THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS AND THE CONTEST FOR NORTH SUMATRA 1858-1896

This study describes the painful transition of North Sumatra from a number of independent states to a part of Netherlands India. This is seen not as a simple conflict of Netherlands imperialism and Indonesian parochialism, but as a three-sided contest in which the independent commercial interest of the Straits Settlements played an integral role. The future Netherlands Indian provinces of Atjeh and Oostkust van Sumatra were the last to resist Dutch influence because they were almost exclusively the commercial preserve of Britain. It was not until the end of the century that Holland overcame this difficulty and established her claim over the whole area, giving way to the demands of British commerce in the East Coast but ignoring them in the case of Atjeh. The subject was not principally designed, however, to add yet another chapter to the tale of 'Anglo-Dutch colonial rivalry '. The greatest advantage of using both British, and Dutch documents for a study of North. Sumatra is that the former provide a relatively sympathetic account of Atjehnese ambitions with which to balance the natural predisposition of the latter. They throw particular light on the remarkable diplomatic activity of Atjehnese in the neutral territory of Penang and Singapore. Al though the Atjeh war continued well into the twentieth century, I have terminated my detailed discussion of events in 1896. Until that date the three-sided contest was a real one. After it, the fate of Atjeh was decided and the central problem became that of pacification. Though extremely important for the subsequent history of Indonesia this is a separate question and one, moreover, which has already received some scholarly attention. To the best of my knowledge neither the Dutch nor the British documents for the period 1875-96 have hitherto been used systematically. The Netherlands colonial archives for the period after 1875 have only recently been opened to the public. As they are not well known even to Dutch, scholars I have included in the bibliography a description of the system used in classifying them. The correspondence concerning Dutch relations with the East Coast states and Atjeh between 1858 and 1875 has however been used by some Dutch scholars, notably E.S. de Klerck. His thorough De Atjeh-oorlog reached only the declaration of war in 1873. The British documents leading up to the 1871 Sumatra Treaty have likewise been used, by Nicholas Tarling, and to a lesser extent by W.D. McIntyre and Douglas Coombs. With the following exceptions all of my work has been derived from primary materials: (i) Events prior to, and including, the 1858 Siak Treaty (i.e. the Introduction and. the first 16 pages of Chapter 1). (ii) Netherlands policy towards Atjeh in the period 1865-72 (i.e. pp.157-43). (iii) The purely military history of the war, particularly in the period 1874-82. In spelling place names I have adopted modern Indonesian and Malaysian usages wherever this is possible without pedantry. I have, for example, preferred the Indonesian 'Atjeh' over older English variants such as 'Achin' or 'Acheh'. 'Java' , however, appears much too well established in English usage to give way to Indonesian 'Djawa' . I have used the word 'Malay' to denote Malay-speaking peoples of Southeast Asia, and 'Indonesian' for the people of the whole archipelago. Finally I would like to record my gratitude to Dr. Victor Purcell, Prof. C.D.Cowan, and Mr. A. van Marie, who have supervised all or part of my work, and to Prof. I. Schoffer, Dr. J. Reinsma, Prof. W.F. Wertheim, and Prof. W. Ph. Goolbaas, who gave me valuable guidance in the Netherlands. I am also indebted to many archivists in Holland for their patience and attention. Dr. J. Woltring was particularly helpful in allowing me to use the typescript for his Bescheiden betreffende de Buitenlandse Politieke van Nederland and in many other ways. Baron van Nagell of the Oostkust van Sumatra Instituut and Mrs. Meilink—Roelofsz, Mr. Goh, and Mr. Wondaal of the Algemeene Rijksarchief were also extremely kind in providing every assistance.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

1965

Author dc:creator

• Reid, Anthony

Licence

• https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/580a0ed6-7789-4971-a386-1df869d55986/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved/

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.117206

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/382369