Amangkurat I

Amangkurat I, born Raden Mas Sayyidin in 1619 — the Indonesian article gives 1618 or 1619 — was susuhunan of Mataram in Java from 1646 to 1677, the son of Sultan Agung.¹² He is remembered by historians as an oppressive centraliser who purged nobles and, on the report of the Dutch envoy Rijcklof van Goens, massacred thousands of ulema, until the Trunajaya rebellion drove him from his capital and he died in flight on 13 July 1677.¹²

Crowned in 1646 amid military security against succession disputes, he launched pre-emptive strikes against potential rivals, murdering local leaders he deemed insufficiently deferential, among them his father-in-law Pangeran Pekik of Surabaya, and ordering the whole family of Tumenggung Wiraguna killed.¹ When his younger brother Prince Alit rose against him in 1648 with the support of Islamic clerics and was slain, Amangkurat, two days later, had the ulema and their families gathered in the city square and massacred — about 5,000 to 6,000 people on van Goens's report, as both articles recount it.¹² The Indonesian article adds that local Javanese historical sources do not record the details of this massacre.² He closed ports to monopolise trade against the VOC, appointed harbourmasters under his own influence, and abandoned Sultan Agung's capital at Karta for a grander red-brick palace at Plered.¹

In 1646 he made a treaty with the VOC, allowing Dutch trade posts in Mataram while Mataram traded in Dutch-ruled islands — a settlement he read as the Company's submission to Mataram, and was shocked when the VOC conquered Palembang in 1659.¹ Relations with Banten worsened, with a failed Cirebon expedition against it in 1650 and a ban on rice and wood exports to it two years later, while the embassies of Gowa were received coldly and Jambi rejected Mataram's suzerainty after 1663.¹

His crown prince Rahmat, the future Amangkurat II, first conspired in the rebellion that rose in east Java under the Madurese prince Trunajaya, then returned to his father's side; Trunajaya's forces captured the court at Plered in mid-1677 and looted it.¹ The king escaped to the north coast with his eldest son, leaving his younger son Pangeran Puger in Mataram, and fell sick in exile; according to the Babad Tanah Jawi, his death was caused by poisoned coconut water given by the crown prince, whom he nevertheless appointed his successor, with a curse that the prince's descendants would fail to hold the throne.¹ He died on 13 July 1677 and was buried at Tegalarum near Tegal, beside his teacher, in ground whose fragrant soil gave the place its name.¹²