J. T. Cremer

Properties2
tagsperson, dutch, colonial, agriculture, east-sumatra, politician, acheh, liberal, minister, mining
aliasesJ.T. Cremer, Cremer, Jan Theodore Cremer, Jacob Theodoor Cremer, minister Cremer, Cremer (liberal minister of Colonies)

19 min read

J. T. Cremer was the organising genius of the tobacco-planting era on Sumatra’s East Coast in the 1870s and early 1880s, founder of the Deli Planters Vereeniging and the principal driver of the Deli Maatschappij’s growth from a modest initial enterprise to the largest plantation company in the Dutch East Indies. He repatriated to the Netherlands in 1883, but his administrative, organisational, and institutional legacy shaped the East Coast’s development for the remainder of the colonial period.

Role in Deli

In the formative decade of Deli’s tobacco industry following the pioneering work of Jacobus Nienhuys, who had initiated the culture in 1863 and repatriated in 1871, Cremer became, in Volker’s characterisation, “Deli’s leading figure.” His contributions were primarily organisational: he rationalised labour relations, drove the expansion of immigration infrastructure, and built the institutional frameworks — company and association — that transformed isolated plantation ventures into a coordinated regional economy.

Foundation of the Deli Planters Vereeniging

On 23 April 1879, on Cremer’s initiative, the Deli Planters Vereeniging (D.P.V.) was founded, with Cremer, A. Breker, and Jhr. H. J. L. Leyssius forming its first board. The Vereeniging became the central institution of the East Coast’s plantation economy, regulating labour relations, managing immigration, providing welfare services, and serving as the planters’ collective voice toward the colonial government.

The 1874 China mission

In 1874, several years before the formal establishment of the D.P.V., Cremer made a mission to China to arrange the regulated emigration of Chinese workers to Deli. The Chinese labourers he helped recruit became the dominant workforce of the early tobacco industry; this direct immigration channel, later supplemented by Javanese immigration, enabled the Deli plantation economy to scale rapidly despite the sparse indigenous population of the East Coast.

Growth of the Deli Maatschappij

Cremer’s impact on the Deli Maatschappij — founded in 1869 by the Handel Maatschappij, Janssen, Clemen, and Nienhuys as the first naamlooze vennootschap (joint-stock company) in the Indies — is most legibly expressed in the capital growth that occurred during and after his tenure:

YearCapital
1869ƒ300,000
1873ƒ500,000
1876ƒ800,000
1878ƒ2,000,000
1881ƒ4,000,000
1919ƒ13,500,000
1927ƒ30,000,000

Cremer repatriated in 1883, by which time the Deli Maatschappij’s capital had grown from ƒ300,000 to ƒ4,000,000 — a thirteenfold increase. “With him and through him the Deli Maatschappij became great, and with it the Deli Planters Vereeniging,” wrote Volker.

Religious and social philanthropy

Cremer also played a key role in extending the plantation economy’s social infrastructure beyond economic interests. In 1889, it was on his instigation and largely through funds raised among the planters that the first missionary arrived in the pagan areas of Boven Deli — the beginning of the Christian missionary work among the Bataks that would, in 1893, see the first Batak convert to Christianity in the region.

Medical care

Cremer’s concern for workers extended to their health. Under his leadership, the Deli Maatschappij had already brought out its first medicus (doctor) in 1871 — at a time when there was no legal obligation to provide medical care for plantation workers. By 1889 the broader plantation sector employed 12 doctors.

Minister of Colonies and the Atjeh debate of 1897

Cremer became Minister of Colonies in the cabinet formed in the summer of 1897, entering the Ministry of Colonies from the world of the East Coast plantation companies. On taking office he laid down the chairmanship of the board of the Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij, the chairmanship of commissioners of the Deli Maatschappij, and the commissionerships of the spoorwegmaatschappij, the Senembah and the Medan-maatschappij — a list read into the parliamentary record by Troelstra on 16 November 1897 from the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant.

His reply in the Atjeh debate of 16–17 November 1897 is the fullest official statement of Dutch policy in Atjeh on the eve of the Van Heutsz governorship.

On the origin of the war

Cremer declined to follow Van Kol’s historical exposition point by point, holding that this would go beyond the bounds of the debate and beyond the responsibility the government had to bear. He answered Bahlmann’s contention that the war had nothing to do with the treaty of 1824 but exclusively with the treaty of 1872, conceding that without the Siak treaty the Dutch might not have touched the integrity of Atjeh, but insisting that the 1824 treaty had brought them into the condition that made it necessary to get their hands free on Sumatra. He quoted the annexed declaration in French and explained the resulting obligation, referring the chamber to the Nota over de betrekkingen van Nederland tot het Rijk van Atjeh sedert 1824, printed as no. 141 of the session 1872–1873 and appended to the official papers published at the Landsdrukkerij in 1881.

