Sultan Tajul-alam

Sultan Tajul-alam — also known as Sapiatodin (Safiatuddin Syah), in J. Kreemer’s spelling Tadjoel-Alam Safijatoeddin (Tadj al-alam Safïat ad-dïn Sjah), and remembered in Achehnese tradition as the first sultana — ruled Atjeh from 1641 until 1675. She is one of the four monarchs whose names recur on virtually every chab sikureu’eng — the ninefold seal of the sultans of Acheh — and her mediation (afwah) is invoked in the preamble of sultans’ letters patent (sarakata). In Dr. F. W. Stapel’s Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland she is unnamed but constantly referred to as the sultane van Atjeh, the vorstin van Atjeh, or simply de Atjehsche sultane: the woman with whom the Compagnie negotiated every major settlement between 1641 and her death in 1675. Kreemer, in his Atjèh (1923), goes further and identifies her accession in 1641 as “the first step of Atjèh’s decline” from its zenith under Iskandar Moeda.

Accession and the female rule of Acheh

Tajul-alam’s reign inaugurated the celebrated female rule of Acheh (1641–1699), the period during which the sultanate was successively held by four queens. Her accession followed the death of her husband Iskandar Thani (also Iskander Tsani), himself the successor of Iskandar Muda (the great monarch who had raised Acheh to its zenith). The succession of a woman to the throne is one of the most distinctive features of Achehnese political history, and reflects both the matrilineal survivals in Achehnese society and the practical balance of power among the territorial chiefs who actually controlled the choice of sultan.

Stapel records her accession in the context of the 14 January 1641 fall of Malakka: “In 1641 a sultane came to power in Atjeh, daughter of Iskander Moeda” (In 1641 kwam in Atjeh een sultane aan het bewind, dochter van Iskander Moeda). The same widow, at about forty years of age, “wilde … een Nederlander tot Prinsgemaal verheffen” — wished to elevate a Dutchman to the rank of prince-consort — a proposal over which both the Rijksgrooten and the Hooge Regeering at Batavia placed their veto.

The ninefold seal and the royal imagination

The ninefold seal, as C. Snouck Hurgronje explains, consists of a large central circle bearing the name of the reigning sultan, surrounded by eight smaller circles each containing the name of a celebrated predecessor. The four names that recur on almost every seal are those of the rulers to whom the former prosperity of Acheh and her adat-institutions were generally ascribed: Sidi Meukamay (Alaedin al-Qahhar), Sultan Meukuta Alam (Iskandar Muda), Tajul-alam Sapiatodin, and Sultan Ahmat Shah. The presence of a woman among these four canonical names is striking, and testifies to the enduring respect in which the first sultana was held.

The preamble of the letters patent granted by Sultan Alaedin Muhamad Daud Shah Juhan to Panglima Meuseugit Raya on 4 Rabi’ al-Awwal 1307 H (1889) explicitly invokes the mediation of “Her late Majesty Tajul-alam Sapiatodin”, alongside Meukuta Alam Iskandar Muda, Alaedin Ahmat Shah, Alaedin Mahmut Shah, Alaedin Muhamat Shah, Alaedin Jauhar al-Alam Shah, and Alaedin Manso Shah. The continuing invocation of her name more than two centuries after her death is a measure of the place she holds in the Achehnese royal imagination.

The tjab sikoereuëng — Kreemer’s spelling of the chab sikureu’eng — is reproduced on the cover of Kreemer’s Atjèh (1923), an emblem whose choice testifies to the central place of the first sultana in the iconographic inheritance of the sultanate.

The 1641 treaty with Joost Schouten

The sultane’s accession in February 1641 — coincident with the 14 January 1641 fall of Portuguese Malakka to the Compagnie — produced the first major Acehnese-Dutch treaty of her reign, concluded “still in the first month of her reign — February” (nog in de eerste maand van haar regeering — Februari). The Compagnie’s envoy was Joost Schouten (the Justus Schouten of the Godee Molsbergen account).

By the agreement the sultane “conceded to the Dutchmen the tolls in the pepper ports Tikoe, Priaman, Padang and Indrapoera, and promised to admit no other European traders there” (zij de Nederlanders concessies deed op het gebied der tollen in de peperhavens Tikoe, Priaman, Padang en Indrapoera, en beloofde, daar geen andere Europeesche handelaars toe te laten). This treaty laid the groundwork for the more comprehensive agreements of 1649 and 1650. The careful restriction of the exclusion to European traders left the Atjehers’ own rights on the Westkust intact — a pattern that would recur in every subsequent Acehnese-Dutch treaty.

