Pepper cultivation in Atjeh is the cultivation of pepper (Piper nigrum) in the landschappen of the eastern coast and the north-western coast of the Gouvernement Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, principally in Peureula (Perlak), Idi, Lho Soekon and the pepper-colonies of Pidië, Samalanga and Pensangan settlers. Pepper is the old stapel of the country, and the pepper-trade is the principal commercial institution of the pre-colonial and early colonial Atjehnese landschap.
The 1873 Peak
J. A. Kruyt, in Atjeh en de Atjehers (1877), records that a pepper-garden usually contained five thousand trees, which yielded five kojang of 110 picol. Three or four men watched and maintained the garden, lived there, and received, besides daily maintenance, half the harvest, which half they sold to the garden’s owner at the prevailing market-price. A collection of pepper-gardens together was called a seuneubò. The east coast annually exported 5–6 thousand kojang of pepper, at Penang market-prices between 200 and 250 pillar-dollars the kojang (price in August 1873); three years earlier the price had been 90 pillar-dollars.
The Collapse
Figures such as those for 1873 are enormous. In the publication of the former Encyclopaedisch Bureau, De Buitenbezittingen 1904-‘14, the export of pepper from Atjeh over 1913 is given as more than 3 million kilograms, which would be less than a tenth of the export in 1873. To compare with a reliable figure, the export in 1913 from the Lampoeng was 12½ million kg (200 thousand picol). One may assume that Atjeh has known years of astonishing yields. And to point to the variability of pepper-cultivation, Dr. Julius Jacobs records that in 1893 no pepper of consequence was harvested.
The Wave
Pepper-cultivation over a long series of years describes a line with waves: it grows and diminishes again, which movement is regulated by a coincidence of circumstances, among which one may find war (formerly), market-price, rice-shortage, disease in the crop. The great pepper-planters of Pidië, of Samalangan, of Pensangan, of Pasei, came in older times to the eastern coast to plant pepper, settled temporarily, and many formerly remained for good — for example, in the landschap Perlak. They went under a leader of four to six men who came from another landschap and asked ground from the oeléebalang.
The Disease of 1918
In 1918 a disease appeared in the crop. A fairly cursory investigation, by the Department of Agriculture, led no more to discovery than that of the agricultural teacher. The landschapshoofd held the disease for djamoer-oepas. Had there been proper maintenance in the gardens, the disease would presumably have had less influence on the crop. But just then the pepper-planters disappeared from the region, because there was rice-shortage. For three months in 1919 each got daily but one batok (= 3 quarter katti) of rice, and that is for the Atjehnese, who uses no meat, no fish as daily food but twice a day his rice with some salt, lombok and vegetables, not enough unless he consumes great quantities of rice. And that he is used to doing. When the pepper-planters came short of rice, they departed to their regions — Pidië, Pasei, Pensangan — where much padi grows.
The Low Market of 1920
A third cause was the listlessness of the market; in 1920 prices fell to an amount below which the Atjehnese could not get by. The Chinese of Penang paid 3 to 4 guilders for a picol, at most 7 guilders. Before the European war a price of 10 guilders was just enough to get by, a head assured Broersma. That corresponds with the price that was given to him at that time in Lampoeng as barely profitable. At present 13 to 14 guilders will be the price below which the pepper-planter will not work. Well, that price has been reached on the market in 1923, and already one sees here and there the pepper-planter in his garden. With a steady market the pepper-cultivation in Atjeh will undoubtedly revive.
See Also
- Pangkai
- Wasé (hacil)
- Peutoeha
- Oeléebalang
- Seuneubò (pepper-garden group)
- Peureula (Perlak)
- Idi
- Pidië
- Samalanga
- J. A. Kruyt
- Dr. Julius Jacobs
- De Buitenbezittingen 1904-1914
- Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
- 1873
- 1893
- 1913
- 1918
- 1919
- 1920
- 1923
Source
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), chapter V, ‘Perlak, land van peper en olie’, pp. 29–35. Also Atjeh en de Atjehers, by J. A. Kruyt (Leiden 1877), for the 1873 figures, and Het familie- en kampongleven op Groot-Atjeh, by Dr. Julius Jacobs (1894), for the 1893 harvest.
Source
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923); Atjeh Patchouli-Olie, by Ir. W. Spoon (1932), where applicable.