Oedjong Salang (modern Phuket, also Junk Ceylon) was the tin-rich island on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, under the suzerainty of Siam, which was the third of the Tin Quartiers and the site of a Compagnie factory from 1643 until the 1658 outrage in which 13 Netherlands were murdered. In Dr. F. W. Stapel’s Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland it is the Tinkwartier whose repeated difficulties most clearly exposed the limits of the Compagnie’s peninsular authority, and the place whose persistent Siamese connection made the Compagnie’s tin policy inseparable from its relations with Ayutthaya.
The 1643 treaty and the 1643 renewal
The Compagnie’s first treaty with Oedjong Salang followed the 11 July 1642 Kedah treaty. “A similar contract followed 18 March 1643 with the ‘Governor’ of Oedjong Salang, the tin-rich island on the West Coast” (Een soortgelijk contract volgde 18 Maart 1643 met den ‘Gouverneur’ van Oedjong Salang, het tinrijke eilandje aan de Westkust). Difficulties led to a renewed contract on 27 October 1643.
The Compagnie’s policy on Oedjong Salang was from the start conditioned by Siamese suzerainty. The “Governor” of the island was a Siamese appointee, and any Compagnie commercial presence had to operate within that framework.
The 1647 closure
On 3 July 1647 the G.G. and Councillors, on the advice of the Governor of Malacca, resolved “to close the harbours of the Tinkwartieren for all foreign merchants” (de havens der tinkwartieren voor alle vreemde kooplieden te sluiten). The closure was the Compagnie’s response to the persistent leak of tin via Perak, Kedah and Oedjong Salang to Voorindische merchants.
The 1658 outrage
In the same year 1658 as the Kedah outrage, “Oedjong Salang, which stood under the suzerainty of Siam, gave a repetition of what happened at Kedah. Also here the lodge was overrun, whereby 13 Netherlands were murdered. The blockade of Kedah was now extended to Oedjong Salang” (Oedjong Salang, dat onder opperhoogheid van Siam stond, gaf een herhaling van het gebeurde te Kedah. Ook hier werd de loge afgeloopen, waarbij 13 Nederlanders vermoord werden. De blokkade van Kedah werd nu uitgebreid tot Oedjong Salang).
The 1658 Oedjong Salang outrage — with its 13 Dutch dead — was the worst single loss of Compagnie life on the peninsula in the seventeenth century.
The 1664 Siam treaty and the rejection of restoration
The chiefs of Oedjong Salang, on the urging of the king of Siam, soon requested the restoration of the Netherlands office, “on the promise of peaceful trade” (onder belofte van vreedzamen handel). The request was repeated in 1666. But the Compagnie refused. “A treaty with Siam, concluded on 22 August 1664, determined among other things that the Compagnie on Oedjong Salang would ‘enjoy a peaceful unconcerned exercise of trade’” (Een verdrag met Siam, 22 Augustus 1664 gesloten, bepaalde o.m., dat de Compagnie op Oedjong Salang ‘een vredige onbecommerde exercitie van negotie’ zou genieten).
“Also now however the Hooge Regeering did not proceed to the restoration of an office there; equally little after a renewed request of the regents in 1666” (Ook nu echter ging de Hooge Regeering niet tot herstel van een kantoor aldaar over; evenmin na een hernieuwd verzoek der regenten in 1666).
Significance
Oedjong Salang is the Tinkwartier whose repeated difficulties most clearly exposed the limits of the Compagnie’s peninsular authority. The 1658 outrage — with its 13 Dutch dead — was the worst single loss of Compagnie life on the peninsula, and the Compagnie’s refusal to restore a permanent factory there after 1664 is the institutional recognition that the Compagnie’s peninsular authority was naval, not territorial.
The persistent Siamese connection is the distinguishing feature of Oedjong Salang’s place in the Tinkwartieren system. Where Perak was under Atjeh and Kedah was contested between independent Malay rule and Siamese claims, Oedjong Salang was unambiguously Siamese, and the Compagnie’s relations with it were conducted through the Siamese court at Ayutthaya. The 22 August 1664 Siam treaty is the principal instrument of that relationship.
See Also
- Tinkwartieren
- Perak
- Kedah
- Bangeri
- Siam
- Malakka
- Treaty of Atjeh-Perak (15 August 1650)
- Treaty of Atjeh-VOC (5 October 1659)
- Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
- 18 March
- 27 October
- 3 July
- 22 August
- 1643
- 1658
- 1664
Source
De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 26–27, 64–65 (tekst bij de bladen 2 en 3: De Archipel en het Maleische Schiereiland in 1650, Malakka en het Maleische Schiereiland).