W. J. Utermark — published as Ir. W. J. Utermark (i.e., holding the Dutch Ingenieur engineering degree; the table of contents gives the initial as “I. W.J. UTERMARK”, evidently an OCR artefact for “Ir.”) — was a Dutch economist who, in 1946, contributed the closing chapter Indië in de wereldhuishouding (“The Indies in the World Economy”) to the volume Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk edited by Dr. Wormser. His chapter places the Dutch East Indies in the global network of sea-lanes and ports, and gives Sabang — the northernmost point of Sumatra — a strategic place in that network.
Treatment of Sabang and the Atjeh position
Utermark’s chapter opens the Indies’ geography with the words: “The distance from Sabang, the northernmost point of Sumatra, to the eastern border of Dutch New Guinea, amounts as the crow flies to slightly more than 5000 km.” The choice of Sabang — the port on the island of Weh off the Atjeh coast, terminus of the Atjeh railway and site of the Sabang sea-port and coaling station — as the western anchor of the Indies’ east–west span is a measure of the port’s significance in the late-colonial maritime imagination. The same chapter gives the total area of the Netherlands Indies as approximately fifty-five times that of the Netherlands, with a population almost eight times as large, and notes that the entire archipelago, laid out on the map of Europe, “reaches from Ireland to the Caucasus.”
In the chapter’s discussion of the Indies’ principal ports — ordered by total incoming tonnage in 1938 — Sabang is listed alongside Tandjong Priok (Batavia), Semarang, Belawan (the port of Deli), Palembang, Makassar, Menado, Balikpapan, Tarakan, Pontianak and Bandjarmasin. The list confirms the place of the Atjeh-adjacent Sabang–Belawan port complex in the Indies’ late-colonial maritime economy.
Significance
For the Atjeh-focused reader, Utermark’s chief significance is the placement of Sabang at the head of his east–west geography of the Indies. The choice is not incidental: Sabang had been developed since the late nineteenth century as a coaling station and free port on the western entrance to the Strait of Malacca, and its strategic position — overlooking the sea-lane between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea — gave it an importance out of all proportion to the small population of the Weh island group. By naming Sabang (rather than, say, Koeta Radja or Deli’s Medan) as the western anchor of the Indies, Utermark underlines the strategic conception that had informed Dutch colonial policy in northern Sumatra since the Aceh War.
Dutch terms used in this article
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
- Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
- Nederlandsch-Indië — Netherlands Indies
- N.V. Zeehaven en Kolenstation Sabang — Ltd. Sea-port and Coaling-station Sabang
- wereldhuishouding — world economy
- pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
- Atjeh — Aceh
- Atjehsch — Acehnese (adjective)
- Acheh — Aceh
- Koeta Radja — Kutaradja
- Kutaradja — Kutaradja
- Sabang — Sabang
- Deli — Deli
- Palembang — Palembang
- Sumatra — Sumatra
- Bali — Bali
- Medan — Medan
- Belawan — Belawan
- Balikpapan — Balikpapan
- Pontianak — Pontianak
- Tandjong Priok — Tanjung Priok
- Batavia — Batavia
- Semarang — Semarang
- Dr. — Doctor
- Ir. — Engineer (Dutch Ingenieur)
See Also
- Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk
- C. W. Wormser
- G. J. van Hall
- F. P. C. S. van der Ploeg
- Sabang
- N.V. Zeehaven en Kolenstation Sabang
- Atjehsche Staatspoorwegen
- Belawan
- Kutaradja
- Deli
Source
Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), chapter Indië in de wereldhuishouding door Ir. W. J. Utermark, with the Sabang reference on p. 266.