Johannes Sas was the Compagnie’s vaandrig (ensign) who, in 1693, commanded a small squadron dispatched to Nias and to Goenoeng Sitoli on the Nias coast to combat the Atjehsche Jorrendayyers (unauthorised Atjehsche traders) who were carrying on clandestine commerce there, and who, by defeating the Atjehers and concluding treaties with many Nias princes, established the first formal Compagnie foothold on the island. In Dr. F. W. Stapel’s Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland he is the officer whose Nias expedition is the most northerly extension of the Compagnie’s anti-Atjehsche trade police in the post-Painansch Contract era.
Background: the Jorrendayyers
The Compagnie’s Westkust victory over Atjeh had not extinguished Atjehsche commercial activity on the Westkust or its approaches. Stapel records that “Atjehsche ‘Jorrendayyers’ came regularly to the West Coast and the islands to carry on unauthorised trade” (Atjehsche ‘Jorrendayyers’ kwamen geregeld op de Westkust en de eilanden ongeoorloofden handel drijven). The Jorrendayyers — see Atjehsche Jorrendayyers — were small Atjehsche traders who slipped through the Compagnie’s monopoly system. Their presence was reported at Ajerbangis, Singkel, and Nias.
The island of Nias, off the Westkust, was a particular target. The Compagnie had no formal presence there, and Atjehsche traders could operate with relative freedom.
The 1693 expedition
The immediate occasion for the Sas expedition was the submission of Batahan to the Compagnie in 1693. “Batahan placed itself in 1693 under the Compagnie” (Batahan stelde zich in 1693 onder de Compagnie). With the Westkust as far south as Batahan now formally under Compagnie protection, the next step was to extend that protection to Nias.
“Thereafter vaandrig Johannes Sas went with gecommitteerden and his ships to Nias, to Goenoeng Sitoli, and fought the Atjehers there” (Daarna ging Vaandrig Johannes Sas met gecommitteerden en zijn schepen naar Nias, naar Goenoeng Sitoli en bevocht er de Atjehers). The expedition was both military (against the Atjehers) and diplomatic (with the Nias princes). “With many princes of the island he concluded bonds” (Met veel vorsten van het eiland sloot hij verbonden).
Significance
Sas’s Nias expedition of 1693 is the most northerly and seaward extension of the Compagnie’s anti-Atjehsche trade police in the post-Painansch Contract era. The Compagnie is now pursuing Atjehsche traders not only on the Westkust itself but on the islands off the coast, and the conclusion of treaties with many Nias princes is the first formal extension of the Compagnie’s treaty system to Nias.
The choice of Goenoeng Sitoli as the operational base is significant: it would remain the chief Dutch (and later Indonesian) station on Nias for the next three centuries. The 1693 Sas expedition is therefore the founding moment of the long, troubled Dutch relationship with Nias, a relationship that would culminate in the Nias military expeditions of the nineteenth century and the integration of the island into the Netherlands East Indies.
See Also
- Atjehsche Jorrendayyers
- Painansch Contract
- Nias
- Goenoeng Sitoli
- Batahan
- Ajerbangis
- Singkel
- Westkust van Sumatra
- Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
- 1693
Source
De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 3 (tekst bij blad 5: De Compagnie in den Archipel na 1684 tot 1791 — Sumatra: Atjeh en de Westkust).