Java Sea

The Java Sea off Surabaya connected eastern Java with Madura, southern Borneo and the routes toward Maluku. In the early seventeenth century Surabaya was a powerful maritime city, supported by alliances with other Javanese ports and with Sukadana and Banjarmasin across the sea. Its commercial position gave overseas connections a direct part in the struggle for power on Java.

Sultan Agung of Mataram attacked Surabaya's allies before overcoming the city itself. Tuban fell in 1619, Sukadana in 1622 and Madura in 1624. Repeated expeditions against Surabaya from 1620 met difficulties supplying Mataram's troops, while the loss of the city's allies progressively weakened its own access to provisions. The final siege in 1625 brought shortages of food and water and forced surrender. These waters therefore carried the connections on which a besieged port depended. In the eighteenth century Surabaya passed into the Dutch East India Company's control, adding a new authority to a coast already shaped by commerce, alliances and the contest between port and inland kingdom.