Bezoldiging — the payment of a fixed salary to Achehnese chiefs and fighters — was the principal financial instrument of Dutch policy in Groot-Atjeh during the alliance period of 1893–1896, and one of the recurring subjects of De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh.
Salary as the price of neutrality
General‑Major Van Teyn granted a salary to Toekoe Tjoet Toengkoeb op voorwaarde, dat hij niet meer tegen ons zou vechten — on condition that he should no longer fight against the Dutch — and only then did that chief, long allied with the priestly party of Teungkoe di Tiro, put away his klewang.
Salary as the price of service
Toekoe Djohan maintained two hundred salaried warriors besides three subordinate commanders and forty panglima’s, and it was agreed on 2 November 1893 that after driving the Sabil bands from the XXVI Moekims he and his fighters would maintain order there alweder tegen een vaste bezoldiging — again against a fixed salary — and that should he fall, his brother and the bravest of his officers would succeed him in command.
Failure of the instrument
Hooijer recorded that Toekoe Tjoet’s subordinates refused to fight without the payment die hij wel van ons voor hen ontving, maar hun onthield — which he indeed received from the Dutch on their behalf but withheld from them. The provision of arms and money to Achehnese auxiliaries was, in Hooijer’s retrospective judgment, part of the ondeugdelijken grondslag on which the whole outpost system had been raised.
See Also
- T. Tjoet Toengkoeb
- General‑Major Van Teyn
- Teukoe Oemar
- Legioen van T. Djohan (T. Oemar’s Legion)
- Oeleebalang
Source
De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh, door G. B. Hooijer, Gep. Luit.-Kolonel O. I. Leger, met 24 platen (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn; Batavia: G. Kolff & Co., 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Centrale Boekerij, Amsterdam. OCR-filename: 20260719_140140_DLP-134-De_verlaten_posten_in_Groot_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 24, 32, 54.