Scherer’s Nota of 19 April 1880 — the Nota, gedagteekend: Kota-Radja, 19 April 1880 (memorandum, dated: Kota-Radja, 19 April 1880) submitted by Scherer — at the time wd. assistent-resident (acting assistant-resident) on the Noordkust of Atjeh — to the Dutch colonial government from Kota-Radja on 19 April 1880 — is, in Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh, the foundational document of the scheepvaartregeling (shipping regulation) concept that Van Heutsz would adopt, twelve years later, as the central prescription of his policy-tract. The Nota was submitted at the high-water mark of the Van der Heijden governorship — seven months after the day-order of 5 September 1879 had declared “geheel Groot-Atjeh ten onder gebragt” (all Groot-Atjeh brought under), and in the same year that the General’s own day-order had marked the close of the XXVI Moekims campaign — and articulated, for the first time in the Atjeh record, the principles of a controlled routing of all Atjehnese maritime trade through Dutch-administered ports, with duties levied on the in- and out-flow of goods, as the alternative to both the blokkade (blockade) and the concentratiestelsel (concentration system). Van Heutsz, who served as Van der Heijden’s chef van den staf (chief of staff) in Atjeh and would later reproduce the Nota’s principles verbatim in the 1893 tract, calls it a “zeer belangrijke Nota” — a very important memorandum — and treats it as the “gewichtige antwoord op de vraag van Pel in zijn brief van 30 April 1875” (weighty answer to the question of Pel in his letter of 30 April 1875): the weighty answer to the question Pel himself had posed in his letter of 30 April 1875 — what, after the completion of his plan, was to be done?
The dateline: Kota-Radja, 19 April 1880
The Nota’s dateline — Kota-Radja, 19 April 1880 — fixes its provenance in the seat of the Atjeh government at the moment of Van der Heijden’s high-water mark. Van Heutsz’s reference:
“Hem was het echter eene flinke marinemacht over den toen noodigen vorm van bestuur, zoo helder en overtuigend uitgebracht in zijne, daarover aan de Regeering ingediende zeer belangrijke Nota, gedagteekend: Kota-Radja, 19 April 1880”.
The Nota was submitted by Scherer — at the time wd. assistent-resident on the Noordkust of Atjeh — to the Regeering (Government) at Batavia as his formal exposition of the scheepvaartregeling concept. The choice of Kota-Radja as the dateline — rather than Scherer’s own standplaats (post) on the Noordkust — marks the Nota as a Kota-Radja document, submitted through the seat of the Atjeh government and addressed, by the Gouverneur tevens militair bevelhebber (Governor and at the same time military commander), to the Regeering at Batavia. The date — 19 April 1880 — places the Nota seven months after the day-order of 5 September 1879 and two months after the verslag (report) of the Commandant van het Indische leger (Commandant of the Indian army)‘s September 1879 inspection, and is the moment at which, in Van Heutsz’s reading, the scheepvaartregeling concept was, for the first time, articulated as a formal colonial-policy proposal.
The Nota’s content: the scheepvaartregeling concept
The Nota’s central proposal was the controlled routing of all Atjehnese maritime trade through Dutch-administered ports, with the in- and out-flow of goods placed under Dutch contrôle (supervision) and duties levied on the trade as the instrument of coercion over the hoofden van de verschillende staatjes (chiefs of the various statelets). Van Heutsz’s formulation of the principle:
“Geen in- noch uitvoer toelatende, dan op de plaatsen waar wij gevestigd waren en daar alles geplaatst onder onze contrôle, zouden wij het heft in handen krijgen, omdat wij dan, zooals thans reeds in meerdere brochures is gezegd, op de geldkist zouden zitten. Wij zouden daardoor in staat zijn zoowel tot beloonen als straffen, wij konden daardoor dwingen tot gehoorzaamheid, tot volgen van bevelen”.
