Bali : The History

Although there are no artifacts or records dating back to the Stone Age, it is believed that the first settlers in Bali migrated from China around 2,500 BC, and by the Bronze era, around 300 BC, quite an evolved culture existed in Bali. The complex system of irrigation and rice production, still in use today, was established around this time.

History is vague for the first few centuries. A number of Hindu artifacts were been found dating back to the 1st century (AD), which suggests that the main religion, around 500 AD, was predominantly Buddhist.

It wasn't until the 11th century that Bali received the first strong influx of Hindu and Javanese cultures. With the death of his father around AD 1,011, Airlanggha, a Balinese prince, moved to east Java and set about creating unity. Having succeeded, he then appointed his brother, Anak Wungsu, as ruler of Bali. During the ensuing period there was a reciprocation of political and artistic ideas, and the old Javanese language, Kawi, became the language used by the aristocracy.

With the death of Airlanggha, in the middle of the 11th century, Bali enjoyed a period of autonomy. This proved to be short lived as in 1284, the East Javanese king Kertanegara, conquered Bali and ruled over it from Java. In 1292, Kertanegara was murdered and Bali took the opportunity to liberate itself once again. However, in 1343, Bali was brought back under Javanese control by its defeat at the hands of Gajah Mada , a general in the Majapahit, the last of the great Hindu-Javanese empires.

With the arrival of Islam in neighboring Java during the 15th century, a large number of courtiers, artists, musicians and craftsmen fled to Bali. As such, the Balinese have always been creative.

With the spread of Islam throughout Sumatra and Java during the 16th century, the Majapahit empire began to collapse and a large exodus of the aristocracy, priest, artists, and artisans fled to Bali. For a while Bali flourished and the following centuries were considered the Golden Age of Bali's cultural history. The principality of Gelgel, near Klungkung, became a major canter for the Arts, and Bali became the major power of the region, taking control of the neighboring island of Lombok and parts of East Java.

Bali was inhabited by around 2000 BC by Austronesian peoples who migrated originally from Taiwan through Maritime Southeast Asia. Culturally and linguistically, the Balinese are thus closely related to the peoples of the Indonesian archipelago, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Oceania. Stone tools dating from this time have been found near the village of Cekik in the island's west..

In ancient Bali, nine Hindu sects existed, namely Pasupata, Bhairawa, Siwa Shidanta, Waisnawa, Bodha, Brahma, Resi, Sora and Ganapatya. Each sect revered a specific deity as its personal Godhead.

Balinese culture was strongly influenced by Indian, Chinese, and particularly Hindu culture, beginning around the 1st century AD. The name Bali dwipa ("Bali island") has been discovered from various inscriptions, including the Blanjong pillar inscription written by Sri Kesari Warmadewa in 914 AD and mentioning "Walidwipa". It was during this time that the complex irrigation system subak was developed to grow rice. Some religious and cultural traditions still in existence today can be traced back to this period. The Hindu Majapahit Empire (1293–1520 AD) on eastern Java founded a Balinese colony in 1343. When the empire declined, there was an exodus of intellectuals, artists, priests, and musicians from Java to Bali in the 15th century.

The first European contact with Bali is thought to have been made in 1585 when a Portuguese ship foundered off the Bukit Peninsula and left a few Portuguese in the service of Dewa Agung.[7] In 1597 the Dutch explorer Cornelis de Houtman arrived at Bali and, with the establishment of the Dutch East India Company in 1602, the stage was set for colonial control two and a half centuries later when Dutch control expanded across the Indonesian archipelago throughout the second half of the nineteenth century (see Dutch East Indies). Dutch political and economic control over Bali began in the 1840s on the island's north coast, when the Dutch pitted various distrustful Balinese realms against each other.[8] In the late 1890s, struggles between Balinese kingdoms in the island's south were exploited by the Dutch to increase their control.

The Dutch mounted large naval and ground assaults at the Sanur region in 1906 and were met by the thousands of members of the royal family and their followers who fought against the superior Dutch force in a  suicidal puputan defensive assault rather than face the humiliation of surrender Despite Dutch demands for surrender, an estimated 1,000 Balinese marched to their death against the invaders. In the Dutch intervention in Bali (1908), a similar massacre occurred in the face of a Dutch assault in Klungkung. Afterwards the Dutch governors were able to exercise administrative control over the island, but local control over religion and culture generally remained intact. Dutch rule over Bali came later and was never as well established as in other parts of Indonesia such as Java and Maluku.

In the 1930s, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and artists Miguel Covarrubias and Walter Spies, and musicologist Colin McPhee created a western image of Bali as "an enchanted land of aesthetes at peace with themselves and nature", and western tourism first developed on the island.

THE EUROPEAN INFLUENCEThe first Dutch seamen set foot on Bali in 1597, yet it wasn't until the 1800's that the Dutch showed an interest in colonizing the island. In 1864, having had large areas of Indonesia under their control since 1700's, the Dutch government sent the troops to northern Bali. In 1894, the Dutch sided with the Sasak people of Lombok to defeat their Balinese rulers. By 1911, all the Balinese principalities had been defeated in battle, leaving the whole island under Dutch control. After World War I, Indonesian Nationalist sentiment was rising and in 1928, Bahasa Indonesia was declared the official national language.

During World War II, the Dutch were expelled by the Japanese, who occupied Indonesia from 1942 to 1945. After the Japanese defeat, the Dutch tried to regain control of their former colony, but on August 17, 1945, Indonesia declared it's independence by (it's first) president, Sukarno. After four years of fighting and strong criticism by the international community, the Dutch government finally departed, and in 1949, Indonesia was recognized as an independent nation.

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