Toengkoe Radja Pakik was the prince (radja) of Pidir, the most important of the little states on the north coast of Atjeh. His submission of 29 February 1876 opened the way for the Dutch occupation of Pidir in June 1876.
War and submission
Toengkoe Pakik’s sister had been married to Sultan Mansjoer Sjah, and his daughter to the last Sultan Machmoed Sjah — a closeness of kin that explained much of Pidir’s loyalty to the fallen sultan’s cause. During the Second Expedition he had sworn, so the Dutch records report, not to return to his realm before Atjeh came out of the struggle as victor or had bowed to Dutch arms; and he was on the side of the enemy with his armed force when his capital was bombarded and landed troops occupied the coast on 31 December 1873.
The renewal of the Dutch offensive from December 1875, however, convinced him of the hopelessness of the resistance in Groot-Atjeh — and his own interest, Meijer judges, forced him at last to a better disposition. In the beginning of February 1876 he gave the first signs; at the end of the month the Dutch flag was hoisted at the capital of Pidir, he confirmed his declaration of submission with an oath on the Koran, and — in a clause deviating from earlier declarations — ceded free of charge a terrain for the Dutch establishment.
The honourable burden of occupation, June–August 1876
At the landing of Captain J. R. Engelhard on 1 June he asked for delay “to speak with his heads and his people”; he yielded on 3 June. But the great market of his capital, crowded with armed men of the whole war party —the rabble of all the former Atjehnese realm in the words of the Dutch — was beyond his power to restrain; he could not, or did not dare to, expel them. That the prince’s own position was ambiguous is shown by reports from the Gigiëng side reaching the Dutch: Toengkoe Pakik had once been in Groot-Atjeh to join the enemy with his fighters.
In July he asked that Dutch soldiers should not go near the neighbouring kampongs; on 14 August a Dutch pioneer-coolie was killed a hundred metres from the assistant-resident’s house, and the prince promised to hunt the perpetrator, sent his son to the military commander, came himself the next day, and on 5 August sent an embassy to Kota Radja to show his good disposition — the first since his submission — which was shown the whole Dutch establishment in and around the Kraton and the lines.
After 1876
The Dutch post at Pidir was moved to Segli in February 1877. Toengkoe Pakik’s submission stands in Meijer’s history as the first great trophy of the north-coast establishment policy and the first step on the long road to the lasting administrative occupation of Pidir (Sigli).
See Also
- Pedir
- Occupation of Pidir (31 May - 4 June 1876)
- Toengkoe Bintara Kamangan
- Segli
- 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 VIII, pp. 266–282.