Article

Aceh

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Aceh

Toponymy & Indigenous Landscape

The name “Acheh” is the correct form for that portion of Sumatra extending from Tamiang Point on the east to Trumun on the west coast, though it was commonly but erroneously known to Europeans as “Acheen” [1, p. 37]. G.P. Tolson, writing in 1880, records that Valentyn had exposed this misnomer as long ago as 1688, deriving the name from the Hindustani word Achai, meaning “fine” or “lovely,” allegedly exclaimed by the first visitors from India on sighting the coast in general and Kampong Pandei in particular, a place on the Acheh river remarkable for a grove of enormous trees of great beauty [1, p. 37]. Tolson notes that the name recurs in the Undang Undang (laws and customs) of Menangkabau, promulgated by Perpati Sebatang and transcribed by Van Ophuyzen, where mention is made of the marriage of a Menangkabau princess with a royal prince of Acheh [1, pp. 37–38]. An alternative legend holds that a Hindu princess, having disappeared, was found by her brother in Sumatra, who told the natives she was his Achi (sister); she was afterwards elected Queen, and the name was given to the country [1, p. 38]. Tolson also records a local etymology deriving the name from a species of leech, striped dark and light brown, small but vicious, which abounds in the jungle along the west coast [1, p. 38].

The physical geography of the region was systematically described by T.C.R. Westpalm van Hoorn tot Burgh, whose paper was translated by Dr. Bieber and published in 1879. The territory is divided by the volcanic mountain chain known as Pedir Daholi (or Bockit Barissan) into western and eastern drainage basins, with the coastlands being swampy and densely wooded on the west and alluvial and creek-intersected on the east [2, pp. 120–121]. Tolson provides a more detailed account: the land between the coastal ranges consists of high plateaus or steppes intersected by mountains which stretch continuously throughout the whole length of Sumatra, termed by the Malays “Gunong Barisan” [1, p. 38]. These mountains, though not inaptly volcanic in formation, contain no active volcanoes, and their principal peaks—including the “Golden Mountain” or “Mount Ophir,” “Selawa Betina,” “Gunong Batu Mukura,” “Bukit Gapuh,” “Elephant Hill” or “Bukit Pudadu,” “Gunong Chunda,” “Bukit Pasei,” “Table Hill,” “Bukits Tamiang,” “Tamsei,” “Gompang,” and “Gunong Abong”—rise to heights of between 7,000 and 11,000 feet [1, pp. 38–39]. The interior highlands are occupied by the Gayo and Alas hill tribes, the Batak occupying the highlands further south [1, p. 38].

The country is watered by a number of small rivers, streams, and creeks, the majority and more important of which have their outlet on the north and east coasts, those flowing into the Indian Ocean being more or less insignificant [1, p. 39]. The largest are the Kuala Acheh, Kuala Pasangan, Kuala Jambu Ayer, Kuala Perlak, and Kuala Tamiang, which all form deltas or lagoons at their outlets [1, p. 39]. At ordinary times their depth is negligible, but after heavy rains the volume of water discharged produces banjirs (floods), which doubtless first led the people to build their huts on piles [1, p. 39]. At the mouths of these rivers one invariably finds a shallow bar with a high surf running over it, and the entrance shifts position with every monsoon [1, p. 39]. The climate is under the influence of the north-east and south-west monsoons, being most unhealthy during the periods of change; the heat during the day is about the same as in Singapore, generally tempered by a strong breeze, while the nights and early mornings are delightfully cool [1, p. 40].

