Trade and Society in Gresik: From Earliest Times to 1625

Abstract

There is no monograph on the port of Gresik. Aspects of this port have been studied in larger works covering the archipelago as a whole, notably that of Meilink-Roelofsz, which deals mainly with trade. The works of Van Leur and Schrieke are also important as studies of pan-archipelagan developments in the areas of economics and politics. De Graaf and Pigeaud have written a work on the north Javanese coastal states in general, including a chapter on Gresik, which is of great value but does not deal with the port/state as a socio-economic form. This study examines Gresik from the point of view of its institutions, economic institutions, religio-legal institutions as centres of power in their own right, and the role that Gresik played in sculpturing the political forms of Java. It presents an argument that the period of Javanese history from 1475 to 1625 A.D. should be revised to take into account certain changes brought about by Gresik in the fabric of Javanese society and polity. This study also considers the early history of Gresik, dealing with the founding of the port by ethnic groups from overseas and the role played by the Chinese and other ethnic groups in the introduction and establishment of Islam in Gresik. The last part of this study covers the downfall of Gresik in the early 17th century and argues that it was not the hinterland kingdom of Mataram which was ultimately responsible for its downfall. It was rather the effect of Dutch military actions far from Gresik on the complex interdependent trade network of the archipelago that undermined Gresik economically. It was this which led to its inability to withstand a resurgent hinterland kingdom bent on monopolising trade for itself. A re-integration of the political and the economic in the newly expanded territory of Mataram, in concert with the politico-economic entity of the Dutch United East India Company, sounded the death-knell for the free commercial societies on the north coast of Java.