Priaman

Properties2
tagsplace, port, sumatra, westkust, atjeh, pepper, precolonial, colonial, 17th-century, achehnese
aliasesPariaman, Priaman (Westkust Sumatra), Pariaman pepper port, Priaman west coast of Sumatra, Prian, Priaman, Priamansche

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Priaman — modern Pariaman, the historic pepper port on the west coast of Sumatra south of Atjeh — was one of the chief pepper ports of the Sumatran west coast in the early-modern period and a port of call of the Dutch East India trade at Atjeh. Priaman was visited by Paulus van Caerden in 1600 without result, by the Jan Grenier fleet in February 1602 without result, by James Lancaster’s English East India Company fleet of 1602 in search of additional pepper, and by the Zeeland ships on their way to Bantam after the August 1601 mission. Priaman is one of the principal west-coast pepper ports named in Van der Woude’s chapter “Atjeh. Djohor. Malaka.” in his Van der Woude (1948).

The 1600 Van Caerden visit

Van Caerden, sent by his admiral Pieter Both to the west coast of Sumatra, “bezocht daar zonder resultaat Priaman, Tikoe en Pasaman, waar overal slechts weinig peper in voorraad was”. The visit was the first Dutch commercial call at Priaman and showed that the west-coast pepper ports, like Atjeh itself, were subject to seasonal fluctuations in supply. Van Caerden’s failure at Priaman, Tikoe and Pasaman was the proximate cause of his decision to try Atjeh for cargo, “hoewel hij wist wat De Houtman daar was overkomen”.

The 1601 Westkust closure

The west-coast pepper ports were closed to foreigners except at Atjeh. When Jan Grenier arrived off Tikoe on 19 February 1602 on his way from Atjeh to Bantam, he could buy no pepper because trade with foreigners in the west-coast ports was forbidden except at Atjeh. The closure was the sultan of Atjeh’s policy: he sought to centralise the European pepper trade at Atjeh, where he could control it through the sabander and the shore batteries. The policy was largely effective in the early Dutch-Indies period: the Dutch and English were forced to call at Atjeh for their pepper, and the west-coast ports could be visited only when the sultan’s enforcement lapsed.

The 1602 Lancaster visit

When Lancaster found the pepper prices at Atjeh higher than his pilot John Davis had led him to expect, and his capital insufficient for a full cargo, he sent one of his ships to Priaman on the west coast of Sumatra to make up the deficit. The visit shows that the west-coast ports — though formally closed to foreigners — were sometimes accessible to European traders, particularly when the sultan’s enforcement was weak or when the European captain had the means to circumvent it. Lancaster’s use of Priaman was the principal English instance of the west-coast pepper trade in the early English East India Company period.

Significance

Priaman is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the principal west-coast pepper port of Sumatra south of Atjeh in the early-modern period and a port of call of the Dutch and English East India trade. The port’s seasonal fluctuations in supply, the sultan of Atjeh’s policy of centralising the European pepper trade at Atjeh, and the occasional accessibility of the west-coast ports to European traders — as in Lancaster’s 1602 visit — together frame the early-modern commercial geography of the Sumatran pepper trade. Priaman’s role in the early Dutch-Indies trade would grow in the seventeenth century as the Dutch shifted their pepper sourcing from Atjeh to the west coast and to Bantam and the Sunda islands. The Coen programme of monopoly-by-force, applied at Banda after 1609, would also be applied to the west-coast pepper ports in the 1620s and 1630s.

Account from Stapel’s De Koloniën (1931)

Priaman (modern Pariaman) was a pepper port on the West Coast of Sumatra, lying south of Tikoe and north of Padang. In Dr. F. W. Stapel’s Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland it is one of the four named pepper ports of the Schouten treaty of 1641 and a recurrent site of Atjehsch-gezinde intrigue, the place whose final fortification in 1684 closed the long cycle of Dutch-Acehnese conflict on the Westkust.

In the 1641 and 1649 treaties

Priaman was one of the four pepper ports named in the Schouten treaty of 15 February 1641, by which the sultane of Atjeh conceded to the Compagnie the tolls in the pepper ports of Tikoe, Priaman, Padang and Indrapoera. The Truytman treaties of November 1649 widened the privilege to the whole Westkust.

