The civil war of 1854–1858 in Acheh — fought between the young Raja Suloyman (Suleman) and his guardian Raja Ibrahim — was one of the “endless little wars that divided the country against itself” in the decades preceding the Dutch invasion of 1873. Snouck Hurgronje mentions the conflict in passing, in connection with the Achehnese use of Niasese slaves as fighting men; it was of small importance and little blood was spilt. The war belongs, in his account, to the long period of internal dissolution during which the port-kings of Acheh lost effective control of the interior, and the country prepared itself, almost unconsciously, for the catastrophe of the war with the Dutch that was to follow.
Raja Suloyman and Raja Ibrahim
Raja Suloyman (Suleman) was a member of the royal house; Raja Ibrahim was his guardian. The conflict that divided them, in Hurgronje’s account, was characteristic of the “endless little wars” of Acheh in the pre-Dutch period. The Achehnese Sultanate, in the half-century before the war with the Dutch, had been “hopelessly divided against itself”; the port-kings, who derived their authority from the wealth of the coast trade, displayed little interest in the affairs of the interior, and their government “was always based on rapacity, and disorder was its only constant feature.” Civil war was therefore the normal condition of the country.
The use of Niasese slaves
The chief detail that Hurgronje records of the civil war of 1854–58 concerns the use made of Niasese slaves as fighting men. “During the civil war of 1854–58 between Raja Suloyman (Suleman) and his guardian Raja Ibrahim, the supporters of the latter in particular usually employed Niasese to carry out all operations against the enemy.” The employment of foreign slaves in the place of Achehnese freemen is one of the indexes of the country’s military and political condition before the war: the labour of the Niasese had long been the foundation of Achehnese agriculture, and their masters, in time of internal conflict, did not hesitate to expose them to danger from which their own followers were spared. Hurgronje notes that “in comparison with the Niasese, the number of slaves of other races” — Bataks and others — “was very small” in Acheh.
Place in the pre-war history of Acheh
The civil war of 1854–58 belongs to the long series of internal conflicts that, in Hurgronje’s analysis, prepared the ground for the Dutch conquest. The port-kingship of Acheh had by this time “lapsed” from its old prosperity, and “the lapse of the short-lived period of prosperity of the port-kingship” had not been followed by any new organisation of the country. Every office instituted by the port-kings showed “a tendency soon after coming into being, to assimilate itself with one of true Achehnese origin, preferably such as carried with it social influence and opportunities for enrichment.” The civil wars of the mid-nineteenth century thus represent, in his account, the final stage of the dissolution that preceded the Dutch invasion of Acheh of 1873.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.