Mahmud displays benevolence in the early days…

Jacob Roggeveen, following his discovery and naming of Easter Island, sails to Batavia by way of the Tuamotu Archipelago, ...

...the Society Islands, and ...

...Samoa.

Jacob Roggeveen is arrested in Batavia because he had violated the monopoly of the Dutch East India Company, but the Company is later forced to release him, to compensate him for the trouble, and to pay his crew.

Roggeveen will return to the Netherlands in 1723, and publish part four of De val van 's werelds afgod (The fall of the world's idol).

The Buginese, also called Bugis, had originated in the vicinity of Makasar, the southwest limb of Celebes, where they are well-known for their adventurism and maritime skill.

The Buginese had been among the early Malay converts to Buddhism who had accepted many Indian customs, including a hierarchical society, ranging from the raja at the top through district officers and princes to village heads.

Along with these Indian influences had come an Indian form of writing in which a rich literature had been recorded.

The Makasarese and Buginese had early in the seventeenth century been converted to Islam.

The Buginese had levied nominal customs duties in Makasar, which had made the city a prosperous trading port.

Makasar, however, had by 1667, fallen to the Dutch East India Company, and the Buginese had begun to emigrate from Celebes to places in the Malay Archipelago not yet reached by the Western powers.

Skilled and astute fighting men, they had soon been drawn into Malay political struggles.

They had established settlements during the seventeenth century on the Klang and Selangor rivers.

They had by 1710 created a Buginese state in Selango, and by 1722 they have established themselves in Riau.

Hendrick Zwaardecroon was responsible for the ruthless repression in 1721 of the so-called conspiracy of Pieter Erberfelt, who, it had been claimed (probably falsely), had been plotting to expel the Dutch from the Indies.

Zwaardecroon had gone to the Indies in 1684 as secretary to the commissioner-general of the Dutch East India Company and advanced steadily until he was appointed governor-general in 1718, when the company was in serious financial difficulties.

He has taken harsh steps to halt smuggling and, more constructively, introduced new products into Java and expanded trade with China.

He has stimulated the production of indigo, improved cotton cultivation, and encouraged the production of sappanwood (from the tree Caesalpina sappan), used for dye.

Most important, he has imported the coffee tree, a future staple of the economy. 

Sultan Mahmud Shah II of Johor had died in 1699 without an heir, but the succession problem had been quickly solved when the viceroy, Bendahara Abdul Jalil, declared himself the new sultan, styling himself Sultan Abdul Jalil IV.

Many, however, feel that the declaration had been illegal.

Daing Parani, a leader of adventurers from the Celebes, has spearheaded the political penetration of the Malay Peninsula by the Buginese.

Apart from the Malays, another influential faction in Johor at this time is the Minangkabau.

Both the Bugis and the Minangkabau had realized that the death of Sultan Mahmud II had provided them with the chance to exert power in Johor.

The Minangkabau had introduced a Minangkabau prince, Raja Kecil from Siak, who claims he is the posthumous son of Sultan Mahmud II.

The prince had met with the Daing Parani and promised the Bugis wealth and political power if they helped the prince to win the throne.

However, Raja Kecil had broken his promise and installed himself as the new sultan of Johor (Sultan Abdul Jalil Rahmat Shah) without the knowledge of the Bugis.

Sultan Abdul Jalil IV had fled to Pahang where he was later killed by an assassin hired by Raja Kecil.

Daing Parani had in 1722 shifted allegiance and aided Sulaiman, son of the deposed sultan, in winning back his father's throne.

In return, the Buginese had been put in control of a specially created office of under-king, a post that has made them effective rulers of Johor.

Daing Parani is killed in 1726 while interfering in a dynastic conflict in the northern Malay state of Kedah, but his family and followers will continue to expand their influence throughout the Malay Peninsula in the eighteenth century until the only groups that remain free of Buginese control are the Dutch at Malacca and the Minangkabau people in the area that will become the state of Negri Sembilan.

Wealthy Dutch settlers in Batavia have built tall houses and canals within the city's walls.

Commercial opportunities attract Indonesian and especially Chinese immigrants, the increasing numbers creating burdens on the city.

Tensions have grown as the colonial government tries to restrict Chinese migration through deportations.

Ten thousand Chinese are massacred on October 9, 1740, and in the following year, Chinese residents are moved to Glodok outside the city walls.

Most accounts of the ensuing massacre in October 1740 estimate that ten thousand Chinese were killed within Batavia's city walls, while at least another five hundred were seriously wounded.

Between six hundred and seven hundred Chinese-owned houses were raided and burned.

