Acheh succession dispute (1802-1819)

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tagsevent, war, diplomacy, colonial, acheh
aliasesAchehnese civil war, burgerkrijg in Atjeh

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The Acheh succession dispute of 1802–1819 — referred to by Van der Kemp as the burgerkrijg in Atjeh — was the civil war in the sultanate of Acheh that began with the accession of Sultan Jauhar Alum in 1802 and continued, with fluctuating fortunes, until the conclusion of the Treaty of Pedir (1819) of 22 April 1819. It set the recognised sultan Jauhar Alum (Johor Alum) against the pretender Saif ul-Alum (Syf), son of the Penang-based merchant Said Hussein, and drew in the Three Sagis of the XXII, XXV and XXVI Mukims at the capital, the powerful coastal chief Tunku Pakih of Pedir, and ultimately the British governments of Penang and Bengal.

Origins

Since 1802 Sultan Jauhar Alum had reigned “in so far as circumstances permitted” (Van der Kemp). As always in Acheh, the sultan confronted a powerful opposition party. After a ten-year reign, that party judged itself strong enough to seek a replacement, and fixed its eye upon a certain Said Hussein — a remote kinsman of the royal house, but more importantly a very rich merchant residing at Penang. Hussein declined the throne for himself, pleading age, but accepted it on behalf of his second son Syf, who had hitherto served as boatswain on his father’s proas. To win the throne, an expedition was fitted out at Penang.

The Hussein Expedition and the Two Sultans

In mid-1815 Hussein and Syf sailed for Acheh (see Said Hussein’s expedition to Acheh (1815)), and Syf was there proclaimed sultan as Sil-ul-illum Shak by the assembled chiefs. Among his supporters was the relatively powerful potentate of Pedir, Tunku Pakie, who had contributed much to the success of the revolution. Before long, however, Packie fell out with Syf and reverted to the party of the dispossessed Sultan Jauhar Alum, whose seat he established at Pedir. For Syf Acheh itself soon became too hot; he too withdrew to the east coast, fixing his residence at Telok Semawé, between Pedir and Penang. The capital Banda Acheh fell under the de facto rule of the federation of the Three Sagis.

There were thus two sultans — Jauhar Alum at Pedir (referred to in the documents as “the old sultan,” and dismissively as the former “boatswain” by the Penang party), and Syf at Telok Semawé — while at Banda Acheh itself the Three Sagis held effective power. The civil war continued for several years with such varying fortune that at length the government of Penang did not know which of the two pretenders should be recognised.

Earlier British Contacts

The dispute unfolded against a background of intermittent British contact with Acheh. In 1786 the insulting letter of Sultan Alauddin Muhammad Shah to Governor-General Warren Hastings had shown how little respect the Achenese court had for British power. In 1814 Captain Canning’s visit to Acheh on behalf of the Calcutta government had met with a highly insulting reception from Jauhar Alum and his court, which deterred the Penang authorities from any active intervention in favour of the legitimate sultan. In late 1817 or early 1818 Captain Coombs’s first mission was sent to Acheh to identify the rightful sultan; the chiefs declared that they had forever abjured Jauhar Alum and recognised Syf as their sultan. Coombs left Acheh in February 1818 convinced that Syf was the recognised ruler but that the British would have to support him with a thousand men to enable him to maintain his authority.

The British Commission

It was the conflict between Raffles and Bannerman over which pretender to recognise — and Raffles’s alarm at rumours of Dutch overtures to Jauhar Alum at Pedir — that led to the dispatch of the Raffles-Coombs commission of 1819. After seven unproductive weeks at the roadstead of Banda Acheh, during which Panglima Polem of the XXII Mukims made plain his “undisguised supremacy at the capital” and treated both pretenders with contempt, the commission proceeded to Pedir and concluded the treaty of 22 April 1819 with Sultan Jauhar Alum. Syf at Telok Semawé was induced to renounce his claims — a submission that proved worthless, for in July 1819 he was again writing to the governor of Penang as sultan of Acheh and continuing his “predatory life” unpunished.

Aftermath

The 1819 treaty did not end the dispute; it merely overlaid it. In April 1822 Jauhar Alum was still at Pedir, writing to Penang that he lacked the means to move to the ruined capital. The letter of the Three Sagis to Governor Phillips of 4 December 1822 declared that they would have no one but Syf. The death of Sultan Jauhar Alum in December 1823 left the matter still unsettled. Panglima Polem’s supremacy at Acheh continued, and the question of who was the rightful sultan was overtaken by the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 and the resulting paralysis of Dutch policy on Sumatra.

See Also

Source

Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.

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