THE FALL OF JAYAKARTA

Jan Pieterszoon Coen was a brilliant businessman, for which reason he was appointed President Director of the East Indies Companies (VOC), which had its main offices in Banten and in Jayakarta. On October 25, 1517 he was promoted to Governor General of VOC and in his position as such he was entitled to hold negotiations and to sign agreements with the local Kings as well as with functionaries from other countries, to have an army and to recruit soldiers from among the native people and to stage war, all these in the name of the Dutch Government.

Jan Pieterszoon Coen’s motto was “Never Lose Hope”. Beside being a cunning businessman, he proved himself also to be an astute politician, who would never shrink back to eliminate his opponents one by one.

From the very beginning of his career as Governor General of VOC, he had planned to find a strategic location for his company, a place where his company could be easily safeguarded from any disturbances. It should be a suitable site to become the center if VOC business management and government administration.

To realize his ambitious plan, Coen determined to conquer Jayakarta by force, thus reducing costs by not having to remove the companies properties from the g0 downs that were in the town. Moreover, this would be too risky.

The VOC’s longstanding enemy was the EIC, an organization of British trading companies. The EIC fleet actually reached the archipelago before the VOC did.

By the turn of the 16th century, a clash took place between the Dutch VOC fleet and the English EIC fleet. Coen relized that the company’s logistics should be secured. To do this without risking any losses he shrewdly evacuated temporarily to the Moluccas.

Returning from the Moluccas, Jan Pieterszoon Coen brought along numerous male people on board his ships. As soon as the fleet anchored, the Governor General held a rush meeting to plan the attack. To implement the plan all the men on board as well as those on land were divided into 12 companies, ladders and other equipments were made readily available.

The attack commenced on May 30, 1619 when shooting were directed towards the town at the western bank of the river Ciliwung. The alarm siren was then sounded at which the fortress gate was opened. All men soldiers and men of all kinds of professions who were inside the fortress that was built by Coen’s predecessors hastily left the fortress and boarded on small vessels to cross the river. Ladders were quickly fixed to the town wall that was built by the king of Jayakarta. Climbing the ladders the crowd of men succeeded in entering and seizing the town. Meanwhile, Coen’s men posted at strategic places threatened the people along the eastern bank and stormed the northern part of the town from two different directions.

It was an unexpected rush attack, so that the people of Banten and the Jayakartans lost their town before realizing what had really happened. The Dutch soldiers and fingers met with no resistance at all, therefore, causing very few people from both sides to be killed in the attack.

First, plundering the people’s possessions and seizing their cannons and arms, the town was then burned down to ashes. The Dutch marked their victory by renaming the town Jayakarta to Batavia. Coen himself died when Mataram attacked bayavia in 1629.