Pieter Soury (also written Sourij) was a Dutch East India Company (VOC) official who, in the rank of Commissaris (commissioner), led the embassy to Atjeh of 1641–1642 to congratulate the Sultana of Atjeh on her accession after the death of her husband Sultan Iskander Tsani. The embassy — its secretary the young Jan van Riebeeck — was one of the most ceremonially elaborate VOC missions of the seventeenth century, and is the principal Atjeh-related episode treated by Godee Molsbergen in chapter XI of Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie.
Background and appointment
By 1641 the Sultan of Atjeh, Iskander Tsani, had died. The Rijksgrooten (great officers of the realm) chose his widow as his successor, “dezelfde, die op ongeveer veertigjarigen leeftijd een Nederlander tot Prinsgemaal wilde verheffen” — the same one who, at about forty years of age, wished to elevate a Dutchman to the rank of prince-consort — a proposal over which both the Rijksgrooten and the Hooge Regeering (High Government) at Batavia vetoed.
The Hooge Regeering then dispatched Soury as Commissaris with a twofold charge: to congratulate the new Sultana on behalf of the Company on her accession, and to deliver certain goods ordered by the late Sultan, together with a parcel of diamonds. He was further instructed to be careful about the sale of those jewels, which had been cut and set in Holland after Atjehsche mode (Atjeh-style) and could not easily be disposed of elsewhere in the Indies.
Composition of the legation
Soury’s suite consisted of six Dutchmen: the Commissaris himself, the Opperkoopman (senior merchant) Jacob Compostel, at that time Opperhoofd (chief) of the Company’s lodge in Atjeh, Compostel’s recently-arrived replacement the Opperkoopman Pieter Willemz, and the Secretaris Jan van Riebeeck, flanked by two Onderkooplieden (junior merchants). The party was seen off at Batavia by the extra-ordinaris Raad van Indië Joan Maetsuycker and by Justus Schouten, whose own earlier visit to Atjeh was already part of the Company’s diplomatic record.
Journey via Malakka
The legation travelled via Malakka, where the VOC and Atjeh had cooperated with Djohor in 1641 to drive the Portuguese from the city. Reaching the Atjeh river, they were greeted by the Dutch Opperhoofd and by the voornaamste eunuch (chief eunuch) of the Sultana together with the Sabandaar — the harbour-master — who brought the tjap or passport required to come ashore. According to the residentie description, Atjeh town at this date consisted of bamboo houses, only a few of stone, all raised six feet off the ground on account of the bandjirs (floods), without a surrounding wall; on its two market-places Indians, Arabs, Chinese and Malays sold their wares, drawn by low import duties. Temples, pagodas, royal palaces, gardens with the tomb-shrines of dead sultans, fountains and waterworks struck the European visitors “door hun vreemde schoonheid” — by their strange beauty.
The English rival and the jewel consignment
Even before the formal audience, Soury learned that an English ship lay in the roadstead bearing handsome gifts for the new Sultana — chests of glass-blown trees, birds, and other animals, and above all a costly jewel-casket. The English aim was to persuade the Sultana to grant the English Company permission to make Atjeh its headquarters for trade on the Indian mainland. The Englishmen spoke Portuguese well enough to be understood. The chief eunuch then came personally to inspect whether the goods ordered the previous year — when Schouten had been in Atjeh — had been delivered according to specification: a gold-enameled beteldoos (betel-box) and gold rings. Once satisfied, Soury handed the consignment over, receiving in return a magnificent horse, a cow and a buffalo from the Sultana.
The audience of 1 July 1641
The Sultana fixed 1 July 1641 for the solemn hand-over of the missive (letter) of the Gouverneur-Generaal and the Raden (Councillors of the Indies). The Company had learned to give native princes the full honours they claimed, while simultaneously exacting the respect indispensable to its own prestige. The day’s ceremonies — described under Atjehsche ambassade ceremony (1 July 1641) — included an enormous elephant procession, the Sembah|sembah] of the court, the presentation of an Atjehsche feestjas (Atjeh ceremonial robe) marked with three golden rings on the collar, and the Sultana’s own golden beteldoos offered to Soury so that he might prepare a sirih-quid — an honour unprecedented for any ambassador.
