Senapelan

Senapelan stood on the Siak River in eastern Sumatra, where goods from the Minangkabau highlands could travel downstream toward the Malacca Strait. The rulers of Siak sought to develop its market, and in 1784 Raja Muhammad Ali established a new trading place here. Known as Pekan Baharu, or new market, it grew from the river settlement into an important center of exchange.