Dipo Negoro (Pangeran Diponegoro, c. 1786–1855) was a Javanese prince of Yogyakarta whose revolt against the Dutch — the Java War of 1825–1830 — kept the Netherlands-Indian authorities fully occupied in Java and prevented any effective intervention on Sumatra’s East Coast until the close of the decade. He is mentioned once in P. H. van der Kemp (1900), in a footnote to Fullerton’s minute on Acheh of 16 March 1828.
The footnote
The footnote, appended to Fullerton’s discussion of the projected Dutch Bellona mission to Siak and of “the probable proceedings of the Netherlands authorities in respect to Sumatra, whenever their affairs in Java will permit,” runs simply: “(a) Bedoeld wordt de opstand van Dipo Negoro” — that is, “There is reference to the revolt of Dipo Negoro.”
The point is significant. Fullerton, writing from Penang in 1828, assumed that the Dutch would, as soon as they were free of their Javanese entanglements, turn their attention to Sumatra; the editors of Van der Kemp’s article add the explanatory note, since by 1900 the name of Dipo Negoro’s revolt would not necessarily have been self-evident to a Dutch reader who had not lived through the 1820s.
The Java War and Sumatra policy
Dipo Negoro’s revolt broke out in July 1825, after the Dutch began to build a road across a piece of land that he held to be sacred. It rapidly developed into a widespread guerrilla war, drawing in large sections of the Javanese aristocracy and peasantry, and lasted until Dipo Negoro’s capture by treachery at Magelang in March 1830. The war cost the lives of some 8,000 European soldiers and an estimated 200,000 Javanese, and placed an enormous strain on the finances of the Netherlands-Indian government. Du Bus de Gisignies (governor-general 1826–1830) and his successor Van den Bosch (1830–1834) were preoccupied with the war and its aftermath; substantial forces could not be spared for Sumatra.
This is exactly the situation Fullerton had in mind when, in his minute of 1828, he predicted that the Dutch “will avail themselves of the exclusive right which they conceive vested in them by the Treaty of 1824 of forming political relations with the Chiefs of Sumatra, to the full extent of their means … as soon as their affairs in Java will permit.” The Dutch, in other words, had political and treaty claims on Sumatra, but lacked the military resources to enforce them while the Java War continued. The British at Penang and Singapore were therefore free, between 1824 and the early 1830s, to maintain their commercial and political connections with the east-coast Sumatran states — Siak, Deli, Langkat, Batu Bara and others — without serious Dutch competition.
Significance for the article
Van der Kemp’s mention of Dipo Negoro is a single footnote, but it points to the larger strategic context of the article: the British in the Straits of Malacca took their reading of Dutch intentions from a realistic assessment of Dutch capacity, and Dutch capacity was, for most of the period covered by the article, absorbed by Dipo Negoro’s revolt. The Acheh reservation in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824) had committed the Dutch to a vague sphere of influence over Acheh; the Java War meant that, for the time being, that commitment remained, in Van der Kemp’s phrase, a dead letter.
See Also
- Robert Fullerton
- Fullerton’s minute on Acheh (21 March 1825)
- Bellona mission to Sumatra’s East Coast (1827-1828)
- Commissioner-General Du Bus
- Java War (1825-1830)
- Java
- Siak
- Sumatra’s East Coast
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Dead letter
- Penang
- Singapore
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.
Dipo Negoro (Pangeran Diponegoro, c. 1786–1855) was a Javanese prince of Yogyakarta whose revolt against the Dutch — the Java War of 1825–1830 — kept the Netherlands-Indian authorities fully occupied in Java and prevented any effective intervention on Sumatra’s East Coast until the close of the decade. He is mentioned once in P. H. van der Kemp (1900), in a footnote to Fullerton’s minute on Acheh of 16 March 1828.
The footnote
The footnote, appended to Fullerton’s discussion of the projected Dutch Bellona mission to Siak and of “the probable proceedings of the Netherlands authorities in respect to Sumatra, whenever their affairs in Java will permit,” runs simply: “(a) Bedoeld wordt de opstand van Dipo Negoro” — that is, “There is reference to the revolt of Dipo Negoro.”
The point is significant. Fullerton, writing from Penang in 1828, assumed that the Dutch would, as soon as they were free of their Javanese entanglements, turn their attention to Sumatra; the editors of Van der Kemp’s article add the explanatory note, since by 1900 the name of Dipo Negoro’s revolt would not necessarily have been self-evident to a Dutch reader who had not lived through the 1820s.
The Java War and Sumatra policy
Dipo Negoro’s revolt broke out in July 1825, after the Dutch began to build a road across a piece of land that he held to be sacred. It rapidly developed into a widespread guerrilla war, drawing in large sections of the Javanese aristocracy and peasantry, and lasted until Dipo Negoro’s capture by treachery at Magelang in March 1830. The war cost the lives of some 8,000 European soldiers and an estimated 200,000 Javanese, and placed an enormous strain on the finances of the Netherlands-Indian government. Du Bus de Gisignies (governor-general 1826–1830) and his successor Van den Bosch (1830–1834) were preoccupied with the war and its aftermath; substantial forces could not be spared for Sumatra.
This is exactly the situation Fullerton had in mind when, in his minute of 1828, he predicted that the Dutch “will avail themselves of the exclusive right which they conceive vested in them by the Treaty of 1824 of forming political relations with the Chiefs of Sumatra, to the full extent of their means … as soon as their affairs in Java will permit.” The Dutch, in other words, had political and treaty claims on Sumatra, but lacked the military resources to enforce them while the Java War continued. The British at Penang and Singapore were therefore free, between 1824 and the early 1830s, to maintain their commercial and political connections with the east-coast Sumatran states — Siak, Deli, Langkat, Batu Bara and others — without serious Dutch competition.
Significance for the article
Van der Kemp’s mention of Dipo Negoro is a single footnote, but it points to the larger strategic context of the article: the British in the Straits of Malacca took their reading of Dutch intentions from a realistic assessment of Dutch capacity, and Dutch capacity was, for most of the period covered by the article, absorbed by Dipo Negoro’s revolt. The Acheh reservation in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824) had committed the Dutch to a vague sphere of influence over Acheh; the Java War meant that, for the time being, that commitment remained, in Van der Kemp’s phrase, a dead letter.
See Also
- Robert Fullerton
- Fullerton’s minute on Acheh (21 March 1825)
- Bellona mission to Sumatra’s East Coast (1827-1828)
- Commissioner-General Du Bus
- Java War (1825-1830)
- Java
- Siak
- Sumatra’s East Coast
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Dead letter
- Penang
- Singapore
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.