The op de geldkist zitten (sitting on the cash-box) formula — was Scherer’s own phrase for the political-economic mechanism the scheepvaartregeling would establish: by routing all trade through Dutch-administered ports and levying duties on its in- and out-flow, the colony would acquire the middel tot beloonen als straffen (instrument of reward and punishment) and the middel om de hoofden van de verschillende staatjes in het rechte spoor te houden (instrument to keep the chiefs of the various statelets on the right track). The Nota thus proposed a stelsel (system) that would, in Van Heutsz’s reading, complete what the military conquest of Groot-Atjeh had begun: “ware het den Generaal van der Heijden gegeven geworden, dit op een juisten grondslag berustende stelsel uit te voeren, hij, die reeds over het brandpunt van het verzet winnaar was van Groot-Atjeh … zou in korten tijd het geheele rijk den voet op den nek gezet, het eerst tot volkomen rust en vrede, daarna tot welvaart hebben gebracht” (had it been given to General van der Heijden to carry out this system, which rested on a just foundation, he, who was already the conqueror of Groot-Atjeh over the focus-point of the resistance … would in a short time have set his foot on the neck of the entire realm, would first have brought it to complete rest and peace, and then to prosperity).
The Gighen–Samalanga kruisboot-bangoen method
The Nota’s empirical foundation was the Gighen–Samalanga kruisboot-bangoen (cruiser blood-price) test of 1880 — the operation in which Scherer, having obtained Van der Heijden’s vergunning (permission), laid a kruisboot (a marine patrol vessel) before the harbours of Gighen and Samalanga and collected the bangoen (the blood-price) owed for the murders of Said Abdellah and Soetan Maharadja by levying duties on the in- and out-going goods. Van Heutsz records the empirical test:
“door het gebeurde te Gighen en te Samalanga, waar onze zendelingen Said Abdellah en Soetan Maharadja vermoord waren, en waar men telkens uitvluchten zocht in het betalen van den opgelegden bangoen (bloedprijs). Hij verzocht en verkreeg toen van den Generaal van der Heijden vergunning om vóór die havens een kruisboot te leggen en den bangoen te innen door rechten te heffen op de in- en uit te voeren goederen. Dit hielp; te Gighen betaalde men nog vóór dat de kruisboot er lag en te Samalanga, nadat de kruisboot er slechts drie dagen gelegen had”.
The kruisboot-bangoen method — the laying of a kruisboot before a harbour and the levying of duties on its trade to coerce a chief into paying the bangoen — was, in Van Heutsz’s reading, the empirical discovery that gave Scherer the fingerwijzing (pointer) on which the entire scheepvaartregeling rested:
“Dat was voor Scherer eene vingerwijzing en bracht hem op het denkbeeld, dat als slechts alle in- en uitvoer langs onze vestigingen plaats had onder onze contrôle, wij ook het middel in de hand hadden om de hoofden van de verschillende staatjes in het rechte spoor te houden”.
The Nota of 19 April 1880 was the formal articulation of this denkbeeld (idea) — the kruisboot-bangoen test generalised into a colony-wide stelsel of controlled trade. The Nota’s principle — that the contrôle op handel en scheepvaart (supervision over trade and shipping) would put the Dutch “op de geldkist van Atjeh” (on the cash-box of Atjeh) — became, in the 1893 tract, the central prescription of the policy-prescription half, and was the principle Van Heutsz would himself implement, in modified form, as Gouverneur van Atjeh from 1898 onward.
The alternative to both blokkade and concentratiestelsel
The Nota’s stelsel was, in Scherer’s reading and in Van Heutsz’s, the alternative to both the blokkade — the rigoureuse sluiting (rigorous closure) of the entire coast — and the concentratiestelsel — the geconcentreerde stelling (concentrated defensive line) around Kota Radja that would be imposed by the Concentratiebesluit of 19 Augustus 1884. The blokkade — “een oorlogsmiddel, dat slechts tijdelijk kan worden toegepast” (a means of war, that can only be applied temporarily) — was, in Scherer’s argument, a measure of war that could not be sustained; the concentratiestelsel was, in Van Heutsz’s later reading, a measure of weakness that invited Atjehnese contempt. The scheepvaartregeling — “een maatregel des vredes van duurzamen aard” (a measure of peace of a durable nature) — was the durable peace-measure that combined the coercion of the blokkade with the trade-routing of a fiscal regime:
“Bovendien is de scheepvaartregeling een maatregel des vredes van duurzamen aard, terwijl blokkade een oorlogsmiddel is, dat slechts tijdelijk kan worden toegepast. Bij verkrijging van Atjeh’s onderwerping door blokkade zou men dus om het heft, daardoor in handen gekregen, niet wederom te verliezen en dan wellicht van voren af aan te moeten beginnen, die blokkade ten slotte toch in eene scheepvaartregeling hebben moeten doen overgaan”.
