Dwangarbeiders (forced workers, i.e. convict labourers serving under compulsion in the colonial armies) were the great transport and labour corps on which the Dutch army in Atjeh depended in the years 1873–1876 and after: they carried supplies, munition and stretchers on every march, built the fortifications and roads, manned the prauws (native boats) on the rivers, and themselves became some of the most numerous victims of the guerilla war. Their condition and strength are given in detail in the introduction of H. F. Meijer’s Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883).
Strength and organisation
The forced-labourers were, since every man carried arms not, employed only by the Intendance (the army’s supply service), not any more as the year before by the Engineers and the Intendance jointly. On 1 August 1876 their strength in Atjeh was 2,912; 303 joined during August, while 161 were evacuated and discharged, 64 died and some were missing or returned, so that on 1 September 1876 2,986 were present. They were drafted from penal concentrations at Batavia, Padang, Samarang and Soerabaja — including Africans and Ambonese — and supervised by a small staff with European and native overseers (mandoers).
Their division of labour at that date covered: detachments on the posts; attendance on the pack-horses (pikolpaarden); the cattle depot; grass cutting and stable service for the field artillery; the hygienic service of the medical officer; the Intendance depot magazine; the works of the Engineers; the kitchens of the troops at Kota Radja; loading prahus; and the hospitals of the forced-labourers themselves at Kota Radja and Blang-Oë. A depot of them stood at Kota Radja.
Service and mortality
More than once, during the offensive operations on a large scale, use was made of their strength for transport when that of the forced-labourers and pack-horses fell markedly short; Meijer remarks that circumstances forced it, whatever might be thought of it. Mortality in the corps was heavy (64 dead in August alone), and many sought death rather than service: the robbery prahus on the Aroesan were found to be manned by runaways. The corps’s prisoners, numbered by the thousands, built most of what the Dutch built in Atjeh before the railway came.
In the guerilla war
Because they could not carry arms, forced-labourers were the first and easiest victims of every ambush: Meijer’s casualty statements of 1876 carry them in almost every column — 4 killed at the kitchen of Lemboeq N.O., 5 at the kitchen of Lamprit, victims at all the road ambushes, and one of them, Mohamad Daëng Matali, volunteered for the war’s boldest courier ride at the siege of Kajoe-Lē.
See Also
- Vrije Koelies
- Guerilla warfare in Groot-Atjeh
- Mali and Mohamad Daëng Matali
- Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), introduction, pp. XL–XLVI.