Political Geography & Dynastic History

Tolson divides the country, on political grounds, into four districts: the East Coast, the North-East Coast, the West Coast, and Acheh Besar (Acheen Proper) [1, p. 40]. The East Coast extends from Tamiang to Diamond Point and comprises fifteen states, including Menjapahit, Langsar, Birim, Bayan, Sungei Raya, Perlak, Pedawa Besar, Pedawa Kechil, Idi Besar, Idi Tchut or Kechil, Buging Bayan, Glumpang, Jurulu or Julot, Tanjong Semantoh, and Simpang Olim [1, p. 40]. The North-East Coast extends from Diamond Point to Pidir or Pedro Point and includes Kerti, Gedongo, Pasei, Tclok Semoy or Semawei, Pasangan, Pudadu, Samalanga, Merdu, Tringading, Kantei Panjang, Ujong, Ayer Labu, Gighen, and Pidir [1, p. 41]. The West Coast, proceeding south from Pidir Point to Kuala Lambesi, comprises Lambesi, Bubu Awêh, Naw or Nôh, Tělok Kruit, Pati, Ranûng, Rigas, Ketapan Pasei or Krung Sabeh, Ranga, Těnûng, Waylah or Wulah, Bubun, Analabu or Malabu, Senagun, Trang, Tadu, Tripa, Simangan, Kuala Batu, Pulau Kayu, Susu, Labinan Haji, Muki, Telok Tampat Tuan, and Trumun [1, pp. 41–42]. Acheh Besar, the smallest yet most ancient division, forms the chief seat of government and contains the capital of the once-famous Sultanate [1, p. 42].

The Sultanate of Acheh reached its zenith under Sultan Merhoum Daru Salam, otherwise known as Iskandar Muda, who ruled between 1606 and 1641 [1, p. 42]. At its height, its dominion comprised the whole of the East Coast together with the kingdom of Siak, while as late as 1652 the whole of the West Coast, including Padang, was subject to it [1, p. 42]. Tolson records that there have been four dynasties: a Hindu, a Malay from Menangkabau, an Acheh, and an Arabic dynasty, the last beginning with Sultan Mahmud Shah, who ruled from 1760 to 1781 [1, p. 42]. The genealogical tree published by Tolson traces the Arabic line through Sultan Mohamed Shah (1781–1802), Sultan Johor Ahlum Shah (1802–1826), Sultan Ali Iskander Shah (1826–1838), Sultan Mantsur Shah (1838–1870), and Sultan Mahmud Shah (1870–1874), with multiple surviving Tunku princes listed as of 1880 [1, p. 43].

R.O. Winstedt’s 1932 comparative genealogy demonstrates that the early rulers of Perak, Pahang, and Acheh were all branches of the Malacca royal house, and that Acheh’s repeated raids on the Peninsular states were dynastic in motivation rather than purely expansionist [3, pp. 32–44]. Winstedt shows that a Perak prince, Sultan Ahmad Taju’d-din (also identified as Mansur Shah), ruled Acheh from 1579 to 1585 after being carried there following an Acheh raid on Perak [3, pp. 34–35]. The critical dynastic link for Pahang is that Sultan Ahmad of Pahang was carried captive to Acheh in 1618, married into the Acheh royal family, and his son Iskandar Thani succeeded Iskandar Muda as Sultan of Acheh in 1636 [3, pp. 38–39]. After Malacca fell to the Dutch on 14 January 1641 and Iskandar Thani died on 15 February of the same year, Acheh’s succession passed to a series of women rulers, and its claim to Pahang was effectively abandoned [3, p. 39].

The internal administrative structure of Acheh Proper, as described by Tolson, comprised three Sagis (political divisions), each subdivided into Mukims (districts possessing a Misjid, or mosque) [1, p. 44]. The Head of the Sagi had authority over the Heads of the Mukims, who in turn had their Wakils or Imams, under whom were the Kechils, or heads of villages [1, p. 45]. Until within the reign of the last three Sultans, the Suku system prevailed, and the ruler always had his Council of four Hulubalangs (hereditary ministers), aided by eight minor Hulubalangs, the former consisting of persons holding the hereditary titles of Maharaja Mangku Bumi, Maharaja Mangku Besi, Perdana Menti, and Laksamana Panglima Dalam [1, p. 45]. Since these had been done away with, the Sultan reigned without advisers beyond his court favourites, and in the choice of a ruler the chiefs were mainly guided by the opinion of the Tuku Kali, the High Priest [1, p. 45].

