Atjeh’s attack on Malakka (1629) was the great naval expedition sent by sultan Iskandar Muda of Atjeh against Portuguese Malakka in 1629, ending in the total defeat of the Acehnese fleet by the Portuguese admiral Botelho. Recorded in Dr. F. W. Stapel’s Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland as the high-water mark of Acehnese naval power and the moment at which the Compagnie briefly hoped to see its two rivals in the Straits exhaust each other.
Background
The Portuguese had held Malakka since the conquest by d’Albuquerque in August 1511. From 1607 onward, Iskandar Muda had made himself the declared enemy (verklaard vijand) of the Portuguese in the Straits. Stapel is explicit that the Compagnie, while appreciative of Iskandar Muda’s hostility to Lisbon, did not formally ally with him: “The very militant inclinations of this sultan — which also more than once hampered the Compagnie’s pepper trade — compelled the Compagnie however not to accept his eventual support” (De zeer militante neigingen van dezen sultan — die ook ‘s Compagnies peperhandel nog al eens bemoeilijkte — noopten de Compagnie echter, zijn eventueelen steun niet te aanvaarden).
Two other considerations restrained the Compagnie. Djohor was “mostly in strife with Atjeh, with which the Compagnie preferred not to come to blows” (Pric Djohor meest in strijd met Atjeh, waar de Compagnie het liever niet mee aan den stok kreeg), and the Compagnie had important and friendly relations with Siam, which itself claimed suzerainty over Djohor. An open Acehnese-Dutch alliance would have upset both balances.
The Compagnie’s strategic hope
By the late 1620s the Compagnie had begun to think of Malakka as a prize to be taken when Portuguese power collapsed. Stapel records that the Compagnie “saw with much pleasure that Iskandar Muda in 1629 sent a great fleet against Malakka; nothing could be so welcome to her as that Atjeh and the Portuguese should exhaust each other in a mutual struggle” (Met veel genoegen zag de Compagnie ook, dat Iskander Moeda in 1629 een groote vloot op Malakka afzond; niets kon haar zoo welkom zijn, dan dat Atjeh en de Portugeezen elkaar in een onderlingen strijd uitputten).
This was a classic free-rider calculation: the Compagnie would let Atjeh bear the cost of the assault and, whichever way the battle went, would profit. An Acehnese victory would eliminate the Portuguese from the Straits and open Malakka to Dutch trade on Acehnese terms; a Portuguese victory would cripple the Acehnese fleet and leave Atjeh less able to obstruct Dutch commerce on the Westkust van Sumatra.
The defeat
The hope was disappointed. “The Atjehers were however totally defeated by the Portuguese admiral Botelho” (De Atjehers werden echter door den Portugeeschen admiraal Botelho totaal verslagen). The phrase totaal verslagen — totally defeated — indicates that the Acehnese fleet was effectively destroyed as a fighting force. Stapel does not give casualty figures or the size of the fleet, but the implication is that this was a decisive Portuguese naval victory.
Consequences
The 1629 disaster broke the back of Acehnese naval power in the Straits. Iskandar Muda would never again be able to threaten Malakka directly, and the burden of confronting Portuguese Malacca fell henceforth on the Compagnie alone. The Compagnie took up that burden systematically: from 1633 the Malaccan waterway was “more closely watched” — a fleet of six to eight ships regularly blockaded the city — and by 1636 the G.G. and Councillors could report in their New Year’s letter that Malaccan trade had strongly decreased while Batavia’s “increased correspondingly” (gelijcks accresseert). By 1639 Malakka was “almost brought to the utmost extremity” (byna in d’uyterste extremiteyt gebracht), and the 1640–1641 siege that finally took the city for the Compagnie could proceed without serious Acehnese help.
The 1629 defeat thus marks the moment at which Atjeh ceased to be the principal challenger to Portuguese power in the Straits and the Compagnie stepped into that role. In the longer run it is also one of the preconditions of the Painansch Contract era: an Atjeh unable to project naval power beyond its own coasts was an Atjeh the Compagnie could safely confront on the Westkust.
See Also
- Iskandar Muda of Atjeh
- Admiral Botelho
- Malakka
- Djohor
- Siam
- Straits of Malacca
- Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
- Siege of Malakka (1640-1641)
- 1629
Source
De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 25 (tekst bij blad 2: De Archipel en het Maleische Schiereiland in 1650).