J. A. van den Broek was a Dutch colonial historian and encyclopaedist whose article on the English in the Malay Archipelago, contributed to the Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië, is cited twice by Van der Kemp in his 1900 monograph on the Raffles–Coombs convention and the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824. Van den Broek’s article is one of the few Dutch-language secondary sources that Van der Kemp credits with substantive insight into the Acheh question.
The Encyclopaedia Article
Van den Broek’s article — “De Engelschen in den Maleischen Archipel” — appeared in the Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië and treated, among other things, the political and commercial relations between Great Britain and the Netherlands in the Malay Archipelago during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Van der Kemp cites it twice: first for Van den Broek’s observation that Raffles’s treaty of April 1819 did not in fact restore Sultan Jauhar Alum to the throne of Acheh, and second for the proposition that the Acheh convention of 1819 contained certain provisions said to be “favourable to the general interests of Europeans settled in the Eastern seas.”
On Raffles’ Treaty and the Restoration of Jauhar Alum
The first citation occurs in the course of Van der Kemp’s discussion of the practical futility of the 1819 mission. Raffles had returned from Acheh professing himself “highly satisfied” with the treaty he had extracted from the sultan, but Van der Kemp insists that “in reality nothing had been gained, and the commission might just as well have stayed at home.” Even the claim that Jauhar Alum had been restored to his throne — the ostensible diplomatic achievement of the mission — was, as Van den Broek had already remarked, hollow: affairs in Acheh remained precisely as they had been, and the departure of Syf from the capital neither improved nor worsened Jauhar Alum’s position. The observation is one that Van der Kemp credits as just and historically acute.
On Article 6 and the “Provisions Favourable to Europeans”
The second citation, drawn from page 502 of the Encyclopaedie, comes in Van der Kemp’s devastating analysis of the British plenipotentiaries’ contention — accepted by the Dutch negotiators at London in February 1824 — that the Acheh convention contained “certain provisions favourable to the general interests of Europeans settled in the Eastern seas.” Van den Broek had repeated this characterisation, and Van der Kemp cites him as a representative of the historiographical tradition that had been too ready to follow the British note without examining the actual text of the treaty. The irony, Van der Kemp shows, is that the prohibition on European settlement in Acheh could not by any reasonable reading be equated with a monopoly of trade: trade had always been conducted with countries in which no Europeans were resident, and the prohibition on residence was not, in 1819, a prohibition on commerce.
Critical Reception
Van der Kemp’s two citations of Van den Broek point in opposite directions: the encyclopaedist is praised for his clear-eyed assessment of Jauhar Alum’s “restoration” as a nullity, but is taken to task for echoing the British misreading of Article 6. Both citations, however, indicate that Van den Broek’s article was among the standard Dutch reference works on the colonial history of the archipelago at the turn of the twentieth century.
See Also
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Sultan Jauhar Alum
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Captain Coombs
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- P. H. van der Kemp
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.
J. A. van den Broek was a Dutch colonial historian and encyclopaedist whose article on the English in the Malay Archipelago, contributed to the Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië, is cited twice by Van der Kemp in his 1900 monograph on the Raffles–Coombs convention and the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824. Van den Broek’s article is one of the few Dutch-language secondary sources that Van der Kemp credits with substantive insight into the Acheh question.
The Encyclopaedia Article
Van den Broek’s article — “De Engelschen in den Maleischen Archipel” — appeared in the Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië and treated, among other things, the political and commercial relations between Great Britain and the Netherlands in the Malay Archipelago during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Van der Kemp cites it twice: first for Van den Broek’s observation that Raffles’s treaty of April 1819 did not in fact restore Sultan Jauhar Alum to the throne of Acheh, and second for the proposition that the Acheh convention of 1819 contained certain provisions said to be “favourable to the general interests of Europeans settled in the Eastern seas.”
On Raffles’ Treaty and the Restoration of Jauhar Alum
The first citation occurs in the course of Van der Kemp’s discussion of the practical futility of the 1819 mission. Raffles had returned from Acheh professing himself “highly satisfied” with the treaty he had extracted from the sultan, but Van der Kemp insists that “in reality nothing had been gained, and the commission might just as well have stayed at home.” Even the claim that Jauhar Alum had been restored to his throne — the ostensible diplomatic achievement of the mission — was, as Van den Broek had already remarked, hollow: affairs in Acheh remained precisely as they had been, and the departure of Syf from the capital neither improved nor worsened Jauhar Alum’s position. The observation is one that Van der Kemp credits as just and historically acute.
On Article 6 and the “Provisions Favourable to Europeans”
The second citation, drawn from page 502 of the Encyclopaedie, comes in Van der Kemp’s devastating analysis of the British plenipotentiaries’ contention — accepted by the Dutch negotiators at London in February 1824 — that the Acheh convention contained “certain provisions favourable to the general interests of Europeans settled in the Eastern seas.” Van den Broek had repeated this characterisation, and Van der Kemp cites him as a representative of the historiographical tradition that had been too ready to follow the British note without examining the actual text of the treaty. The irony, Van der Kemp shows, is that the prohibition on European settlement in Acheh could not by any reasonable reading be equated with a monopoly of trade: trade had always been conducted with countries in which no Europeans were resident, and the prohibition on residence was not, in 1819, a prohibition on commerce.
Critical Reception
Van der Kemp’s two citations of Van den Broek point in opposite directions: the encyclopaedist is praised for his clear-eyed assessment of Jauhar Alum’s “restoration” as a nullity, but is taken to task for echoing the British misreading of Article 6. Both citations, however, indicate that Van den Broek’s article was among the standard Dutch reference works on the colonial history of the archipelago at the turn of the twentieth century.
See Also
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Sultan Jauhar Alum
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Captain Coombs
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- P. H. van der Kemp
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.