As a result of the military expeditions, the Dutch began to exercise rapidly increasing control over northern Bali and to interfere more frequently and vigorously in Balinese domestic affairs.

Buleleng became the first of the Balinese principalities to fall under Dutch administration. In 1855, the Dutch also assumed coiitrol over Jembrana. In each case, the Dutcli adopted the administrative device they bad found to be effective in Java. Thev appointed a member of the royal family as regent and assigned him a Dutch controleur who, as the title clearly implied, controlled both the regent and the kingdom. Thus, as of the mid-1850s, the Dutch actually began to acquire the sovereign power which they had long claimed, at least in northern and western Bali. Half a century later, they ruled the entire islarrd.

The colonial administration in Bali remained centered in the port town of Buleleng and the adjoining royal capital of Singaraja. The first resident Dutch official

Was Herr P.L Van Bloeman Waanders, who like certain of his successors, was to become a serious and sympathetic student of Balinese life and customs. After the difficulties of the first few years were overcome and the Dutch and Balinese had made certain basic accommodations to each other, the latter part of the 19th Century was reasonably peaceful and saw satisfactory development for the northern states. But continuing strife between the warring factions in the states of the south resulted in several more Dutch military campaigns.

Meanwhile, the Dutch under van Blocmen Waanders and his successor announced strict new regulations against slavery and undertook to improve economic conditions. They encouraged extension of the irrigation system to improve the rice harvest, the planting of coffee as a cash crop and by 1875, northern Bali was already a distinctly profitable colonial enterprise. The ever-increasing contact between Buleleng and the outside world resulted in an attempt to introduce Christian missions. But they met with little success. The colonial successes and failures produced a policy of benevolent paternalism which resulted in Bali in a relatively enlightened administration. Still, the darkest days of the Dutch colonial penetration lie ahead.

The rajadom of Gianyar enjoyed its turn at the top during the middle of the 19th Century. Under Dewa Manggis Disasteria (VII). Gianyar became the most prosperous and powerful of the states of the south and he earned island-wide fame as a shrewd ruler. In the process, however, he made a host of enemies among other rajas by continually attempting to expand his kingdom by swallowing up villages in their areas. .

The Dewa Agung even created a military coalition against Gianyar and he found a ready ally in the Raja of Bangli, whose sister was a favorite in the Klungkung harem. But Disasteria enlisted the aid of Karangasem and Lombok and managed to shatter the Klungkung army in 1868.

After its victory, Gianyar enjoyed well over a decade of relative immunity from invasion and ever-increasing prosperity. In fact, a Dutch visitor to Bali, Dr. Julius Jacobs, reported in 1883 that Gianyar was by far the most pleasant and prosperous of the southern states.

The island of Lombok also played an integral part in the trilogy of tragedies that marked Bali's total takeover by the Dutch after the turn of the century. The trouble began when the Dutch sent a military expedition in 1894 to punish the Balinese rulers of Lombok for reported complaints of cruelty tnd discrimination toward lombok's large contingent of Sasak Muslims.

The Dutch, led by Major-Generals J.A. Vetter and P.P.H. van Ham marched into the heart of the island without encountering any resistance. Just as it seemed they would win a bloodless victory, thousands of Balinese warriors staged a surprise attack on the Dutch camp in the town of Jakranegara. They fired their rifles with deadly aim and their battle cries proved as blood-curdling as their attack was furious as they massacred Dutch soldiers who had no place to take cover. General van Ham himself was fatally wounded. In all, Dutch casualties totaled 98 dead and 272 injured. The Dutch government and people in Batavia and The Netherlands were outraged and the battle entered Dutch colonial history as "The Lombok Treachery."

The events in Lombok also disturbed the Dewa Agung and other leaders in Bali. They grew increasingly uneasy about the Dutch presence in their island. It was widely assumed that some outrageous incident would launch yet another Dutch expeditionarv force. That incident occurred on May 27, l904. Again it involved a shipwreck and the Balinese exercise of their right of salvage.

The vessel was a Chinese-owned schooner the Sri Kumala, out of Banjarmasin, Borneo. It struck the reef near Sanur not far from the Badung-Gianyar border. The area's people plundered the ship with the complicity, it was alleged, of the rajas. The Chinese owner of the craft gave an altogether implausible account of his misfortune and demanded fanciful indemnity for the cargo. To the original claim he added, as a curious afterthought, large quantities of gold and silver. The Dutch scaled down his claims and presented the bill to the Raja of Badung who flatly refused to pay. The Dewa Agung backed him in his defiance. So did the Raja of Tabanan who just then was also involved in a crisis over a recent ceremony of Suttee which he had permited despite dutch protest. So in June of 1906 the Dutch blockaded the coasts of Badung and Tabanan while they drew up certain ultimatums and assembled a military expedition.

