Tapatoean

Properties2
tagsplace, atjeh, westkust, military-bivak, dutch-colonial, world-war-ii, onderafdeeling, zuid-atjeh, colonial, 20th-century, zelfbestuur, menangkabau
aliasesTapatuán, Tapatuan, Tapatoean Atjeh, Tapatoean bivak, Tapaktoean, Tapaktuan, Tapak Tuan, Tapaktooan, Tapaktoenn, Tapa'toean

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Tapatoean — Tapaktoean in the spelling of the Zelfbestuursverordeningen Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, Tapaktuan / Tapak Tuan in modern Indonesian — was a Dutch bivak of the 1ste Garnizoensbataljon (later of the IIde Divisie Maréchaussee) on the Westkust van Atjeh, between Meulaboh to the north and Bakongan to the south. In the Dutch staff history’s account (Deel VI, Hoofdstuk V), Tapatoean is the Westkust bivak whose progressive drawdown in 1940–1941 is the staff history’s principal measure of the Dutch abandonment of the southern Westkust, and whose bivak served as the southern concentration point of the Westkust evacuation of March 1942. In the 1930 compilation of Zelfbestuursverordeningen Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, Tapaktoean also appears as an onderafdeeling on the south coast of Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, seated alongside the onderafdeeling Zuidelijke Atjehsche landschappen and the island onderafdeeling Simeuloe as the three south-coast onderafdeelingen to which the vrouwelijk-vee verordening of 1 August 1927 (Reg. No. 17) was extended by parallel regelingen, and one of the original onderafdeelingen of the 1912 Pantjang Alas regime with its Pantjang Alas regeling dated 15 April 1912.

Pre-war garrison and 1940 dissolution

As of 1 January 1940, Tapatoean held four brigades of the 1ste Garnizoensbataljon. In 1940, with the formation of the Westkustcolonne of nine brigades, “de detachementen Tapatoean en Meulaboh werden hierdoor opgeheven.” The Tapatoean brigades were moved out of Atjeh and “zijn nimmer meer in Atjeh teruggekeerd.”

December 1941 dissolution and March 1942 reoccupation

In December 1941 “werden de bivaks te Tapatoean en Bakongan door de aldaar gelegerde 8 brigades Maréchaussee ontruimd.” The eight brigades (the Tapatoean four plus the Bakongan seven, minus three brigades left at Lho Seumawé) were sent under Captain T. J. F. M. Supheert via Medan to Malakka “om daar ten behoeve van onze geallieerden de guerrilla tegen de Japanners te voeren.” The Tapatoean bivak was thus formally dissolved as a Dutch garrison by December 1941.

In mid-March 1942, however, the Tapatoean bivak was reoccupied as a concentration point for the Westkust women-and-children convoys. By 17 March 17 March the Tapatoean bivak held 1,400 women and children under the dekking of one Maréchaussee brigade. The reoccupied bivak was the destination of Lt Zijlmans’s 15-hour ambush march from Blang Pidië on 17 March 17 March (see Battle of Blang Pidië).

Significance

Tapatoean is, in the staff history’s Atjeh chapter, the Westkust bivak whose repeated dissolution (in 1940 and again in December 1941) and subsequent reoccupation as a convoy concentration point (in March 1942) symbolise the Dutch operational paradox of the Westkust campaign: the bivak that had been formally abandoned as a garrison became, within three months, the principal southern concentration point of the Westkust evacuation. The staff history’s emphasis on the Tapatoean bivak’s changing function frames it as the staff history’s principal narrative instance of the Dutch colonial state’s loss and partial recovery of its Westkust infrastructure in the final months before the Japanese occupation.

Account from Zelfbestuursverordeningen Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden (1930) — the regulatory record

In the 1930 compilation of Zelfbestuursverordeningen Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, Tapaktoean — Tapatoean in older Dutch spelling, also Tapaktooan and Tapaktoenn in OCR variants — was an onderafdeeling on the south coast of Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, seated alongside the onderafdeeling Zuidelijke Atjehsche landschappen and the island onderafdeeling Simeuloe as the three south-coast onderafdeelingen to which the vrouwelijk-vee verordening of 1 August 1927 (Reg. No. 17) was extended by parallel regelingen. Tapaktoean sits at the southern tip of Aceh, on the south coast facing the Indian Ocean.

The vrouwelijk-vee verordening of 1 August 1927 (Reg. No. 17)

The vrouwelijk-vee verordening of 1 August 1927 — Zelfbestuursverordening van 1 Augustus 1927 op het slachten van vrouwelijke buffels en runderen in de landschappen der onderafdeeling Zuidelijke Atjehsche landschappen (Self-government regulation of 1 August 1927 on the slaughter of female buffaloes and cattle in the landschappen of the onderafdeeling Zuidelijke Atjehsche landschappen) — is the only regulation in the 1930 compilation prohibiting the slaughter of female cattle and buffaloes. The originating signatories are the oeleebalang of the landschappen Kloeet and Troemon — the two south-coast landschappen of the onderafdeeling Zuidelijke Atjehsche landschappen. The comparative table on Page 125 extends parallel regelingen to Tapaktoean and Simeuloe:

GELIJKE VERORDENINGEN zijn vastgesteld voor de landschappen in de onderafdeelingen: Tapaktoean, op 25 Juli 1927, Simeuloet, op 20 Juli 1927. Deze verordeningen zijn goedgekeurd door den Gouverneur van Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden op 20 Augustus 1927 (Equal regulations have been established for the landschappen in the onderafdeelingen: Tapaktoean, on 25 July 1927, Simeuloet [Simeuloe], on 20 July 1927. These regulations were approved by the Gouverneur van Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden on 20 August 1927).

