Een stukje Atjeh-geschiedenis — A Piece of Atjeh History — is an article by H. T. Damste published in Koloniaal Tijdschrift in 1918, recording the succession dispute in the landschap of Simpang Olim at the time of the Dutch takeover. Broersma cites it in Verkenningen in Atjeh as his authority for the coming of Teukoe moeda Oesoeh to the oeléebalangschap.
Contents
The article narrates how, when the Dutch government established itself in the eastern coast of Atjeh in the years around 1873–1875, the father of Teukoe moeda Oesoeh was radja of Simpang Olim, and how the son — the future oeléebalang — had to exert himself to ensure that he, and not another with less right, succeeded his father in the chieftaincy. Broersma’s summary is brief — ‘het heeft hem wel inspanning gekost te zorgen, dat hij en niet een ander, die minder recht had, oeléebalang werd’ — but the implication is that the Dutch recognition of chieftaincies was politically contested and that local successions were often shaped by the new colonial presence.
Significance
The article is one of a number of short historical studies produced by Dutch colonial officials in the years after the bevrediging, recovering the immediate pre-pacification political history of individual Atjehnese landschappen. It is cited by Broersma alongside the more general works of Snouck Hurgronje and Kruyt as one of the sources for the early colonial-period history of the eastern coast.
See Also
Source
‘Een stukje Atjeh-geschiedenis’, by H. T. Damste, in Koloniaal Tijdschrift (1918). Cited in Verkenningen in Atjeh by Dr. R. Broersma, p. 50.