Portuguese Fortress

One of the mainstay tourism object in Jepara is Portuguese fortress which is located at Banyumanis village, Keling Sub-district or 45 km North of Jepara city, and to reach it is not too difficult because the road is paved and has regular transportation. 

LOCATION
Geographically this fortress seems strategic for military importance  specially  in  the  past  which the  canon’s  range of shooting is only 2 to 3 km. This fortress is built on the top of the rocky hill, besides the beach and right in front of it lies Mondoliko Island, so practically the straits in front of this fortress is under the control of fortress canon and will influence ship’s cruise from Jepara to East Indonesia or the other way.

HISTORY

In 1619, Jayakarta / Sunda Kelapa City was invaded by the Dutch’s VOC, and now Sunda Kelapa which was renamed Batavia was considered at the beginning of colonialism by the Dutch  Imperialism in Indonesia. The king of Mataram Sultan Agung has felt the danger threatening the drop of Jayakarta city to the hand of the Dutch. That’s why the king prepared his soldiers to drive out the Dutch.This Mataram king’s strong will was executed successively in 1628 to 1629 which was ended by the lost of Mataram soldiers.The lost made Sultan Agung thought that VOC can be defeated only through ground and sea attack together, on contrary Mataram did not have a strong sea armada, so they need help from the 3rd party who also against VOC, Portuguese. The deal between Mataram and Portuguese held and for the first step, Portuguese placed his troops in the fortress which was built by Mataram in 1632. This fortress is clearly very effective to watch the sea cruise from Jepara which became Mataram’s main harbor for export and import. But the cooperation between Mataram and Portuguese could not be realized to drive the Dutch out in Batavia, even in 1642 the Portuguese left this fortress because Malacca as Portuguese’s main city East Asia has been snatched away by the Dutch in 1641.