T. Maharadja Mangkoeboemi was the zelfbestuurder (self-governing ruler) of the landschap Lho’ Seumawè on the north coast of Atjeh, and with T. Tjhi’ Moehammad Djohan Alamsjah of Peusangan the drafter, first signatory and joint executor of the letter of the Acehnese chiefs addressed to H. N. A. Swart at Den Haag on 26 September 1933, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday on 12 October 1933.
The letter
The letter was signed by thirty-two chiefs and dignitaries of the north coast — the region where the resistance of 1908–1912 had raged most fiercely. It recorded that they had not forgotten “all the former services and benefactions of Your Honour towards us and also for the land of Atjeh, our birthplace, which has become pacified, peaceful and prosperous and received proper education, which forms the pillar on which the culture of a country rests, beginning with the coming to power of His Honour the Governor H. N. A. Swart in Atjeh, from the year 1908 to 1918.”
They offered as a memento of the day “a smoking set consisting of a cigar case, an ashtray and a match holder,” and closed with the wish that God might prolong the years of Swart, his wife and family.
The letter was signed, “in the name of all those mentioned above and as the executors of their commission,” by T. Maharadja Mangkoeboemi, zelfbestuurder of Lho’ Seumawè, and T. Tjhi Moehammad Djohan Alamsjah, zelfbestuurder of Peusangan.
His son, T. Tjoet Lizamsjah, was the seventeenth signatory.
Significance
The letter of 1933 — drawn up fifteen years after Swart’s departure — was, in du Croo’s presentation, the principal Acehnese testimony to Swart’s memory in Atjeh: “They wrote to him, they told him their opinion, they did not forget their Bapa Swart (Father Swart).”
See Also
- Letter of the Acehnese Chiefs to General Swart (26 September 1933)
- T. Tjhi’ Moehammad Djohan Alamsjah
- Lho’ Seumawè
- H. N. A. Swart
- Noordkust van Atjeh
- 1933
Source
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter XVII, p. 161; Appendix: Letter of the Acehnese chiefs, pp. 165–169.