Indrapoeri (also spelled Indrapuri or Indrapoera) was the main place (capital) of the XXII Moekims—the territory ruled by Panglima Polim—and served as both the administrative centre and a key strategic point during the Aceh War (1873–1903).
Strategic significance
As the main place of the XXII Moekims, Indrapoeri was the centre from which Panglima Polim coordinated resistance to Dutch authority. In 1878 and 1879, Dutch forces under Generaal Van der Heyden penetrated to Indrapoeri with great effort. Although about ten chiefs from the XXII Moekims came to offer their submission after Van der Heyden established his headquarters there in May 1879, Polim himself refused to submit—claiming instead that he had become more combative than ever and even attempting to recapture the lost centre.
In 1886, when the pretender-sultan was declared of age, he was proclaimed sultan at Indrapoeri. This event—part of the resistance strategy to create unified leadership—demonstrated the continuing importance of the centre as both an administrative and symbolic location.
Dutch operations
The Dutch recognised that controlling Indrapoeri did not mean controlling the XXII Moekims. Even after the occupation of Indrapoeri in 1879 and the establishment of the Concentrated Line around Koeta Radja in 1886, the resistance in the XXII Moekims continued—organised from the mountains and coordinated through the spiritual leaders in Keumala and the family leadership of the Polims.
Only the sustained active campaign led by Van Heutsz from 1898—advancing from Pedir through the VII Moekims and directly into the heart of the XXII Moekims—finally broke the resistance that Indrapoeri had symbolised for more than two decades.
Maréchaussée station (1898)
the 1930 jubilee number of Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië records the localisation of the Korps Maréchaussée in 1898: Staff at Koeta Radja; 1st Division at Selimoen; 2nd Division at Indrapoeri; 3rd Division at Tjot Mantjang and Glé Broet; 4th Division at Tjot Goet; 5th Division at Lam Baroe and Lho’-Nga. Indrapoeri was the station of the 2nd Division.
By 1910 the corps had been redistributed to Blang Kedjeren, Meulaboh, Takèngan, Lam Meulo and Lho Soekon.
Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)
Verstege names Indrapoerie (self-same as Indrapuri) the old and famous sanctuary of the highlands — “het oude en vermaarde heiligdom der bovenlanden” — occupied in 1879 by the irreconcilable Imam Longbattah and captured on 24 March 1879 with insignificant loss (see Capture of Indrapuri (24 March 1879)); it was the post to which on 17 August 1879 the columns returning from Selimoen brought Toekoe Moeda Daoed and Toekoe Tjoet Hadjet, and one of the outer fortifications evacuated between 5 and 14 January 1885 at the execution of the concentration (see Completion of the concentrated position (March 1885)).
In the eye survey of Groot-Atjeh (1937)
Indrapoeri appears in Dr. C. E. Gomperts’s eye survey of 1937 among the valley districts of Groot-Atjeh whose rice harvest in 1936–1937 suffered from the long-continued drought, and whose xerophthalmie frequency was nevertheless practically equal to that of Moekim Lam-Teuba, where there was a rice surplus — one of the three comparisons on which Gomperts rested his conclusion that food supply alone could not explain the distribution of the disease.
Indrapoeri was also named among the districts of Groot-Atjeh into which Western influence had penetrated further and where traffic was busier — with Oeloe-Lheuë, Seulimeum, Sibreh, Lho-Nga and Kroeëng-Raja — which gave Gomperts a measure for the frequency of venereal infection among the population, and hence for its very small share among the causes of blindness.
See Also
- XXII Moekims
- Panglima Polim
- Generaal Van der Heyden
- Pretender-sultan
- Keumala
- Groot-Atjeh
- Pidië Expedition
- Concentrated Line
- Het Korps Maréchaussée in Atjeh (Jubileum-nummer 1930)
- Korps Maréchaussée te voet in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden
- Divisie (Maréchaussée)
- Oriënteerend oogheelkundig onderzoek bij de Atjehsche bevolking van Groot-Atjeh gedurende 1937
- C. E. Gomperts
- Xerophthalmie
- Blindheid in Groot-Atjeh
- Lam Teuba
- Oogheelkundig kampongonderzoek in Groot-Atjeh (Maart-December 1937)
Source
Het einde van den Atjeh Oorlog (Overprintken uit de Evening Post van 25, 26 en 27 Augustus 1903, pp. 5-8, 10-11); Somer, Dr. J. M. Het Atjeh-probleem van 1890-1900 (Overprint uit Journal / Organ van de Netherlands-Indies Officers Association, [1935], pp. 4-7); Damste, H. T. “Atjeh-historie,” Koloniaal Tijdschrift 1916.
Het Korps Maréchaussée in Atjeh: De Atjehsche Garde, 1890 - 2 April 1930 (“The Corps of Maréchaussée in Atjeh: The Atjehnese Guard”), Extra Jubileum-nummer of Het Nieuws van den Dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië issued for the fortieth anniversary of the corps (1930), pp. 1-16. Offprint DLP-143, Bibliotheek KITLV, accession 621 116 794.
Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), pp. 60, 61, 81. OCR: DLP-158. Oriënteerend oogheelkundig onderzoek bij de Atjehsche bevolking van Groot-Atjeh gedurende 1937 (“Orienting Ophthalmological Survey among the Atjehnese Population of Groot-Atjeh during 1937”), by Dr. C. E. Gomperts, offprint from the Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië, Afl. 19, Deel 80 (1940), pp. 1191-1238 (Batavia-Centrum: G. Kolff & Co.). Received by the editors 25 October 1939. Offprint DLP-157, Bibliotheek KITLV.