Against Van Kol’s minimising of Acehnese piracy he objected that unlike quantities were being compared: Acehnese piracy was far better compared with that of the corsairs of Algiers and the Rif of Morocco, which had brought both those states into conflict with foreign powers and had ended in the loss of the independence of Algiers, annexed by France. He cited the British government’s repeated complaints that its traders “had been interfered with, and their ships and property plundered by people in the neighbourhood of Atcheen,” recorded on p. 46 of the report of the comité-generaal of 1874 whose secrecy had been lifted, and its demand that the Dutch fulfil the obligation assumed in 1824. Would not the actions of the Acehnese, he asked, ultimately have involved the Dutch in international difficulties which simple self-preservation compelled them to prevent, as soon as the treaty of 1871 had released them from the impossible obligation of securing safe navigation in Acehnese waters without touching Acehnese independence? Nor might one overlook, in judging the justice of the war, the attempts of Atjeh to place itself under the suzerainty of Turkey, of America and of France, concerning which the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gericke van Herwijnen had said in the comité-generaal: “Ik heb de bewijzen hier voor mij liggen,” adding that the French envoy had made communications to him.

He wished, however, to keep to the standpoint taken in the Memorie van Antwoord, that a discussion of the justice of the Atjeh war would be useless and would at any rate not be conducted by him. Against the assertion in the Voorloopig Verslag that no one had been willing to take the responsibility for beginning the war, he held that at the beginning and at the continuation of the war in its various phases someone had always stood there who took the responsibility upon himself: “Veertien opvolgende Ministers van Koloniën, dertien mijner voorgangers en ik, hebben die verantwoordelijkheid gedragen,” — Fourteen successive Ministers of Colonies — thirteen of my predecessors and I — have borne that responsibility, among them men who in another capacity had expressed themselves against the war but had nevertheless not dared to take upon themselves the responsibility for withdrawing from Atjeh. For his own part he accepted responsibility only for what was then being done; he began nothing new, being simply the continuator of what he had found, and accepted responsibility for the further execution of the Royal authorisation mentioned on p. 7 of the Koloniaal Verslag, by which, on the proposal of his predecessor and in accordance with the proposals of the Governor-General, a definite plan of action towards Atjeh had been adopted.

On the economic charge

His answers to Troelstra’s charges concerning the Deli Maatschappij, the Koninklijke, Tamiang and Perlak are set out at Economic interests alleged behind the Atjeh-oorlog (1897). He said he had foreseen, on reluctantly accepting the portfolio, that such matters would be alluded to, and had resolved never to be angry about them; had it been his object to gain advantage he would have done better not to sit as minister.

On the motion

He treated the motion clause by clause. That the war was a national disaster all saw; the debate was precisely about ending it. That the nation should be informed, he answered that anyone who would go through the enormous literature and the government reports could describe that significance according to his own view, naming the works of Kielstra and others. That the repeated changes of policy raised the question of perseverance, he answered that the object of the commission would be precisely a new change.

As to the commission itself he saw no possibility. “Ik zou alle Nederlanders moeten uitsluiten, want ik kan mij niet voorstellen, dat één Nederlander onpartijdig is ten aanzien van een oorlog door Nederland gevoerd.” — I should have to exclude all Netherlanders, for I cannot imagine that a single Netherlander is impartial with regard to a war waged by the Netherlands. One would have to come to a commission of Russian or Swiss professors, and be very careful in choosing foreigners, taking no neighbours. Such a commission must report within the year, and he doubted a serious commission would accept such a command; it would have to visit the theatre of war; and to report on the possibility of ending the war it would have to speak with the leaders — for this struggle had no leader but leaders, the Dutch having to do with bands spread over the whole country: on one side Toekoe Oemar, on the other Panglima Polim and many more, and in those very days an attack had been heard of at Edi under the leadership of Nja Mamat Perlak. “Mij komt deze taak voor de commissie niet benijdenswaardig voor.” — This task does not appear to me an enviable one for the commission.

The only thing in the motion that attracted him were the closing words about the volkenrechtelijke stelling, to which he agreed with Van Karnebeek that the sole answer was “onderwerp Atjeh.”

Why the Dutch must stay

Against withdrawal he quoted Van Kol’s own Land en Volk van Java, p. 63, on Multatuli’s demand “De Hollanders er uit!”: that the worst Dutch administration was better than the best native administration known, and that “de Hollanders er uit” would mean enthroning tyranny, renewing extortion, bringing back barbarism and delivering the population to robbery and plunder. Those words applied to Java, he said, but the ending seemed to him cut out for Atjeh.