The argument — that even a successful blokkade would, eventually, have to be converted into a scheepvaartregeling — was the Nota’s structural warrant for the stelsel it proposed. The Nota’s principle would be applied, partially and imperfectly, by Laging Tobias in May 1883 and by Demmeni in October 1884; the full application would await Van Heutsz’s own governorship from 1898 onward.
Van Heutsz’s praise of the Nota
Van Heutsz’s praise of the Nota is the highest he accords any policy document in the entire 1893 tract. The Nota is, in his reading, the long-deferred answer to Pel’s question of 30 April 1875 — het gewichtige antwoord op de vraag van Pel in zijn brief van 30 April 1875 wat, na voltooiing van zijn plan, moest gedaan worden in ons politiek en handelsbelang (the weighty answer to the question of Pel in his letter of 30 April 1875, what, after the completion of his plan, had to be done in our political and commercial interest) — and the long-deferred revision of article 5 of Van Swieten’s Instructie — dit geeft ook de wijziging aan, welke art. 5 van de Instructie van Generaal van Swieten moest ondergaan (this also gives the modification which art. 5 of the Instruction of General van Swieten had to undergo). The Nota is “zeer belangrijk” — very important — and its author is the man “uit wiens helder brein het eerst het denkbeeld van eene rationeele regeling voor handel en scheepvaart in verband met onze vestigingen op de kusten, is gesproten” — from whose clear mind the idea of a rational regulation for trade and shipping in connection with our establishments on the coasts first sprang. The Nota’s stelsel was, however, never applied in its original form. Generaal van der Heijden — the only governor Van Heutsz credits with the krachtige individualiteit (vigorous individuality) to carry the stelsel through — was dismissed “in het begin van 1881 op onverantwoordelijke wijze” (in the beginning of 1881 in an irresponsible manner), and the Nota’s principle was, for the next decade, deferred. The first partial application came in May 1883 under Laging Tobias — “de scheepvaartregeling door Scherer voorgesteld en door Laging Tobias ingevoerd gaf alles wat men kon verlangen” (the scheepvaartregeling proposed by Scherer and introduced by Laging Tobias gave everything one could desire) — and was then abolished, with Demmeni’s hybrid besluit (decree) of 13 October 1884 and the Concentratiebesluit of 19 Augustus 1884, in the colony’s two great acts of self-betrayal.
Significance
Scherer’s Nota of 19 April 1880 is, in Van Heutsz’s narrative, the foundational document of the scheepvaartregeling concept — the controlled routing of all Atjehnese maritime trade through Dutch-administered ports with duties levied on the in- and out-flow of goods — that Van Heutsz would adopt, twelve years later, as the central prescription of his 1893 tract. Its significance in the Aceh Wiki History record lies in four things. First, it was the first formal articulation of the scheepvaartregeling concept — the stelsel that, in Van Heutsz’s reading, was the long-deferred answer to Pel’s question of 30 April 1875 and the long-deferred revision of article 5 of Van Swieten’s Instructie. Second, its empirical foundation was the Gighen–Samalanga kruisboot-bangoen test of 1880 — the operation in which Scherer, having obtained Van der Heijden’s vergunning, laid a kruisboot before the harbours and collected the bangoen by levying duties on the trade — that gave Scherer the fingerwijzing on which the entire scheepvaartregeling rested. Third, its author was the man Van Heutsz identifies as the only colonial official who could have advised Generaal van der Heijden how to construct the scheepvaartregeling — and whose resignation in early October 1884, when Demmeni only half-applied his scheme, was the moment Van Heutsz marks as the colony’s loss of the only man who could have advised the General. Fourth, its principle — that the contrôle op handel en scheepvaart would put the Dutch “op de geldkist van Atjeh” — was the principle Van Heutsz would himself implement, in modified form, as Gouverneur van Atjeh from 1898 onward, and the principle on which the pacification of Atjeh would finally be accomplished.
See Also
- Scherer
- Scheepvaartregeling
- Scherer’s Nota (19 April 1880)
- Bangoen
- Gighen
- Samalanga
- Van der Heijden
- Kota Radja
- Pel’s letter of 30 April 1875
- Van Swieten’s Instructie (22 April 1874)
- Laging Tobias
- Demmeni
- Concentratiebesluit (19 Augustus 1884)
- Blokkade
- Concentratiestelsel
- De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)
- 1880
Source
De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, esp. pp. 22, 26–28. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.