During more than three hundred years, the Dutch colonial rule saw the important role of Java in the Indonesian archipelago, politically, economically as well as culturally. It was not a coincidence that the Dutch East Indian Company or VOC (Vereenigde Oost Indische Compagnie) soon began to move their center of activities from the Moluccas Islands to Batavia (in West Java) in the first quarter of the 16th century just 17 years after its establishment. Batavia even functioned as the management center of the company in Asia and Africa.
From 1677 onwards, the Dutch were actively involved in a series of succession disputes and dynastic struggles in Java