Sultanah Safiatuddin — “Safiattadin Sjáh” in Joh. Langhout’s spelling — was the first sultana of Atjeh, under whose government in 1651 a murder was committed upon the Hollanders, whereupon the Dutch decided to blockade the harbour places of Atjeh, so that “the state of war had again come in”.
The murder and the tin treaty
Under the restored friendship of 1640, the young successor of Iskandar Muda had in name wielded the sceptre over Atjeh while in fact the sjahbandars ruled, driving up the harbour dues as high as possible in the hope of expelling the Hollanders from their roadsteads; the “small vexations” of the Atjehnese, laying innumerable difficulties in the way of trade, remained unpunished. But when finally, in 1651, under the government of the first sultana, Safiattadin Sjáh, a murder was committed on the Hollanders, the Dutch side decided to blockade the harbour places of Atjeh. The consequence was a new treaty, by which it was determined that half of the tin yield from Perak would accrue to the East India Company, which would also obtain the monopoly of the trade. The Sultana consented, Langhout remarks, undoubtedly in the conviction that her countrymen would provide for the rest — “which they also did!”: the trade monopoly was continually violated, and when the notion “monopoly” had apparently wholly fallen away for the Atjehnese, the Company took action, occupying Indrapoera, Padang and Tikoe and concluding with the Minangkabauers on the West Coast of Sumatra a treaty of exclusive trade, of which the consequence was that in 1664 Jacob Cau could lay in at Padang the head depot for the Dutch trade.
See Also
- Murder of the Hollanders and blockade of Atjeh (1651)
- VOC-Minangkabau treaty and the founding of the Padang depot (1664)
- Sultan Iskandar Muda
- Acheh
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 14–15.