Centuries ago, the area in what is now Banten was ruled by the Sundanese Tarumanagara kingdom. After the fall of the Tarumanegara, Banten was controlled by many Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, such as the Srivijaya Empire and the Sunda Kingdom. The spread of Islam in the region began in the 15th century. By the late 16th century, Islam had replaced Hinduism and Buddhism as the dominant religion in the province, with the establishment of the Banten Sultanate. At that time however, Europeans traders started arriving in the region. The first was the Portuguese, then the British and finally the Dutch. In the end, through the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the Dutch controlled the economy in the region, causing a gradual decline of the Banten Sultanate in the region. On 22 November 1808, the Dutch Governor-General Herman Willem Daendels declared that the Sultanate of Banten had been absorbed into the territory of the Dutch East Indies. This marked the beginning of direct Dutch rule in the region for the next 150 years. In March 1942, the Japanese invaded the Indies and occupied the region for 3 years, before they surrendered in August 1945. The area was returned to Dutch control for 5 years, before they handed the region to the new Indonesian government when the Dutch left in 1950. Banten was absorbed into the province of West Java. However, separatist sentiment ultimately led to the creation of the province of Banten in 2000.