The British East India Company founded Bengkulu (named
Bencoolen by the British), in 1685, as their new commercial centre for the region. In the 17th century, the British
East India Company controlled the
spice trade in the Lampung region of southern Sumatra from a port in
Banten, in the northwest of the neighbouring island of
Java. In 1682, a troop of the
Dutch East India Company attacked Banten. The local crown prince submitted to the
Dutch, who then recognised him as Sultan. The Dutch expelled all other Europeans present in Banten, leading the
British to establish Bengkulu. In 1714, the British built
Fort Marlborough at Bengkulu. The trading centre was never financially viable, because of its remoteness and the difficulty in procuring
pepper. Despite these difficulties, the British persisted, maintaining a presence there for over a century, ceding it to the
Dutch as part of the
Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 to focus their attention on
Malacca.
Edmund Roberts, the first
U.S. envoy to the Far East, visited Bengkulu in 1832. Like the rest of present-day Indonesia, Bengkulu remained a Dutch colony until
World War II.
Sukarno (later the first president of
Indonesia) was imprisoned by the Dutch in the 1930s, including a brief period in Bengkulu. Sukarno met his future wife,
Fatmawati, during his time in Bengkulu. ==Geography==