The Kingdom of Banggai was a

petty kingdom A petty kingdom is a kingdom described as minor or "petty" (from the French 'petit' meaning small) by contrast to an empire or unified kingdom that either preceded or succeeded it (e.g. the numerous kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England unified into ...

in present-day

Central Sulawesi Central Sulawesi ( Indonesian: ''Sulawesi Tengah'') is a province of Indonesia located at the centre of the island of Sulawesi. The administrative capital and largest city is located in Palu. The 2010 census recorded a population of 2,635,009 fo ...

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 Guine ...

. It was based around the

Banggai Islands The Banggai Archipelago ( id, Kepulauan Banggai) is a group of islands, which are located at the far eastern end of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. It makes up a regency (''kabupaten'') of Central Sulawesi Province of Indonesia, created in 1999 by spl ...

and the eastern coast of Sulawesi, centered at the island of Banggai. For a significant part of its history, the kingdom was under the overlordship of the Sultanate of Ternate.

History

Ternate

The island of Banggai was named in a Chinese document dating from 1304 and the 14th century

Negarakertagama The ''Nagarakretagama'' or ''Nagarakṛtāgama'', also known as ''Desawarnana'' or ''Deśavarṇana'', is an Old Javanese eulogy to Hayam Wuruk, a Javanese king of the Majapahit Empire. It was written on lontar as a '' kakawin'' by Mpu Pra ...

as a Majapahit tributary. In the 16th century, four small states located in Banggai were conquered by the Sultanate of Ternate under Sultan Babullah, with Java-born Ternatean general Adi Cokro expanding the polity in the 1580s to include parts of mainland Sulawesi. Adi Cokro's son Mandapar was recorded to rule between 1600 and 1625. It was recorded that the king of Banggai sent his son to Ternate in 1564 to examine Christianity and Islam, eventually selecting the former. Between 1536 and 1539, Portuguese administrator António Galvão recorded contemporary oral tales of the kings of Banggai, along with Bacan, Papua, and Butung, being descended from hatchlings of four serpent eggs found by an elder in Bacan. The myth associated the states with the

Maluku Islands The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located ...

– centered around

Ternate Ternate is a city in the Indonesian province of North Maluku and an island in the Maluku Islands. It was the ''de facto'' provincial capital of North Maluku before Sofifi on the nearby coast of Halmahera became the capital in 2010. It is off the ...

and

Tidore Tidore ( id, Kota Tidore Kepulauan, lit. "City of Tidore Islands") is a city, island, and archipelago in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, west of the larger island of Halmahera. Part of North Maluku Province, the city includes the island ...

– placing them in the peripheries. A Dutch report from 1682 noted the Banggai Kingdom as having control over the relatively large islands of Banggai and

Peleng Peleng is an island off the east coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia and is the largest island of the Banggai Islands (''Kepulauan Banggai''). It is surrounded by the Banda Sea and Molucca Sea and has an area of 2,406 km². Some of the smaller i ...

, "a hundred" little islands – mostly uninhabited – in addition to parts of

Southeast Sulawesi Southeast Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Tenggara) is a province on the island of Sulawesi, forming the southeastern peninsula of that island, together with a number of substantial offshore islands such as Buton, Muna, Kabaena and Wawonii (formerly ...

such as

Balantak Balantak is an Austronesian language spoken at the head of the eastern peninsula of Sulawesi. It is classified as a member of the Saluan-Banggai branch of the Celebic subgroup. The Balantak language is the primary language of the Balantak peo ...

. Inhabitants of Peleng were subjected to slavery. Banggai also had dependencies in the eastern parts of Sulawesi's East Peninsula. During this time, the island of Banggai was central to trade in foodstuffs in the area. Another Dutch figure from 1679 gave the kingdom's population as "10,000 able-bodied men", mostly non-Muslims. A later estimate from 1706 noted that some 90 percent of the population lived in Peleng – the total population estimate being as high as 21,560. During this time, Banggai was located between the powerful states of Ternate and

Gowa Gowa ('' Makassar language : '') is a regency in the province of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. It has an area of 1,883.33 km2 and a population of 652,329 at the 2010 census, increasing to 765,836 at the 2020 census; the official estimate as at m ...

, though Banggai later came under influence of Ternate following the

Treaty of Bongaya {{Use mdy dates, date=April 2012 The Treaty of Bongaya (also spelled Bongaja) was signed on November 18, 1667 between Sultan Hasanudin of Sultanate of Gowa, Gowa and the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This treaty was developed after Dutch imperial ...

in 1667, with Ternate receiving annual tribute from Banggai and appointing its ruler. During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, 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 ...

attempted to spread its influence to Banggai with little success. During this time, Banggai was also subjected to raids from Papuans and routinely fought with the Tambuku and

Buton Buton (also Butung, Boeton or Button) is an island in Indonesia located off the southeast peninsula of Sulawesi. It covers roughly 4,727 square kilometers in area, or about the size of Madura; it is the 129th largest island in the world and ...

polities.

Dutch East Indies and Indonesia

In 1907, Ternate ceded territories including Banggai to the Dutch East Indies, and the following year the king of Banggai signed a treaty with the Dutch putting the kingdom under Dutch control. Banggai's territories were administered through two ''Onderafdeling'' – the islands and the mainland. After the independence of Indonesia, territories that comprised the Banggai kingdom was reorganized into the

province, with an administrative reorganization in 1952 removing any legal powers of the kingdom. Today, the former territories of the kingdom are divided into the regencies of Banggai,

and Banggai Laut.

Government

Although the position is hereditary, the king of Banggai is ultimately appointed by the Sultan of Ternate, and acts as the polity's chief executive. The king is aided by four advisers, who also help in monitoring four autonomous local chiefs known as the ''basalo sangkap''. As an example, the 1706 Dutch estimate noted that Banggai had a population of 1,450, with the king of Banggai only having 150 men and the rest under the 4 local chiefs.

Footnotes

Bibliography