John Anderson (fl. early 19th century) was a Malay translator at Penang and the author of Acheen (1840), a work which became the standard printed source on the Acheh question during the early colonial period and is cited repeatedly by P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) in his study of the Acheh treaty of 1819. Anderson served as official translator (translateur) to the government of Prince of Wales Island, and his published book preserves the substance of many documents which Van der Kemp otherwise draws from the Roosegaarde Bisschop collection.
Author of Acheen (1840)
Anderson’s Acheen, published in 1840, is described by Van der Kemp as “the work which is often cited in this treatise”. It is the chief published authority for the political relations of Penang with Acheh in the period from 1814 to the late 1820s. Van der Kemp draws upon it for, among other things, the substance of the instructions to the Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission of 1819, the policy of the Penang government towards the rival sultans Jauhar Alum and Syf ul-Alum, the disputes between Raffles and Bannerman, and the background of Sartorius’s mission to Acheh. Anderson’s book contains, in Van der Kemp’s words, “the substance of the instruction [to the Commission] at p. 132 and following”, which the printed dispatches do not reproduce in extenso.
The book is also Van der Kemp’s source for the assertion that “the superintendence of political relations over Acheen belonged, by the highest authority, to the government of Pinang” — a proposition of considerable importance for evaluating the jurisdictional dispute between Raffles and the Penang authorities. Anderson’s account of Panglima Polim’s supremacy at Acheh, of the Hussein expedition, and of the subsequent pensions and proceedings connected with the ex-sultan Syf ul-Alum is likewise followed closely by Van der Kemp.
Translator and Diplomatic Aide
Beyond his published work, Anderson appears in Van der Kemp’s appendices as the active translator of the Penang government. At the order of the Penang administration he drafted a letter, in Malay, to the Pangeran of Siak accompanying the letter which the Governor himself addressed to that chief. The letter spoke of the transfer of Malacca to the English Company, of the friendly relations between Siak and the three British settlements of Penang, Singapore, and Malacca, and of the desire to extend commercial intercourse between Siak and the British ports in the Straits. The Sultan of Siak’s reply, dated 21 Dulkaida (4 June 1828), is preserved in Van der Kemp’s appendix.
The use of Anderson as translator for the Siak correspondence indicates that, even after the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London of 1824 had nominally placed Siak within the Dutch sphere, the Penang government continued to address Siak chiefs directly through its own Malay-language chancery. Anderson’s role was therefore not merely that of an author but of an instrument of Penang’s continuing native-state correspondence, a function which the 1824 treaty did not at once extinguish.
Assessment
Van der Kemp treats Anderson as a generally reliable compiler, though he is careful to distinguish what Anderson published from the unpublished material he himself had drawn from the Roosegaarde Bisschop collection and other manuscript sources. Anderson’s work is one of the principal printed sources which Van der Kemp uses to corroborate or supplement the manuscript record, and the frequent citation of “Anderson bl. 107 vv.”, “Anderson bl. 137”, “Anderson bl. 147 vv.” etc. attests to the importance of his book as a documentary repository. For the modern student of the Acheh succession dispute and of the British intervention of 1819, Anderson’s Acheen remains an indispensable, though not uncritical, secondary source.
See Also
- Penang
- Acheh
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Sartorius mission to Acheh
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
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.
John Anderson (fl. early 19th century) was a Malay translator at Penang and the author of Acheen (1840), a work which became the standard printed source on the Acheh question during the early colonial period and is cited repeatedly by P. H. Van der Kemp (1900) in his study of the Acheh treaty of 1819. Anderson served as official translator (translateur) to the government of Prince of Wales Island, and his published book preserves the substance of many documents which Van der Kemp otherwise draws from the Roosegaarde Bisschop collection.
Author of Acheen (1840)
Anderson’s Acheen, published in 1840, is described by Van der Kemp as “the work which is often cited in this treatise”. It is the chief published authority for the political relations of Penang with Acheh in the period from 1814 to the late 1820s. Van der Kemp draws upon it for, among other things, the substance of the instructions to the Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission of 1819, the policy of the Penang government towards the rival sultans Jauhar Alum and Syf ul-Alum, the disputes between Raffles and Bannerman, and the background of Sartorius’s mission to Acheh. Anderson’s book contains, in Van der Kemp’s words, “the substance of the instruction [to the Commission] at p. 132 and following”, which the printed dispatches do not reproduce in extenso.
The book is also Van der Kemp’s source for the assertion that “the superintendence of political relations over Acheen belonged, by the highest authority, to the government of Pinang” — a proposition of considerable importance for evaluating the jurisdictional dispute between Raffles and the Penang authorities. Anderson’s account of Panglima Polim’s supremacy at Acheh, of the Hussein expedition, and of the subsequent pensions and proceedings connected with the ex-sultan Syf ul-Alum is likewise followed closely by Van der Kemp.
Translator and Diplomatic Aide
Beyond his published work, Anderson appears in Van der Kemp’s appendices as the active translator of the Penang government. At the order of the Penang administration he drafted a letter, in Malay, to the Pangeran of Siak accompanying the letter which the Governor himself addressed to that chief. The letter spoke of the transfer of Malacca to the English Company, of the friendly relations between Siak and the three British settlements of Penang, Singapore, and Malacca, and of the desire to extend commercial intercourse between Siak and the British ports in the Straits. The Sultan of Siak’s reply, dated 21 Dulkaida (4 June 1828), is preserved in Van der Kemp’s appendix.
The use of Anderson as translator for the Siak correspondence indicates that, even after the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London of 1824 had nominally placed Siak within the Dutch sphere, the Penang government continued to address Siak chiefs directly through its own Malay-language chancery. Anderson’s role was therefore not merely that of an author but of an instrument of Penang’s continuing native-state correspondence, a function which the 1824 treaty did not at once extinguish.
Assessment
Van der Kemp treats Anderson as a generally reliable compiler, though he is careful to distinguish what Anderson published from the unpublished material he himself had drawn from the Roosegaarde Bisschop collection and other manuscript sources. Anderson’s work is one of the principal printed sources which Van der Kemp uses to corroborate or supplement the manuscript record, and the frequent citation of “Anderson bl. 107 vv.”, “Anderson bl. 137”, “Anderson bl. 147 vv.” etc. attests to the importance of his book as a documentary repository. For the modern student of the Acheh succession dispute and of the British intervention of 1819, Anderson’s Acheen remains an indispensable, though not uncritical, secondary source.
See Also
- Penang
- Acheh
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles
- Sartorius mission to Acheh
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Raffles-Coombs Acheh Commission (1819)
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.