Banjar kingdom

According to De Kroniek van Bandjarmasin, authored by A.A. Cense (1928:141-146), described the history of Banjarmasin sultanate. 1526 M was the year the beginning of the Banjar Sultanate.

The fall of Malacca into the hands of the Portuguese caused many traders leaving and changing their trading location in Brunei and Borneo. Eventually, it led to the glory of Banjar sultanate in the early 16th century.

The Sultanate of Banjar emerged and replaced the Islamic empires Dipa State and State Daha. The formation of this sultanate was marked by the end of war between Prince Samudera and his uncle, Prince Tumenggung, the last king of Daha Kingdom from the dynasty of Raden Sekar Sungsang.

Prince Samudera escaped to Banjar kampong located in the estuary of the Barito river. Banjar Kampong was the dwelling place of Malay merchants led by Patih Masih. Patih Masih was the official appointed by Daha Kingdom to lead the area of the Barito river’s estuary.

Some experts explain that the Sultanate of Banjar initially was ruled by the Sultan of Samudra who had the title of Sultan Suriansah who defeated his uncle with the help of Patih Masih and Demak Sultanate in Java.

The rapid development of this Sultanate was marked by rapid economic growth through the spice trade. The expansion of Islam in the 16th to 17th centuries in Southeast Asia directly impacted the strengthening of the existing Sultanate.

The Banjar Sultanate was even able to respond to the needs of pepper at the global level through intensification of pepper cultivation.

The Banjar Kingdom had fairly broad powers covering nearly the entire island of Borneo, even the kingdom of Kutai in East Kalimantan was his realm.

However, the Sultanate of Banjar in the early 20th century could be controlled by the government of the Netherlands. In 1859 Colonel AJ Andresen took over Sultan power, and Sultan was exiled to Bogor. Dutch colonial government dissolved the Banjar Sultanate in 1860.
Banjar kingdom

Sambas sultanate

The Sambas Sultanate was one of the most important early Muslim sultanates on the western coast of Borneo. The Sambas Sultanate was established in 1619 by Pangeran Sulaiman, the son of Pangeran Raja Tengah who was the second son of Sultan Muhammad Hasan who ruled Brunei in 1582-1598.

Pangeran Raja Tengah was trusted to rule the Sarawak region, who eventually established the sultanate dynasty of Sambas.

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) attempted to establish a commercial presence at Sambas in the early seventeenth century, but in 1610 their factory was attacked and their representatives put to death.

Between 1600 and 1700, this appears to have been a considerable state, and to have extended its sway far into the interior. This is the first of the Eastern states with which the Dutch formed an exclusive treaty, and at that time the chief appears to have had the title of Sultan.
Sambas sultanate

Pontianak Sultanate

The origins of the sultanate of Pontianak can be traced back to 1772 when Syarif Abdul Rahman Al Kadri established a trading settlement and harbor at the intersection of three rivers: Landak, the Kapuas Kecil and the Kapuas.

The Dutch residences, fort, etc are on the south side of the river, about half a mile below the sultan’s.

Abdul Rahman had been drawn here by the rumor of diamonds and gold, and by its location close to the main trading routes running through the archipelago and north to China.

The name of the city translates roughly as ‘the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth’, a reference to the ghostly howl heard by early visitors to these shores.

Believing that this noise was the work of local spirits, Abdul Rahman used cannon fire to frighten them away before he landed.

By the year 1779 he was able to get himself recognized as Sultan of Pontianak by the Dutch East India Company and to make a treaty with them. By the early nineteenth century Pontianak had become the major entreport on the west coast.

Pontianak became the capital of the newly created Western Division of Borneo in 1849.
Pontianak Sultanate

History of Kutai Kingdom

Kutai Kingdom is divided into two periods:
Kutai Martapura (350-400)
Kutai Kertanagara beginning around 1300

Kutai Martapura Kingdom was established in 400 AD under the king of Mulawarman Naladewa. Kutai Martapura is believed to be the oldest Hindu Kingdom in Indonesia, whose capital located in Muara Kaman.

The two successive kings of Kutai were Aswawarman and Mulawarman. They were descendents of the indigenous king, Kundunga.

