Scherer’s Nota — Nota, gedagteekend: Kota-Radja, 19 April 1880 (Memorandum, dated: Kota-Radja, 19 April 1880), the policy memorandum submitted by Scherer to the Dutch colonial government from Kota-Radja on 19 April 1880 — is the foundational document of the scheepvaartregeling (shipping regulation) concept that Van Heutsz would adopt, twelve years later, as the central prescription of his 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh. The Nota — addressed to the Regeering (Government) at the high-water mark of the Van der Heijden governorship, three months before the General’s day-order of 5 September 1879 had been issued and seven months before the General’s own Nota of 19 April 1880 — articulated, for the first time in the Atjeh record, the principles of a controlled routing of all Atjehnese maritime trade through Dutch-administered ports, with duties levied on the in- and out-flow of goods, as the alternative to both the blokkade (blockade) and the concentratiestelsel (concentration system). Van Heutsz, who served as Van der Heijden’s chef van den staf (chief of staff) in Atjeh and would later reproduce the Nota’s principles verbatim in the 1893 tract, calls it a “zeer belangrijke Nota” (a very important memorandum) — a very important memorandum — and treats it as the gewichtige antwoord op de vraag van Pel in zijn brief van 30 April 1875 (weighty answer to the question of Pel in his letter of 30 April 1875): the weighty answer to the question Pel himself had posed in his letter of 30 April 1875 — what, after the completion of his plan, was to be done?
The dateline: Kota-Radja, 19 April 1880
The Nota’s dateline — Kota-Radja, 19 April 1880 — fixes its provenance in the seat of the Atjeh government at the moment of Van der Heijden’s high-water mark. Van Heutsz’s reference:
“Hem was het echter eene flinke marinemacht over den toen noodigen vorm van bestuur, zoo helder en overtuigend uitgebracht in zijne, daarover aan de Regeering ingediende zeer be- langrijke Nota, gedagteekend: Kota-Radja, 19 April 1880”.
The Nota was submitted by Scherer — at the time wd. assistent-resident (acting assistant resident) on the Noordkust of Atjeh — to the Regeering at Batavia as his formal exposition of the scheepvaartregeling concept. The choice of Kota-Radja as the dateline — rather than Scherer’s own standplaats (station) on the Noordkust — marks the Nota as a Kota-Radja document, submitted through the seat of the Atjeh government and addressed, by the Gouverneur tevens militair bevelhebber (Governor and at the same time military commander), to the Regeering at Batavia.
The Nota’s content: the scheepvaartregeling concept
The Nota’s central proposal was the controlled routing of all Atjehnese maritime trade through Dutch-administered ports, with the in- and out-flow of goods placed under Dutch contrôle (supervision) and duties levied on the trade as the instrument of coercion over the hoofden van de verschillende staatjes (chiefs of the various statelets). Van Heutsz’s formulation of the principle:
“Geen in- noch uitvoer toelatende, dan op de plaatsen waar wij gevestigd waren en daar alles geplaatst onder onze contrôle, zouden wij het heft in handen krijgen, omdat wij dan, zooals thans reeds in meerdere brochures is gezegd, op de geldkist zouden zitten. Wij zouden daardoor in staat zijn zoowel tot beloonen als straffen, wij konden daardoor dwingen tot gehoorzaamheid, tot volgen van bevelen”.
The op de geldkist zitten formula (sitting on the cash-box) — sitting on the cash-box — was Scherer’s own phrase for the political-economic mechanism the scheepvaartregeling would establish: by routing all trade through Dutch-administered ports and levying duties on its in- and out-flow, the colony would acquire the middel tot beloonen als straffen (means both of rewarding and of punishing) — the instrument of reward and punishment — and the middel om de hoofden van de verschillende staatjes in het rechte spoor te houden (means of keeping the chiefs of the various statelets on the right track) — the instrument to keep the chiefs of the various statelets on the right track. The Nota thus proposed a stelsel (system) that would, in Van Heutsz’s reading, complete what the military conquest of Groot-Atjeh had begun: “ware het den Generaal van der Heijden gegeven geworden, dit op een juisten grondslag berustende stelsel uit te voeren, hij, die reeds over het brandpunt van het verzet winnaar was van Groot-Atjeh … zou in korten tijd het geheele rijk den voet op den nek gezet, het eerst tot volkomen rust en vrede, daarna tot welvaart hebben gebracht”.
The Gighen–Samalanga kruisboot-bangoen method
The Nota’s empirical foundation was the Gighen–Samalanga kruisboot-bangoen test of 1880 — the operation in which Scherer, having obtained Van der Heijden’s vergunning (permission), laid a kruisboot (a marine patrol vessel) before the harbours of Gighen and Samalanga and collected the bangoen (the blood-price) owed for the murders of Said Abdellah and Soetan Maharadja by levying duties on the in- and out-going goods. Van Heutsz records the empirical test:
“door het gebeurde te Gighen en te Samalanga, waar onze zendelingen Said Abdellah en Soetan Maharadja vermoord waren, en waar men telkens uitvluchten zocht in het betalen van den opgelegden bangoen (bloedprijs). Hij verzocht en verkreeg toen van den Generaal van der Heijden vergunning om vóór die havens een kruisboot te leggen en den bangoen te innen door rechten te heffen op de in- en uit te voeren goederen. Dit hielp; te Gighen betaalde men nog vóór dat de kruisboot er lag en te Samalanga, nadat de kruisboot er slechts drie dagen gelegen had”.