The Sultana also had the chief eunuch summon the legation the following day to the house of the Opperbisschop (high priest), ostensibly to “translate” the letter — although it had already been rendered into Malay — in order to seek clarification on points obscure to her council. The embassy’s silent purpose was to explain how Portugal in 1640 had been freed from Spain, was no longer the Republic’s mortal enemy, and why the Republic had concluded a ten-year truce with Portugal the following year. The Portuguese nobleman Francisco de Souza de Castro was at that time a prisoner in Atjeh.
The “maidens as ransom” request
At an audience attended by the Panglima’s of Pedir and Deli and many other nobles, the Atjeh chiefs asked whether the Dutch had brought “Portugeesche jonge dochterkens” — Portuguese maidens — to be delivered as losprijs (ransom), as they had previously requested. Soury answered gravely that there were none to be had at Batavia, that the ships had lain seven days at Malakka but could obtain none there either. His instructions had recommended him to add that the sending of maidens was tegen onze wet en religie — against our law and religion — but when the two Atjeh ambassadors who had travelled back with him confirmed what he had said, he omitted that declaration. The episode is preserved in the chapter heading of book XI: “Atjehsche ambassade. Inlandsche feesten. Maagden als losprijs.”
Festivities, jewels, and departure
The legation was entertained at the Sultana’s lusthof (pleasure-garden) on 14 July, with seven successive meals served in golden dishes, songs in honour of Iskander Muda — “den afstammeling, naar men geloofde, van Alexander den Grooten” (the descendant, so it was believed, of Alexander the Great) — moving the Atjeh hearers to tears, and baths in the garden pond stocked with thousands of carp. The late Sultan Iskander Tsani, himself a Pahang prince, was not spoken of at all: “men deed alsof hij nooit aan de regeering was geweest” — they acted as if he had never reigned.
The jewel sale, however, proved difficult. The Sultana already had many jewels and female vanity could not be played upon, since jewels were not women’s wear in Atjeh. The Rijksgrooten had to be lobbied with many visits and many gifts at their houses, in which task the Secretaris Riebeeck was particularly active. The Sultana was not liable for the order placed by her late husband, and the treasury could not authorise the 15,000 tayl (= 5,000 guilders) required. After much haggling a price was agreed for the greater part of the consignment, but for the future the import of jewels by the Company was forbidden. In later years the Bewindhebbers (Directors) tried again to sell jewels in Atjeh, in vain; the stones had to be sent back to Holland and the whole order produced a substantial loss. The Company could not so easily forget Iskander Tsani — but the Atjeh nobles had already forgotten their own Sultan.
On 26 November 1641 Soury and his secretary sailed for Batavia via Malakka.
Promotion of Van Riebeeck and aftermath
For Riebeeck the Atjeh journey brought promotion to Onderkoopman. He took up his place again on the General Secretariat, but only for a few months before being selected for the Cape project. In that later South-African career he would — Godee Molsbergen notes with dry irony — embrace and dance with “smerige Hottentotten” (filthy Hottentots) and ruin his coat in their service, “tot eer en voordeel van de Edele Compagnie” — to the honour and profit of the Honourable Company. The Atjeh embassy had been his diplomatic apprenticeship.
Significance
Soury’s embassy marks the high-point of Dutch-Atjeh diplomatic ceremony in the early VOC period: a choreographed encounter between a queen who had wanted a Dutch prince-consort and a Company that preferred to keep its presents and its distance. The episode also preserves one of the most detailed European descriptions of the Atjeh court at the moment of transition from the warrior-sultans to the long era of female rule that would dominate Atjeh politics for the next half-century. For Jan van Riebeeck personally, the mission was the making of his early career.
See Also
- Jan van Riebeeck
- Iskander Tsani
- Sultana of Atjeh (1641)
- Iskander Muda
- Pieter Soury’s mission to Atjeh (1641)
- Atjehsche ambassade ceremony (1 July 1641)
- Jacob Compostel
- Pieter Willemz
- Justus Schouten
- Joan Maetsuycker
- Francisco de Souza de Castro
- Dutch lodge at Atjeh
- Sabandaar
- Panglima
- Maagden als losprijs
- 1641
Source
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., Keizersgracht 471, 1932), chapter XI (“Atjehsche ambassade. Inlandsche feesten. Maagden als losprijs”) and chapter XII (“Juweelenhandel. Heeren Zeventien. Familieregeering”), pp. 39–47 of the numbered-letter sequence.