The kustvorsten van Atjeh — the coastal princes of Atjeh — were the rulers of the landschappen of the Acehnese seaboard who, from 1885 onward, individually acknowledged the sovereignty of the Netherlands by the standardised eighteen-article instruments described at Verklaringen van de kustvorsten van Atjeh.
Number and status
The Minister of Colonies J. T. Cremer told the Tweede Kamer on 17 November 1897 that there were “niet minder dan 62 vorsten op die kust,” — no fewer than 62 princes on that coast, and that with them treaties had been concluded, or rather that these princes had made declarations concerning their subordination to Dutch authority. The declarations had come not by a general measure but gradually, “naarmate onze invloed op de kust zich uitbreidde,” — as our influence on the coast extended, from 1885 into the most recent years. He had not been able to ascertain whether any remained who did not recognise Dutch sovereignty, but held that if any existed they were exceptions.
Among them was the ruler of Perlak, who had recognised Dutch sovereignty since 1885–1886.
The limits of their authority
The recurring difficulty, conceded by Cremer in the same debate, was that these rulers could not enforce their engagements. Of the system then in force he said that it did not exclude consultation with the chiefs, “want op de geheele kust van Atjeh wordt in vereeniging met de hoofden bestuurd. Jammer maar, dat deze hoofden niet voldoende gezag kunnen uitoefenen op hunne onderdanen.” — for on the whole coast of Atjeh government is carried on in union with the chiefs. A pity only that these chiefs cannot exercise sufficient authority over their subjects.
The same weakness was the stated justification of the Segli expedition: at Segli and in the Pedir country “de vorsten aan de kust zijn ons niet vijandig gezind, maar zij zijn niet krachtig genoeg om de in de Tanawaqt of in de VII Moekims samengestroomde Delama-benden te verjagen.” — the princes on the coast are not hostile to us, but they are not strong enough to drive out the Delama bands that have streamed together in the Tanawaqt or in the VII Moekims, and for that reason the expedition to Segli took place.
The fiscal question
Van Vlijmen raised in the debate the question of taking over the revenues of the coastal princes, recalling that Cremer had said the previous year, from the members’ bench, that he was a supporter of it. He found recorded in the Koloniaal Verslag that the governor of Atjeh did not consider the time come “om de rechten of de belastingen van de kustvorsten over te nemen,” — to take over the rights or the taxes of the coastal princes, but took the communication as proof that the matter had not been forgotten.
The declarations themselves already reserved the substance of the right: taxes might be neither raised nor lowered except in consultation with the Dutch representative; the Government might take over the import and export duties against compensation, and the tax farms; and the princes were to pay over the share of revenue that by ancient usage had accrued to the former Acehnese sovereigns.
See Also
- Verklaringen van de kustvorsten van Atjeh
- J. T. Cremer
- Van Vlijmen
- Perlak
- Scheepvaartregeling
- Sigli expedition (August 1897)
- Post-1896 system in Atjeh
- 1885
- 1897
Source
Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898, uitgave van de Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij in Nederland (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br P95-178, pp. 33, 54, 59–60.
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898 (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.