuguese were supported only by the reigning discord between the two states of Atieh and Diohore. These were the conditions of Indonesia when in 1596 the first Dutch ships arrived in Bantam: that is, when the historical unity represented by Indonesia up to that moment was shattered by the prevalence of two different European colonizations, the one Spanish, in the north., in the Philippines, the other Dutch, in the south (for the later period, therefore, see In the western part, the Portuguese were supported only by the reigning discord between the two states of Atieh and Diohore. These were the conditions of Indonesia when in 1596 the first Dutch ships arrived in Bantam: that is, when the historical unity represented by Indonesia up to that moment was shattered by the prevalence of two different European colonizations, the one Spanish, in the north., in the Philippines, the other Dutch, in the south (for the later period, therefore, see In the western part, the Portuguese were supported only by the reigning discord between the two states of Atieh and Diohore. These were the conditions of Indonesia when in 1596 the first Dutch ships arrived in Bantam: that is, when the historical unity represented by Indonesia up to that moment was shattered by the prevalence of two different European colonizations, the one Spanish, in the north., in the Philippines, the other Dutch, in the south (for the later period, therefore, seePhilippines ; Dutch indies).
