British Bencoolen — BrandWiki

British Bencoolen, variously known during its existence as Fort York, Fort Marlborough, Bencoolen, Benkulu, or "the West Coast",[1] was a possession of the British East India Company (EIC) extending nearly 500 miles (800 km) along the southwestern coast of Sumatra and centered on the area of what is now Bengkulu City. The EIC established a presence there in 1685, and in 1714 it built Fort Marlborough there. The United Kingdom ceded Bencoolen to the Netherlands in 1824.

Establishment and early development

"It was a fatall and never enough to be repented error of our President and Council of Fort St. George [Madras] to break all our orders for a settlement at Pryaman upon a caprice of their owne to send our ships, spend our strength, our money and soe many men's lives upon settlement at such an unhealthful place as Bencoolen, because they hear there was more pepper there.[2]"

In 1683, following the forcible closing of their factory at Bantam in Java and under the likelihood of being turned out at any moment from Dutch-ruled Malacca, the directors of the East India Company found themselves facing the prospect of being entirely excluded from the spice trade of the

Territory

The area over which the East India Company was to dominate politically and economically for 140 years was the southwestern Sumatra pepper growing districts scattered along the narrow coastal plain tucked between the Indian Ocean and the Barisan mountain range covering the whole length of the island from north to south. Pepper was grown by small cultivators disseminated along the river valleys of that coastal strip.

Although the Bencoolen-Silebar region had long been the main pepper outlet of southwestern Sumatra, its annual volume was far from meeting EIC requirements and the Company soon began setting up subordinate factories, generally called settlements or residencies, along 500 km of coast both north and south of Bencoolen. Local cultivators would bring and sell their pepper to the nearest EIC settlement, which would then be shipped by Company sloops to Bencoolen. This system was costly to maintain and it was one of the reasons why British Bencoolen generally registered an annual deficit.[7]

Until the middle of the 18th century, all the EIC settlements were set up in southwestern Sumatra, from Indrapura in the north to Krui in the south, but in 1752, in response to an invitation from the inhabitants of Natal in northwestern Sumatra, the deputy governor and council at Fort Marlborough sent agents to take possession of the port despite protests by the Dutch who considered Natal to be in their sphere of influence. A few years later, fearing that the Dutch were contemplating making themselves master of the vast Bay of Tapanuli 100 km north of Natal, the EIC forestalled them by establishing a settlement there.[8] Natal and Tapanuli were to be the only EIC settlements not located in the pepper districts of the south and not trading primarily in pepper.

Originally a Presidency within British India, in 1785 Bencoolen was downgraded to Bencoolen Residency and placed under the Bengal Presidency.[9] In October 1817, Stamford Raffles was appointed lieutenant-governor of Bencoolen. During his time as lieutenant-governor of what he declared to be "the most wretched place I ever beheld",[10] he abolished slavery and founded Singapore in order to provide a new trading port in the region.

In 1823, Singapore was removed from the control of Bencoolen.[11] The British ceded Bencoolen to the Netherlands in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824.[12]

common name	Bencoolen Residency
nation	British India
subdivision	Residency
year start	1685
year end	1824
date end	2 June
event end	Treaty of London 1824
p1	Bantam Presidency
s1	Benkoelen Residency
flag p1	British East India Company flag.svg
flag s1	Flag of the Netherlands.svg
national anthem	"God Save the King/Queen" [[File:God_Save_The_Queen_(Band_of_the_Grenadier_Guards,_1952_instrumental).oga]]
today	Indonesia
capital	Fort Marlborough
flag p2	Prinsenvlag.svg
p2	Governorate of Ambon

Establishment and early development

Territory

References