The 1649 treaty with Johan Truytman

The conquest of Malakka “sharpened the relationship with Atjeh again, and it became even very strained” (verscherpte de verhouding met Atjeh weer en ze werd zelfs zéér gespannen). The breakthrough came in 1649 when the envoy of the Hooge Regeering, Johan Truytman, “in a tactful manner won the sultane for the Compagnie” (op tactvolle wijze de sultane voor de Compagnie te winne).

He concluded in November of that year the two treaties by which the Compagnie obtained “important commercial advantages on the whole West Coast, with the exclusion of all other European and native nations — except Atjehers — and a regulation of the pepper prices” (de Compagnie belangrijke handelsvoordeelen kreeg op de geheele Westkust, met uitsluiting van alle andere Europeesche en Inlandsche naties — behalve Atjehers — en eene regeling van de peperprijzen). The careful reservation of Atjeher rights — behals Atjehers — is structurally identical to the Schouten treaty of 1641, but the geographic scope has dramatically widened: from four named pepper ports in 1641 to “the whole West Coast” in 1649.

The 1650 treaty on Perak tin

The most concrete diplomatic achievement of the sultane’s first decade was the treaty of 15 August 1650, in which “the queen of Atjeh bound herself to open the tin trade of Perak, which stood under her suzerainty, only to Atjehers and Hollanders” (de vorstin van Atjeh zich verbonden, den tinhandel in Perak alleen open te stellen voor Atjehers en Hollanders). This monopoly secured the Compagnie half of the peninsula’s tin and was the crown of the Truytman treaties.

The 1656 blockade and the arrest of Anthony van Voorst

Stapel emphasises that “the capriciousness of the Atjehers was proverbial” (De wispelturigheid der Atjehers was evenwel sprekwoordelijk geworden), and the sultane’s reign gave repeated demonstration of it. The Compagnie’s merchants on the West Coast, in buying pepper and camphor, repeatedly suffered difficulties from the Atjehsche governors there. When oral and written protests failed, Batavia in 1656 resolved to blockade Atjeh’s coasts — the 1656 blockade.

The sultane’s response was sharp. Rather than submit, “the sultane had the chief of the Compagnie’s trade on the West Coast, Anthony van Voorst, with all his officials arrested, and laid hands at the same time on the ‘effects’ of the Compagnie at Atjeh and on the West Coast” (liet de sultane het opperhoofd van ‘s Compagnies handel op de Westkust, Anthony van Voorst, met al zijn ambtenaren in arrest nemen, en legde tevens beslag op de ‘effecten’ der Compagnie te Atjeh en aan de Westkust). The episode reveals the sultane as a ruler willing to use the persons and property of Compagnie officials as leverage — a tactic that forced Batavia to undertake the 1657–1659 expeditions that produced the peace of 5 October 1659.

The 1659 peace and after

The peace of 5 October 1659 was negotiated through the deputation of Jacob de Keyser and Balthasar Bort, who “obtained on 5 October the ratification by the sultane” (verkreeg den 5den October de ratificatie door de sultane). The Compagnie was to receive compensation for the damage suffered in the arrest of its people and goods; on the West Coast trade was to be carried on only by Atjehers and the Compagnie, and the latter was to re-establish a lodge (loge) at Atjeh. A separate regulation covered Perak: half of the tin to Atjeh, half to the Compagnie, at 30 reals the bar (rising to 32½ once Dutch arrears were satisfied).

Stapel stresses the limits of this settlement. Despite the 1659 treaty and despite the sultane’s personal participation, “the Atjehsche governors” on the West Coast continued to levy tolls and other rights on the pepper sold by the Menangkabaus to the Compagnie — a permanent source of friction that ultimately drove the Compagnie into the secret Painansch Contract of 1663 with the Menangkabau rulers.

Late reign and death

The sultane’s authority waned visibly in her last decade. The secret negotiations of Jan van Groenewegen in 1662 drew the Menangkabau chiefs away from “the croone of Atchin” (de croone van Atchin) and toward the Compagnie’s protection, and “despite all secrecy the Atjehers got wind of it” (Ondanks alle geheimhouding kregen de Atjehers er toch de lucht van). At Atjeh itself “the resident of the Compagnie established there noticed the displeasure; he was no longer admitted to the court” (hij werd niet meer tot het hof toegelaten). The Compagnie’s withdrawal of its factories from both Atjeh and Perak in 1663 deepened the unease of the West Coast populations, especially those of Tikoe and Priaman, which lay closest to Atjeh.

The sultane died in 1675, by which point Atjeh’s hold on the Westkust had been broken at Paoeh, Indrapoera, Padang and Priaman by the combined work of Jacob Cau, Abraham Versprect and Jacob Jorisse Pits. Her successors inherited a kingdom stripped of its Sumatran provinces and a Dutch frontier that now reached almost to the borders of Atjeh proper.

