The death of Tunku Pakih occurred at Pedir in the early weeks of 1819, shortly before the conclusion of the Treaty of Pedir. It was carried out, according to Van der Kemp, by the Shahbandar of Acheh, who had been sent to Pedir with a commission ostensibly to ask Sultan Jauhar Alum’s forgiveness and to offer him, on behalf of the three Sagis, the submission of the capital — but whose real purpose was, in Van der Kemp’s words, “den vorst op te lichten”, to deceive the sultan.
The shahbandar’s mission must be read against the long background of the Acheh succession dispute. The three Sagis — the heads of the XXII, XXV, and XXVI Mukims — had for years treated the sultan’s authority at the capital as little more than nominal, and their behaviour throughout the Raffles–Coombs commission in March–April 1819 confirmed that they recognised neither Jauhar Alum nor Syf as an effective sovereign. Tunku Pakih, of Pedir, was one of Jauhar Alum’s adherents in the littoral, but a man “met zeeschuimende zonden” — a sea-rover whose outrages against the British flag, notably the capture of a brig under English colours in early 1818, had to be apologised for before the joint commission could treat with the sultan.
Van der Kemp reports the killing as follows: when the shahbandar found his fraudulent mission obstructed by Tunku Pakih, the latter was stabbed to death (“door den shahbandar overhoop gestoken”). The truth of the matter, Van der Kemp concedes, “valt wellicht te betwijfelen”; but the practical result was unambiguous — “Packie bestond niet meer”. His removal cleared one of the principal obstacles to Jauhar Alum’s negotiations with the British, and the apology that the sultan had been required to make for earlier outrages against British shipping was accepted by the commissioners as sufficient. The commissioners then sailed for Pedir, where the Treaty of Pedir was signed on 22 April 1819.
The killing illustrates the treacherous politics of Acheh in this period, in which the formal courtesies of submission routinely concealed preparations for assassination, and in which the European commissioners, dependent on native informants, were unable to penetrate the designs of the chiefs. Tunku Pakih’s death was, in the broader perspective of Van der Kemp’s narrative, a small but emblematic act in the long preparation of the 1819 treaty, and it left the way “effen gemaakt” for an instrument that, in the eyes of three generations of British administrators, would never be anything more than a “dead letter”.
See Also
- Tunku Pakih
- Shahbandar of Acheh
- Sultan Jauhar Alum
- Three Sagis
- Capture of British brig by Tunku Pakih
- Treaty of Pedir (1819)
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Acheh succession dispute (1802-1819)
- Pedir
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.