GUIDING SPEELWIJK FORT
SPEELWIJK FORT
Speelwijk Fort is located in Pamarican Village,
about 600m to northwest of Keraton Surosowan, Banten Lama Site. This fortress
is an unsymmetric rectangle building with bastions in every corner. Speelwijk
Fort was built in 1682, and has been expanded in 1685 and 1731. This fort was
designed by Hendrick Lucaszoon Cardeel, and the name of this fortress was taken
from VOC governor's name, Cornelis Jansz
Speelman. This fortress seemed to be a symbol of Dutch colonial's reign and was built under Sultan Abu Nasr
Abdul Kahhar's leadership. He's also known as Sultan Haji and is Sultan Ageng
Tirtayasa's son. Even so, his personality is very different from his father.
Unlike his father who is very firmly in politic matter, Sultan Haji is easily
persuaded by the Dutch.
Although this building's condition is no longer
intact, we can still enjoy the architecture of this building in several
corners. This fortress allegedly has 2 functions, that is for defense and settlement. Speelwijck Fort
was a place that controls every activities that related to Kesultanan Banten
and also a shelter for colonialist. This fortress reinforced the Dutch to
monopolize pepper trade that coming from South Lampung, and they sell it again
to foreign merchants from China, Malaysia, Arab, India and Vietnam.
Speelwijk Fort has 4 bastions, cannon window,
guard room, basement for warehouse, seafloor, and watch tower. This fort also
surrounded by 1.5 to 2 meters trench as an outside defense. Under the bastion, there's a place where
gunpowder is stored. The common quarter of this fortress is devided into weapon
storage, commander's house, administration office, and church which is now only
it's ruins that still left. In this fortress, the outer side of south to be
exact, there is graveyard for the foreigners called kerkhoff. The tombstone
looks vary. One of the biggest tombs is Commander Hugo Pieter Faure's tomb
(1718 – 1763), the warlord.
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