Joost Schouten (also called Justus Schouten in some sources) was the Compagnie’s envoy to Atjeh who, in February 1641, concluded with the newly enthroned sultane of Atjeh — Tajul-alam — the first major Acehnese-Dutch treaty of her reign. In Dr. F. W. Stapel’s Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland he is the diplomat whose embassy opened the era of structured Dutch commercial privilege on the West Coast of Sumatra.
Context
The sultane’s accession in February 1641 — coincident with the 14 January 1641 fall of Portuguese Malakka to the Compagnie — was the moment at which the long Acehnese-Portuguese alignment ended and a new Acehnese-Dutch alignment became possible. Schouten was the man Batavia dispatched to take the opening. Stapel records that “in 1641 a sultane came to power in Atjeh, daughter of Iskander Moeda; she concluded, still in the first month of her reign — February — an agreement with the Compagnie’s envoy Joost Schouten” (In 1641 kwam in Atjeh een sultane aan het bewind, dochter van Iskander Moeda; zij sloot, nog in de eerste maand van haar regeering — Februari — een overeenkomst met den gezant der Compagnie, Joost Schouten).
The 1641 embassy and treaty
Schouten was dispatched to Aceh shortly after Tajul-alam’s accession. He was able to win her favour and conclude a treaty that gave the VOC free access to the pepper ports. The Schouten treaty had two main elements. The sultane “conceded to the Dutchmen the tolls in the pepper ports Tikoe, Priaman, Padang and Indrapoera, and promised to admit no other European traders there” (zij de Nederlanders concessies deed op het gebied der tollen in de peperhavens Tikoe, Priaman, Padang en Indrapoera, en beloofde, daar geen andere Europeesche handelaars toe te laten).
The careful restriction of the exclusion to European traders left the Atjehers’ own rights on the Westkust intact — a pattern that would recur in every subsequent Acehnese-Dutch treaty: Atjehers-and-Hollanders-only. Schouten’s treaty is the first statement of it.
Earlier 1641 activity: jewel sale
Schouten had also sold jewels in Atjeh in 1641 to the value of ƒ28,000 with 61% profit — and even then had not managed to dispose of the entire parcel, “daar er reeds te veel diamanten in Atjeh waren” — because there were already too many diamonds in Atjeh. The Schouten sale was thus also in Atjehsche mode, and its partial success — and the saturation of the Atjeh diamond market — was the immediate background against which the Soury mission’s failure must be understood.
Significance
Schouten’s embassy is the political foundation on which all later Dutch Westkust policy is built. The Truytman treaties of November 1649 widened Schouten’s four pepper ports to the whole Westkust; the Perak treaty of 15 August 1650 extended the same formula to the peninsula’s tin; the 1659 peace and the Painansch Contract of 1663 would progressively dismantle the Atjehsche sovereignty that Schouten had just confirmed. His negotiations are notable for their tact and for securing commercial advantage without military confrontation.
The 1641 embassy is also the first Dutch diplomatic encounter with a female Muslim sovereign. Stapel’s editorial judgement on Schouten’s opposite number is uniformly respectful — the sultane is described as conducting her own foreign policy, signing her own treaties, and (in 1656) ordering the arrest of Van Voorst as a sovereign act of reprisal. Schouten’s success in February 1641 set the tone of that long diplomatic relationship.
Sources
Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapters XI–XII (“Atjehsche ambassade. Inlandsche feesten. Maagden als losprijs”; “Juweelenhandel. Heeren Zeventien. Familieregeering”), pp. 39–47 of the numbered-letter sequence.
See Also
- Sultana of Atjeh (Taj ul-Alam)
- Sultan Tajul-alam
- Treaty of Atjeh-VOC (15 February 1641)
- Dutch–Aceh Treaty of 1641
- Treaty of Atjeh-VOC (November 1649)
- Dutch–Aceh Treaty of 1649
- Treaty of Atjeh-Perak (15 August 1650)
- Treaty of 1650 on Perak Tin
- Treaty of Atjeh-VOC (5 October 1659)
- Painansch Contract
- Johan Truytman
- Jacob de Keyser
- Balthasar Bort
- Pieter Soury’s mission to Atjeh (1641)
- Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
- Westkust van Sumatra
- 1641
- 15 February
- Pieter Soury
- Jan van Riebeeck
- Joan Maetsuycker
- Iskander Tsani
- Sultana of Atjeh (1641)
- Atjehsche mode
- Acheh
- Dutch lodge at Atjeh
Source
De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 30–31 (tekst bij blad 3: Kantoren op andere plaatsen — Sumatra).
Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland: De Archipel en het Maleische Schiereiland in 1619 – Idem in 1650 – De Compagnie buiten den Archipel in 1650, by Dr. F. W. Stapel (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1928), pp. 30–31.
Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger, 1932), on Schouten’s 1641 jewel sale and the Atjeh diamond market.