The American bombardment of the Atjehse coast of 1831 was a punitive naval action by the United States against the Atjehse coastal population, undertaken in retaliation for Atjehese piracy against American merchant shipping and explicitly framed by the American government as a punishment of the Atjehse coast population for its piracy and its failure to respect Dutch sovereignty over the Atjeh polity. The action is recorded by Ir. J. Frijling in his 1946 sketch Een stukje geschiedenis der Indische Buitengewesten as one of the two nineteenth-century precedents — the other being the British bombardment of 1844 — for the use of foreign naval force against the Atjehse coast in the absence of effective Dutch authority.
Context
Under the Verdrag van Londen of 1814, by which the Netherlands recovered most of the colonies that Britain had occupied during the Napoleonic period, the Dutch government had promised to combat slavery in the Netherlands-Indies with vigour. Frijling records that “het bleef bij een belofte” — the promise was not kept. The British government’s irritation at this failure was, “althans de reden genoemd,” the reason why London broke off the 1820 conversations with the Hague over the exchange of Billiton for Singapore and twice refused to resume them.
The Netherlands of 1814, after the French occupation, was almost as poor as it would be in 1945 after the German occupation. The territory over which it had recovered sovereignty — and in which it was now bound by treaty to combat slavery — extended from the 95th to the 142nd degree of longitude east, more than an eighth of the Earth’s circumference measured along the equator. The Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, whose rights the Dutch state had inherited, had been able to enforce its authority over no more than ten per cent of the total area of the archipelago; over the whole of Java, but in the Buitengewesten only at a few widely separated posts. Throughout the nineteenth century the Dutch government followed a policy of niet-inmenging — non-intervention — which, in the absence of effective authority, allowed the native princes and headmen to fall into increasing mutual discord, “een strijd van allen tegen allen, leidende tot grenzenloze onderdrukking van bevolkingen.”
In these conditions slavery flourished, and both piracy (zeeroverij) and land-piracy (landroverij — rampok- and ketjoepartijen, plundering and extortion) assumed unheard-of proportions. Foreign merchant ships were also among the victims. In 1831 the American government, “bij wijze van wraakneming — ontkennende der Nederlandse souvereiniteit,” had the Atjehse coastal population chastised by one of its warships.
The Action
Frijling gives no detail of the warship, the commanding officer, or the precise target of the bombardment; he records only that an American warship “tuchtigde” — chastised — the Atjehse coastal population. “Of schuldigen dan wel onschuldigen door de granaten werden getroffen, vertelt de geschiedenis niet,” Frijling observes. The contrast with the later Dutch reluctance to use force — “Onze Angelsaksische neven bezaten in die dagen kennelijk nog niet de lankmoedigheid die zij òns later zouden toewensen” — is the point of his mention.
Significance
The 1831 American bombardment, together with the British bombardment of 1844, is one of the two precedents for foreign naval action against the Atjehse coast in the period between the Verdrag van Londen of 1814 and the Sumatra-contract of 1871. Both actions illustrate the international pressure on the Dutch to suppress Atjehese piracy and slavery — pressure that ultimately led to the Atjeh-oorlog of 1873–1904. The American framing of the action as a punishment “ontkennende der Nederlandse souvereiniteit” is particularly pointed: it asserts that, whatever the paper claims of the 1814 treaty, the Atjehse coast was, in the view of the American government, not effectively under Dutch sovereignty and therefore open to direct foreign retribution.
Account from Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh (1923)
The American chastisement of Kuala Batee in 1831 was the appearance of an American warship before Koeala Batië on the coast of Atjeh — after an American merchant ship had been cut off (afgeloopen) by the Atjehnese coastal population in the preceding year — “to make clear to the Atjehnese how in future sea-robbery would be punished”.
The plundering and the retribution
In 1831, author Joh. Langhout writes, “the zeeschuimers made it too wild”: after in the foregoing year an American merchant ship had been cut off by the Atjehnese coastal population, suddenly an American man-of-war appeared before Koeala Batië, to show the Atjehnese how in the sequel sea-robbery would be punished. The chastisement worked at first wholesomely. Atjeh had long been tormented by internal feuds and exploitative chiefs; sea-robbery, strand-robbery and plundering of merchant ships — the crews too often the victims — had increased hand over hand, until the growing insecurity called forth this first foreign naval action on the coast. Neither for the Dutch flag had the Atjehnese much awe: Baros had much to suffer, and in 1836 came the loss of the schooner Dolphiijn; in 1840 followed the expulsion of the Atjehnese from Baros and Singkel, and in 1844 English warships chastised Koeala Batië and Koeala Meureudoe anew (see British chastisement of Kuala Batee and Kuala Meureudoe (1844)).
See Also
- Bombardment of the Atjehse coast by the British (1844)
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1871
- Acheh
- Achehnese
- Zeeroverij
- Slavernij in Nederlandsch-Indië
- Niet-inmengingspolitiek
- Aceh War
- J. Frijling
- United States of America
- Britain
- 1814
- 1831
- 1844
- 1871
- 1873
- Sea robbery on the Atjeh coast
- Dolphiijn affair (1836)
Source
J. Frijling, Een stukje geschiedenis der Indische Buitengewesten, voor wie dat niet overbodig mocht zijn (1946), pp. 1–2. Koninklijke Bibliotheek shelfmark 0465 0898.
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 15–16.