Luso Sundanese padrão

Padrão of Sunda Kalapa (1522), Indonesian National Museum, Jakarta.

The Luso Sundanese padrão is a stone pillar commemorating the Sunda–Portuguese treaty, better known as the Luso-Sundanese Treaty of Sunda Kalapa.

History

Because of the growing Islamic force in Demak and Cirebon, the Hindu king of Sunda, Sri Baduga, Prabu Siliwangi, sought assistance from the Portuguese at Malacca. He therefore sent his son, Crown Prince Prabu Surawisesa, Ratu Samian (Sang Hyang) to Malacca in 1512 and again in 1521, in order to invite the Portuguese to sign a peace treaty, to trade in pepper, and to build a fort at his main port of Sunda Kalapa.^[1] By 1522 (the same year in which Magellan's global circumnavigation was completed), the Portuguese were ready to form a coalition with the Sunda King in order to gain access to his profitable pepper trade.

The commandant of the fortress of Malacca at that time was still Jorge de Albuquerque. In 1522, he sent a ship, the São Sebastião under Captain Henrique Leme, to Sunda Kalapa with valuable gifts for the king of Sunda. Two written sources detail the concluding of the treaty: the original Portuguese document of 1522, with the text of the treaty and the signatures of the witnesses; and João de Barros’s report in his book Décadas da Ásia, printed not before 1777 or 1778.

According to these sources, the Portuguese upon their arrival were welcomed warmly by the former crown prince, now King Prabu Surawisesa Jayapercosa (also called Ratu Sang Hyang and, by the Portuguese, Ratu Samian); Barros called him King Samião. This Sundanese ruler agreed to an arrangement of friendship with the king of Portugal and decided to grant the Portuguese a fortress at the mouth of the Ciliwung River where they could load as many ships as they wished with black pepper. In addition, he pledged that from the day when the building of the fortress began he would each year give one thousand sacks (altogether, more than 20 tons) of pepper to the Portuguese king. The treaty was executed in two copies, one for the king of Sunda, one for the king of Portugal; each was signed on August 21, 1522. The Sundanese king's deputies were the chief mandarin, Padam Tumangu; the mandarins Sangydepaty and Benegar; and the xabandar of the land, named Fabian.

"On the said day", these mandarins and other honorable men, together with Henrique Leme and his entourage, went to the very place where the fortress should be constructed at the mouth of the river, on the "land called Sunda Kalapa". There they erected a memorial stone, called a padrão, in what is now the Tugu sub-district of North Jakarta. It was a custom of the Portuguese to set out a padrão when they discovered a new land. The National Museum of Jakarta now holds that memorial stone.

Because of troubles in Goa, Portuguese India, the Portuguese failed to keep their promise to come back the following year to construct the fortress. They did not return to the Java Sea until November, 1526, when they arrived in six ships from Bintan under the command of Francisco de Sá.

References