COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Portret van de Sultan van Djambi Sumatra TMnr 60002758

The Sultanate of Jambi (كسلطانن جمبي) was a region ruled by a sultan in northern

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

. The Dutch conquered the sultanate and killed the sultan in 1904. The sultanate has since been restored in recent years. The original sultanate was centered in the modern-day province of

Jambi Jambi is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the east coast of central Sumatra and spans to the Barisan Mountains in the west. Its capital and largest city is Jambi. The province has a land area of 50,160.05 km2, and a sea area of 3 ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

History

There was an early reference to a seventh-century realm of Malayu based in Jambi, which was eventually absorbed into the

Srivijaya empire Srivijaya ( id, Sriwijaya) was a Buddhist thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra (in modern-day Indonesia), which influenced much of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya was an important centre for the expansion of Buddhism from the 7th t ...

as an autonomous trading community or a subject region. An account associated the early history of the sultanate with the Islamization of Sumatra, citing that these two events roughly coincided in the fifteenth century. The sultanate's access to natural resources as well as its strategic location, particularly its proximity to the Strait of Malacca, allowed it to flourish and be involved in international trade. By 1682, Jambi was disputed as a vassal state between the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

(VOC) and the Kingdom of Siam. In the late 19th century the sultanate was slowly annexed by the Dutch, with the sultan degraded to a puppet ruler. This culminated in 1883 with the invasion of the Dutch-controlled Palembang by Jambi's Sultan, Mohammad Fakhruddin, which gave the Dutch the pretext to finally gain control of Jambi, forcing the sultan to accede to their authority and provide significant economic concessions. By 1907 the last vestiges of indigenous rule had been abolished.

Society

As a society, Jambi has a history of being an entrepot and a trading center that is open to outsiders. This is demonstrated in the way Jambi families easily incorporate outsiders, particularly men as well as foreigners (e.g. Chinese and Arab traders) through marriage into the Jambi womenfolk. For instance, a Jambi ''pangeran'' (prince) adopted a Dutch official as his son, resulting to kinship obligations between the Dutch and the royal family. File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM De woning van de Sultan van Jambi TMnr 3219-39.jpg, Engraving of the sultan's residence (1893) File:KapitulationJambi MartaNingrat-OLHelfrich 19040326.jpeg, Surrender of the Crown Prince of the Sultanate of "MartaNingrat", Djambi (Jambi), in Sumatra before the Dutch residency official O.L. Helfrich, who takes the insignia in reception (March 26, 1904) File:Lambang Kesultanan Jambi.jpg, Coat of arms of the Jambi Sultanate.

References

Former sultanates Precolonial states of Indonesia Former countries in Southeast Asia {{Indonesia-hist-stub