Sultan Aloeddin — the Atjehnese sultan who reigned at the turn of the seventeenth century and who is the Sultan of Atjeh named in the 1602 Atjeh embassy to Prince Maurits — was the ruler under whom the sultanate first encountered the Dutch. His reign encompasses the death of Cornelis de Houtman in 1599, the captivity of Frederik de Houtman, the pigskin parchment letter incident of 1600, the Zeeland ships’ visit of 1601, the embassy to Prince Maurits of 1602–1603, and the foundation of the first Dutch office on Sumatra — named “Zeeland” — at Atjeh.
The 1599 Houtman disaster
When the De Moucheron expedition under the De Houtman brothers reached Atjeh in June 1599, the good understanding with the Sultan lasted only briefly. With poisoned fruits and drinks, later with a kris-attack, the Atjehnese sought to be rid of the foreigners. There were many dead, including Cornelis de Houtman, and many prisoners, including Frederik de Houtman. See Death of Cornelis de Houtman at Atjeh (1599).
The pigskin letter incident, 1600
At the end of 1600, Paulus van Caerden of the second Amsterdam fleet visited Atjeh. At the solemn reception of the Sultan, who was to receive gifts and a letter from Prince Maurits, a Portuguese monk pointed out that the letter — written on parchment made from the skin of the unclean pig — could not lawfully be touched by a Mohammedan. “Zoo miste’s Prinsen brief zijn doel” — so the Prince’s letter missed its mark. See Pigskin parchment letter incident at Atjeh (1600).
The Zeeland ships of 1601 and the release of Frederik de Houtman
In August 1601 four Zeeland ships came to Atjeh, bearing a letter from Prince Maurits in Spanish, in which the Prince pressed for the release of the Dutch prisoners, assured the Sultan that the ships could lend help against his enemies, and proposed to buy pepper. The gifts accompanying the letter — like the letter itself — were welcome. The Sultan promised Frederik de Houtman “en zijn vrouw” (and his wife — for the prisoner’s fidelity to his wife in Holland had made a strong impression) compensation for his material losses. To investigate the Portuguese slander that the Dutch realen were false, the Sultan had a thousand silver pieces cut through, whereupon the good quality of the Holland-minted coins was established.
The 1602 embassy to Prince Maurits
The Sultan sent three ambassadors — Abdoel Hamid, Sri Mohammed and Mir Hassan — to Europe on the returning Zeeland ships. They reached the Republic in 1602. Abdoel Hamid died at Middelburg in August 1602; Sri Mohammed and Mir Hassan proceeded to Prince Maurits’s siege camp at Grave, where they were received with state. The ambassadors delivered two letters from Sultan Aloeddin to Prince Maurits, returned the Prince’s earlier letter (marked with the King’s seal to prove receipt), and presented a costly kris, a golden dish and cup, about two pounds of Borneo camphor, and a lance. The Sultan was described in the audience as “glinsterende als de zon op den middag en als de maan, wanneer zij vol is” — shining like the sun at midday and like the moon when it is full.
The first Dutch office on Sumatra: “Zeeland”
At Atjeh the Zeelanders received their first Dutch office on Sumatra, baptised “Zeeland,” where two merchants and several assistants remained behind. Two of them sailed on Atjeh vessels to the Gulf of Cambay, on the west coast of Voor-Indië, where, thanks to the letters of the Atjeh Sultan, they were excellently received in Goezeratte and could begin their trade. The Atjeh Sultan’s letters thus opened the Gujarat trade to Dutch merchants — a small but concrete example of how the Sultan’s diplomatic reach extended to the Indian mainland.
Atjeh ambassadors witness sea-battle at St. Helena
The Atjeh ambassadors had the privilege, on their voyage to Europe, of witnessing a sea-battle off St. Helena. Two Zeeland ships lay at the island when a sail was sighted, presumed to be a Dutch ship. The Langebercque, only 150 lasts in size, found itself opposite a heavy Spanish galleon from Goa, bound for Lisbon. The Spaniard opened fire. When two Zeeland sailors had fallen, the Langebercque “met de volle laag aan” — gave her full broadside — and after three days’ fighting the Spaniard surrendered. The rich prize was very welcome in the fatherland.
Significance
For Atjeh’s history, Sultan Aloeddin is the ruler under whom the sultanate’s formal diplomatic relationship with the Dutch Republic began. The decade of his reign that opens the seventeenth century contains every major type of Dutch-Atjeh interaction that would recur for the next forty years: the European merchant fatality, the European captivity, the letter-from-prince incident, the Sultan’s counter-embassy, the founding of a permanent Dutch lodge, and the Sultan’s intervention to open third-country (here Gujarat) trade to the Dutch. The embassy of 1602 to Prince Maurits is the high-point of this opening phase, and Sultan Aloeddin’s two letters to the Prince are the earliest surviving Atjeh diplomatic correspondence with a European sovereign.
See Also
- Cornelis de Houtman
- Frederik de Houtman
- Balthazar de Moucheron
- Paulus van Caerden
- Prince Maurits
- Abdoel Hamid
- Sri Mohammed
- Mir Hassan
- Leonard Werner
- Pigskin parchment letter incident at Atjeh (1600)
- Atjeh embassy to Prince Maurits at Grave (1602)
- Death of Cornelis de Houtman at Atjeh (1599)
- Fort Zeeland at Atjeh
- Dutch lodge at Atjeh
- Goezeratte
- 1599
- 1600
- 1601
- 1602
- Acheh
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., 1932), chapters XXXII–XXXIII (“Het Kasteel van Verre. De brief op varkensvel in Atjeh”; “Atjehers in het kamp van Maurits”), pp. 114–121 of the numbered-letter sequence.