Withdrawal, he argued, would make no end of the war; the Acehnese seeing the Dutch depart would at once direct their bands not only to the East Coast but to the West Coast of Sumatra — to the Battaklanden, where the fine stations of the Rhijnsche zendelinggenootschap stood and where the population was mortally afraid of the coming of the Acehnese; to the West Coast where the Dutch exercised authority with few troops and few officials; and to the East Coast where fortunes were being made but where the original inhabitants also profited by the present conditions. In all those lands the war would be kindled and the struggle would cost no fewer sacrifices than the present one in Atjeh. Departure would remove no single difficulty and would open international complications: the robbery lately committed on the English ship the Pegu would recur, and it was not hard to foretell that this “Algiers van de Straat Malakka” would get another Frankrijk as its subduer, taking over the task the Dutch had cravenly given up.

Another outlet would be withdrawal to Oleh-leh and to one or more of the islands north of Atjeh; but the passive holding of a smaller position would lead to no pacification, would invite the triumphant enemy to seek them out, would give the scheepvaartregeling a sensitive blow, and would end in that small position being surrounded by hostile fortifications from which the Dutch would be bombarded with artillery imported along the then open coast.

The system defended

As to the geconcentreerde stelling held from 1884 until recently, he said that of all the Indies advisers there was not one who was still for it, not even those who had opposed the present manner of acting. It had had a fair trial; all agreed it had not yielded the expected fruits, had brought them no step nearer pacificatie, but had led to the actions at Kota Pohama and to the échec of Kaloet, later evacuated by the enemy only by the help of native auxiliaries and of money. The great loss in dead by disease and battle and in wounded suffered in the concentration period had yielded no fruits that could in the remotest degree outweigh it.

There remained therefore, not by way of choice but as a necessity born of the pressure of circumstances, the present system, which allowed a distinction between well- and ill-disposed Acehnese. The husbandman — who according to Dr. Snouck Hurgronje also constituted, on Acehnese conceptions, the strength of the nation — was now protected and needed carry no arms; whoever wished to fight must join the bands, a dangerous trade because of the action of the Dutch active columns. It was not a system aiming at the conquest of the whole of Atjeh, but one compelling the perpetuation of the enforced quiet and respect for Dutch authority. It did not exclude consultation with the chiefs, for on the whole coast of Atjeh government was carried on in union with the chiefs; the pity was only that these chiefs could not exercise sufficient authority over their subjects. Beside the governor stood a resident who had earned his spurs as a knower of Acehnese conditions, and since the introduction of the scheepvaartregeling under Minister Van Dedem the best officials of the binnenlandsch bestuur had been placed at the points designated for Dutch establishment, with extra rewards.

Asked whether the system could be maintained where that of general Van der Heyden had been abolished in 1884, he observed that the system now in force was not wholly the same: “Het voorspel, ja, het stuk zelf neen.” Taught by experience they would not again pluck the fruits too early; not consolidate and pacify so long as occupying and watching must still be the watchword. The Acehnese had taken the Dutch peaceable striving after Van der Heyden’s departure for weakness. In Groot-Atjeh there had been twenty-one posts at Van der Heyden’s departure, and under the civil government eight more had come; the Dutch now had in their concentrated position and outside it in the three sagi’s seventeen posts, of which eight were destined to be abolished, so that about nine would remain. They no longer fell into the former error of shutting up the army in small bentings and posts each too weakly garrisoned to command the surrounding territory actively, but united strong mobile columns in a few well-placed kampementen. He set out the improvement in the health of the troops — see Beri-beri epidemic in the Atjeh garrison — the expansion of the Korps Marechaussee, and the tram to Indrapoeri soon to be extended to Selimoen.

Asked whether he wished to conquer the whole of Atjeh he answered: no. The interior of Atjeh was unknown; there were no proofs whatever that fighters from there joined the Acehnese bands; it would therefore be perfectly unnecessary to march thither. “Wanneer wij de kust beheerschen zal van zelf het achterland onder onzen invloed komen.” — When we command the coast the hinterland will come under our influence of itself. To Pijnacker Hordijk’s question about Pedir and Gighen he pointed to what had happened at Segli: there the same condition prevailed roughly as in the Pedir country, the princes on the coast not being hostile but not strong enough to drive out the Delama-bands gathered in the Tanawaqt or in the VII Moekims; the expedition to Segli had taken place not to take Segli itself but to drive the hostile bands out of the moekims Pakan Baroe and Pokan Soth, which had been done, after which the chief of that district took the land under his management, so that it was not at all necessary to keep the place occupied.

