The Atjehsche aanwezigheid op de Oostkust tot aan Sabah Aoer — the Atjehnese presence on the East Coast as far south as the Sabah Aoer station at the mouth of the Siak River — was, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s survey of the Outer Possessions, the southern limit of the formal Atjehnese presence on the East Coast after the destruction of the kingdom of Gasip. The Sabah Aoer station — governed by a sjahbandar on behalf of the Sultan of Djohore after the Gasip destruction — was, in the Bureau’s framing, the geographical hinge between the Atjehnese sphere to the north and the Djohorese sphere to the south.
Background: the destruction of Gasip and the Djohorese succession
The Bureau’s account of the Sabah Aoer station opens with the Atjehnese destruction of the kingdom of Gasip in the early sixteenth century. The destruction had left the lower Siak River open to a new contender, and the Sultan of Djohore had seized the opportunity to establish himself at the river’s mouth. “Hiervan maakte de Sultan van Djohore gebruik om zich aan de monding der Siak-rivier te vestigen, terwijl de sage ervan spreekt, dat in het binnenland eene soort federatie van onafhankelijke kleine landschapjes ontstond, zooals de Tapoeng-streken (boven-Siak) thans nog vormen” — “Of this the Sultan of Djohore made use to establish himself at the mouth of the Siak river, while the saga speaks of it that in the interior a kind of federation of independent small landschapjes arose, such as the Tapoeng-streken (upper-Siak) still form today.”
The Sabah Aoer station and the sjahbandar
The Djohorese settlement at the Siak River mouth was, the Bureau records, governed by a sjahbandar — a harbour-master — resident at Sabah Aoer. “Het bestuur over deze Djohore’sche nederzetting (welke eene belangrijke immigratie uit dat rijk tengevolge had) werd in naam van den Sultan uitgeoefend door een sjahbandar, die gevestigd was te Sabah Aoer, en wiens invloed in het binnenland ongeveer tot de S. Mandau reikte” — “The administration over this Djohorese settlement (which had, as a consequence, an important immigration from that realm) was exercised, in the name of the Sultan, by a sjahbandar, who was established at Sabah Aoer, and whose influence in the interior reached approximately as far as the [river] Mandau.”
The sjahbandar’s influence reached, in other words, only as far inland as the Mandau River — a tributary of the Siak River some distance inland of the coast. The Djohorese presence at Sabah Aoer was thus a coastal, river-mouth presence rather than an inland sovereignty, and its purpose was the control of the river-mouth trade — the great trade route between Pagarroejoeng (the legendary Minangkabau kingdom in central Sumatra) and Malakka — rather than the political subjection of the interior.
The strategic purpose
The Sultan of Djohore’s purpose in establishing the Sabah Aoer station was, the Bureau records, twofold. First, the control of the river-mouth trade: the Siak River was the principal trade route between Pagarroejoeng and Malakka, and “in die oude tijden een veel belangrijker handelsverkeer kende dan tegenwoordig” — “in those old times knew a much more important trade traffic than today” — so that the Sultan of Djohore could “belangrijke heffingen eischen aan dien riviermond” — “demand important levies at that river-mouth.” Second, the protection of Djohore against its Minangkabau enemies: the station at Sabah Aoer served “zich tevens beschermen tegen een aanval zijner machtige Minangkabausche vijanden” — “at the same time to protect itself against an attack by its powerful Minangkabau enemies.”
The Djohorese succession and the Atjehsche presence
The Sabah Aoer station was, in the Bureau’s framing, the geographical hinge between the Atjehnese sphere to the north (which extended, after the 1589 invasion of Tamiang and Northern Langkat, as far south as Tamiang) and the Djohorese sphere to the south (which extended, after the destruction of Gasip, as far north as Sabah Aoer). The two spheres were complementary rather than competitive: the Atjehnese presence was an institutional planting of vertegenwoordigers of the Sultan of Atjeh in the most northerly districts, while the Djohorese presence was a demographic planting of Malay settlers at the river mouths further south. The Sabah Aoer station was, in this arrangement, the southern limit of the Atjehnese sphere and the northern limit of the Djohorese sphere — the geographical hinge between the two.
The Radja Ketjil revolution
The Djohorese settlement at Sabah Aoer was, the Bureau records, overthrown in the early eighteenth century by Radja Ketjil. “In het begin der 18de eeuw werd Djohore uit Siak verjaagd door den bekenden Radja ketjil, die zich uitgaf voor een onechten zoon van een der vroegere Djohore’sche sultans” — “In the beginning of the 18th century Djohore was driven out of Siak by the well-known Radja Ketjil, who gave himself out as an illegitimate son of one of the former Djohorese sultans.” Radja Ketjil’s revolution was, in the Bureau’s framing, the closing act of the long Djohorese-Atjehnese arrangement at the Siak River mouth, and the founding act of the independent Sultanate of Siak.
Significance
The Sabah Aoer station is, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s survey, the geographical hinge between the Atjehnese and Djohorese spheres of the late-sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century East Coast. Its establishment by the Sultan of Djohore — in the immediate aftermath of the Atjehnese destruction of Gasip — defines the southern limit of the Atjehnese sphere; its overthrow by Radja Ketjil in the early eighteenth century closes the long Djohorese-Atjehnese arrangement and inaugurates the independent Sultanate of Siak. The station is thus the geographical complement of the Atjehnese vertegenwoordiger in Tamiang and northern Langkat: where the latter marks the southern limit of the Atjehnese sphere, the former marks the northern limit of the Djohorese sphere.
See Also
- Sabah Aoer
- Siak
- Acheh
- Djohor
- rijk Gasip
- Pagarroejoeng
- Malacca
- Mandau
- Radja Ketjil
- sjahbandar
- atjehsche-verovering-van-gasip-(begin-16e-eeuw)
- atjehsche-invasie-in-tamiang-en-noordelijk-langkat-(c-1589)
- atjehsche-overheersing-der-noordelijke-kuststaatjes
- Tapoeng-streken
- 1509
- 1511
- 1589
Source
De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Afl. 3: Oostkust van Sumatra. Eerste Stuk, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1918), pp. 102–103. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shelfmark LS.08781.
Nota omtrent het Rijk van Siak, by H. A. Hijmans van Anrooy, in Tijdschrift van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, dl. XXX (1885).