Bengkulu
In the seventeenth century, the Lampung region of southern Sumatra was under the possession Fort Marlborough. In 1682, a troup of the Dutch East India Company attacked Banten. The crown prince, who had headed the government submitted to the Dutch, recognized him as Sultan. The Dutchman expelled all other Europeans present in Banten. As a result the British withdrew and the British East India Company founded Bengkulu as a commercial establishment in 1685.
In 1714, the British built Fort Marlborough. However, it was never financially viable, because of its remoteness and the difficulty in procuring pepper. Despite these difficulties, the British persisted, maintaining the presence there for 150 years before ceding it to the Dutch as part of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 to focus their attention on Malacca. Like the rest of present-day Indonesia, Bengkulu remained a Dutch colony until World War II.During Sukarno's imprisonment by the Dutch in the 1930s, the future 1st president of Indonesia lived briefly in Bengkulu. Here he met his wife, Fatmawati, who gave him several children, the most famous being the 1st female President of Indonesia, Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Bengkulu lies near the Sunda Fault and is prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. In June 2000 a quake caused damage and the death of at least 100 people. A recent report predicts that Bengkulu is "at risk of inundation over the next few decades from undersea earthquakes predicted along the coast of Sumatra" A series of earthquakes struck Bengkulu during September, 2007, killing 13 people.
| In this town lies the province of Bengkulu, the | only state university in the Universitas Bengkulu. |
Related Sites for Bengkulu
- Rakyat Bengkulu Online read Bengkulu
- Bencoolen - Bengkulu Tourism - Travel to Indonesia : Maps - รข€¦ read Bengkulu
- Bengkulu Map - Peta Bengkulu - Indonesia Tourism read Bengkulu
- Bengkulu (province, Indonesia) -- Encyclopedia Britannica read Bengkulu
