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History
of Bali
First Encounters with the West
Bali first caught the
eye of the West in the early 16th century, when Portuguese
and British fleets crossed the seas in search of sources for
the lucrative spice trade. But it was not until the Dutch
adventurer Cornelis de Houtman landed on Bali in 1597 and
sent home reports of an exotic island of lush beauty,
peopled by charismatic kings and overflowing with riches,
that Bali claimed a place in the European imagination. De
Houtman's reports, published in Holland, captured the
interest of other explorers, and a steady stream of
treasure-hunters set sail for the fabled isle seeking a
share of its bounty. But the Bali they found disappointed.
It had none of the goods -- the exotic spices, the precious
gold, or the valuable opium -- that were filling the pockets
of those early European traders with such fantastic wealth.
Bali's growing reputation as a warlike land ruled by royal
barbarians and populated with fierce fighters who worshipped
strange gods and manipulated the pagan forces of magic also
helped keep the island free of foreign influence. While
Holland was busy building its colony that would eventually
grow to span most of the length of the Indonesian
archipelago, Bali remained relatively untouched by the
tremendous changes that were sweeping across neighboring
Java and Sumatra. Until the 19th century, Bali attracted the
interest of the colonial powers mainly as an exporter of
slaves, those prisoners of war, peasants, debtors and
criminals who were sold by the powerful Balinese nobility in
the markets of Batavia - today’s Jakarta -- where they
commanded a high price for their renowned beauty and skill.
But Bali's freedom from
colonial rule was not to last. Beginning in the 1810s, Bali
again attracted the notice of Europe. The Napoleonic Wars
had set Holland and England against each other, and the
victorious British took control of the East Indies, the vast
empire the Dutch had built. In 1811, Sir Stamford Raffles --
who would later become famous as the founder of Singapore --
was appointed governor of the colony. Raffles soon became a
great admirer of the Balinese, whom he described as
possessing "a higher cast of spirit, independence, and
manliness than belongs to any of their neighbors."
Raffles was fascinated with Balinese culture, which he saw
as a "living museum" providing a glimpse into the
past of neighboring Java. Bali, he believed, offered a
pristine picture of a glorious Hindu civilization, free of
the influence of Islam, a religion which he perceived, like
many Westerners of his day, to be threatening and barbaric.
When Holland again gained control of the East Indies,
Raffles's devotion to Bali aroused the suspicion of the
Dutch, who feared the British were planning to set up
another Singapore on the island and threaten their trade
monopolies. Determined to block any British attempt to gain
a foothold in the land they believed should be rightfully
theirs, the Dutch set out to conquer Bali once and for all.
But victory did not come so easily. In 1846, the Dutch led a
large military force against North Bali, but they met with
stunning defeat when they faced down a fearsome army led by
a Balinese commander, Gusti Ketut Djelantik. To the great
embarrassment of the Dutch, Djelantik and his warriors were
able to hold back the Dutch in a violent series of battles
that lasted until 1849, when the Balinese force was
destroyed by an army from Lombok, who saw the conflict as a
chance to take control of Bali for themselves. Eventually,
the Dutch and the Balinese signed a treaty giving the
colonial powers rule over the north of Bali, and a tense
peace held until the turn of the 20th
century.
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