On the fanfaronnades and the end of the war

Answering Bahlmann’s charge of fanfaronnades — glossed in the pamphlet as snoeverijen — he explained that the speech of colonel Van Heutsz on the Queen’s birthday had contained the wish that at the approaching accession of Her Majesty the conquered Atjeh might be offered to her; it had been delivered in a military environment in which there are always doubters and in which it may be good to utter such an expectation. In the mouth of that man such words were no fanfaronnades, for he certainly belonged to those men in the Indies army who had shown that they sought their strength not in words but in deeds.

As to the words of general Vetter, he had asked him at a friendly visit whether the newspaper reports rendered what he had said; Vetter answered that he had spoken without a word on paper and that no representative of the press had been present, and could not precisely recall his words. His meaning had been to set out that the use of the army in a defensive sense can never be good — an opinion also expressed by many members — and hence he might have said that such use of the army had caused the troops to lack self-confidence; in that sense he had spoken of a bad oefenschool, since many a young soldier had then begun to fear the Acehnese, which was no longer the case now that the enemy was sought out.

Asked when the war would end, he answered that it would be a fanfaronnade in him to give an answer. He would, however, point out that after not yet a year and a half of the new policy they had come further than the most optimistic had then expected. He had heard from non-military visitors to Atjeh very nearly related to him that the population was returning to its fields in the XXV Moekims, the XXII Moekims and the XXVI Moekims, but especially in the XXV Moekims. One thing was still lacking: confidence in the Dutch. The population feared that this was again a spurt and that the Dutch would withdraw; there was among them “eene heilige vrees voor Toekoe Oemar.” One must not believe, he said, that a people’s war was being waged in those districts and on the coast; the population attached itself, as elsewhere in the archipelago, to the strongest and to him who protected it. “De geestdrijvers op Atjeh die de bevolking medeslepen tot den heiligen oorlog en haar den prang sabil afpersen, zijn minstens evengoed hare vijanden als wij.” — The zealots in Atjeh who drag the population into the holy war and extort the prang sabil from it are at least as much its enemies as we are. He would not maintain that the population already had an intimate love for the Dutch, but neither had it for those who kept the land in war. When confidence was established that the Dutch would not again go away, the game would be half won; and it was not without importance that at the last incursions of small bands of Toekoe Oemar into the XXV Moekims the population itself had driven off those bands before the Dutch patrols could be on the spot, and had killed the leader of the last.

The requirements laid down by Bahlmann concerning the capture of Toekoe Oemar and an agreement with the sultan formed no necessary parts of the government’s programme. Of an approach from the sultan’s side there had so far been none, and a repetition of negotiations was not intended.

He closed with the comparison of the Acehnese affair to a chronic invalid who had passed through a violent crisis the previous year, at whose bedside the doctors now saw a beginning of improvement; and asked whether, if the chamber said in the patient’s hearing that he would not get better and might be left to his fate, that would promote his cure. “Er wordt geen vrede gesloten met een volk, dat geen hoofd heeft of ooit gehad heeft, met zooveel invloed, dat het voor het geheele volk kan spreken… Dus zal de oorlog ook nooit op een gegeven oogenblik uit zijn; men zal nooit een bulletin kunnen uitgeven: de Atjeh-oorlog is uit. Langzamerhand zal men onzen invloed zien versterken, dien van de bendehoofden afnemen.” — No peace is concluded with a people that has no head, and never has had one, of such influence that he can speak for the whole people… Thus the war will also never at a given moment be over; one will never be able to issue a bulletin: the Atjeh war is finished. Gradually men will see our influence strengthen and that of the band-chiefs diminish.

The declarations of the coastal princes

On 17 November he returned to place on record the declarations of the sixty-two coastal princes, insisting that in judging the affairs of Atjeh those of the coast were too often lost from sight.

See Also

Sources

Van Oerbosch tot Cultuurgebied: Een Schets van de Beteekenis van de Tabak, de Andere Cultures en de Industrie ter Oostkust van Sumatra, by Dr. T. Volker (Medan: Deli Planters Vereeniging, 1928), pp. 22–35. Delpher Digital Library, reference DLP-76. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shelfmark 09383.

Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898, uitgave van de Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij in Nederland (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br P95-178, pp. 45–60, 79–80.

Acknowledgement of sources. This article combines material from the publications cited above; the material newly added derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897) and Een strijd in Atjeh (Rotterdam: N.V. Drukkerij Korteweg for the Vereeniging „SIMAVI”, 1934). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering. Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland van 1849 tot 1901, by Mr W. J. van Welderen baron Rengers, 4th rev. ed., Vol. IV: Oost-Indië 1891-1918 by Dr W. H. Vermeulen (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955), pp. 270, 284-285, 305-306.

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