Lombok History Facts and Timeline

(Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia)

Visitors searching for a less crowded, yet equally beautiful alternative to Bali need only look across the Lombok Strait.

Volcanic Mount Rinjani towers over this relaxed island, where the beaches are virtually deserted and locally owned general stores outnumber modern shopping centres. Largely overlooked by colonial interest, it has a far less interesting recent history than its popular tourist neighbour.

Early History

Among the few known facts about the history of Lombok prior to the 17th century was that the island consisted of numerous petty states, which constantly feuded with one another. Each of these states was ruled by a different Sasak prince. The Balinese took advantage of this lack of unity among local rulers to conquer the island's west end during the early 17th-century history of Lombok, while the Makassarese occupied the island's eastern section.

Balinese Rule

The Sasak Princess of Lombok negotiated a treaty with the Dutch East India Company, following the first Dutch exploration of the island in 1674. By the middle of the 18th century, the Balinese occupied the entire island, but like the Sasak states before them, infighting caused Lombok to be divided into four different Balinese kingdoms. The island became unified once again as part of the Mataram Kingdom in 1838.

Relations and communications between both the Balinese and the Sasak were far more civil in western Lombok, where intermarriage between the two groups was widely accepted, as opposed to the island's east side, which the Balinese controlled from behind fortresses. Heads of Sasak villages on the eastern side of the island were often reduced to the roles of Balinese tax collectors, while the villagers themselves lived under serf-like conditions.

Dutch Intervention

The Sasak peasants often rebelled against their Balinese rulers during the history of Lombok. In one of these rebellions, started in 1894, some Sasak chiefs invited the Dutch to rule Lombok. Shortly afterwards, the Sasak rebels signed a treaty with Dutch East India Company governor Johan Cornelis Van der Wijck, who deployed a large army to the island.

After the Balinese raja decided to give in to Dutch demands, the younger princes overruled him and then began an onslaught on the Dutch. The Dutch subsequently fought back, overrunning the Sasak and forcing the Balinese Raja to resign. From this point on, Lombok became part of the Dutch East Indies in the year of 1895. In contrast to many other parts of Indonesia, island residents saw the Dutch as liberators from the past Balinese rule. The Dutch enjoyed the support of both the Sasak and Balinese aristocracy during their stay.

Japanese Occupation

In 1942, Japanese forces defeated the Dutch defenders and occupied the island during the rest of WWII. After the war ended, Lombok again briefly fell under Dutch control. However, following Indonesia's 1950 independence, the island reverted back to Sasak and Balinese control, becoming a part of Indonesia's West Nusa Tenggara province in 1958.

Famine and Riots

After the failed coup attempt in central Java and Jakarta, suspected Communists were murdered in Lombok, which became one of Indonesia's most stable and prosperous regions during President Suharto's New Order administration. The island's fortunes changed, however, after a 1966 famine, 1973 food shortages, and the movement of many people outside of Lombok during Indonesia's transmigration program.

The brief tourism boom enjoyed in the 1980s was interrupted by economic and political difficulties during the 1990s, followed by riots and violence against Mataram's Chinese and Christian populations as recently as the turn of the new millennium. Today, however, Lombok is once again a peaceful and relaxed island, just waiting to be discovered by Bali tourists.