Yogyakarta Palace Looted: Cash and Gold Vanished

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Dawn had not yet broken when the atmosphere in Yogyakarta turned menacing. In the early hours of 20 June 1812, British forces launched an attack on the Yogyakarta Palace (Keraton). The assault ended not only with the deposition of Sultan Hamengkubuwana II, but was followed by the large-scale looting of the royal treasury.

Treasury funds, heirlooms and important manuscripts belonging to the Sultanate of Yogyakarta were carried off by the invading forces.

“The palace of Yogyakarta was plundered, its library and archives seized. A large quantity of money was taken and Hamengkubuwana II was deposed from the throne and exiled to Penang,” wrote the historian M.C. Ricklefs in A History of Modern Indonesia (1999).

The historian Peter Carey, in The Origins of the Java War (1976), revealed that the value of the looted property was enormous. Besides various documents and royal assets, around 800,000 Spanish dollars from the Yogyakarta Palace treasury fell into British hands. At the time, this was estimated to be worth roughly £150,000.

So how did the greatest plunder in the history of the Yogyakarta Palace come about?

The conflict began after Britain seized the island of Java from the Dutch in 1811. Unlike several other kingdoms that chose to cooperate, Sultan Hamengkubuwana II refused to submit to the British administration under Thomas Stamford Raffles. The Sultan regarded the British as a foreign power threatening the sovereignty of Mataram.

Relations deteriorated further when Raffles demanded that the Sultanate of Yogyakarta reduce its military strength. Hamengkubuwana II rejected the demand and instead strengthened the palace’s defences. The steadily mounting tension finally reached its peak in the early hours of 20 June 1812, when Raffles ordered a military attack on Yogyakarta.

“1,200 European and Indian Sepoy soldiers, supported by 800 troops of the Mangkunegaran Legion, succeeded in capturing the Yogyakarta Palace after artillery fire,” Ricklefs recounted.

After fierce fighting, British troops broke through and took control of the seat of government of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta. Hamengkubuwana II was captured, deposed from the throne, and then banished to Penang.

“The Sultan himself, together with his relatives, was captured in a most humiliating manner after they failed in their attempt to sue for peace,” wrote Peter Carey.

The military victory was immediately followed by looting. Valuable royal possessions were carried out of the palace, from cash and gold to heirlooms, ancient manuscripts, important documents and library collections holding records of Javanese history.

As a result of the plunder, the operations of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta were disrupted because the treasury was left completely drained. For the Javanese nobility, the event was a devastating blow. For the first and last time in its history, the Yogyakarta Palace was captured through a direct assault by a European government’s forces.

More than two centuries later, traces of the looting can still be found. A number of manuscripts and collections originating from the Yogyakarta Palace are now held in various institutions in Britain, including the British Library.