The Atjehsche invloed in de kuststreken der Oostkust (na 1589) — the Atjehnese influence in the coastal regions of the East Coast after the 1589 destruction of the Batakrijk Aroe — was, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s survey of the Outer Possessions, the dual pattern of Atjehnese and Djohorese settlement of the East Coast that, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, displaced the Bataks from the coastal plain and produced the demographic pattern that would, in the colonial period, distinguish the Karo Doesoens of Langkat, Deli and Serdang from the Malay coastal populations.
Background: the destruction of Aroe
The Bureau’s account of the post-1589 Atjehnese coastal influence opens with the destruction of the Batakrijk Aroe. The Bureau records that the destruction “had eene invasie van vreemde elementen in het kustgebied tengevolge” — “had, as a consequence, an invasion of foreign elements into the coastal territory” — and that the invading elements were of two kinds: Atjehers in the most northerly districts, and Maleiers of Djohore further south.
The Atjehnese settlement of Tamiang and Northern Langkat
The Atjehnese settlement of the most northerly East Coast districts was, the Bureau records, an institutional rather than a demographic act. “In Tamiang en Noordelijk Langkat waren het de Atjehers, welke onder een vertegenwoordiger van hun Sultan de macht aan zich trokken” — “In Tamiang and Northern Langkat it was the Atjehers who, under a representative of their Sultan, drew the power to themselves.” The Atjehnese settlement of Tamiang and northern Langkat was thus a political act — the installation of a resident vertegenwoordiger of the Sultan of Atjeh — rather than a demographic planting. The institutional form of the Atjehnese presence, however, would later be invoked in support of the 19th-century Atjehnese claims to overlordship over Langkat, Deli and Serdang.
The Djohorese settlement further south
The Atjehnese settlement of Tamiang and northern Langkat was paralleled, further south, by a movement of the Maleiers of Djohore. The Bureau records: “meer naar het Zuiden maakten de Maleiers van Djohore, evenals na de vernietiging van het rijk Gasip gebruik van den verwarden toestand om de kuststreken (riviermonden) te bezetten en daardoor een groot economische overwicht op het binnenland te verwerven” — “more to the south, the Malays of Djohore, just as after the destruction of the realm of Gasip, made use of the confused situation to occupy the coastal regions (river mouths) and thereby to acquire a great economic preponderance over the interior.” The Djohorese settlement of the southern East Coast was thus a demographic planting — the occupation of river mouths by Malay settlers — rather than an institutional act, and its purpose was economic (the control of the river-mouth trade) rather than political.
The dispossession of the Bataks
The combined Atjehnese and Djohorese settlements produced, the Bureau records, the dispossession of the Bataks from the coastal plain. “De Bataks werden steeds meer teruggedrongen naar het binnenland, vanwaar zij vroeger uitgezwermi waren naar de kust” — “The Bataks were driven ever further back into the interior, from which they had earlier swarmed out to the coast.” In the northern part of the cultivation district — the future Langkat, Deli and Serdang belt — the Bataks could only maintain themselves “in het hoogere heuvelgebied, thans de Batak-doesoens van Oeloe Langkat, Deli en Serdang” — “in the higher hill country, now the Batak-doesoens of Oeloe Langkat, Deli and Serdang.” The Karo Doesoen population of the late colonial period was thus, in the Bureau’s framing, the demographic remnant of the Batak population that the Atjehnese and Djohorese settlement of the late sixteenth century had driven into the hills.
The paradox of the coastal Malay “onderhoorigheid”
The Batak-Doesoen population of the late colonial period was, the Bureau records, still nominally subject to the Malay coastal sultanates — a onderhoorigheid (dependency) that was, however, “meer schijn dan wezen” — “more appearance than reality” — because “géén vertegenwoordiger van het Maleische gezag zou zich in dat gebied wagen” — “no representative of the Malay authority would venture into that territory.” The Batak-Doesoens’ dependence on the coastal sultans was economic — they depended on the coastal trade for salt, opium and fish — rather than political, and their nominal onderhoorigheid was the institutional fossil of the late-sixteenth-century Atjehnese and Djohorese settlement.
Significance
The Atjehsche invloed in de kuststreken der Oostkust (na 1589) is, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s survey, the demographic and institutional foundation of the long Atjehnese presence on the East Coast. It produces the demographic pattern that would distinguish the Karo Doesoens from the Malay coastal populations throughout the colonial period; it establishes the institutional precedent of the resident Atjehnese vertegenwoordiger that would be invoked in the 19th-century Atjehnese claims to overlordship over Langkat, Deli and Serdang; and it leaves the Atjehsche kolonie te Bagan Api Api as the most southerly demographic trace of the Atjehnese East Coast presence.
See Also
- Acheh
- atjehsche-vernietiging-van-het-batakrijk-aroe-(c-1589)
- atjehsche-invasie-in-tamiang-en-noordelijk-langkat-(c-1589)
- atjehsche-overheersing-der-noordelijke-kuststaatjes
- atjeh-as-opperheer-in-langkat-deli-serdang-(1854)
- atjehsche-kolonie-te-bagan-api-api
- Batak
- Batak-Karo
- Djohor
- Tamiang
- Langkat
- Deli
- Serdang
- 1589
Source
De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Afl. 3: Oostkust van Sumatra. Eerste Stuk, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1918), pp. 116–117. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shelfmark LS.08781.