Panglima Banten was the Rijksbestierder — the secular administrator of the landschap — of the eight kampongs of the valley of Lamtoba at the foot of the Goudberg, second in the government of the district beside the Imam of Lamtoba and above the four wakils who governed two kampongs each, during the Dutch occupation of the valley in July–August 1879. His alternating obedience and flight, his escape from the hostage hut on the eve of the column’s departure, and his return through the agency of his captured little son make him the most fully drawn Achehnese figure of W. Cool and G. B. Hooijer’s Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis (1889).
First recoil, and return, after Kepaja Doewa
When, at the beginning of August 1879, the fear spread by the burning of Kepaja Doewa drove part of the already returned inhabitants of the Lamtoba valley again to the mountains, the Rijksbestierder was among the fugitives — an evasion wholly against the mind of the column-commander, Luitenant-Kolonel Gerlach. As punishment, and since the delivery of building materials lagged, soldiers and convict labourers were sent to the neighbouring kampong Lambada — the property of the Rijksbestierder — to break down some houses and cut pinang trees as far as the betterment of the bivak required. The measure did not miss its effect: on 6 August 1879 Panglima Banten appeared again in the bivak with a numerous following of wakils and kampong-heads. The commander addressed him most severely on his conduct and ordered that, for the better execution of the orders, he should remain in the bivak; the chiefs were told again of the complete obedience required, the delivery of arms and ammunition, and the obligations they had taken upon themselves by their submission to the Militaire Bevelhebber.
Between the Dutch and the refugees
In the following days Panglima Banten was the indispensable intermediary. When, after the night march of the Dutch, the sixty-seven captured refugees were brought in and among them the persons belonging to the XXVI Moekims had to be distinguished from the out-fled population of the valley itself, it was through his intervention that the identification was made. When the column marched for Selimoen on 13 August, he remained the responsible chief of the valley.
The hostage question and the escape
On 21 August 1879, at the conference held by Overste Gerlach with all the heads of the valley, it appeared that the imposed waarborgsom (see Hok gantjing) could not be paid; it was therefore determined that the Imam and the Rijksbestierder, with half of the wakils and kampong-heads, should follow the column to Kota Radja as hostages. Panglima Banten alone begged to be exempted, giving as reason the fear of the sea that he had always cherished; the request was refused. The hostages passed that day and night in the bivak. But at half past five on the morning of 22 August, as the troops stood ready to march, word came that the Rijksbestierder had escaped: “de groote breedgeschouderde man” — the great, broad-shouldered man — had, in some inconceivable manner, slipped through the rear wall of the hut in the middle of the bivak where the hostages slept under a police guard; at the roll-call of half past four he had still been present. Pelotons sent out at once to lift him in his own kampong, or else his sons as hostages, returned at eight o’clock with his son and his son-in-law, taken from his house; the Panglima himself was nowhere to be found. Messengers sent into the mountains carried word that the little boy and the son-in-law would be released if he came back.
The return, 1 September 1879
During the quarantine at Lampanas — the boy, “het aardige ongeveer 12-jarige zoontje,” soon winning the hearts of officers and soldiers — a letter came in from Panglima Banten assigning as the reason of his flight that a sum of money had, so he said, been stolen from him in the bivak at Lamtoba by one of the guides; fearing that nothing would come of an inquiry if he followed the column, he had fled in order to investigate himself. To the summons to come over he at last yielded, in the afternoon of 1 September 1879. “Maar nu le secret de la comédie,” the authors wrote — the true reason of his return was of another kind: “Ook hier zelfs gold het: ‘Cherchez la femme.’ De moeder van het zoontje, die liever Panglima Banten dan haar kleine lieveling met de vreemde troepen zag vertrekken, had hem er toe gebracht.” As punishment for his running away the Rijksbestierder was placed in close custody in a provoost-cell hastily built by the Mineurs; believing his last hour had struck, he raged fearfully through the night, until the column-commandant reassured him the next day. “Zijn vrees voor de zee moest hij echter overwinnen” — his fear of the sea he had, after all, to overcome: on 4 September 1879 he embarked with the staff and the hostages for Oleh-leh.
Significance
The career of Panglima Banten in the book — collaboration, flight, hostage-taking, escape, the capture of his family, and his yielding at last — is the fullest contemporary illustration of the mechanics by which the Dutch of 1879 converted submission into effective occupation of a district: the surety-monies and hostage systems by which the chiefs of Groot-Atjeh were bound to the new order of Generaal van der Heijden’s peace.
See Also
- Lamtoba
- Lambada
- Imam of Lamtoba
- Hok gantjing
- Evacuation of the Lamtoba valley (21–23 August 1879)
- Quarantine at Lampanas (August–September 1879)
- 1879
Source
Eene schoone bladzijde uit Atjeh’s geschiedenis, door W. Cool en G. B. Hooijer (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1889), pp. 25, 29-31, 64-68, 71-72, 76. OCR-filename: 20260720_115822_DLP-135-Eene_schoone_bladzijde_uit_Atjeh_s_geschiedenis_Nemotron_OCR_v2_OCR.txt.