Colonial Encounters & the Aceh War

The period between 1760 and 1819 saw the Achehnese court increasingly dominated by non-Acehnese foreigners, a phenomenon that Lee Kam Hing identifies as both a symptom of the collapse of traditional governance and a persistent diplomatic irritant for British authorities [4, pp. 64–86]. The Madras Firm stationed approximately 150 sepoys to garrison the Sultan’s fort beginning in 1766, an arrangement that London condemned as an unauthorised military alliance [4, pp. 6–7]. The Chuliah shahbander (harbour master) Poh Salleh, who dominated the court after 1781, maintained a personal guard of 100 sepoys and effectively ran the state while Sultan Muhammed Shah “occupied himself with the pleasures of the palace” [4, p. 10]. By 1814, the Englishman Cuthbert Fenwick controlled the Sultan’s royal seal, the household budget, and the dispatch of official correspondence to Penang, to the extent that the Sultan was often ignorant of the contents of letters sent in his own name [4, pp. 18–19]. The Sriduli Treaty of 22 April 1819, negotiated by Raffles and Coombs, resolved the immediate succession dispute between Johar Allum and the Penang claimant Syful Allum Shah, but its deeper purpose was to institutionalise British control over the foreign element in Aceh; Articles 6 and 7 excluded all other European powers and Americans from fixed residence and empowered the British resident to object to any British subject’s continued stay [4, pp. 3]. The treaty was rendered moot within five years by the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, which relinquished all British interests in Sumatra [4, p. 86].

C.A. Gibson-Hill’s 1956 study of the Order of the Golden Sword illuminates the political landscape of the 1810s in greater detail. Sultan Jauhar al-Alam Shah, who had succeeded his father Ala’ud-din Mahomet Shah in 1802, was a weak and profligant ruler whose authority was steadily eroded by rebellious provincial chiefs and by the commercial ambitions of Syed Husain, a wealthy Arab-Penang trader of partial royal descent [5, pp. 7–12]. By 1814–15, the three panglima sagi (provincial governors) had formally elected Syed Husain’s son as a rival sultan, Saif al-Alam Shah, and the resulting civil war disrupted trade along the entire Achenese coast [5, pp. 13–15]. Gibson-Hill demonstrates that the Order of the Golden Sword (Orang Kaya dari Pedang Mas) was a minor Achenese honour, with no references prior to the late eighteenth century; only three British sea captains—Douglas Richardson, Robert Smart, and Thomas Forrest—were known to have received it before Raffles [5, p. 4].

The Dutch military campaign against the Sultanate of Aceh, which began in 1873, is vividly documented in the account of Xavier Brau de Saint-Pol Lias, a French explorer who travelled to Aceh aboard Dutch naval vessels in the early 1880s [6, pp. 205–29]. He recounts the Dutch conquest of the Kraton (royal palace) in 1873 under General van Swieten, the subsequent resistance, and the establishment of the Controller’s post at Malabou in 1877, which was immediately met with the burning of the entire kampong (village) by the sons of the local Kedjourouan (chief) [6, pp. 216–218]. The State of Malabou, which had 40,000 inhabitants before the Dutch arrival, was reduced to fewer than 1,000 after the population was driven into the mountains [6, p. 218]. The rebel leader Toukou Umar, aged twenty-two, had killed fifty Europeans by the time of the author’s visit, and his relative Toukou Itam had murdered ten Dutch soldiers by drugging them with opium [6, pp. 216–217]. At Pedir, the last major point of resistance, there were still 20,000 armed warriors equipped with rapid-fire guns and some 80,000 spears, and a child heir of the sultans was being raised to vengeance [6, p. 219]. General van der Heijden, who commanded the Aceh army from 1877, received two bullet wounds to the left eye at Samalanggan; the second penetrated his skull and was coughed up from his throat twenty-six days later, yet he continued to direct his troops until nightfall [6, p. 225].

