Said Hussein's expedition to Acheh (1815)

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tagsevent, mission, war, acheh
aliasesHussain's expedition 1815

4 min read

Said Hussein’s expedition to Acheh of mid-1815 was the maritime undertaking by which Said Hussein, a wealthy Penang-based merchant of remote Achehnese royal descent, and his son Syf sailed from Penang to Acheh to seize the sultanate on the latter’s behalf. The expedition was the decisive act in the Acheh civil war, installing Syf as the rival sultan and inaugurating the dual rule that would persist — Jauhar Alum at Pedir, Syf at Telok Semawé — until the treaty of 22 April 1819.

Background

Since 1802 Sultan Jauhar Alum had reigned at Acheh “in so far as circumstances permitted.” After a ten-year reign the opposition party judged itself strong enough to seek a replacement, and fixed its eye upon Said Hussein. Hussein was said to be a remote kinsman of the sultans’ house, but his chief qualification was presumably his wealth: he was a very rich merchant established at Penang. The party offered him the throne, with the proviso that, should he deem himself too old, his second son Syf would be acceptable as a counter-king. The son — Van der Kemp’s characterisation is unsparing — was “a scoundrel like the rest” and had hitherto served as boatswain, or something of the sort, on his father’s proas.

Hussein declined the crown for himself but accepted it on behalf of his son. The throne, however, still had to be won, and to that end a fleet was fitted out at Penang.

The Expedition

The British administration at Penang had no particular reason to intervene: as recently as 1814 the Canning mission had received a highly insulting reception from Sultan Jauhar Alum and his court, and the Pinang government was content to let the Achehnese sort out their own affairs. Hussein therefore sailed in the middle of 1815, accompanied by his son Syf, and on arrival the latter was proclaimed sultan as Sil-ul-illum Shak by the assembled chiefs.

Among the supporters of the revolution was the relatively powerful coastal chief of Pedir, Tuku Paekie, who had contributed much to its success. Before long, however, Paekie quarrelled with Syf and reverted to the party of the dispossessed Sultan Jauhar Alum, whose seat he established at Pedir. For Syf Acheh itself soon became too hot: following Jauhar Alum’s example, he withdrew to the east coast and fixed his residence at Telok Semawé, between Pedir and Penang. At Banda Acheh itself the federation of the Three Sagis held effective power.

Consequences

The expedition created the dual sultanate — Jauhar Alum at Pedir, Syf at Telok Semawé — that would form the immediate background to the Raffles-Coombs commission of 1819. The civil war continued for several years with such varying fortune that the government of Penang eventually did not know which of the two pretenders should be recognised. The dispute would, as Van der Kemp observes, generate the conflict between Raffles and Bannerman that gave rise to the commission, and ultimately to the Treaty of Pedir (1819).

The expedition also implicated the Tunku Pakih of Pedir in the larger story: his capture of a British brig shortly before Captain Coombs’s first mission to Acheh, and his subsequent death at the hands of the Shahbandar of Acheh during the Raffles-Coombs commission, were both episodes in the web of intrigue that began with Hussein’s expedition.

See Also

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.

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