The bombardment of the Atjehse coast by the British of 1844 was a punitive naval action by the British government against the Atjehse coastal population, undertaken in retaliation for Atjehese piracy against British merchant shipping. The action followed the precedent of the American bombardment of 1831 and is recorded by Ir. J. Frijling in his 1946 sketch Een stukje geschiedenis der Indische Buitengewesten as one of the two nineteenth-century precedents for the use of foreign naval force against the Atjehse coast in the absence of effective Dutch authority. Together with the American action, the British bombardment formed the international-pressure background to the Sumatra-contract of 1871 and the Atjeh-oorlog of 1873–1904.
Context
The same conditions that had produced the American bombardment of 1831 continued to obtain through the 1830s and 1840s. The Dutch policy of niet-inmenging — non-intervention — left the Atjehse coast effectively unpoliced, and Atjehese piracy continued to claim foreign merchant ships among its victims. In 1844 the British government followed the American precedent and “volgde dit voorbeeld” — bombarded the Atjehse coast in chastisement.
The Action
Frijling records the action in the same terms as the American precedent. He gives no detail of the warship, the commanding officer, or the precise target of the bombardment. “Of schuldigen dan wel onschuldigen door de granaten werden getroffen, vertelt de geschiedenis niet” — the comment applies equally to both actions. The British, like the Americans, acted on the practical assumption that the Atjehse coast was not effectively under Dutch sovereignty and that direct retribution was therefore permissible.
Significance
The 1844 British bombardment, together with the American bombardment of 1831, is one of the two precedents for foreign naval action against the Atjehse coast in the period before the Atjeh-oorlog. Both actions illustrate the international pressure on the Dutch to suppress Atjehese piracy — pressure that ultimately led, in 1872, to the Dutch decision to take military measures against the Atjehse coast and, in 1873, to the first Aceh expedition. The same year 1844 also saw the British adventurer James Brooke conquer North-West Borneo with his crew and have himself proclaimed Rajah, an event Frijling cites as a parallel instance of British willingness to act unilaterally in the archipelago when the Dutch failed to do so.
Account from Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh (1923)
The British chastisement of Kuala Batee and Kuala Meureudoe in 1844 was the action of English warships against those two Atjehnese coast places “in connection with occurred plundering of merchant ships” — a repetition of the American punishment of 1831, which, in author Joh. Langhout’s words, “availed little”.
The action and its sequel
“Verdrijving … Baros en Singkel … In 1844 tuchtigen Engelsche oorlogschepen opnieuw Koeala Batië en Koeala Meureudoe in verband met voorgekomen plundering van handelsschepen. Het baatte weinig” — the plundering of merchant ships on the coast of Atjeh continued, and the years that followed brought new incidents: in 1851 a Neapolitan schooner was robbed on the Atjehnese coasts, and in 1852 an English merchant ship. It was this chain of incidents that moved the Netherlands Indian Government to seek “once more, along the road of reconciliation, to call another, better state of affairs into being”, instructing General J. van Swieten, Governor of Sumatra’s West Coast, to conclude with Sultan Ibrahim Mansur the treaty of peace, friendship and commerce of 1857, directed in particular against sea-, strand- and man-robbery.
See Also
- American bombardment of the Atjehse coast (1831)
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1871
- Acheh
- Achehnese
- Zeeroverij
- Slavernij in Nederlandsch-Indië
- Niet-inmengingspolitiek
- Aceh War
- James Brooke
- J. Frijling
- Britain
- United States of America
- 1814
- 1831
- 1844
- 1871
- 1872
- 1873
- Sea robbery on the Atjeh coast
- Expulsion of the Atjehnese from Baros and Singkel (1840)
- Treaty of 1857 with the Sultan of Atjeh
Source
J. Frijling, Een stukje geschiedenis der Indische Buitengewesten, voor wie dat niet overbodig mocht zijn (1946), p. 1. 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), p. 16.