Raja Alam — also written Radja Alam, R. Alam — was, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s survey of the Outer Possessions, the Siak prince whose disputes with his brother Raja Moehamad over the Siak succession were the immediate occasion of the Dutch East India Company’s (the Oost-Indische Compagnie’s) 1755 establishment of the Poelau Gontong post on the Siak River, and whose restoration to the Siak throne with Dutch support in 1759–1761 was the first act of the long Dutch-Siak alliance that would, in turn, prepare the ground for the Siak overlordship of the East Coast statelets under Ismail and Said Ali.
The dispute with Raja Moehamad
The Bureau records Raja Alam’s dispute with his brother Raja Moehamad in a single, dense footnote. “In 1755 verleende de O. I. C. hulp aan Radja Moehamad, in zijne twisten met zijn broeder R. Alam, over de opvolging in Siak” — “In 1755 the O. I. C. gave help to Radja Moehamad, in his disputes with his brother R. Alam, over the succession in Siak.” The dispute was, in the Bureau’s framing, a fraternal succession dispute — the standard form of Siak dynastic conflict — and the Compagnie’s support for Raja Moehamad was, in return for the right to establish the Poelau Gontong post, the first Dutch intervention in the Siak succession.
The 1759 reversal
The Compagnie’s support for Raja Moehamad was, however, reversed in 1759. The Bureau records: “Het afloopen van die post in 1759 had tengevolge dat de Compagnie steun verleende aan den eerst met haar hulp van den troon verdreven Radja Alam, den tegenstander van den in 1759 heerschenden sultan Radja Moehamad” — “The running-out [i.e. the destruction] of that post in 1759 had, as a consequence, that the Compagnie gave support to Radja Alam, who had first been driven from the throne with her help, the opponent of the sultan who ruled in 1759, Radja Moehamad.” The Compagnie’s reversal of allegiance — from Raja Moehamad to Raja Alam — was the immediate consequence of Raja Moehamad’s destruction of the Poelau Gontong post, and it inaugurated the long Dutch-Siak alliance that would persist into the 1760s.
The restoration and the conquest of Pelalawan (1761)
The Dutch-backed restoration of Raja Alam was completed in 1761. The Bureau records: “Deze laatste overleed in 1760, doch zijn opvolger Radja Ismail, werd in 1761 overwonnen en verdreven naar Pelalawan, dat daarop eveneens met behulp der Compagnie werd overweldigd door R. Alam” — “This latter [Radja Moehamad] died in 1760, but his successor Radja Ismail, was in 1761 overcome and driven out to Pelalawan, which thereafter, also with the help of the Compagnie, was overwhelmed by R. Alam.” The Dutch-backed conquest of Pelalawan was, in the Bureau’s framing, the first step in the great Siak expansion of the 1760s, and the political event that transformed the Siak sultanate from a contested principate into a regional power.
Significance
Raja Alam is, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s survey, the political beneficiary of the 1759 destruction of the Poelau Gontong post and the Dutch reversal of allegiance that followed. His restoration to the Siak throne with Dutch support in 1759–1761 was, in the Bureau’s framing, the first act of the long Dutch-Siak alliance that would, in turn, prepare the ground for the Siak overlordship of the East Coast statelets under Ismail and Said Ali. Raja Alam’s Dutch-backed conquest of Pelalawan in 1761 was, in turn, the first step in the great Siak expansion of the 1760s — the expansion that would, in the late eighteenth century, transform the Siak sultanate into the principal rival of Atjeh for the East Coast overlordship.
See Also
- Siak
- Sultan Ismail of Siak
- Raja Moehamad
- Pelalawan
- Poelau Gontong
- Acheh
- atjehsche-overheersing-der-noordelijke-kuststaatjes
- Timeline of Aceh History
- 1755
- 1759
- 1760
- 1761
Source
De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Afl. 3: Oostkust van Sumatra. Eerste Stuk, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1918), p. 103 n. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shelfmark LS.08781.
Nota omtrent het Rijk van Siak, by H. A. Hijmans van Anrooy, in Tijdschrift van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, dl. XXX (1885).
De Nederlanders in Siak en Djohore, by E. Netscher, in Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap, XXXV (1870).