The Dutch colonial infrastructure at Oulele and Kota Radjah, including the lighthouse at Poulo Bras, the railway, and the Kraton, is described by Brau de Saint-Pol Lias in the closing pages of his account [6, p. 229]. The earlier British encounter with the Achenese littoral is preserved in the 1868 field report of D.F.A. Hervey, the first cadet appointed to the Straits Settlements Civil Service, which records the expedition to investigate the plundering of a Penang-registered schooner by Achinese at Kerti Creek [7, pp. 316–323]. The British schooner Good Fortune (34 tons burthen, registered Penang, owned by Neou Tean How) was plundered on 27 April 1868 by three boats carrying 15–20 Achinese each, with losses valued at $5,000 in money and goods [7, p. 316]. The Raja of Kerti ultimately paid $595 as compensation and delivered a substitute prisoner, the Panglima’s elder brother, the Panglima himself having fled [7, pp. 321–322]. The local punishment for all forms of stealing, robbery, and plundering on the Acheen coast was death by decapitation, as stated by both the Rajas of Kerti and Telok Samawi [7, p. 320].

Research and Documentation

The earliest systematic geographical treatment of the region in the Society’s records is the translated note by Dr. Bieber (1879), rendering a paper by T.C.R. Westpalm van Hoorn tot Burgh originally published in the Tijdschrift van het Aardrijkskundig Genootschap te Amsterdam [2, pp. 120–123]. This note provides a physical geography of Achin covering its coordinates, disputed area estimates (ranging from 900 to 1,200 square miles among various authorities), the volcanic mountain chain, the character of the coastlands, and the major rivers of both coasts with notes on their navigability [2, pp. 120–123]. Bieber notes that Dutch spelling conventions for native names have been retained rather than the Straits system [2, p. 123].

M.L.H. Wallon, a French civil engineer of mines, and D.F.A. Hervey published their travelling notes on the island of Klouwang (Kluang) and its swallow caves off the west coast of Atchin in 1881, originally appearing in the Annales de l’Extreme Orient in August 1879 [8, pp. 153–158]. Wallon identified the island’s composition as chiefly trachyte crossed by bands of quartz and porphyry, with masses of selenite and melaphyre covered by lava overflows [8, p. 155]. The central focus is the exploration of the island’s cave systems: a magnificent cavern inhabited by millions of swallows, with bamboo scaffolding of remarkable lightness and boldness enabling the Atchinese to collect nests, and a submarine communication between the cavern and the sea allowing light to penetrate at the waterline [8, p. 156]. A second, larger cavern features a black unfathomable gulf at a depth of approximately 30 metres, with stalactites of pearl-grey and a floor of pebbles and water-brought soil [8, pp. 156–157]. The authors penetrated the labyrinthine passages by torchlight until their supplies were exhausted, unable to complete the full exploration [8, p. 158].

Brau de Saint-Pol Lias’s account, presented to the Société de Géographie in June 1883 and translated by Colin Dyer for publication in 2020, offers a vivid first-hand ethnographic and military narrative of the west coast of Aceh, the interior Gayo highlands, and the Dutch colonial administration at Kota Radjah [6, pp. 205–29]. The Gayo man Si-Maoulout provided the Dutch Controller with the first recorded reference to the “empire of the Karo,” a region south of the Gayo between the Alas and the Batak, and corrected the believed source of the Malabou River [6, p. 211]. The “Twelve Colonies” tradition holds that twelve Malay boats from the Kingdom of Menangkebow (Padang) founded settlements along the Aceh coast before the thirteenth century, and their descendants at Tampat-Touan maintained racial purity, disowning any man who married an Acehnese woman [6, p. 213]. The photographs included in the 2020 edition are held by the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen in Amsterdam and were not published in the original 1885 Bulletin de la Société de Géographie [6, p. 205].

In the realm of diplomatic and administrative documentation, Anthony Reid’s 1969 study examines Acehnese foreign policy during the reign of Sultan Mahmud (1870–1874) through documentary evidence from the final years of his rule, a period coinciding with the onset of the Dutch–Aceh War [9, pp. 74–114]. Lee Kam Hing’s 1970 article draws primarily on the Sumatra Factory Records and Straits Settlement Factory Records (India Office Library) to trace the role of foreigners in the Achehnese court between 1760 and 1819 [4, pp. 64–86]. Hervey’s 1868 field report, published posthumously by S.G.H. Leyh in 1927, draws on Colonial Secretary’s Office “P.R. Receipt” files (Nos. 785/1868, 1017/68, 1301/1868) held in the Straits Settlements archives [7, p. 316].

