Muara Aman (also Moeara Aman) is a town in the Lebong district of Benkulen (Bencoolen), Sumatra, in whose vicinity the famous Lebong Donok gold-bearing quartz outcrop was discovered in 1895/1896 by native gold washers — the discovery that led to the establishment of the “Lebong Goud Syndicaat” and, in 1897, to the founding of the Mining Company “Redjang Lebong”. Muara Aman is the principal town of the Lebong gold-mining district, and is accordingly the geographical reference-point for the most productive gold-mining operation of the colonial Netherlands East Indies.
The Lebong Donok discovery
For the full account of the 1895/1896 discovery of the Lebong Donok gold-bearing quartz outcrop “near Muara Aman” see the entry on Lebong Donok. In summary: European interest in the Lebong gold was aroused when samples of gold ores were shown to the manager of the Suban Ajam coffee estate by Hadji Ismael of Pasar Tjurup; the native gold washers then showed the European a large outcrop of gold-bearing quartz at Lebong Donok near Muara Aman; and this discovery led to the establishment of the Lebong Goud Syndicaat and, in 1897, of the Mining Company “Redjang Lebong”.
Significance for Atjeh
Muara Aman is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history because the Lebong Donok gold discovery in its vicinity is the founding episode of European gold-mining in Sumatra, and accordingly the chronological and methodological pattern for the subsequent Atjeh gold explorations of Jansen, Lindberg and Wolvekamp (1922) and De Groot (1946). The Lebong gold-mining district, with Muara Aman as its principal town, was the dominant gold-mining district of the Sumatran gold-silver belt, and the Hövig 1914 monograph on the Lebong gold ores is the foundational source for the colonial study of the belt that extends “from Atjeh in the North to Benkulen in the South”.
See Also
- Acheh
- Atjeh gold exploration (1922, 1946)
- B. B. Lindberg
- Benkulen
- C. de Groot
- Gold and silver in Atjeh
- H. Wolvekamp
- Lebong Donok
- P. Hövig
- P. J. J. Jansen
- Pasar Tjurup
- Van Bemmelen’s The Geology of Indonesia (1949)
- 1895
- 1896
- 1897
- 1914
Source
The Geology of Indonesia, by R. W. van Bemmelen, Vol. II: Economic Geology (The Hague: Government Printing Office; Martinus Nijhoff, 1949), p. 107 (Lebong Donok discovery near Muara Aman).