Early history The area around Sukabumi was already inhabited at least in the 11th century. The first written record found in this area was the
Sanghyang Tapak inscription in Cibadak, 20 km west of the city. Written in
Kawi script, the stone tells about the prohibition of fishing activity in the nearby river by the authorities of the
Sunda Kingdom. At the end of the 16th century, the area was captured by the
Banten Sultanate, after the fall of the
Sunda Kingdom. The area however, became contested in the 1620s between Banten, the
Mataram Sultanate in the east and the
Batavia-based
Dutch East India Company. After a series of military clashes between them, the area was included in a buffer zone territory between Banten and Mataram, although the area is considered
de jure as a part of Mataram. In 1677, after the Dutch forced Mataram to sign a series of unequal treaties as a consequence of Dutch assistance for quelling the
Trunajaya rebellion, Sukabumi came under direct control of
Tjiandjoer. By that time, there were only few rural Sundanese settlements existed, one of the largest was Tjikole.
Colonial Sukabumi Sukabumi Coffee Plantations The area around the present-day Sukabumi (or Soekaboemi in
Van Ophuijsen Spelling System) began to develop in the 18th century when the
Dutch East India Company started to open coffee plantation areas in the western
Priangan region of
Java. Due to the high demands of coffee in Europe, in the year of 1709 the
Dutch governor-general Abraham van Riebeeck started to open coffee plantations around the area of Tjibalagoeng (present-day
Bogor),
Tjiandjoer, Djogdjogan, Pondok Kopo, and Goenoeng Goeroeh. Coffee plantations in these five areas had then undergone expansion and intensification during the era of
Hendrick Zwaardecroon (1718–1725), where the Tjiandjoer regent at that time
Wira Tanoe III acquired territorial expansion of
his regency as a compensation for more coffee plantations openings. The growth of the Goenoeng Goeroeh (Gunungguruh) coffee plantation led to the establishment of small settlements around its area, one of which was the Tjikole (Cikole) hamlet, named after the nearby Tjikole River. In 1776, regent of Tjiandjoer Wira Tanoe Datar VI established the Tjikole Viceregency which was the indirect predecessor of the present-day Sukabumi Regency. The viceregency consisted of six districts of Djampang Koelon, Djampang Tengah, Goenoeng Parang, Tjiheoelang, Tjimahi, and Tjitjoeroeg. The administrative center was located in Tjikole, due to its very strategic location for communications between
Batavia and Tjiandjoer, which was the capital of the
Priangan Residency at that time.
Tjikole becomes Soekaboemi administration|alt=|left|160x160px After the Dutch East Indies were under the rule of the
British in 1811, vast lands in the Tjikole area were bought by
Stamford Raffles, the
Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies at that time, via an auction held in Batavia. The name Soekaboemi was first used on 1815, when a Priangan-based plantation owner (known then as
Preanger Planter) and surgeon,
Andries de Wilde visited Tjikole in 1814. From his consultations with local people, De Wilde wrote a letter to Nicolaus Engelhard, a friend and plantation investor, where de Wilde asked Engelhard to propose a
name change of the viceregency from Tjikole to Soekaboemi, to which Raffles agreed. In Dutch colonial times, Soekaboemi was the site of the
Politieschool, the colonial
police academy. On 8 December 1941, the Empire of Japan
invaded the Dutch East Indies as part of
World War II and on 6 March 1942, the city came under
aerial bombardment by Japanese aircraft. During this attack, both civilian targets (including houses and two schools) and strategic targets (the police academy, the railway line, and the radio station) were hit, resulting in many casualties. During the
Japanese occupation, Soekaboemi became the meeting place of
Mohammad Hatta and
Sutan Sjahrir with representatives of the Japanese Empire to discuss the future of the Dutch East Indies, but both were given 'city prisoner' status. Soekaboemi also became one of the detention sites of
American and
Australian prisoners of war. Also during the occupation, the Japanese created a strategic garrison in
Ujung Genteng, part of the South
Sukabumi Regency. Remains of the harbor and lookout towers at the end of this peninsula are still in place, along with the caves where the Japanese lived and died towards the end of the war.
Ujung Genteng is directly North of
Christmas Island and Australia and would have made an excellent point of defense or attack. Without official records to substantiate this, it is presumed that they had their sights on Christmas Island and a close link to Australia.
Present day In early 2005,
Sukabumi Regency became the first place in Indonesia where
polio was reported in ten years, the beginning of a nationwide outbreak of the disease which had been believed to be eradicated in the country. ==Government and politics==