The cholera epidemic and earthquake of 1883 were the twin visitations that, together with the falling-away of trusted chiefs and the decline of Dutch influence, stamped the year 1883 as a “rapjaar” — “een jaar dat ook voor de economische ontwikkeling van het gewest rampsspoedig geweest is” (“a year that for the economic development of the province has been disastrous”) — in the history of Atjeh.
The visitations
To the discouraging events of the first civil years — the ever more religious character of the Atjehnese struggle, the failure of the civilian government’s attempts at approach to the hostile chiefs, and the marked decline of the population’s good disposition accompanied by the defection of some chiefs who had enjoyed the Government’s confidence — must be added, writes author Joh. Langhout, “dat het geheele gewest bezocht werd door een geweldige cholera-epidemie, die haar slachtoffers bij duizenden telde, en van de niet minder geweldige aardbeving die Koeta Radja tot in verre omgeving teisterde” — that the whole province was visited by a violent cholera epidemic which counted its victims by thousands, and by the no less violent earthquake which tormented Koeta Radja to a wide distance. Sickness had haunted the Dutch in Atjeh from the first years: particularly cholera had raged frightfully in 1874–1875 around the new settlements (an evil answered by the Oelèë Lheue artesian waterworks of 22 June 1875).
Consequences
In 1883 the restrictive harbour resolution of 29 May was issued (see Introduction of civil government in Atjeh (1881)); the attacks on Meulaboh and Teunom intensified; and the year closed with the stranding of the Nisero (10–11 November 1883), whose ten-month sequel spanned the last months of the civil experiment. “Neemt men bij die ontmoedigende gebeurtenissen nog kennis van het feit, dat … bij in de Atjeh-geschiedenis het jaar 1883 als een ‘rapjaar’ te boek staat.”
See Also
- Introduction of civil government in Atjeh (1881)
- Nisero affair (1883-1884)
- Public health in Atjeh
- 1883
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 52, 32.