The great cannon of Atjeh — het groote kanon in Atjeh — was a “reusachtig Atjehsch kanon” (gigantic Atjeh cannon) that, in the late sixteenth century, was a noted piece of the sultanate’s military equipment and a symbol of its power to threaten Portuguese Malakka. The cannon is mentioned in Godee Molsbergen’s Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie in the context of the long Atjeh-Portuguese conflict: it was eventually captured by the Portuguese and sent as a gift from the Governor of Malakka to the King of Portugal, but was lost in a shipwreck near Tercera on the homeward voyage of Jan Huygen van Linschoten.
The Atjeh-Portuguese conflict
The great cannon of Atjeh must be understood in the context of the long Atjeh-Portuguese conflict that ran through the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Atjeh was, in Linschoten’s words cited by Godee Molsbergen, “de groote vijand der Portugeezen in die gewesten” — the great enemy of the Portuguese in those parts — “die een voortdurende bedreiging voor Malakka was” — which was a constant threat to Malakka — “vooral daar Europeesche overloopers er bij het geschutgieten hielpen” — especially since European deserters helped with the casting of the guns.
The mention of European over runners helping with the cannon-casting is significant: it indicates that the sultanate’s artillery capacity was in part the product of European technical knowledge, transferred to Atjeh by renegades from the Portuguese service. The “reusachtig Atjehsch kanon” was thus itself a product of the same European-Atjeh interface that would later produce the 1602 embassy to Prince Maurits and the 1641 Soury embassy.
The Portuguese capture and the loss at Tercera
The Portuguese eventually captured the great Atjeh cannon. The Governor of Malakka sent it as a gift to the King of Portugal: “De Portugeezen veroverden een reusachtig Atjehsch kanon, dat door den Gouverneur van Malakka als geschenk aan den Koning van Portugal gezonden, verging bij Tercera op Van Linschoten’s thuisreis.” The cannon was lost — “verging” (perished) — near the Azores island of Tercera on the homeward voyage of Jan Huygen van Linschoten.
The loss of the great cannon at Tercera on Linschoten’s return voyage is one of the small ironies of the European-Asian encounter: the Portuguese had captured the sultanate’s most powerful gun, only to lose it in the Atlantic on its way to Lisbon. The cannon thus survives only as a mention in the Linschoten-Godee Molsbergen tradition — a piece of Atjeh military technology whose physical trace is lost.
The chapter-title of “Het groote kanon in Atjeh”
The great cannon of Atjeh was important enough in the early modern European memory of the sultanate to give its name to a chapter-title in Godee Molsbergen’s book: chapter XXIII is titled “Sint Thomas. De Madoera-ziekte. Malakka. Het groote kanon in Atjeh. Java. Paradijsvogels. Lélang. Koloniale Portugeezen” — St Thomas. The Madura sickness. Malakka. The great cannon in Atjeh. Java. Birds of paradise. Lélang. Colonial Portuguese. The cannon’s inclusion in this sequence — alongside St Thomas, Madura, Malakka, Java, and the birds of paradise — places Atjeh in the catalogue of the great wonders and powers of the Asian world that Linschoten described for Europe.
Significance
For Atjeh’s history, the great cannon is the most striking single artefact of the sultanate’s military power in the era of the Atjeh-Portuguese conflict — a gun so large and so notable that its capture by the Portuguese and its loss at Tercera became part of the European memory of the Asian world. The cannon also testifies to the technological dimension of the sultanate’s reach: the casting of such guns required European technical assistance, which came via the renegades and over-runners from the Portuguese service. The loss of the cannon at Tercera on Linschoten’s homeward voyage closed the artefact’s physical history, but its mention in Godee Molsbergen’s chapter-title preserved it in the European memory of Atjeh as a major Asian power.
See Also
Source
Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapter XXIII (“Sint Thomas. De Madoera-ziekte. Malakka. Het groote kanon in Atjeh. Java. Paradijsvogels. Lélang. Koloniale Portugeezen”), p. 81 of the numbered-letter sequence, citing Jan Huygen van Linschoten.