Inscriptions in stone of found in east Kalimantan at a place now called Muara Kaman attest to this history as Brahmans erected stone memorial to express their gratitude and respect for the great king’s kindness, king of Mulawarnan who ruled from late in the fourth century.  The stone inscribed in Sanskrit, using the Pallava script and dated to around the 4th century.

Kutai demonstrates an early transition to Brahmanism, as Mulawarman reportedly staged scarifies and represented fabulous gifts to his recently settled Brahmans. These Brahmans probably had come from India or may have been Austronesian who had voyaged to India for their religious training.

Islam spread mainly along the coast but as there were no active missionary efforts people in the interior kept their traditional belief systems.

Sultanate of Kutai Kertanagara was established on the coasts near the town of Pamarangan. This sultanate was supposedly founded by refugees from the Javanese state of Singasari who had arrived late in the 13th century and converted the local inhabitant to Islam.

Under the reign of Aji Pangeran Sinum Panji Mendapa (1605-1635), Kutai Martapura was integrated into the expanding Sultanate Kutai Kertanagara in 1630 AD.
History of Kutai Kingdom

History of Sarawak

Prior to 1841, the term ‘Sarawak’ referred to the Sarawak River area and the territory accessible from it.

Archaeologists have found traces of human existence dating back to the Middle Paleolithic phase of 40,000 to 50,000 BC.

Many of today’s indigenous tribes migrated from Kalimantan, including the Iban, who came here around the end of the 15thth century and now make up around 30% of the state’s population.

It is unknown when first the Malays came to Borneo. According to Malay tradition the original home of the race was the kingdom of Minangkabau in Sumatra.

By thirteenth century Arab traders and missionaries began to preach the doctrines of Islam throughout the Malay World. There the most important Malay state to emerge was Brunei, on the north-west coast, which was to give its name to the whole island. From the 15th until the early 19th century Sarawak was under the loose control of the sultanate of Brunei.

A Spanish report from 1520 describes Cerava (or Sarawak) as one of four chief ports of Borneo, inhabited by ‘many and rich merchants’ whose trade consisted of diamonds, camphor, aloes-wood, provisions and wine.

In 1839, the English adventurer James Brooke formed a fast friendship with the Governor of Sarawak, Rajah Muda Hassim. Brooke, invalidated from the British East India Company after being wounded in Burma, eschewed an easy retirement and set off on a voyage of a discovery aided by a sizable inheritance and a well armed ship.

He helped Hassim to repress a revolt of Bidayuh dayaks and local Malay elites against Brunei rule.

As a reward Hassim offered to install James Brooke as Rajah of Sarawak in 1841. In 1946, following three years of Japanese occupation of Sarawak, the third Rajah Vyner Brooke, ceded the country to the British Government.
History of Sarawak 

Origin of Brunei

Barunai of Sanskrit origin comes from the word Varuna. In its Malay context, it referred to a nation of seafarers and traders.

The hypothesis of Brunei by Nicholl in 1980 related to Empire of Funan collapsed due to Khmer advance, the Sailendra family fled to Borneo some time in 680s. They settled on the shores of Brunei Bay at the mouth of the Lawas River. Later they built new capital of Srivijaya known as Burni and P’o-ni or Fo-ni in Chinese.

P’o-ni continues to be mentioned in Chinese sources and it appears to have occupied part of the First Division of Sarawak and to have extended into West Kalimantan.

Old Brunei was a nation of Malay-Hindu-Buddhists, according to a Chinese account, believed to be an early China reference to Brute Oki Brunei was aid to have similar Malay-Hindu-Buddhist traditions and customs as Funan or Kumlum.

Alak Betatar is known as the first Muslim Ruler as well as the founder of the original Brunei state. After accepted Islam he changed his name to Sultan Muhammad Shah (1363-1402) in honor of Prophet.

The second sultan, Sultan Ahmad, was the first to name ‘Brunei’ from the word ‘Barunah’.

Following conversion to Islam, Brunei became a powerful trading center from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, claiming suzerainty over the whole island of Borneo and parts of the southern and central Philippines.

By the mid-nineteenth century, Brunei was in serious decline, and its influence and control were restricted to northern Borneo, to what today are Sarawak, Brunei, Labuan and Sabah.

In 1888, when North Borneo became a British Protectorate, Brunei became a British Protected State.
Origin of Brunei