The kruisboot-bangoen method (patrol-vessel blood-price method) — the laying of a kruisboot before a harbour and the levying of duties on its trade to coerce a chief into paying the bangoen — was, in Van Heutsz’s reading, the empirical discovery that gave Scherer the fingerwijzing (pointer) on which the entire scheepvaartregeling rested:
“Dat was voor Scherer eene vingerwijzing en bracht hem op het denkbeeld, dat als slechts alle in- en uitvoer langs onze vestigingen plaats had onder onze contrôle, wij ook het middel in de hand hadden om de hoofden van de verschillende staatjes in het rechte spoor te houden”.
The Nota of 19 April 1880 was the formal articulation of this denkbeeld (idea) — the kruisboot-bangoen test generalised into a colonial-wide stelsel (system) of controlled trade.
Van Heutsz’s praise of the Nota
Van Heutsz’s praise of the Nota is the highest he accords any policy document in the entire 1893 tract. The Nota is, in his reading, the long-deferred answer to Pel’s question of 30 April 1875 — het gewichtige antwoord op de vraag van Pel in zijn brief van 30 April 1875 wat, na voltooiing van zijn plan, moest gedaan worden in ons politiek en handelsbelang (the weighty answer to the question of Pel in his letter of 30 April 1875 — what, after the completion of his plan, had to be done in our political and commercial interest) — and the long-deferred revision of article 5 of Van Swieten’s Instructie — dit geeft ook de wijziging aan, welke art. 5 van de Instructie van Generaal van Swieten moest ondergaan (this also gives the modification that article 5 of the Instruction of General Van Swieten had to undergo). The Nota is “zeer belangrijk” (very important) — very important — and its author is the man “uit wiens helder brein het eerst het denkbeeld van eene rationeele regeling voor handel en scheepvaart in verband met onze vestigingen op de kusten, is gesproten” (from whose clear mind the idea of a rational regulation for trade and shipping in connection with our establishments on the coasts first sprang). The Nota’s principle — that the contrôle op handel en scheepvaart (supervision of trade and shipping) would put the Dutch “op de geldkist van Atjeh” — became, in the 1893 tract, the central prescription of the policy-prescription half, and was the principle Van Heutsz would himself implement, in modified form, as Gouverneur van Atjeh from 1898 onward. The Nota’s stelsel was, however, never applied in its original form. Generaal van der Heijden — the only governor Van Heutsz credits with the krachtige individualiteit (forceful individuality) to carry the stelsel through — was dismissed “in het begin van 1881 op onverantwoordelijke wijze”, and the Nota’s principle was, for the next decade, deferred. The first partial application came in May 1883 under Laging Tobias — “de scheepvaartregeling door Scherer voorgesteld en door Laging Tobias ingevoerd gaf alles wat men kon verlangen” — and was then abolished, with Demmeni’s hybrid besluit (decree) of 13 October 1884 and the Concentratiebesluit of 19 August 1884, in the colony’s two great acts of self-betrayal.
Significance
Scherer’s Nota of 19 April 1880 is, in Van Heutsz’s narrative, the foundational document of the scheepvaartregeling concept — the controlled routing of all Atjehnese maritime trade through Dutch-administered ports with duties levied on the in- and out-flow of goods — that Van Heutsz would adopt, twelve years later, as the central prescription of his 1893 tract. Its significance in the Aceh Wiki History record lies in four things. First, it was the first formal articulation of the scheepvaartregeling concept — the stelsel that, in Van Heutsz’s reading, was the long-deferred answer to Pel’s question of 30 April 1875 and the long-deferred revision of article 5 of Van Swieten’s Instructie. Second, its empirical foundation was the Gighen–Samalanga kruisboot-bangoen test of 1880 — the operation in which Scherer, having obtained Van der Heijden’s vergunning, laid a kruisboot before the harbours and collected the bangoen by levying duties on the trade — that gave Scherer the fingerwijzing on which the entire scheepvaartregeling rested. Third, its author was the man Van Heutsz identifies as the only colonial official who could have advised Generaal van der Heijden how to construct the scheepvaartregeling — and whose resignation in early October 1884, when Demmeni only half-applied his scheme, was the moment Van Heutsz marks as the colony’s loss of the only man who could have advised the General. Fourth, its principle — that the contrôle op handel en scheepvaart would put the Dutch “op de geldkist van Atjeh” — was the principle Van Heutsz would himself implement, in modified form, as Gouverneur van Atjeh from 1898 onward, and the principle on which the pacification of Atjeh would finally be accomplished.
See Also
- Scherer
- Scheepvaartregeling
- Bangoen
- Kruisboot
- Gighen
- Samalanga
- Said Abdellah
- Soetan Maharadja
- Van der Heijden
- Kota Radja
- Pel’s Plan (30 April 1875)
- Van Swieten’s Instructie (22 April 1874)
- Laging Tobias
- Demmeni
- Concentratiebesluit (19 Augustus 1884)
- De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)
- 1880
Source
De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders Van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, esp. pp. 22, 26–28. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.