Padang

Padang lies on the western coast of Sumatra, between the Indian Ocean and the Minangkabau highlands. Its harbour served a network of coastal merchants and routes leading inland towards Tanah Datar. Pepper and gold attracted traders to this shore, while neighbouring communities supplied the port and maintained their own leaders and commercial ties.

In the seventeenth century, coastal chiefs sought Dutch help against Acehnese influence. The 1663 Treaty of Painan offered the Dutch East India Company exclusive access to pepper and gold in return for protection. The company made Padang its principal west-coast base, hoping to draw trade away from rival ports. Its buying policies and monopoly claims provoked resistance: in 1669 people of Pauh and Koto Tangah rose against the company, but the revolt was suppressed. The city passed into British hands during the wars in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century and returned to Dutch control in 1819. By 1837 it had become the administrative centre of the Dutch possessions on Sumatra's west coast. Its position at the foot of the mountains continued to join the maritime trade of the Indian Ocean with the products of the Minangkabau interior.