Tapaktoean’s parallel regeling is thus dated 25 July 1927 — one week before the originating Reg. No. 17 of 1 August 1927 — and approved by the Gouverneur on 20 August 1927, some twelve days before the originating regulation’s goedkeuring of 1 September 1927. The vrouwelijk-vee verordening is the supplement to the Alaslanden cattle-transport regulation (Reg. No. 16) — the comparative table of Reg. No. 16 carries the cross-reference Zie ook de verordening opgenomen onder nummer 17 (see also the regulation included under number 17).

Tapaktoean in the Pantjang Alas and parallel-regelingen tables

The onderafdeeling Tapaktoean is one of the original onderafdeelingen of the 1912 Pantjang Alas regime, with a Pantjang Alas regeling dated 15 April 1912 recorded in the comparative table of Reg. No. 2: Tapaktoean …… 15-4-1912 caoutchoue, getah pertjah, damar, rotan, vogelnostjes, was, benzoë en hout — i.e. Tapaktoean’s Pantjang Alas regeling is one of the seven earliest landschap-level Pantjang Alas regelingen of April 1912, alongside Meulaboh, Idi, Langan, Tamiang, Tjulung, and the Zuidelijke Atjehsche landschappen. Tapaktoean’s Pantjang Alas rate is 10% on caoutchouc, getah pertjah, damar, rotan, vogelnestjes, was, benzoë, and hout — the most-diverse boschproducten list of any 1912 landschap, reflecting Tapaktoean’s role as the most commercially-productive south-coast onderafdeeling.

The Page 54 comparative table extends the Alaslanden cattle-slaughter tax (Reg. No. 5) to Tapaktoean (1914). The Page 109 comparative table extends the Bireuën heerendienst-regeling (Reg. No. 14) to Tapaktoean — Tapaktoean 11 Febr. — with the synchronised inwerkingtreding of 1 January 1929. The Page 123 comparative table extends the Alaslanden cattle-transport regulation (Reg. No. 16) to Tapaktoean — Tapaktoean 12 1914 (12 October 1914). The Page 129 comparative table extends the Lhoksoekon klappercultuur-verordening (Reg. No. 18a) to Tapaktoean — Tapaktoenn Dec. 1916. The Page 97 comparative table extends the Tjalang wapensmeden-verordening (Reg. No. 13) to Tapaktoean — Tapaktoean 24-6-1927. The Page 72 comparative table extends the Peureula’ inkomstenbelasting (Reg. No. 9a) to Tapaktoean — Tapaktoean with the note Onbekend (unknown dagteekening), inwerking 1-1-1921.

Significance (Zelfbestuursverordeningen account)

Tapaktoean’s significance in the 1930 compilation rests on its being one of the three south-coast onderafdeelingen — alongside the onderafdeeling Zuidelijke Atjehsche landschappen (with the originating Kloeet-Troemon signatories) and the island onderafdeeling Simeuloe — to which the vrouwelijk-vee verordening of 1 August 1927 (Reg. No. 17) was extended by parallel regelingen dated 25 July 1927 (Tapaktoean) and 20 July 1927 (Simeuloe), both goedgekeurd by the Gouverneur on 20 August 1927; one of the original onderafdeelingen of the 1912 Pantjang Alas regime — its Pantjang Alas regeling of 15 April 1912 is one of the seven earliest landschap-level Pantjang Alas regelingen in the entire compilation, with the most-diverse boschproducten list of any 1912 landschap; and the demonstration — through its recurrent role as a recipient of parallel regelingen across nearly every regulation in the compilation (Regs. 5, 9a, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18a, 18b) — of the south-coast regulatory subsystem, in which Tapaktoean, the Zuidelijke Atjehsche landschappen, and Simeuloe together receive parallel regelingen of every Gouvernement-wide rollout.

See Also

Sources

Nederlands-Indië contra Japan, Deel VI: De strijd op Ambon, Timor en Sumatra, bewerkt door C. van den Hoogenband en L. Schotborgh (‘s-Gravenhage: Staatsdrukkerij- en Uitgeverijbedrijf, 1959), Hoofdstuk V (“De strijd in Noord-Sumatra (Atjeh)”), pp. 115, 121, 137.

Zelfbestuursverordeningen Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, Serie A No. 9 of the Mededeelingen van de Afdeeling Bestuurszaken der Buitengewesten van het Departement van Binnenlandsch Bestuur, Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1930, esp. Reg. 17 (p. 100) and comparative tables passim. OCR-filename: 20260719_030404_DLP-112-Zelfbestuursverordeningen_Atjeh_en_onderhoorigheden_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt. Atjèh and the War with Japan, by Dr. A. J. Piekaar, translated from the Dutch original Atjèh en de oorlog met Japan (1949) (‘s-Gravenhage/Bandung: N.V. Uitgeverij W. van Hoeve; English edition), Chapter I §§ 1–2, Chapter III § 3, Chapter V § 4.

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