In the field of textual criticism and historiography, Daniel Crecelius and E.A. Beardow’s 1979 article examines a sarakata (royal decree) attributed to the mid-nineteenth-century sultanate of Aceh, demonstrating that it is a late nineteenth-century forgery produced by a figure known as Teungku di Mule’ to legitimize a land claim [10, pp. 51–66]. Building on Henri Chambert-Loir’s 1976 field report, the authors identify a distinct “property inheritance” category within the corpus of di Mule’ manuscripts and demonstrate that the document names a previously unreported Sultan, references a 21-minister bureaucracy and foreign administrative terms (mayor, sekreteris) that are implausible for mid-nineteenth-century Aceh, and contains a list of 74 named individuals that reappears, with minor variations, in another document as the members of a seventeenth-century parliament [10, pp. 53–56]. C.A. Gibson-Hill’s 1956 article dismantles the long-standing claim that Sultan Ala’u’d-din Ri’ayat Shah of Johore died at Acheh in June 1613, demonstrating through English, Dutch, and Malay sources that the prince captured at Batu Sawar that year was Ala’u’d-din’s half-brother Raja Bongsu, and that the “death at Acheh” tradition almost certainly conflates this sultan with his predecessor of the same name (r. 1529–c.1564), who was indeed taken prisoner and died in Acheh [11, pp. 125–145]. I.A. MacGregor’s 1956 reconstruction of the first of three naval engagements between the Portuguese and the Achinese off Singapore, fought on 1 January 1577, fills a gap identified by Tiele (1881)—the absence of events at Malacca between 1575 and 1580 in Diogo do Couto’s Decades—and provides the first modern critical edition of the battle narrative, collating three independent witnesses and resolving their discrepancies [12, pp. 5–21].

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. G.P. Tolson (1880). Acheh, commonly called Acheen JSBRAS 5: 37–50.
  2. Bieber (1879). Geography of Achin. . Bieber JSBRAS 3: 120–123. Read on JSTOR
  3. R.O. Winstedt (1932). The early rulers of Perak, Pahang and Acheh JMBRAS 10(1): 32–44. Read on JSTOR
  4. Lee Kam Hing (1970). Foreigners in the Achehnese court, 1760–1819 JMBRAS 43(1): 64–86. Read on JSTOR
  5. C.A. Gibson-Hill (1956). Raffles, Acheh and the Order of the Golden Sword JMBRAS 29(1): 1–19. Read on JSTOR
  6. X. Brau De Saint Pol Lias (2020). Atché (Sumatra) [Aceh]. . Dyer; with a note P. Kratoska JMBRAS 93(2): 205–29. Read on JSTOR
  7. D.F.A. Hervey (1927). Achin piracy JMBRAS 5(2): 316–323.
  8. D.F.A. Hervey and M.L.H. Wallon (1881). Klouwang and its caves, west coast of Atchin; travelling notes of M.L.H. Wallon, civil engineer of mines. .F.A. Hervey JSBRAS 8: 153–158.
  9. Anthony Reid (1969). Indonesian diplomacy: a documentary study of Atjehnese foreign policy in the reign of Sultan Mahmud, 1870–1874 JMBRAS 42(2): 74–114. Read on JSTOR
  10. D. Crecelius and E.A. Beardow (1979). A reputed Acehnese sarakata of the Jamal al-Lail dynasty JMBRAS 52(2): 51–66.
  11. C.A. Gibson-Hill (1956). On the alleged death of Sultan Al’a’ud-din of Johore at Acheh, in 1613 JMBRAS 29(1): 125–145. Read on JSTOR
  12. I.A. MacGregor (1956). A sea fight near Singapore in the 1570’s JMBRAS 29(3): 5–21. Read on JSTOR