The 1656 arrest of Anthony van Voorst

Priaman was within the jurisdiction of Anthony van Voorst, the opperhoofd der Westkust whose arrest by the sultane in 1656 was the trigger of the 1656 blockade crisis. The crisis ended with the peace of 5 October 1659.

The 1663 Painansch Contract and the 1664-1665 ratification

Priaman was one of the four contracting landheeren in the Painansch Contract of 6 July 1663. The ratification was the hardest of the four: when commissioner Jacob Cau arrived in 1664 he “found no fewer than 500 to 600 armed Atjehers with a number of auxiliary troops” (niet minder dan 500 à 600 gewapende Atjehers met een aantal hulptroepen aantrof). “But also here he reached his goal; the Atjehers were expelled, whereafter the regents signed” (Doch ook hier bereikte hij zijn doel; de Atjehers werden verdreven, waarna de regenten het contract teekenden).

Priaman became one of the four definitive Compagnie factories established by Cau in 1664–1665.

The 1678 Atjehsch-gezinde revival

In 1678 commandeur Melchior Hurdt had to write to Batavia “that the majority of the regents of Priaman had again joined the Atjehsche party” (dat de meerderheid der regenten van Priaman zich weer bij de Atjehsche partij had aangesloten). Hurdt managed to bring about that “in Priaman the Holland-friendly party triumphed and the strongly Atjehsch-gezinde governor Poety was driven out” (in Priaman de Hollandsche partij zegevierde en de sterk Atjehsch-gezinde gouverneur Poety verdreven werd). On 22 September 1678 Priaman signed a new treaty with the Compagnie.

The Atjehsch-gezinde governor Poety is one of the few native Westkust officials named individually in Stapel’s text. His expulsion is the political signal that the Compagnie could now remove Atjehsche-appointed governors and replace them with Holland-friendly ones.

The 1682 submission

In the 1682 expedition of commandeur Jan van Leene — a powerful force of more than 600 militaries, with the Ternataansche prince Rotterdam joining — Priaman was again subdued. The regents of Priaman “on 17 March 1682 swore anew their ‘renewed obedience’” (die 17 Maart 1682 opnieuw hun ‘renewweringe van gehoorsaemheyt’ bezwoeren).

The 1684 fortification

After the 1683 rising and the 20–21 June 1684 submission of Tikoe, the Compagnie “at the same time renewed the treaty with those of Priaman, in view of the English, who intended to settle in the Priamansche. The Compagnie now resolved to build a fort at Priaman, and by the contract the inhabitants promised to deliver the materials necessary thereto” (Tegelijkertijd werd het verdrag met die van Priaman hernieuwd, zulks met het oog op de Engelschen, die van plan waren, zich in het Priamansche neer te zetten. De Compagnie besloot nu, te Priaman een fort te bouwen, en bij het contract beloofden de ingezetenen, de materialen, daartoe noodig, te leveren).

The Priaman fort was the physical counterpart to the Tikoe submission. Together they closed the Westkust against both the Atjehsch-gezinde party and the new English threat.

Significance

Priaman is the most contested of the four pepper ports. It is named in the 1641 Schouten treaty, the 1649 Truytman treaties and the 1663 Painansch Contract; it was the site of major Atjehsch-gezinde revivals in 1678 and 1682; and it was the place where, in 1684, the Compagnie built the fort that symbolised the final closure of the Dutch-Acehnese Westkust contest. The English threat to settle at Priaman — the trigger for the 1684 fortification — is also the connecting thread between the Westkust story and the English move to Benkoelen in 1685.

See Also

Sources

Coen, Koopman van Heeren Zeventien. Geschiedenis van den Hollandshen Handel in Indië (1598-1614), by Johan van der Woude (Amsterdam: C.V. Uitgeverij v/h C. De Boer Jr., 1948), Hoofdstuk V “Voorgangers, Hollanders en mededingers tot 1614. Atjeh. Djohor. Malaka.” (pp. 111, 116-117).

De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 16, 20, 22–23 (tekst bij blad 4: Atjeh en de Westkust van Sumatra in 1684).

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