Blambangan Kingdom

Its history is a case study in how a small kingdom survives by playing its neighbours against each other — and of what happens when the strongest neighbour is a European company with a fleet.

At a glance

What was Blambangan?

The easternmost kingdom of Java, the remnant of the Majapahit world that neither Demak nor Mataram nor the Balinese could digest. It occupied the peninsula between the Brantas valley and the Bali Strait, and its population was a mixture of Javanese Hindus, Balinese settlers and the Using — the people of the eastern salient, with their own language and customs.

Who ruled it?

Two kings are often confused in the accounts. Tawangalun (c. 1655–90) founded the court at Macan Putih and made Blambangan a regional power, allied with Bali and trading across the strait. Danureja (1698–1736) ruled from Kebrukan in a later phase, after the kingdom had been weakened by Mataram and by internal war.

The story that Tawangalun had 271 wives is a confusion: the chronicle speaks of 270 wives among 400, and the figure comes from the Babad Blambangan, not from the Dutch records.

What was its relationship with Mataram?

Hostile, and intermittent. Mataram claimed suzerainty over the eastern salient from the seventeenth century and campaigned there in 1636–40 — the fall of Blambangan town in 1639 belongs to that war, not to a separate conquest. The kingdom recovered, paid tribute when it had to, and rebelled when it could.

The 1697 episode is often described as a Mataram war, but it was a takeover by Buleleng and Karangasem, the Balinese kingdoms, which installed their own ruler. Blambangan's politics were Balinese as much as Javanese, and its ruling houses were tied by marriage to Bali.

How did it end?

With a Dutch landing and a long resistance. In 1767 the Dutch, having taken over the eastern salient from Mataram by treaty, landed at Banyuwangi on 21 February and began the conquest. The last ruler, Pangeran Jagapati, resisted; the Songgon ambush of 18 December 1771 — often called the puputan of Bayu — was followed by the fall of Bayu in 1772.

The figure of 60,000 dead that circulates has no anchor in any source that can be opened, and this entry does not print it. What is certain is that the conquest was violent, that the Using population was decimated, and that the region was absorbed into the Dutch East Indies as the district of Banyuwangi.

What was Blambangan society like?

A frontier society of Javanese Hindus, Balinese settlers and the Using

, with their own language, their own rituals and a strong sense of difference from the Javanese of the interior. Rice, timber and the slave trade sustained it; the Bali Strait connected it to Bali and to the wider archipelago.

The Using are the kingdom's living remnant. Their language is distinct from Javanese, their keboan ceremony and gandhrung dance are performed still, and their traditions preserve the memory of the last Hindu court of Java — which is why Blambangan matters culturally far beyond its political importance.

What is the legacy?

A language, a ritual and a border. The Using people of Banyuwangi preserve a distinct language and a Hindu-Balinese ritual tradition; the gandrung dance and the keboan ceremony are their heritage; and the region's culture marks the frontier between Java and Bali that Blambangan defended for two centuries.

Common myths about Blambangan

Timeline of Blambangan

What the map shows next

At 1631 on the map Blambangan is holding out between Mataram and Bali, and Mataram is at its height.

At 1743 on the map the eastern salient has been ceded to the Dutch, and Bali is the next prize.