Van Dedem — Baron Van Dedem — was the Dutch minister of colonies to whom the criticised gentlemen Van den Berg and Der Kinderen went to audience to protest against the publication by the government of Snouck Hurgronje’s De Atjèhers — the work in which such unsalted criticism of their praestaties occurred. The minister felt with them and wired to Indië that with the spreading of the second volume must be waited until after receipt of a letter that would follow — the letter that charged the governor-general to give the author a talking-to and to add a government declaration (the Bekendmaking Nederburgh) to the second volume. Later, Van Dedem would be made so afraid by Deijkerhoff and his people of some change in Atjèh-policy that even the Queen-Regent was called upon, to make the governor-general Van der Wijck promise that he would change nothing therein.
The 1893-1894 Intervention
When the first volume of De Atjèhers appeared in 1893, Van den Berg and Der Kinderen — feeling themselves not flattered by the criticism of their work on Atjèh, though what stood in De Atjèhers printed to their disadvantage was, in the event, much milder than what the governor-general and the Raad van Indië had meant to publish — went to audience with the minister Van Dedem to protest against the publication by the government of a work in which such unsalted criticism of their praestaties occurred. The minister felt with them and wired to Indië that with spreading of the second volume must be waited until after receipt of a letter that would follow.
The letter followed and charged the governor-general to give the author of De Atjèhers a talking-to and to add, as satisfaction for both criticised gentlemen, a government declaration to the second volume. The landvoogd Van der Wijck summoned the guilty or accused — Snouck Hurgronje — and showed him the minister’s letter; but the delinquent was not penitent. The result was the Bekendmaking Nederburgh prefixed to the second volume of De Atjèhers (1894).
The 1895-1896 Atjeh-Policy Intervention
Later, Van Dedem would be made so afraid by Deijkerhoff and his people of some change in Atjèh-policy that even the Queen-Regent was called upon, to make the governor-general Van der Wijck promise that he would change nothing therein. The promise bound the hands of the governor-general; and the Atjèh-policy of Deijkerhoff was thereby protected from change at the metropolitan centre. The protection of the Deijkerhoff-Oema policy from change at the metropolitan centre was the immediate institutional cause of the defection of 29 March 1896.
Significance
Van Dedem is the Dutch minister of colonies whose interventions — first in 1893–1894 over the publication of De Atjèhers, and later in 1895–1896 over the protection of the Deijkerhoff-Oema policy from change — were the principal metropolitan interventions in Atjèh-policy in the period before the defection of 29 March 1896. The first intervention delayed the publication of the second volume of De Atjèhers and produced the Bekendmaking Nederburgh; the second intervention, by binding the hands of the governor-general Van der Wijck, protected the Deijkerhoff-Oema policy from change at the metropolitan centre, and so was the immediate institutional cause of the catastrophe of March 1896.
Sources
Het Land van Jan Pieterszoon Coen, door Dr. W. A. Terwogt (Hoorn: P. Geerts, [1891]). Hoofdstuk XIII: “Gelukkig, dat wij althans nu een Minister van Koloniën hebben, mr. W. K. Baron van Dedem, die in zijn memorie van antwoord op de Indische Begrooting van 1892 aan de Tweede Kamer onomwonden heeft verklaard, dat hij van toegeven en zachtheid tegenover den fanatieken Atjeher geen heil verwacht.”
See Also
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- De Atjehers (Snouck Hurgronje)
- Bekendmaking Nederburgh
- L. W. C. van den Berg
- Der Kinderen
- Van der Wijck
- Deijkerhoff
- Defection of Teuku Umar (March 1896)
- Queen-Regent of the Netherlands
- Raad van Indië
- Aceh War
- Atjeh-oorlog
- 1893
- 1894
- 1895
- 1896
- Het Land van Jan Pieterszoon Coen (Terwogt)
- Dr. W. A. Terwogt
- J. B. van Heutsz
- 1891
- 1892
Source
Drie Atjeh-mannen: Snouck Hurgronje — Van Heutsz — Van Daalen, door H. T. Damsté (September 1936). OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-111-Drie_Atjeh_mannen_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 18–19, 27.