Expansion and Internalization of Modes of Warfare in Pre-colonial Balisand slaves were exported each year up to the early nineteenth century,
though not all of them were war captives. It is likely that the profitability
of slaving was one of the factors generating warfare.^46
The period of fragmentation meant instability but not necessarily
political decline. In fact the late seventeenth and much of the eighteenth
centuries witnessed a renewed phase of territorial expansion outside Bali,
carried out by a few micro-kingdoms. Balambangan in East Java enjoyed a
respite as an autonomous kingdom from the 1640s to the 1690s when its
Central Javanese and Balinese neighbours were occupied with other mat-
ters. However, in 1692 an intervention from Badung was documented,
and in 1697 a Buleleng invasion brought Balambangan under permanent
vassalage. The Mengwi Kingdom in South Bali took over the suzerainty
over Balambangan from Buleleng in 1711. There were ambitions even
further to the west: in 1730, the kings of Mengwi and Klungkung visited
the ritually significant Mount Sumeru near Malang, apparently strength-
ening atavistic ties to the old Majapahit Empire.^47 The shifting phases of
overlordship left governance of Balambangan largely autonomous, and
there is nothing to suggest widespread Balinese immigration there.
The situation was completely different in the east where Karangasem
was the principal micro-state. Being situated far from the rice-producing
South Bali, it was a mountainous domain that increased its area by a
complicated series of petty wars and agreements with local lords and
villages. Lombok is situated less than 40 kilometres from the eastern
tip of Karangasem and is easily reached by minor crafts. Similar to
Balambangan, Lombok was left to its own devices after the decline of a
strong regional power, in this case Makassar. After the defeat of Makassar
in 1667, a treaty regulating VOC–Makassar relations was signed in
Bungaya and included clauses on the position of the Makassarese de-
pendencies. Lombok was not mentioned in the treaty text. Judging from
indigenous accounts, Lombok consisted of several minor kingdoms
of which Selaparang in East Lombok was the dominating. The same
family ruled Selaparang and the Sumbawa Sultanate (West Sumbawa).
- Schulte Nordholt, The Spell of Power, 41.
- Helen Creese, “Sri Surawirya, Dewa Agung of Klungkung (c. 1722–1736): The
Historical Context for Dating the Kakawin Parthayana”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-,
Land- en Volkenkunde 147 (1991): 402–19.