The blockade of the Atjeh coast, instituted from the outbreak of the war in 1873, was the Netherlands Indian Government’s naval sealing-off of the sultanate’s shores — approved and supported by the British Indian authorities, sweetened by a licence system for the traders of Penang and Singapore, advertised to the native chiefs by a trade proclamation and by the missions of R. C. Kroesen, Captain E. Roura and the steamship Sumatra, and lifted landscape by landscape as submissions came in (see Submission of the Radja of Gigiëng (20 April 1874)).
British cooperation
Already immediately after the official notification of the blockade of the Atjehnese coast, the British Indian government in 1873 forbade the export of all articles of war to the Netherlands Indies, and the governors of Ceylon and of the Straits forbade all export to Atjeh. In July 1873 the British warship Thalia came to convince herself of the effectuality of the blockade; her commander put himself in communication with the commander of the maritime forces in the waters of Atjeh and returned to the harbour of Penang with a favourable report. For Langhout this proved how completely the Dutch action was approved and supported abroad, “for the eyes of the surrounding Eastern realms as well as in the judgement of Western colonial states”.
The licence system
The then already rising trade of Atjeh felt the consequences of the state of war in no small measure. Although Government Commissioner Nieuwenhuizen, on his journey to Atjeh, had declared at Singapore that the “regular trade” between British India and Atjeh would not be prejudiced by the war, circumstances had since changed so that an utmost strict blockade of the Atjehnese coasts proved necessary. For the convenience of the merchants in British India who had bought products in Atjeh on advance, the Dutch consuls at Singapore and Penang were nevertheless permitted to give licences, on the exhibition of which the bought products could be fetched from the harbours of Atjeh — “an institution of which ample use was made”. The merchants of Penang awaited with impatience the moment at which the blockade of Atjeh would be lifted for the submitted landscapes; the Government kept its promise, and immediately after the submission of Gigiëng permitted the trade on that landscape, so that very soon a great number of trading vessels was cleared at Penang for this part of Atjeh.
The trade proclamation and the coastal missions
In a broad proclamation, in which the chiefs of the Atjehnese population were pointed inter alia to the consequences which a friendly, and those which a hostile attitude toward the Netherlands would have — chiefly in connection with the trade capable of great expansion in the province — it was tried to hold back the population of the Dependencies of Atjeh from participation in the hostilities. The commandant of the Dutch steamship Sumatra, which ship was initially destined for a voyage along the coasts of Atjeh, and the controller first class R. C. Kroesen, on two voyages along the coast made the contents of that proclamation known as widely as possible to the several Atjehnese chiefs.
Captain Roura’s mission
The Government also used the services of the master of the French merchant steamer Patty, E. Roura by name — long a visitor of the pepper harbours of the West Coast and familiar with the several radja’s, and by the blockade prevented from his ordinary business. He was allowed to visit with his steamship the landscapes lying between Meulaboh and Groot-Atjeh, in order to report to the Government on the local situation and on the temper of chiefs who had never before been in contact with the Dutch authorities; a model of the act of submission was given him to acquaint the radja’s with its stipulations. The driving of trade was expressly forbidden him, though he kept the right to point the chiefs to the disadvantageous consequences of the war.
Toward the first opening
The increasing load of the blockade and the first submissions (Gigiëng, 20 April 1874) started the piecemeal reopening; after the war’s turn of the following years the principle shifted from blockade to regulation, culminating in the institution of the scheepvaartregeling of 1892–1897 and, after the civil interval, in the strict closures of the Concentration era.
See Also
- Nieuwenhuizen’s mission to Atjeh and the declaration of war (March 1873)
- Submission of the Radja of Gigiëng (20 April 1874)
- R. C. Kroesen
- E. Roura
- Scheepvaartregeling in Atjeh
- Acheh War
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 26–30.