Lebong Donok

Properties2
tagsplace, mine, gold, sumatra, benkulen, colonial
aliasesLebong Donok ore body, Lebong Donok gold mine, Lebongdonok

4 min read

Lebong Donok is the famous gold-bearing quartz outcrop near Muara Aman in the Lebong district of Benkulen (Bencoolen), whose 1895/1896 discovery by native gold washers — after European interest had been aroused by samples shown to the manager of the Suban Ajam coffee estate by Hadji Ismael of Pasar Tjurup — led to the establishment of the “Lebong Goud Syndicaat” (Lebong Gold Syndicate) and, in 1897, to the founding of the Mining Company “Redjang Lebong”. The Lebong Donok ore body became the most productive gold mine of the Netherlands East Indies: in 42 years of operation (1899–1940) it produced about 80 million guilders’ worth of bullion (41,535 kg of gold and 228,762 kg of silver from 3,243,000 tons of ore), before being finally exhausted and abandoned in 1940.

The 1895/1896 discovery

Van Bemmelen’s account of the Lebong Donok discovery, in the gold-and-silver chapter of *The Geology of Indonesia* (1949), reads:

“In 1895 or 1896 European interest for gold in this region arose suddenly due to the fact that Mr. [of] the coffee estate Suban Ajam was shown samples of gold ores by Hadji Ismael of Pasar Tjurup. Then a large outcrop of gold-bearing quartz at Lebong Donok near Muara Aman was shown by native gold washers and this discovery led to the establishment of the ‘Lebong Goud Syndicaat’. The ore deposits proved later to be the famous Lebong Donok ore body, mining of which was undertaken by the Mining Company ‘Redjang Lebong’, established in 1897.”

The discovery is the founding episode of European gold-mining in Sumatra, and it set the chronological and methodological pattern for the subsequent Atjeh gold explorations of Jansen, Lindberg and Wolvekamp (1922) and De Groot (1946).

The 1897 founding of Redjang Lebong and the 1899 production start

The Mining Company “Redjang Lebong” was established in 1897 and took over the mining rights for the Lebong Donok ore body from the Lebong Goud Syndicaat. A small pilot plant was erected and in December 1897 the first bullion was produced. Regular production began in November 1899, when the “Lebong Donok” concession was formally granted. Production on a minimum base of about 6 gr of gold per ton was continued until 1936, when reserves of workable ore were considered to be exhausted; under another direction, production was continued until the mine was finally closed down in 1940.

Production figures

In 42 years of operation (1899–1940), Lebong Donok produced:

  • 41,535 kg of gold
  • 228,762 kg of silver
  • from 3,243,000 tons of ore
  • total value: ƒ79,019,000 (about 80 million guilders)
  • average value recovered per ton of ore: ƒ24 (at an average of 24 g/ton combined Au+Ag)
  • average Au:Ag ratio: 1:6½

The Lebong Donok mine alone accounted for 88 % of the total Sumatran gold production by kg, 71 % by kg of silver, and 82 % by total value — making it by far the dominant gold mine of the Sumatran gold-silver belt, and (with Simau) one of the only two gold mines in the Netherlands East Indies that yielded a financial profit.

Significance for Atjeh

Lebong Donok is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history because its 1895/1896 discovery is the founding episode of European gold-mining in Sumatra, and accordingly the chronological and methodological pattern for the subsequent Atjeh gold explorations. The Lebong Donok ore body’s 80-million-guilder production (in 42 years) is the benchmark against which the much more modest Atjeh gold production — the M.A.E.M. dredges at the Geudong Concession (1940–1941) — must be measured: the entire Atjeh gold economy was, in colonial terms, a small frontier outpost of the great Lebong gold-mining district of Benkulen. The Hövig 1914 monograph on the Lebong gold ores — the foundational source for the colonial study of the Sumatran gold-silver belt — is also the source for the canonical observation that “Remains of former native gold mining are numerous and have been found in many places from Atjeh in the North to Benkulen in the South”, a sentence that fixes the geographical frame within which the Atjeh gold occurrences have subsequently been discussed.

See Also

Source

The Geology of Indonesia, by R. W. van Bemmelen, Vol. II: Economic Geology (The Hague: Government Printing Office; Martinus Nijhoff, 1949), pp. 107–108 (Lebong Donok discovery and founding of Redjang Lebong), p. 109 (Table 28 A: gold and silver production of Sumatra, with the Lebong Donok figures), p. 116 (Lebong Donok history and operations).

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