Chadé — also written Chade’ — is a mukim (parish-district) near the Dalam in Banda Acheh, whose imeum figures in Vol. I of The Achehnese as one of the most powerful adat-chiefs of the pre-war period. The form “Chadé” represents the spelling used at the page of Vol. I which describes the office of the imeum; the same place is denoted elsewhere in the work by “Chade’”.
Chade’ (also rendered Chadé in the OCR of Vol. I) is a mukim (parish-district) lying near the Dalam, the Sultan’s residence in Banda Acheh. It is named in Vol. I of The Achehnese by C. Snouck Hurgronje in his account of the uleebalangships which, though situated in the Sultan’s own territory or in the so-called wakeueh-districts, exercised an influence on the affairs of the capital out of all proportion to the formal rank assigned to them by the constitution of the three sagis.
The Imeum of Chade’ is listed alongside Teuku Kali, Panglima Meuseugit Raya and the Imeum of Lueng Bata as one of those uleebalangs of the Sultan’s territory and the wakeueh-districts “who had much more weight in the scale than many of the members of the board of twelve.” The “board of twelve” (padroe) was the formal council of twelve territorial chiefs which, in the decadent period, was supposed to share with the Sultan the government of the capital; but its effective authority had passed, by Snouck’s time, to a smaller number of powerful individuals, of whom the Imeum of Chade’ was one.
The same Imeum of Chade’ appears in another passage of Vol. I as “the most powerful supporter of the finally defeated candidate” in the last conflict for royal honours before the Achehnese war — that is, in the disputed succession which immediately preceded the Dutch attack on the capital in 1873. The support of the Imeum was thus turned to the losing side; but the fact that his support was decisive enough to be recorded in the political tradition of the country is itself a measure of his importance.
As an imeum, the chief of Chade’ was nominally an adat-officer attached to a mosque, but in practice — like the Imeum of Lueng Bata — he had “attained to the independence of the office of uleebalang and lack[ed] the name only.” His mukim, lying close to the Dalam, enjoyed the strategic and commercial advantages of the capital; and the position of its chief, like that of the other banda uleebalangs, was a standing qualification for intervention in the politics of the sultanate. Chade’ thus forms one of the localities — together with Lueng Bata, Lam Bhu, Pande and the other great gampongs of the capital — by which the urban core of Achehnese political life is to be understood.
The Imeum of Chadé is named by C. Snouck Hurgronje in the chapter on adat-chiefs (imeums) as a classic example of an imeum who had “attained to the independence of the office of uleebalang and lack[ed] the name only.” Together with the famous Imeum of Lueng Bata, who “played so distinguished a part in the war with the Dutch as a military leader,” the Imeum of Chadé is cited to show that, although the majority of imeums remained subordinate to their uleebalangs, “the energy of individuals may reduce their subordination to a minimum.”
The particular historical exploit by which the Imeum of Chadé is distinguished is recorded in a single sentence of great significance for the pre-war politics of the sultanate: “the imeum of Chadé … in the last conflict for royal honours before the Achehnese war was the most powerful supporter of the finally defeated candidate.” This “last conflict for royal honours” was the disputed succession immediately preceding the Dutch attack of 1873; the candidate who finally lost is the sultan whose failure opened the door to the war.
The Imeum’s mosque, in keeping with the general Achehnese pattern, had become a merely nominal attachment: as Snouck elsewhere remarks, the imeums “either do not concern themselves at all” with the mosques which were the cause of their first creation, “or only just as much as any uleebalang who interests himself in religion.” The religious character of the office had in effect disappeared, and the imeum of Chadé was an adat-chief pure and simple — and, in the last pre-war crisis, a king-maker.
The mukim of Chadé thus appears in Vol. I as one of the urban mukims of the capital whose chief, by force of personality and by situation close to the Dalam, exercised an influence out of all proportion to the formal rank of his office. Its article here complements that under Chade’, which describes the same mukim chiefly from the side of its standing among the wakeueh-district uleebalangs of the sultan’s territory.
See Also
- Imeum of Lueng Bata
- Imeum of Chade’
- Teuku Kali
- Panglima Meuseugit Raya
- Dalam (Sultan’s Court)
- Banda Acheh
- Lueng Bata
- Lam Bhu
- Pande
- Three Sagis (XXVI, XXV, XXII Mukims)
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.