The supremacy of Panglima Polim at Acheh was the political reality that confronted the Raffles–Coombs Acheh Commission during its seven weeks at anchor off the Achehnese capital in March and April 1819. The episode demonstrated conclusively that neither Sultan Jauhar Alum nor the pretender Saif ul-Alum (Syf) exercised real authority at the capital, and that the actual ruler was Panglima Polem, chief of the XXII Mukims and first among the three Sagi chiefs.
The commission dropped anchor before the capital on 14 March 1819, having sailed from Penang without the military force that Governor Bannerman had insisted was necessary. The Calcutta government’s report to London of 7 October 1820 described the situation: no sultan was present at the capital, and authority was exercised “in name by the council of the Sagis, but in reality by Panglima Polim aided by his adherents”. The three Sagis were the heads of the XXII, XXV, and XXVI Mukims — the territories surrounding the capital — and from the late seventeenth century the sultanate had effectively been under their tutelage.
The commission began by sending a circular on shore calling the competent chiefs to an assembly. Polim alone replied from his “usual place of residence in his own country”: the assembly would be convened in eight days, and until then the commission was not to land. The rebuff, though unfriendly, was not absolute; the prohibition did not apply to individual members, and Raffles, Coombs and their subordinates went repeatedly on shore to investigate which sultan had the better chance of success. Their reception was “ten hoogste onwellevend” — exceedingly uncivil — and rumours spread that the commission had come to take possession of the country. The populace gathered at the mouth of the Acheh River and threw up entrenchments, a hostile posture that the commission formally complained of to Polim.
At length Polim himself appeared, taking up residence in the sultan’s palace. This gesture convinced the Bengal government that Polim was “the actual ruler of Acheen”, that “he had entirely cast off his allegiance to Jowhar ool Aulum”, and that he treated Syf “merely as a tool, and though he professed allegiance to him, had no inclination to acknowledge in him any real sovereignty”. When the day of the assembly came, a chief of the Jauhar party warned Raffles of treachery; Raffles, whose casting vote decided the matter, thought it prudent not to expose himself and sent word that he was ill. The Calcutta government disapproved of this evasion, observing that “courtesy and decorum required” the commissioners to attend the assembly they had themselves requested.
The commission sailed from the Acheh roads without military force, without entering the capital in force, and without imposing any settlement on the chiefs. The recognition of Polim’s supremacy was, in Van der Kemp’s interpretation, the most important practical outcome of the mission’s stay: it confirmed that any treaty concluded with Jauhar Alum at Pedir would be “scheurpapier in de oogen der drie Engelsche bestuursleden zelven” — waste paper in the eyes of the three British officials themselves. The episode thus foreshadowed the eventual fate of the Treaty of Pedir of 22 April 1819 as a “dead letter”, and it remained, in the minute of 21 March 1825 by Governor Fullerton, one of the principal pieces of evidence that the 1819 instrument had never taken effect.
See Also
- Panglima Polim
- Three Sagis
- XXII Mukims
- XXV Mukims
- XXVI Mukims
- Sultan Jauhar Alum
- Sultan Saif ul-Alum
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Captain Coombs
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
- Treaty of Pedir (1819)
- Fullerton’s minute on Acheh (21 March 1825)
- Acheh
- Banda Acheh
- Acheh River
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.