Vermeulen gives a figure of six hundred survivors, while the Indonesian scholar A.R.T. Kemasang estimates that three thousand Chinese survived.

The Indonesian historian Benny G. Setiono notes that five hundred prisoners and hospital patients were killed, and a total of three thousand four hundred and thirty-one people survived.

The massacre is followed by an "open season" against the ethnic Chinese throughout Java, causing another massacre in 1741 in Semarang, and others later in Surabaya and Gresik.

As part of conditions for the cessation of violence, all of Batavia's ethnic Chinese are moved to a pecinan, or Chinatown, outside of the city walls, now known as Glodok.

This allows the Dutch to monitor the Chinese more easily.

To leave the pecinan, ethnic Chinese require special passes.

By 1743, however, ethnic Chinese have already returned to inner Batavia; several hundred merchants operate here.

Other ethnic Chinese led by Khe Pandjang flee to Central Java where they attack Dutch trading posts, and are later joined by troops under the command of the Javanese sultan of Mataram, Pakubuwono II.

Though this further uprising is quashed in 1743, conflicts in Java will continue almost without interruption for the next seventeen years.

Many people of Chinese descent have been contracted as skilled artisans in the construction of Batavia on the northwestern coast of Java during the early years of the Dutch colonization of the East Indies (modern-day Indonesia); they also serve as traders, sugar mill workers, and shopkeepers.

The economic boom, precipitated by trade between the East Indies and China via the port of Batavia, has increased Chinese immigration to Java.

The number of ethnic Chinese in Batavia had grown rapidly, reaching a total of ten thousand by 1740.

Thousands more live outside the city walls.

The Dutch colonials require them to carry registration papers, and deport those who do not comply to China.

The deportation policy had been tightened during the 1730s, after an outbreak of malaria killed thousands, including the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, Dirck van Cloon.

According to Indonesian historian Benny G. Setiono, the outbreak was followed by increased suspicion and resentment in native Indonesians and the Dutch toward the ethnic Chinese, who were growing in number and whose wealth was increasingly visible.

As a result, Commissioner of Native Affairs Roy Ferdinand, under orders of Governor-General Adriaan Valckenier, decrees on July 25, 1740, that Chinese considered suspicious will be deported to Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka) and forced to harvest cinnamon.

Wealthy Chinese are extorted by corrupt Dutch officials who threaten them with deportation;  Stamford Raffles, a British explorer and historian of Java, will note in 1830 that in some Javanese accounts, the Dutch were told by the Chinese captain (the Dutch-appointed leader of the ethnic Chinese) for Batavia, Ni Hoe Kong, to deport all Chinese wearing black or blue because these were thought to be poor.

There are also rumors that deportees were not taken to their destinations but were thrown overboard once out of sight of Java, and in some accounts, they died when rioting on the ships.

The deportation of ethnic Chinese has caused unrest among the remaining Chinese, leading many Chinese workers to desert their jobs.

At the same time, native occupants of Batavia, including the ethnic Betawi servants, have became increasingly distrustful of the Chinese.

Economic factors play a role: most natives are poor, and perceive the Chinese as occupying some of the most prosperous neighborhoods in the city.

Although the Dutch historian A.N. Paasman will note that at this time the Chinese were the "Jews of Asia", the actual situation was more complicated.

Many poor Chinese living in the area around Batavia are sugar mill workers who feel exploited by the Dutch and Chinese elites equally.

Rich Chinese own the mills and are involved in revenue farming and shipping; they draw income from milling and the distillation of arak, a molasses and rice-based alcoholic beverage.

However, the Dutch overlords set the price for sugar, which itself causes unrest.

Because of the decline of worldwide sugar prices that began in the 1720s caused by an increase in exports to Europe and competition from the West Indies, the sugar industry in the East Indies has suffered considerably.

By 1740, worldwide sugar prices have dropped to half the price in 1720.

As sugar is a major export, this causes considerable financial difficulties for the colony.

Some members of the Council of the Indies (Raad van Indië) had believed initially that the Chinese would never attack Batavia, and stronger measures to control the Chinese have been blocked by a faction led by Valckenier's political opponent, the former governor of Zeylan Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff, who had returned to Batavia in 1738.

Large numbers of Chinese have arrived outside Batavia from nearby settlements, however, and on September 26, Valckenier calls an emergency meeting of the council, during which he gives orders to respond to any ethnic Chinese uprisings with deadly force.

This policy continues to be opposed by van Imhoff's faction; Vermeulen (1938)  will suggest that the tension between the two colonial factions played a role in the ensuing massacre.