Atjehsche Jorrendayyers was the Compagnie’s term for the small Atjehsche traders who, in the post-Painansch Contract era, slipped through the Compagnie’s Westkust monopoly system to carry on unauthorised commerce on the Westkust and the islands off the Sumatran coast. In Dr. F. W. Stapel’s Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland they are the persistent commercial underground of the late-seventeenth-century Westkust, the targets of the Johannes Sas expedition to Nias in 1693 and of the continuing Compagnie trade police.
Background
The Painansch Contract of 6 July 1663 had given the Compagnie a commercial monopoly on the Westkust van Sumatra, shared only with Atjehers in the formal treaties. The Padang Conference of 29 August 1680 had extended and solemnised that monopoly. But the formal treaty system did not extinguish the small Atjehsche trade that operated outside it.
The word Jorrendayyers (also jorrendaiers) appears to be a Dutch phonetic transcription of an Acehnese-Malay term for itinerant petty traders. The Compagnie’s use of the term is uniformly pejorative: the Jorrendayyers are “unauthorised traders” (ongeoorloofden handel drijven) whose commerce the Compagnie is committed to suppressing.
The 1693 Nias expedition
Stapel records the principal Compagnie response. “Atjehsche ‘Jorrendayyers’ came regularly to the West Coast and the islands to carry on unauthorised trade. At Ajerbangis, Singkel, Nias they came” (Atjehsche ‘Jorrendayyers’ kwamen geregeld op de Westkust en de eilanden ongeoorloofden handel drijven. Te Ajerbangis, Singkel, Nias kwamen ze). The presence of Jorrendayyers at three named places — Ajerbangis (south of Padang), Singkel (north of Baros), and Nias (the island off the Westkust) — defines the geography of the late-seventeenth-century Atjehsche commercial underground.
Batahan’s submission to the Compagnie in 1693 was the immediate occasion for the next move. “Thereafter vaandrig Johannes Sas went with gecommitteerden and his ships to Nias, to Goenoeng Sitoli, and fought the Atjehers there. With many princes of the island he concluded bonds” (Daarna ging Vaandrig Johannes Sas met gecommitteerden en zijn schepen naar Nias, naar Goenoeng Sitoli en bevocht er de Atjehers. Met veel vorsten van het eiland sloot hij verbonden). The Sas expedition is the most northerly extension of the Compagnie’s anti-Jorrendayyer trade police.
The continuing trade police
The Sas expedition did not end the Jorrendayyer phenomenon. Stapel records that “against the Atjehers one remained on one’s guard” (Tegen de Atjehers bleef men op zijn hoede) — a phrase that suggests a continuing, low-level trade police through the eighteenth century.
Significance
The Atjehsche Jorrendayyers are the commercial underground of the post-Painansch Contract Westkust. They are the operational proof that the Compagnie’s monopoly, however formally complete, could not suppress the small-scale Atjehsche trade that had existed on the Westkust for generations before the Compagnie’s arrival. The Jorrendayyers are also the commercial counterpart of the Atjehsch-gezinde political faction that produced the 1683 Tikoe rising: both are the residue of Atjeh’s centuries-long Westkust presence, surviving the formal transfer of sovereignty to the Compagnie in the treaties of 1659–1684.
The geography of the Jorrendayyers — Ajerbangis, Singkel, Nias — is also significant. They operate at the edges of the Compagnie’s Westkust system: at Ajerbangis (south of the Padang headquarters), at Singkel (the northernmost Painansch signatory, close to Atjeh), and on Nias (the off-shore island beyond the Compagnie’s direct reach). The Jorrendayyers are the proof that the Compagnie’s Westkust authority, however absolute on the treaty paper, was porous at the edges.
See Also
- Painansch Contract
- Padang Conference (29 August 1680)
- Johannes Sas
- Nias
- Goenoeng Sitoli
- Ajerbangis
- Singkel
- Batahan
- Westkust van Sumatra
- Atjeh
- Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
- 1693
Source
De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 3 (tekst bij blad 5: De Compagnie in den Archipel na 1684 tot 1791 — Sumatra: Atjeh en de Westkust).