The vaccination unrest in Groot Atjeh of April 1914 was a brief flare-up of tension in the quiet, directly administered territory of Groot Atjeh, caused by the conduct of an offensive vaccinator under a district head to whom the population dared not complain, and resolved without violence after the intervention of the controleur and a full discussion with the population.
Causes
Vaccination remained always a sensitive point in Atjeh. On this occasion it was moreover carried out by an “onhebbelijken vaccinateur” and under a district head to whom the population did not dare complain. “All the elements for a resistance were thus present again — and then unfriendly chance brought still further confusion.”
A follower of the district head pointed out that if people did not let themselves be vaccinated, the Kompeuni would be in the gampong within a few hours and then one would be vaccinated by means of the bayonet.
Chance willed that a couple of hours later a patrol under an officer came to bivouac in that moekim, whereupon the population brought the women and children into safety outside the gampong, while the younger men armed themselves with klewangs in order to offer resistance if possible. The keutjhi’ and the elders were able to restrain them.
A few days later another patrol happened to spend the night there, and again the younger men armed themselves.
Resolution
After the controleur, accompanied by the oelèëbalang and the keutjhi’s, had discussed the matter fully with the population, all concerned asked ampon (forgiveness). They requested, however, that the vaccinator should not be sent back to Lam Seuninja, and that the Toean Besar should point out to the district head that he should be somewhat more accessible to his population.
“Where the complaints proved well founded, the district head was seriously spoken to by the reporting officer about his conduct,” H. N. A. Swart wrote in the monthly report — “and such an interview with Swart was never pleasant.”
Significance
The affair passed off well, but it belongs to a recurring pattern: the same cause produced the more serious Teungkoe Moet affair in the Boven Wòjla in April 1918, and the Koloniaal Verslag records vaccination and re-vaccination on a large scale during the smallpox epidemic on the north coast in 1915, brought to a standstill in 1916. It illustrates du Croo’s argument that the outbreaks of the later pacification years arose from local grievances and offended dignity rather than from political resistance — and that patient investigation and redress, rather than force, disposed of them.
“This case still ended well, but in 1914 more serious things happened on the West Coast”: the murder of civil authority W. van Kregten at Lam No followed on 20 May 1914.
See Also
- H. N. A. Swart
- Groot Atjeh
- Lam Seuninja
- Coconut and Sugar-Cane Excursion (April 1918)
- Resistance in Daja and Lhong (1914)
- The resistance in Atjeh 1913–1918
- 1914
Source
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter XII, pp. 122–123.