Modjopahit was a landscape of the East Coast of Atjeh which submitted with Langsa in the pacification of the Dependencies of 1877, where pepper planters from Groot-Atjeh established valuable gardens, and which in 1881–1882 was so scourged by robber bands that only the timely action of the acting assistant-resident kept the planters from abandoning the country.
Submission and the pepper gardens
The submissions of Simpang Oelèm and Tandjong Seumantoh, of Langsa and Modjopahit, of Rigaih and adjacent landscapes, gave occasion to expect that Netherlands trade would profit from relations with the principal Atjehnese pepper harbours. After 1881 the robberies by Atjehnese bands in Modjopahit and Langsa increased so much, however, that the pepper planters from Groot-Atjeh established there were minded to leave the country, abandoning their costly plantations and dwelling-houses. The acting assistant-resident came in time to the spot to prevent this: on his instigation and under his leadership the robbers, after a severe chastisement by the population, were driven from the landscape.
Government support
The threatened cultures, principally those in Modjopahit, were otherwise supported by the government as well: in March 1882 the Netherlands Government placed a sum of 500 dollars, from the yield of the hacil (see Taxation in Atjeh), at the disposal of the pepper plantations which had suffered most from the robbers’ practices. Under Governor Van Heutsz the firm Nolte & Haas contracted timber-cutting rights in the East Coast landscapes; the later N.V. Handelmaatschappij “Deli-Atjeh” (1905) numbered “Manjapahit” — the same landscape in another spelling — among the landscapes of its extensive wood-cutting concessions (with Radja Moeda, Radja Toewa, Birim Rajeu, Birim Pontong, Bajan, Simpang Anas and Perlak).
See Also
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 36, 48–49, 85, 184–185.