The Sumbawa Kingdom

[West Sumbawa]

It is even more difficult to describe the history of the kingdoms in the west than the situation in East Sumbawa. Firstly, I have mostly devoted attention to the kingdoms in East Sumbawa, so that I cannot handle more detailed ethnographic data that could throw light over the few accounts that we possess. Secondly, the Dutch contacts with West Sumbawa were not that close. Thirdly, West Sumbawa tended to go its own way. It was more oriented towards intercourse with Banjarmasin, Lombok, Bali and so on, due to its geographical location. One should consider that the term West Sumbawa is vaguer than East Sumbawa. About the mutual relations between the various smaller geographical units nothing is known to me, although it is certain that, for example, Taliwang, itself consisting of the three units Taliwang, Jarewe and Serang (Setelok), had a certain measure of independence until the beginning of this century. The accounts, in the first place those from olden times, also give the impression that the Sultan of Sumbawa, although prince of a powerful kingdom, was more dependent on his state grandees than the princes of the east.

[East and West Sumbawa]

The most important trait in the later history of Sumbawa is the falling-out with the Balinese, who subjugated all of Lombok under their power in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and could only be held back from the western coast of the Island of Sumbawa in the end with difficulty. Any particularly close cultural ties with East Sumbawa did not exist in the past during the period that we can survey. Different languages were spoken in the east and the west. There were – self-evidently, one has to say – border conflicts with Dompu, namely over the district of Ampang, where Bomi Soro found a stronghold in the last years of the seventeenth century. The relations with the Dutch were clearly characterized by Holsteyn with the meaningful name Suckelenburg that he gave to the pagger inside which he sheltered during his brief stay there.