The Banda Population Massacre Was Lasted By Jan Pieterszoon Coen In Today's History, March 11, 1621

The portrait of Banda Island Neira tempo was colonized by the Dutch. (Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA History today, 402 years ago, March 11, 1621, the Governor-General of the VOC, Jan Pieterszoon Coen, staged a massacre in the Banda Islands. The Banda fill was the victim. From men to women. The incident later became one of the bitter histories of the archipelago.

Previously, Coen's ambition to control the Nusantara spice trade was second to none. He was able to take advantage of the power of the Dutch trading airline, the VOC, which has a war fleet with full weapons. He and the VOC then began to conquer several regions of the archipelago.

Jan Pieterszoon Coen is the founder of Dutch colonialism in the archipelago. The man from Hoorn became the first person to be able to see the great potential of the VOC as a colonialist. He said the VOC would make a big profit if several regions of the archipelago were immediately conquered.

The conquest was carried out so that the VOC could regulate and monopolize the entire spice trade. Moreover, competition with the Portuguese and British is heating up. If you don't move quickly, the VOC will get nothing other than a small piece of cake from the spice trade.

Coen also took the initiative to build a colony in the archipelago. Jayakarta, which became the vasal of the Banten Sultanate, was chosen. The ambition of the conquest was carried out because the spice trade traffic in Jayakarta was quite busy. Coen was also attracted, not playing.

He then played a strategy of embracing the Prince of Jayakarta as a start. Then, 'he threw it' on another occasion. At its peak, Coen sounded the war against the Prince of Jayakarta. The resistance in fact made the VOC into a village. Because the Prince of Jayakarta was assisted by the British.

Coen did not run out of ideas. He chose to run away and asked for help from VOC troops in Ambon. As a result, the reinforcements then became the key to the VOC victory and changed the name Jayakarta to Batavia (now: Jakarta).

With only one person killed, the city of Jayakarta conquered, Jayakarta burned to the ground, and occupied by the VOC. Coen immediately ordered the construction of a new, larger fort and a small Dutch city, which was built in the following years following the style in ancestral countries, with canals and bridges.

For a long time Coen refused to give Batavia a name to himself. But on March 4, 1621, the Directors of the Company strengthened the resolution taken by the Batavia students," said Bernard HM Vlekke in the book Nusantara (2008).

Coen felt that the power of the VOC over Batavia was not enough. He began to perpetuate other conquests. He chose the Banda Islands as a new target. The VOC does not want to cooperate with Banda people who tend to be familiar with the Portuguese and English.

Jan Pieterszoon Coen also perpetuated the conquest that led to the massacre in Banda. At its peak, the entire Banda Islands became the target of the massacre on March 11, 1621. As a result, the massacre only left 480 people out of a total of 14 thousand people. Even then, the VOC transported him to become a slave in Batavia.

On March 11, 1621, the Banda Islands were filled with thick clouds of mourning. The entire population of Banda was killed by Jan Pieterszoon Coen who was very cruel and did not know the humanitarian period. The Banda Islands are completely empty without a population."

"As has been said earlier, those who did not have time to run away, if they did not die or are killed cruelly, were arrested and transported as prisoners of war or as slaves to Batavia. That is the resident of Batavia who originally came from Banda," said Sagimun MD in the book Jakarta from the Water Bank to the City of Proclamation (1988).