The Sixth Military Expedition to Bali, consisting of infantry, cavalry, artillery and naval support, arrived off the southern coast of Bali in September that year. They sent the Raja of Badung a final ultimatum. He rejected it. On September 14, the Dutch landed their troops on Sanur Beach.

As the Dutch drew closer, they observed a strange, silent procession emerging from the main gate of the puri. It was led by the Raja, seated in his state palanquin carried by four bearers, dressed in white cremation garments but splendidly bejeweled and armed with a magnificent kris. The Raja was followed by officials of his court, armed guards, priests, wives, children and retainers, like wise dresed in white flower in their hair, many of them almost as richly ornamented and as splendidy armed as was their ruler.

One hundred paces from the startled Dutch, the Raja halted his bearers, stepped from his palanquin, and gave a signal. A priest plunged his dagger into the Raja's breast. Others of the company also began turning their daggers upon themselves or upon one another. The Dutch troops, startled into action by a stray gunshot and reacting to attack by lance and spear, directed rifle and artillery fire into the surging crowd. Some of the women mockingly threw jewels and gold coins to the soldiers. More persons emerged from the palace gate. The mounds of corpses rose higher and higher.

To the scene of carnage was soon added the spectacle of looting as the soldiers stripped the valuables from the corpses and then set about sacking the palace ruins. It was a slaughter and self-slaughter of the innocents made all the more appalling by reason of its recurrence that same afternoon in nearby Pemacutan, a minor state of Badung. There the frail old Raja and his terrified court, having heard what had happened in Denpasar, elected the same fate. When the victorious Dutch troops marched from Denpasar to Pemacutan, the Raja and his retainers were ready to enact once again the grisly rites of puputan. This time the Dutch refrained from participation if not from profit.

The Dutch expeditionary force marched next upon Tabanan, where the wives of its venerable old Raja had earlier followed their husband in death by jumping into his cremation fire in the rite of suttee - against Dutch protests. The new Raja and Crown Prince fled from the puri when the Dutch advanced. They eventually gave themselves up to their adversaries. The Dutch informed them they would be exiled to Madura or Lombok. The Raja and Prince instead chose suicide in their Denpasar prison. For lack of a kris, the raja plunged a sirih knife into his throat and the crown prince took poison and Tabanan followed Badung into the Dutch sphere.

As a side excursion to their invasion of Klungkung, the Dutch made a show of force in Klungkung hoping to provoke a show of resistance by the Dewa Agung. But the Dewa Agung was either too cowed or too prudent to oblige and the Dutch withdrew.

Later, the Dutch presented the Dewa Agung with a whole new set of agreements almost indistinguishable from ultimatums. He accepted them virtually at sight. All knew that the next move would be Dutch imposition of an administrative system upon .Klungkung. By 1908, disorders broke out in the area. In Gelgel, the punggawa's men intimidated ancl @ittacked some a(,ents of the opium monopoly. The Dutch landed a small party of troops to march into Gelgel to punish the punggawa. The punggawa mounted a counterattack. So many Dutch soldiers were injured that the detachment withdrew to the seacoast. The punggawa then sought shelter in Klungkung, where the Dewa Agung, correctly anticipating naval bombardment and land maneuvers, had already authorized certain measures of defense. The bombardment swiftly followed. It demolished Gelgel and destroyed parts of Klungkung. Then came the troops with their field pieces, which they deployed in the square in front of the puri at a distance no more than 200 meters from the main gate. The Dutch began firing admonitory salvos.

The Dewa Agung ordered the gongs to sound the call to the puputan. He himself led a procession of some 200 persons who emerged from the puri to confront the Dutch soldiers. Clad all in white, he carried in one hand a ceremonial lance with a golden tip and in the other his ancestral kris. Pausing about 100 meters from the momentarily silent cannon, he bent over and with an imperious gesture thrust the kris blade into the ground. Thus, if the prophecy of his high priest came true, his magical kris would create a great chasm which would swallow up all of his enemies. As the Dewa Agung straightened up, he received a gunshot in the knee. Before he could even crumple, he was killed outright by another. Six of his wives knelt around him and solemniv drove their kris blades into their own hearts. 1-he whole company - men, women and children alike - engaged in ritualistic self-immolation or sacrificed one another while murderous cannon and gunfire contributed to the mayhem.