Jacob Cau was the Compagnie’s commissioner who commanded the squadron of four well-armed ships dispatched from Batavia on 17 August 1664 to the West Coast of Sumatra to ratify the Painansch Contract of 6 July 1663 in the chiefs’ own countries and to expel the Atjehers from the pepper ports. In Dr. F. W. Stapel’s Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland he is the military-diplomatic officer whose campaign of 1664–1665 produced the four definitive Westkust factories — Padang, Salido, Priaman and Tikoe — and the operational ratification of the Painansch system.
The 1664 commission
The Painansch Contract of 6 July 1663 had been signed at Batavia, but its ratification in the Westkust chiefs’ own countries remained to be done. The simultaneous Compagnie withdrawal of its factories from Atjeh and Perak in 1663 “increased the unrest and fear among the West Coast inhabitants, especially those of Tikoe and Priaman, which lay closest to Atjeh” (vermeerderde de onrust en vrees onder de Westkustbewoners, vooral die van Tikoe en Priaman, welke het dichtst bij Atjeh lagen). To ratify the Painansch Contract and to overawe the Atjehers, the Hooge Regeering dispatched Cau on 17 August 1664.
His instructions were cautious: “not to proceed to an open war with Atjeh except in the utmost case” (niet dan in het uiterste geval tot een openlijken oorlog met Atjeh over te gaan). The Compagnie’s policy was still to treat Atjeh as a sovereign power whose open enmity was to be avoided if possible.
The Padang landing
On arrival at Padang the chiefs there complained of “the increasing oppression and vexation they suffered from the Atjehers” (de toenemende onderdrukking en overlast, die zij van de zijde der Atjehers ondervonden). At their request Cau rowed with part of his force to land. “From a thrown-up fortification the Atjehers tried with 2 cannon to prevent this landing, but Cau drove them out and made himself master of the cannon” (Van uit een opgeworpen versterking trachtten de Atjehers met 2 kanonnen deze landing te beletten, doch Cau verdreef hen en maakte zich van de kanonnen meester).
The Padang chiefs then ratified the Painansch Contract. The first of the four definitive factories was now secured.
Tikoe
Cau next went to Tikoe, where “the Holland-friendly party was likewise oppressed by the Atjehers” (de Hollandsch-gezinde partij eveneens door de Atjehers werd onderdrukt). “Also here the weapons decided and, after the expulsion of the Atjehers, the contract was confirmed” (Ook hier beslisten de wapenen en werd, na verdrijving der Atjehers, het contract bevestigd). The second factory.
Priaman
Priaman was the hardest. “Subsequently Priaman was at the turn, where Cau found no fewer than 500 to 600 armed Atjehers with a number of auxiliary troops” (Vervolgens was Priaman aan de beurt, waar Cau niet minder dan 500 à 600 gewapende Atjehers met een aantal hulptroepen aantrof). “But also here he reached his goal; the Atjehers were expelled, whereafter the regents signed” (Doch ook hier bereikte hij zijn doel; de Atjehers werden verdreven, waarna de regenten het contract teekenden). The third factory.
Bajang and return
Bajang joined voluntarily. “A short time later the inhabitants of Bajang requested to be also included in the general bond. This was done, after which they themselves drove the Atjehers out of their land” (Korten tijd daarna verzochten de bewoners van Bajang, ook in het algemeen verbond opgenomen te mogen worden. Dit geschiedde, waarna zij zelf de Atjehers uit hun land verdreven).
When Cau returned to Batavia on 2 January 1665 “he had obtained the desired ratification and established four definitive factories on the West Coast, namely Padang — head office — Poeloe Tjingkoek or Salido, Priaman and Tikoe” (toen hij de verlangde ratificatie verkregen en vier definitieve kantoren op de Westkust gevestigd had, namelijk Padang — hoofdkantoor — Poeloe Tjingkoek of Salido, Priaman en Tikoe). A factory at Indrapoera itself was “for the present no longer deemed necessary” (Een kantoor te Indrapoera zelf werd voorloopig niet meer noodig geacht).
Significance
Cau’s campaign of 1664–1665 is the operational ratification of the Painansch Contract. The Compagnie now holds the entire southern and central Westkust under direct treaty, factory and military force. Atjeh’s governors have been expelled from Padang, Tikoe, Priaman and Bajang, and the “croone of Atchin” that Van Groenewegen had been instructed to undermine in 1662 has been, in operational terms, removed from the Westkust.
The campaign also established the four-factory system — Padang (head), Salido (Poeloe Tjingkoek), Priaman, Tikoe — that would be the institutional backbone of the Westkust establishment for the next century. The choice of Padang as head office, in particular, would prove durable: it remained the chief Dutch station on the Westkust through the entire VOC period and into the nineteenth century.
Account from Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh (1923)
Jacob Cau was the servant of the Dutch East India Company who in 1664 laid in at Padang the head depot for the Dutch trade on the West Coast of Sumatra, following the Company’s treaty of exclusive trade with the Minangkabauers.
The Padang depot
After the Atjehnese had continually violated the trade monopoly conceded to the Company under the treaty that ended the blockade of 1651 — whereby half of the tin yield of Perak and the monopoly of trade had accrued to the Company — the Company acted: it occupied Indrapoera, Padang and Tikoe, and concluded with the Minangkabauers of the West Coast a treaty of exclusive trade, of which the consequence was that in 1664 Jacob Cau could lay in the head depot at Padang. Here the Hollanders knew how to maintain themselves, notwithstanding the many attacks undertaken by the Atjehnese upon their settlement; it was in one of those fights that the Dutch commissaris Gruys had to lose his life with 130 men.
See Also
- Painansch Contract
- Jan van Groenewegen
- Abraham Versprect
- Jacob Gruys
- Jacob Jorisse Pits
- Padang
- Tikoe
- Priaman
- Salido
- Poeloe Tjingkoek
- Indrapoera
- Bajang
- Westkust van Sumatra
- Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
- 17 August
- 2 January
- 1664
- 1665
- VOC-Minangkabau treaty and the founding of the Padang depot (1664)
- Murder of the Hollanders and blockade of Atjeh (1651)
Source
De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 16 (tekst bij blad 4: Atjeh en de Westkust van Sumatra in 1684).
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), p. 15.