De Buitenbezittingen 1904–1914 was a statistical and descriptive compilation of the Buitengewesten (Outer Territories) of the Netherlands-Indies issued by the former Encyclopaedisch Bureau in the years before its reorganisation. It is cited in Broersma’s Verkenningen in Atjeh as the source of the export figure for pepper from Atjeh in 1913 — ‘ruim 3 millioen kilogram’ — which Broersma contrasts with the Lampoeng export of the same year, ‘12½ millioen K.G. (200 duizend picol)’, to demonstrate the collapse of Atjehnese pepper-growing since the 1873 level of 5–6 thousand kojang a year reported by J. A. Kruyt.
Use by Broersma
Broersma also draws on the same compilation for the Atjeh rice-import statistics of 1904–1915, when the gewest imported ‘ruim 6 millioen kilogram rijst minimum tot meer dan 13 millioen kilogram maximum’ per year, evidence he uses to refute the easy assumption that Atjeh was naturally a great rice-land. The volume’s framing of Atjeh as one Buitengewest among others supplies the comparative perspective from which Broersma’s economic judgements proceed.
Significance
The compilation is one of the standard reference works for the early civilian period of the Buitengewesten, and is regularly cited alongside Snouck Hurgronje’s Atjèh (1922–1923) and the year-reports of the Afdeeling Landbouw for the reconstruction of pre-1914 conditions in the Outer Islands.
See Also
- Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
- Buitengewesten
- Encyclopaedisch Bureau
- J. A. Kruyt
- Atjeh als rijstland
- Pepper cultivation in Atjeh
- 1904
- 1913
- 1914
Source
De Buitenbezittingen 1904-‘14, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, n.d.). Cited in Verkenningen in Atjeh by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), pp. 30, 112.