The Death of Sultan Aladin Mahmood Shah (also written Aladin Mahmood Shah, Alaoe’d-din Mahmoed Shah) on 26 January 1874 at Pagger Ajer was the death of the fourteen-year-old sultan of Atjeh from cholera, two days after the fall of his Kraton to the Dutch under Lieutenant-general Van Swieten in the second Aceh expedition. His death, the cholera that had first raged among the Dutch troops and now made its ravages among the Atjehers, extinguished the regular line of sultans recognised by the Dutch and led directly to the proclamation of annexation of Groot-Atjeh by right of conquest.
Accession
In 1870 the previous sultan had died and had been succeeded by the fourteen-year-old Aladin Mahmood Shah under the regency of the first rijksbestuurder, the Arab sayyid Habib Abdoe’r Rachman (properly Sayyid Abdurrahman Zair). The young sultan had been recognised by the Dutch — though in the somewhat ambiguous form familiar from earlier recognitions. The Habib assumed a high tone, demanded the return of former Acehnese territory on the east and west coasts of Sumatra, and threatened the intervention of England, France and Turkey. He was later more polite, but it appeared that at the same time he had asked the Governor of the Straits Settlements for advice and help against the Dutch.
The Fall of the Kraton
When the second Aceh expedition landed east of the Atjeh river on 9 December 1873, the sultan was still in the Kraton. The Dutch advance carried the missigit of the Kraton on 6 January 1874 and the Taman or Kota Goenoengan on 12 January 1874. From the west side too the Kraton could now be fired upon, and the Dutch fire “made the stay there so unsafe that, according to information received, the sultan had left it and had betaken himself to kampong Longbatta.” On 24 January 1874 the Kraton was found evacuated and occupied by the Dutch; on 26 January 1874 the sultan died of cholera at Pagger Ajer.
The Question of the Succession
“What was to be done in these circumstances? Of making a tractaat there was now, also after all that had happened, no more question. The knowledge that one had obtained of the conditions and the form of government in Atjeh gave little hope of it.” On 31 January 1874 Van Swieten issued his proclamation declaring the land, by right of conquest, to belong to the Netherlands-Indian government.
The death of the sultan did not, however, extinguish the institution. The Toewankoe Haschim and the war-party maintained the sultanate in shadowy form at Keumala (or Kemala), in the interior south of Pedir. General Pel in his note of 30 April 1875 named the Toewankoe’s Haschim, Hoesin, and Abdoel Madjid among the relatives of the former sultans who had attached themselves to the war-party: “they rightly see that they have nothing more to expect from a foreign overrule.” A young pretender, Toewankoe Daoed, was destined for the sultan’s rank in 1874 and was still being watched over by Toewankoe Haschim in 1879. After the close of large-scale operations in Great Acheh in August 1879, “the principal among the hostile chiefs — Toewankoe Haschim, who still kept watch over the young pretender to the sultanship, Toewankoe Daoed, the Imam Longbatta, Panglima Polim, his son Radja Koelala and others — persisted in their hostile attitude, but their means were scattered and they had placed themselves beyond the reach of our troops, namely at Kemala, in the interior south of Pedir.”
Significance
The death of Aladin Mahmood Shah removed the last sultan recognised by the Dutch in the regular line. It opened the long second phase of the Atjeh-oorlog, in which the formal annexation of Groot-Atjeh coexisted with a shadow sultanate at Keumala and a protracted guerrilla resistance. The sultan’s place as the focus of Acehnese loyalty was gradually taken by the religious leaders — the ulamas and teungkus — who, after the period of the concentration scheme, organised the jihad against the Dutch.
See Also
- Aladin Mahmood Shah
- Capture of the Kraton (24 January 1874)
- Van Swieten’s Proclamation of 31 January 1874
- Habib Abdoerrahman
- Toewankoe Haschim
- Toewoe Hoesin
- Toewankoe Abdoel Madjid
- Toewankoe Daoed
- Keumala
- Second Aceh Expedition (1873-1874)
- Aceh War
- Acheh Succession Dispute
Source
De geschiedenis van Nederland in onzen tijd, by J. A. de Bruyne, Directeur der Hoogere Burgerschool te Zierikzee. Deel IV. 1872-1883. Nieuwe uitgave. Schiedam: J. F. Dupont, 1912, Hoofdstuk I, pp. 6, 25-26, 71, 108.