Paulus van Caerden’s Atjeh visit of 1600-1601 — the second Dutch commercial mission to the kingdom of Atjeh, conducted by Vice-Admiral Paulus van Caerden of the Nieuwe Brabantsche Compagnie fleet of Pieter Both with two ships, anchored off Atjeh from 21 September 1600 to January 1601 — is the episode that produced the first formal Dutch-Achehnese pepper contract, the release of the surviving Houtman captives, and, by Van Caerden’s seizure of pepper from Arab junks on 12 January 1601, the first armed clash between the Dutch and the Atjeh shore batteries. The visit is the central episode of Johan van der Woude’s chapter on Atjeh in his Van der Woude (1948).
Background and arrival
Van Caerden had been sent by his admiral Pieter Both to the west coast of Sumatra, where he visited Priaman, Tikoe and Pasaman “zonder resultaat” — pepper was scarce everywhere on the west coast in that season. Deciding to try Atjeh for cargo, “hoewel hij wist wat De Houtman daar was overkomen”, he arrived off the roadstead on 21 September 1600. He was met by the same Franciscan monk who had been pressing the sultan to cede his strongest fort to the Portuguese — the monk whose clumsy intrigue had helped turn the sultan against the Dutch after the Houtman affair. Van Caerden returned the monk’s gifts and had the refreshments he sent first tasted before eating.
The sultan, on Van Caerden’s arrival, set aside unread the letter from Prince Maurits — Van Caerden had heard the sultan complained it was written on pigskin — but released Hans Decker and the two other Dutchmen still held from the 1599 attack. The release was a calculated gesture, designed to show the new arrivals the sultan’s good disposition and to balance the Portuguese interest at court.
The contract of 28 December 1600
Negotiations were opened. The sultan at first signed a contract, then tore it up when the Dutch had Hans Decker translate the text and discovered discrepancies with what had been agreed. On 28 December 1600 a new agreement was reached, fixing the price, quantity, delivery time and export duties, and providing that “geen koopluijden ofte schippers van watt natie die ook zouden mogen zijn en zullen geen peper mogen koopen offte laeden, voor en all eer de Hollanders hare ladinge bekomen hebben”. Van Caerden unwisely agreed to advance part of the payment for the delivery — a concession the Zeeland merchants later criticised — although the escaped Dutch prisoners had already warned him that the sultan planned an attack and that they themselves had been sent to Pedir to summon the Atjeh fleet down.
The flight of Frederik de Houtman and the seizure of the Arab junks
On 30 December 1600, Frederik de Houtman and three companions escaped from Pedir in a small prauw, having fashioned their own sail and oars. They reached Van Caerden’s ship on New Year’s Eve. Houtman offered to return to shore to keep relations smooth during the wait for the new pepper crop; the sultan granted him his freedom, but on his return to land he was seized on a fabricated theft charge at the instigation of the sabander of Pedir, chained, and taken back to Pedir in irons with three companions. Van Caerden, fearing that the sultan would not deliver the pepper for which he had paid in advance, decided to take pepper by force from the Arab junks at anchor on the roadstead. On 12 January 1601 he carried out the seizure; the shore batteries answered with cannon fire; Van Caerden, after warning that the fire must cease, set fire to a number of small coastal craft, including the boat of the Portuguese Franciscan monk.
Van Caerden’s act has been the subject of controversy. The Zeeland merchants Gerard le Roy and Laurens Bicker, who arrived later in 1601, conceded that the sultan’s conduct gave ground for suspicion but argued that Van Caerden had exceeded his commission, since the contract gave him a monopoly only on the new crop and not on cargo already in port. They undertook to compensate the Arab claimants and reached an agreement with the Nieuwe Compagnie in 1602 for the payment of ƒ 51,048 in damages — a sum that, according to Francisc Pyrard, was still unpaid in 1608 and, per Tiele, still pending in 1617. Van der Woude defends Van Caerden: “Van Caerden was gealarmeerd door de berichten van de ontvluchte Hollanders en wantrouwde den vorst, indachtig De Houtman’s waarschuwing. Bovendien was hij er op bedacht waar te ontvangen voor het voorgeschoten geld.”
Departure and aftermath
Van Caerden released the sixty prisoners he had taken from the Arab junks — he did not wish to make enemies of their compatriots — sailed to Poelau Way to wait a few days for an answer from the sultan, and then set course for Bantam by way of the west coast of Sumatra, taking on no cargo. Van Caerden “liet nu de Hollanders van land terugroepen en besloot, bevreesd dat geen levering zou volgen voor de voorgeschoten gelden, peper te lichten uit jonken van Arabische kooplieden, die op de reede lagen.” The visit thus ended in a strategic retreat: the first Dutch-Achehnese contract had been signed, the surviving Houtman captives had been freed, but the pepper monopoly had not been obtained and the Dutch-Achehnese relationship was at its lowest point.
Significance
Paulus van Caerden’s Atjeh visit is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the principal instance of the difficulty the early Dutch companies faced in operating at a court where the sultan’s balancing policy was at once the source of commercial opportunity and the obstacle to monopoly. The visit produced the first written Dutch-Achehnese contract, the first release of Dutch captives from Atjeh, and the first armed clash between Dutch ships and Atjeh shore batteries — three “firsts” that together frame the visit as the pivot on which the early Dutch-Atjeh relationship turned. Van Caerden’s seizure of the Arab junks also established the legal-political pattern that would recur throughout the Dutch-Atjeh relationship: aggressive commercial action by a Dutch commander, controversy at home about whether his instructions permitted it, and a long-running compensation claim that dragged on for years. The visit’s outcome — no monopoly, no cargo, and a damaged relationship — also showed the bewindhebbers that no single fleet could secure the Atjeh trade, a lesson that fed directly into the formation of the united VOC in 1602.
See Also
- Paulus van Caerden
- Pieter Both
- Nieuwe Brabantsche Compagnie
- Houtman brothers’ visit to Atjeh (1599)
- Frederik de Houtman’s Atjeh captivity (1599-1601)
- Hans Decker
- Sultan of Atjeh (1589-1604)
- Gerard le Roy
- Laurens Bicker
- Zeeland Company’s Atjeh mission (1601)
- Sabander
- Pedir
- Priaman
- Tikoe
- Pasaman
- Poelau Way
- Acheh
- 1600
- 1601
Source
Coen, Koopman van Heeren Zeventien. Geschiedenis van den Hollandshen Handel in Indië (1598-1614), by Johan van der Woude (Amsterdam: C.V. Uitgeverij v/h C. De Boer Jr., 1948), Hoofdstuk V “Voorgangers, Hollanders en mededingers tot 1614. Atjeh. Djohor. Malaka.” (pp. 111-115).