Tgk. Poeti’ was the notorious Acehnese religious resistance leader of the Meulaboh country who submitted in December 1910 with all his teungkoes, panglimas and sixty followers, but who in December 1917 organised the attack on lieutenant Gosenson at Djeuram with the intention of making resistance in Seunagan break out again, and was arrested and banished.
Submission, 1910
In March 1910 more than a hundred uitgewekenen reported themselves in the Meulaboh country, “among them were many adherents of Tgk. Poeti’.” December of that year “brought the closing piece: at last Tgk. Poeti’ submitted with all his religious teachers, war-leaders and sixty followers.” Thanks to that strong and general improvement, various landschappen of the west coast could be opened for industrial and agricultural undertakings in January 1911.
The attack of 1917
On 29 December 1917 the bivouac commander of Djeuram, 1ste luitenant G. F. P. Gosenson, returning with a few marechaussée from an elephant hunt undertaken at the request of the inhabitants of Goenòng Balè, was attacked by some young Acehnese of Seunagan. He was severely wounded by a klewang blow across the face, disfiguring him for life, and by a cut across the thigh; he and his men, all wounded, laid the three attackers low.
“The investigation conducted by Schmidt brought to light that the notorious Tgk. Poeti’, through the agency of a certain clerk Hamit, had set the raid on foot with the intention of causing the resistance in Seunagan to break out again. Tgk. Poeti’ was arrested and banished; order was not disturbed.”
Significance
Du Croo singled out the Gosenson attack as “a serious attack, because it had a political background” — the one incident of the later pacification years genuinely political in origin, and therefore the exception that proved his general rule that such outbreaks arose from personal grievance and maloe.
See Also
- Attack on Gosenson at Djeuram (29 December 1917)
- G. F. P. Gosenson
- H. J. Schmidt
- Seunagan
- Meulaboh
- Westkust van Atjeh
- Djeuram
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 XI, pp. 110–112; Chapter XII, pp. 121–122.