Hok Canton (ship)

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tagsorganization, ship, dutch, colonial, aceh-war, 19th-century, 1886, 1893, toekoe-oemar, hok-canton, piracy, rigaih, scheepvaartregeling, event, acehnese, westkust, kemala, ransom
aliasesHok Canton, SS Hok Canton, Steamship Hok Canton, Hok Canton incident (1886), Hok Canton geschiedenis 1886, the 1886 Hok Canton affair, de in Juni 1886 voorgevallene treurige Hok Canton geschiedenis, de Hok Canton geschiedenis, Hok Canton affair (June 1886), Hok Canton incident, Capture of the Hok Canton, Piracy of the Hok Canton, June 1886 Hok Canton affair

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The Hok Canton — the steamship Hok Canton — was the merchant vessel captured by the Atjèhse chieftain Teukoe Oema at the roadstead of Rigaih on the Westkust of Atjèh in June 1886, in the period of Toekoe Oema’s mastery of the Westkust under the concentration system. The capture, the subsequent ransom of the prisoners for 25,000 dollars, and the division of the ransom between Toekoe Oema and Kemala together constitute one of the principal Atjèhse acts of piracy against foreign shipping of the middle phase of the Atjèh-oorlog — and the empirical event that, in Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh, turned both the colony’s former Civil Governor (1881–1883) and the sitting Governor of Atjeh (Generaal Demmeni) into advocates of a return to the scheepvaartregeling that the Concentratie had abolished.

The 1886 Capture

The steamship Hok Canton was captured by Teukoe Oema at the roadstead of Rigaih on the Westkust of Atjèh in June 1886. The capture — in the period of Toekoe Oema’s mastery of the Westkust, when he levied taxes, pressed the population, and murdered, robbed, and burned where resistance was offered — was one of the principal Atjèhse acts of piracy against foreign shipping of the middle phase of the war.

The Precedents

The capture of the Hok Canton was, however, not Toekoe Oema’s first act of piracy. In 1884 — before his submission to the Dutch — Toekoe Oema had, after being conveyed by the warship Benkoelen from Meulaboh to Rigaih and thence to Lambeusong, massacred the armed sloop of the Benkoelen that had brought him and his companions ashore at Lambeusong. The massacre of the sloop of the Benkoelen and the capture of the Hok Canton were, in Toekoe Oema’s later account — when he again feigned good disposition and offered submission — the deeds of his youth, done in thoughtlessness. But they were the deeds that the Dutch would later disregard when they armed him as their principal Atjèhse auxiliary in the Pahlawan-klucht.

The Ransom

For 25,000 dollars the Dutch bought the prisoners of the Hok Canton free with difficulty. The ransom of 25,000 dollars — approximately ƒ12,500 — was a substantial sum, though less than the ƒ100,000 ransom paid for the crew of the Nisero in September 1884. The difficulty of the negotiation indicates the weakness of the Dutch position on the Westkust in this period; the Dutch had no force capable of compelling Toekoe Oema to release the prisoners, and were obliged to pay the ransom he demanded. Kemala received its share of the ransom.

Account from De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893) — the political significance

Van Heutsz records the Hok Canton geschiedenis in his 1893 tract as the empirical event that, in June 1886, turned the colony’s most optimistic voices into advocates of a return to the scheepvaartregeling. The text fixes the date and the characterization:

“Dit nu was zelfs den grootsten optimist … den gewezen Gouverneur van 1881 tot 1883 te kras en betoogde zelfs hij, na de in Juni 1886 voorgevallen treurige Hok Canton geschiedenis, aan de Regeering, dat dit ellendige zwakke stelsel moest vervangen worden door eene scheepvaartregeling die dwang kon uitoefenen”.

The Hok Canton geschiedenis was, in Van Heutsz’s text, te kras — too crude, too flagrant — for even the greatest optimist of the civil administration, the gewezen Gouverneur van 1881 tot 1883 — the former Civil Governor of 1881–1883 — to bear. The incident had, in Van Heutsz’s diagnosis, demonstrated the failure of “dit ellendige zwakke stelsel” — this miserable weak system — that the Concentratie of 19 August 1884 had imposed, and had compelled the former Civil Governor to address the Regeering on the necessity of its replacement by a scheepvaartregeling “die dwang kon uitoefenen” — that could exert coercion. The same was, Van Heutsz records, the response of the sitting Gouverneur van Atjeh of June 1886:

“Ook de Gouverneur van Atjeh … na die Hok Canton geschiedenis, verplicht nogmaals op de invoering van eene scheepvaartregeling aan te dringen”.

The sitting Governor of Atjeh — at the time of the June 1886 incident, Generaal Demmeni — was, after the Hok Canton geschiedenis, “verplicht” — obliged — once more to urge on the Regeering the introduction of a scheepvaartregeling. The June 1886 incident was, in this sense, the event that produced, from both the colony’s former and sitting Governors, the same demand: a return to the scheepvaartregeling Scherer had introduced in May 1883 and that the Concentratie had abolished.

The polemical context of 1886

The Hok Canton geschiedenis of June 1886 was the most conspicuous of a series of polemical publications and incidents of 1886 that, taken together, constituted the public turning of the policy tide against the cajoleering-decade of 1884–1886. The 1886 polemical context — which Van Heutsz catalogues in the historical movement of the 1893 tract — included the Tijdspiegel of July 1886 (which published Kielstra’s testimony on the colony’s state); the Militairen Spectator of 1886 (which published W. Cool’s Het Atjeh-vraagstuk); the Indische Gids of December 1886 (which published Laging Tobias’s article Het herstel van het sultanaat in Atjeh); the De Gids of May 1886; and the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of 29 September 1886 (which published Kessler’s edition of Van Swieten’s 1886 letter on the sultanaat question). The Hok Canton geschiedenis of June 1886 fell, in this context, in the middle of the 1886 polemical sequence, and was the empirical event the polemical publications were, in effect, called forth to address.

