Toekoe Tjoet Bantah was the Dutch-recognised head (hoofd) of the IX Moekims in 1876, who — after the Dutch conquest of that sagi — attached himself openly to the Dutch side and governed those of his people who dared return from flight and settle near Oleh Soesoe under the protection of the commander of the south-east line.
The protected head
He stood in direct communication with Colonel K. van der Heyden, commander of the south-east line, who supplied him and his people with rice and salt at fixed times; his people were permitted to open a pasar (market) at Lambaroe and sell fruit and poultry to the troops. On 20 April 1876 he came to the line commander alone: no Atjehnese had dared appear at the pasar that day, and he reported that all his people had fled to the mountains from fear of the orang toenong — the people of the XXII Moekims — who threatened them with an incursion and whom they felt wholly unable to resist. They would not return, they declared, until a Dutch fortification closed the way from the XXII into the XXV Moekims.
The pressure was one of the direct grounds on which the May operation founded the post of Biloel Zuid, expressly meant also to protect the returned people of the IX Moekims. His case — a head who chose the Dutch side before the war ended and lived in dependence on them — shows, in the telling of H. F. Meijer’s Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876 (1883), how unprotected any friendly chief remained in the guerilla year.
See Also
- IX Moekims
- Biloel Zuid operation (13-15 May 1876)
- Biloel Zuid
- Orang toenong
- K. van der Heyden
- Guerilla warfare in Groot-Atjeh
Source
Atjeh van 26 December 1875 tot 4 September 1876, door H. F. Meijer (Breda: P. B. Nieuwenhuijs, 1883), chapter VII, pp. 166, 181.