Kreemer’s account: the vrouwenregeering and the loss of the alleenhandel

In J. Kreemer’s Atjèh (1923), the accession of Tadjoel-Alam Safijatoeddin is the watershed at which the long zenith of the sultanate under Iskandar Moeda begins to give way. Kreemer frames the vrouwenregeering in structural-economic terms: the beginning of female rule in 1641 marked, for him, the end of the havenkoningen (“harbour-kings”) regime and the loss of the Sultan’s trade monopoly (alleenhandel). Under the female rulers the Sultan no longer possessed the alleenhandel but “moest zich tevreden stellen met de opbrengst van bij in- en uitvoer geheven rechten” — “had to be content with the proceeds of import/export duties.” Since wealth determined the Sultan’s internal influence as well, the position of the female rulers could no longer equal that of their glorious predecessors.

The relations between the VOC and Atjèh during this period were marked, in Kreemer’s account, by Dutch commercial advantage. The VOC obtained so many privileges on the Malay peninsula and on Sumatra’s West Coast that Tadjoel-Alam Safijatoeddin once complained to a Dutch envoy: “ick en weet niet, wat ik nu de Hollanders voortaen al meer zal geven” — “I do not know what more I can give the Dutch hereafter.” The Dutch believed they had Atjèh “genoeghsaem t’ onser devotie” — “virtually at our devotion” — but in reality received “in plaetse van thin en peper slechts schone woorden en een vriendelijck gelaet” — “in place of tin and pepper only fair words and a friendly face.”

The structural consequence of this growing imbalance was the winding down of the VOC’s permanent presence in Atjèh. In 1648 the Governor-General and Raden decided to close the VOC offices in Atjèh and Pera, and around 1660, when the Dutch settled on Sumatra’s Westkust, the post in Atjèh was permanently closed.

Significance

In the wider frame of Acehnese history the sultane’s reign is the hinge. It opens with Atjeh still commanding the West Coast and the Compagnie a single assistant resident at the Acehnese court; it closes with the Painansch Contract (6 July 1663) signed, the Paoeh expedition imminent, and the Westkust a Dutch sphere of influence in everything but name. The sultane was no passive victim — her arrest of Anthony van Voorst in 1656 was a sovereign act of reprisal — but the structural forces of Dutch commercial pressure and Menangkabau restiveness were beyond any single ruler’s capacity to resist. Her reign is also the last period in which Atjeh was treated by Batavia as a co-equal power: under her successors, Acehnese envoys became supplicants, and by the 1680s the Atjehsch-gezinde partij on the Westkust had been reduced to a faction the Compagnie could simply expel.

Tajul-alam’s reign, on the VOC-treaty account, represents a period of pragmatic accommodation with the VOC, balancing Aceh’s traditional interests against the rising power of the Dutch. Her treaties established the framework for VOC trade on Sumatra’s West Coast for decades to come and helped secure Aceh’s position as a key pepper and tin supplier, even as the sultanate’s autonomy was progressively narrowed by Dutch commercial demands. The continuing invocation of her name on the ninefold seals more than two centuries after her death is a measure of the place she holds in the Achehnese royal imagination.

Sources

The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland: De Archipel en het Maleische Schiereiland in 1619 – Idem in 1650 – De Compagnie buiten den Archipel in 1650, by Dr. F. W. Stapel (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1928), pp. 30–31.

De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 27, 30–31, 64–65 (tekst bij de bladen 2 en 3: De Archipel en het Maleische Schiereiland in 1650, De Archipel in 1684, Malakka en het Maleische Schiereiland) en blz. 14–23 (tekst bij blad 4: Atjeh en de Westkust van Sumatra in 1684).

Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger, 1932), on the Soury embassy of 1641 and the proposal to elevate a Dutchman to prince-consort.

Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Tweede Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1923. Identifier: Delpher MMKB02B:000001798; PPN 395084288. Koninklijke Bibliotheek. 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 XI–XII (“Atjehsche ambassade. Inlandsche feesten. Maagden als losprijs”; “Juweelenhandel. Heeren Zeventien. Familieregeering”), pp. 39–47 of the numbered-letter sequence. Atjèh. Algemeen samenvattend overzicht van land en volk van Atjèh en onderhoorigheden, door J. Kreemer, Archivaris van het Atjèh Instituut. Tweede Deel. Leiden: N.V. Boekhandel en Drukkerij voorheen E.J. Brill, 1923. Identifier: Delpher MMKB02B:000001798.

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