Sultan Said Ali — Sultan of Siak in the closing decades of the eighteenth century and the early decades of the nineteenth — was, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s survey of the Outer Possessions, the Siak sultan under whose reign the Siak overlordship of the East Coast statelets was imposed by armed force and under whose death (in 1821) the long decay of Siak power began. Said Ali’s reign is, in the Bureau’s framing, the high-water mark of Siak’s East Coast overlordship — the moment at which the Siak sultanate replaced the Atjehnese overlordship that had lapsed in 1769 and imposed its own authority over the entire northern coast of Sumatra.
Background: the Siak revival under Raja Ismail
The Bureau’s account of Said Ali’s reign opens with the Siak revival under Raja Ismail. The Bureau records that Raja Ismail — having been defeated and driven out to Pelalawan in 1761 — had succeeded, in 1779, in restoring himself to the Siak throne. “Vooral gedurende het bestuur van Sultan Said Ali, die in het einde der achttiende eeuw weder Ismail’s opvolger had verdrongen, breidde Siak zijn heerschappij over zijne nabuurstaten uit, tot in de Noordelijke kustlandschappen toe” — “Especially during the administration of Sultan Said Ali, who in the end of the eighteenth century had again driven out Ismail’s successor, Siak extended its rule over its neighbouring states, even into the Northern coastal lands.”
The Bureau’s account thus presents Said Ali as the successor of Raja Ismail — the sultan who, having displaced Ismail’s own successor, continued and amplified Ismail’s project of Siak expansion. The “einde der achttiende eeuw” — “end of the eighteenth century” — fixes Said Ali’s accession in the 1780s or 1790s, after Ismail’s restoration of 1779.
The Siak overlordship of the East Coast statelets
The Bureau records that Said Ali’s reign saw the imposition of Siak overlordship over the East Coast statelets that had briefly — between 1769 and the Siak expansion — enjoyed their independence from Atjeh. The Bureau records that the East Coast statelets — having “knew themselves again to be free” of the Atjehnese overlordship in 1769 — had “slechts korten tijd genoten zij hunne onafhankelijkheid; weinige jaren later reeds werden zij door het wapengeweld van Ismail en Said Ali gedwongen Siak als opperheer te erkennen” — “enjoyed their independence only a short time; a few years later they were already forced, by the armed force of Ismail and Said Ali, to acknowledge Siak as overlord.”
The Siak overlordship thus imposed by Ismail and Said Ali was, in the Bureau’s account, a sustained act of armed coercion. The two sultans operated together — “Ismail en Said Ali” — in a joint project of East Coast subjection that transformed the statelets from independent polities into Siak dependencies.
The Siak zenith and the long decay
The Siak overlordship of the East Coast, imposed under Ismail and Said Ali, was, the Bureau records, sustained as long as the Siak sultanate was powerful. “Zoolang dit rijk krachtig was, bleef deze toestand van onderhoorigheid gehandhaafd” — “As long as this realm was powerful, this state of dependency was maintained.” The decay of Siak power began, however, immediately after Said Ali’s death in 1821. “Doch de voortdurende binnenlandsche twisten, welke vooral na Said Ali’s dood (1821) ontbrandden, deden dien invloed weldra tanen” — “But the continuous internal disputes, which especially after Said Ali’s death (1821) broke out, caused that influence soon to wane.”
The accession of Tongkoe Ismail in 1827 accelerated the decline, and by the middle of the nineteenth century the East Coast statelets were, in effect, independent — until the 1854 reimposition of Atjehnese overlordship transferred their allegiance from Siak to Atjeh.
Significance
Said Ali is, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s survey, the high-water mark of Siak’s East Coast overlordship. His reign — together with that of Ismail — represents the moment at which the Siak sultanate replaced the Atjehnese overlordship that had lapsed in 1769 and imposed its own authority over the entire northern coast of Sumatra. His death in 1821 opens the long decay of Siak power that would, within three decades, lead to the 1854 reimposition of Atjehnese overlordship and, within four decades, to the 1858 cession of Siak to the Dutch.
See Also
- Siak
- Sultan Ismail of Siak
- Tongkoe Ismail
- Acheh
- Pelalawan
- Langkat
- Deli
- Serdang
- Asahan
- atjehsche-overheersing-der-noordelijke-kuststaatjes
- atjeh-as-opperheer-in-langkat-deli-serdang-(1854)
- Siak tractate of 1 February 1858
- 1769
- 1779
- 1821
- 1827
- 1854
- 1858
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), pp. 103–104. 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).