Dr. R. Broersma was a Dutch colonial observer, agricultural economist and author of Verkenningen in Atjeh — Reconnaissances in Atjeh — a series of travel essays published in the newspaper De Locomotief in semi-October 1923 and afterwards issued as an offprint with the shelfmark C 527 of the Kon. Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde in Leiden. He is one of the principal non-military observers of Atjeh in the early civilian period, after the formal pacification of the Atjeh-oorlog and the establishment of the first civilian governorship in 1919.
Method and Standpoint
Broersma’s standpoint is that of the practical agricultural economist with a sharp eye for mismanagement and a sympathy for the Atjehnese commoner. He opens his Inleiding with a disavowal of military history: ‘ik heb mij menige oorlogsdaad voorgenomen den strijd niet na te speuren, wenschende te zien het land en het volk in hun staat van vrede’ — I have proposed to myself not to re-trace the war, wishing to see the land and the people in their state of peace. He proposes instead to follow the roads along which ‘een rustig volksbestaan vruchten van den arbeid binnenhaalt tot ruimer welvaart.’
His method is to combine close observation of agriculture and trade with interviews of oeléebalangs in their houses. He records the prices of pepper and pinang, the cost of an artesian boring in Langsa (f 122.931 between 1906 and 1919), the wages of panglong wood-cutters at Bajan (f 3.50 per man per month under the regulation of St. 1909 No. 488), and the prices fetched by an elephant tusk at Peureula, Idi and Peusangan. He takes down the genealogies of chiefs and reports their revenues from the hacil and the petroleum cijns. He is openly critical of Dutch mismanagement — the failed gouvernements rubberonderneming at Langsa opened in 1907 on peat soil that has since sunk under the trees, the expensive and useless dam at Panté Lhong in Peusangan which cost three tons and was ruined because only one arm of the river was dammed — but he is sympathetic to the Atjehnese commoner, whose ‘eeng’ (penny-wise) temperament he takes to be the natural seed of commerce once peace should allow it to develop.
The Verkenningen
The series comprises twenty numbered essays of varying length. The early chapters describe the Tamiang river basin, the underafdeeling Langsa with its wood-cutting industry and leper colony, and the historical region of Perlak. The narrative then advances through Idi, Lho Soekon, the ancient kingdom of Samoedra, Bireuen in the landschap of Peusangan, and the Gajo-weg leading up to Takengon on Laut Tawar. The later essays treat the great rice-plain of Pidië, the Atjeh-tramway in detail, Groot-Atjeh with its capital Kota Radja and the harbour of Oelèë Lheue, the question of Atjeh as a rice country, and finally a series of reflective chapters on cattle-breeding, trade, labour and staatkunde (policy). The series closes with an essay ‘De hand van den meester’ — The hand of the master — written in the third person, in which Broersma summarises his standpoint on the proper future of the gewest.
Sources
Broersma’s authorities are Snouck Hurgronje for the Gajo country and the institutions of Atjeh, J. A. Kruyt for the early blockade-period of the east coast, Dr. Julius Jacobs for the pre-war ethnography of Groot-Atjeh, H. T. Damste for the successions of the eastern landschappen, F. C. van Heurn for the soils of the East Coast, and the Atjeh-Instituut pamphlet De rijkdom van Atjeh for the programme of rice-reform.
Significance
Broersma’s Verkenningen is one of the most detailed non-military surveys of Atjeh in the early civilian period. It treats the country at the moment when the Atjeh-tram met the Deli-spoor at Besitang in 1908 and when the Afdeeling Pidië was detached from the Noordkust van Atjeh in 1922, and it is widely quoted in later colonial literature on the economic geography of northern Sumatra.
See Also
- Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
- Atjeh-tram
- Gajo-weg
- Atjeh als rijstland
- Verbetering van het rijstland in Atjeh
- Veeteelt in Atjeh
- Dr. Snouck Hurgronje
- J. A. Kruyt
- Dr. Julius Jacobs
- H. T. Damste
- F. C. van Heurn
- Atjeh-Instituut
- 1923
Source
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma. Overdruk uit De Locomotief, semi-October 1923. Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Leiden, shelfmark C 527. OCR-filename: 20260719_030404_DLP-119-Verkenningen_in_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.