The June 1886 incident was also contemporaneous with two other events of the same year that Van Heutsz catalogues in the historical movement of the 1893 tract: the death of Generaal Demmeni at the end of 1886, which opened the governorship to Kolonel van Teijn; and the revival, at ministerial level, of the herstel van het sultanaat under Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed by Minister Sprenger van Eijk in 1886, on the prompting of Laging Tobias’s December 1886 article and of Fransen van de Putte’s Parlementaire Redevoeringen. The Hok Canton geschiedenis was, in Van Heutsz’s chronology, the empirical event that, in June 1886, produced the demands for a return to the scheepvaartregeling; the ministerial revival of the sultanaat-idea was, in the same chronology, the political event that, in the same year, produced the contrary demand for a restoration of the sultanate under Mohamad Daoed. The two events together defined the policy-options of the post-Demmeni governorship that Kolonel van Teijn would, from the end of 1886, inherit.

The Hok Canton and the Raijah piracy of 1893

The Hok Canton appears a second time in the literature of Acehnese piracy, seven years after her own capture, in a role exactly opposite to that of 1886: not as the vessel taken, but as the vessel that escaped notice. In the account given by P. H. R. Beuming of the seizure of the steamer *Raijah* on the night of 20 July 1893, seven men of Pedir boarded the Raijah at Telok Semawé because of a rumour that she carried a large sum of money for the controleur at Edi. They killed the helmsman, the second mate and the captain, and left twenty-four dead; but the plunder, Beuming noted, zal wel erg tegengevallen zijn — must have been a severe disappointment — because the money-consignment had niet met de Raijah, maar met de Hok Canton plaats gehad: it had gone not with the Raijah but with the Hok Canton.

The coincidence is not remarked upon by Beuming, who does not connect the vessel to the 1886 affair, and the two episodes belong to different phases and different coasts of the war — the 1886 capture to the Westkust under the concentration system, the 1893 massacre to the Noordkust in the last years before the new policy. They are recorded here together only because the same ship’s name stands in both.

Significance

The Hok Canton is the merchant vessel whose capture by Toekoe Oema at the roadstead of Rigaih in June 1886 — and the subsequent ransom of the prisoners for 25,000 dollars, divided between Toekoe Oema and Kemala — constitutes one of the principal Atjèhse acts of piracy against foreign shipping of the middle phase of the Atjèh-oorlog. The capture, with the earlier 1884 massacre of the sloop of the Benkoelen at Lambeusong, was one of the two principal acts of Toekoe Oema’s pre-submission career that the Dutch would later disregard when they armed him as their principal Atjèhse auxiliary — and that the defection of 29 March 1896 would expose as the warning signs that the Dutch had refused to recognise.

In Van Heutsz’s 1893 narrative, the Hok Canton incident of June 1886 is also the empirical event that turned both the colony’s former Civil Governor (1881–1883) and the sitting Governor of Atjeh (Generaal Demmeni) into advocates of a return to the scheepvaartregeling that the Concentratie had abolished. The incident demonstrated, even to “den grootsten optimist” — the greatest optimist — of the colony’s civil administration, that “dit ellendige zwakke stelsel” — the cajoleering-policy of 1884–1886 — had to be replaced by “eene scheepvaartregeling die dwang kon uitoefenen” — a scheepvaartregeling that could exert coercion. It produced, from both the colony’s former and sitting Governors, the same demand — the gewezen Gouverneur van 1881 tot 1883’s address to the Regeering and the sitting Gouverneur van Atjeh’s “verplicht nogmaals op de invoering van eene scheepvaartregeling aan te dringen” — and so constituted the empirical proof that the cajoleering-policy had lost the support of the very officials who had been charged with its execution. The Hok Canton geschiedenis was, in this sense, the event that opened the policy-space within which Kolonel van Teijn’s governorship of 1886–1891 — the closure of the Noord- en Westkust of 1889–1890 — would, in the event, be conducted.

See Also

Sources

De Atjeh-Oorlog: Kort Overzicht van Oorsprong, Verloop en Gevolg, door J. A. Kruijt. ‘s-Gravenhage: Loman & Funke, 1896. Chapter IX. OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-101-De_Atjeh_oorlog_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, p. 50.

Drie Atjeh-mannen: Snouck Hurgronje — Van Heutsz — Van Daalen, door H. T. Damsté (September 1936). OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-111-Drie_Atjeh_mannen_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, p. 25.

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. p. 44 (and the 1886 polemical context referenced on pp. 28, 33). OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.

Schetsen uit den strijd op Groot-Atjeh, met speciaal vervaardigde kaart en toepasselijke photo’s, bewerkt door P. H. R. Beuming, oud-onderofficier van het Ned.-Indische Leger (Amsterdam, December 1911). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br N 82-144, pp. 9–11.

Acknowledgement of sources. This article combines material from the publications cited above. Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering. De Atjeh-Oorlog: Kort Overzicht van Oorsprong, Verloop en Gevolg, door J. A. Kruijt. ‘s-Gravenhage: Loman & Funke, 1896. Chapter IX, “Blokkade en Concentratie onder den Civiel en Militair Gouverneur Demmeni, van September 1884 tot December 1886.” OCR-filename: 20260716_140310_DLP-101-De_Atjeh_oorlog_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 50–52. The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

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