Salido

Properties2
tagsplace, sumatra, westkust, colonial, gold, mine
aliasesSillida, Salido, Salida, Salida gold mine, Salida (gold mine), Salida mine

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The 1666 cession

The cession of Salido was the political fruit of the Versprect expedition of August 1666, which had taken and destroyed Paoeh in revenge for the Paoeh disaster of 12 March 1666. “Shortly after Versprect’s return to Batavia the rulers of Bajang, Indrapoera and Taroesan transferred to the Compagnie in ownership the place Salido with the gold-rich surroundings, from the kali-Loemoepo to Painan, as well as Poeloe Tjingkoek, in the person of Jacob Jorisse Pits, the Compagnie’s head of the Westkust at Padang” (Kort na Verspreet’s terugkeer naar Batavia droegen de vorsten van Bajang, Indrapoera en Taroesan de plaats Salido met de goudrijke ommelanden, van de kali-Loemoepo tot aan Painan, benevens Poeloe Tjingkoek, in eigendom over aan de Compagnie, in den persoon van Jacob Jorisse Pits, ‘s Compagnies opperhoofd der Westkust te Padang).

Salido was paired in the cession with Poeloe Tjingkoek, the island in the bay of Painan on which the Compagnie now built a fort. The cession of Salido — i.e., of the mainland with its gold mines — together with Poeloe Tjingkoek — i.e., the island with its defensible fort — gave the Compagnie a complete commercial-military complex on the southern Westkust.

The four definitive factories

When commissioner Jacob Cau returned to Batavia on 2 January 1665 he had established four definitive factories on the Westkust: Padang (head office), Poeloe Tjingkoek or Salido, Priaman and Tikoe. Salido was the southern anchor of the four-factory system.

The 1670 re-cession

In 1670, in the aftermath of the Coopman expedition against Kotta Tengah and Paoeh, the rulers of Bajang and Indrapoera “gave a new act of cession of the lands of Salido, and Poeloe Tjingkoek, which the government had asked for, because the original piece had been lost at Batavia” (gaven een nieuwe acte van overdracht der landen van Salido, en Poeloe Tjingkoek, waarom de regeering gevraagd had, daar het oorspronkelijke stuk te Batavia was zoekgeraakt). The loss of the original cession document at Batavia is a small but vivid reminder of the administrative fragility of the Compagnie’s Westkust paper authority.

The Bajang-Salido gold-mine dispute of 1678-1679

In 1678 a dispute arose between Bajang and Salido over the discovery of a new gold mine at Soengei-Capayan. According to Bajang the mine lay outside the territory of Salido that had been ceded to the Compagnie. Commandeur Hurdt presided over the dispute, which was settled in favour of the Compagnie: “the Holland-friendly [Salido] party triumphed, and on 18 April 1679 those of Bajang humbled themselves before the Compagnie, acknowledging it as stadtholder of the West Coast” (de Hollandsch-Salidosche partij zegevierde, en 18 April 1679 verdeemoedigden die van Bajang zich voor de Compagnie, deze erkennende als stadhouder van de Westkust).

The chiefs of Loempo had to accept the contract as well. The Bajang-Salido dispute is one of the few cases in the Westkust narrative where the Compagnie adjudicates an internal Westkust boundary question — a small but real exercise of sovereign authority.

The 1681 re-cession

The cession of Salido was renewed in 1681 as part of the post-Padang Conference consolidation. On 27 February 1681 “the rulers of Bajang and Indrapoera gave a renewed confirmation of the complete cession of the lands of Salido and Poeloe Tjingkoek to the Compagnie” (Nog gaven de vorsten van Bajang en Indrapoera den 27 Februari 1681 een hernieuwde bevestiging van den algeheelen afstand van de landen van Salido en Poeloe Tjingkoek aan de Compagnie).

The 1680 gold-exploitation investigation

The Salido gold mines were a persistent disappointment. Commissioner Laurens Pit de Jonge’s 1680 mission to the Westkust was, in its economic aspect, “to investigate the causes of the poor results of the gold exploitation at Salido, and at the same time the commercial bookkeeping of Hurdt” (de oorzaken van de povere resultaten van de goudexploitatie te Salido, en tevens naar de commercieele boekhouding van Hurdt). The investigation produced Hurdt’s suspension and removal to Batavia.

The 1687 and later history

The Salido gold mines remained the most prized of the Compagnie’s Westkust commercial assets throughout the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Stapel notes that in the eighteenth century “the gold of the Sillidasche gold mines was for the Compagnie, with pepper, camphor and benzoin, the most desired trade good” (Het goud der Sillidasche goudmijnen was voor de Compagnie met peper, kamfer en benzoë de meest begeerde handelswaar). The mines were pacht (lease) in 1699, 1729 and 1737.

Significance

Salido is the Compagnie’s only outright territorial possession on the Westkust proper (as distinct from treaty-bound protectorates). The cessions of 1666, 1670 and 1681 transferred the land in eigendom — ownership — to the Compagnie, in contrast to the Painansch Contract system, which preserved native sovereignty in exchange for commercial monopoly. Salido is therefore the institutional precursor of the later Dutch direct-rule territories on the Westkust.

The Salido gold mines are also a recurring source of administrative trouble. The 1678–1679 Bajang-Salido boundary dispute and the 1680 gold-exploitation investigation that brought down Hurdt are both Salido stories. The Compagnie’s Westkust authority, in the Salido phase, rests on direct territorial ownership, but its exploitation is consistently disappointing — a pattern that would recur throughout the VOC period.

Account from The Geology of Indonesia (1949) — Salida

The Kinandam-Sumatra operation

Van Bemmelen’s account of the Salida gold mine, in the coal chapter of *The Geology of Indonesia*, reads:

“In 1909 mining leases were granted to the Kinandam-Sumatr Mijnbouw Mij. (Mining Co.) for the concessions Bukit Durian, Bukit Pulai, and Sarik. … During the years 1917–1927 a total quantity of 2000 tons has been produced for use at the Salida gold mine of the same company. When this mine was closed down, the mining rights for the concessions Bukit Durian and Bukit Pulai were returned to the Government in 1934, those for Sarik in 1941.”

The Salida gold mine was accordingly operated by the same company (the Kinandam-Sumatra Mijnbouw Mij.) that held the Bukit Durian, Bukit Pulai and Sarik coal concessions, and the coal produced from those concessions (2,000 tons over the decade 1917–1927) was mined not for sale on the open market but for use as fuel at the company’s own gold mine. The Salida gold mine was accordingly the anchor of an integrated coal-and-gold mining operation that was the only documented colonial-era coal-mining enterprise on Atjeh-relevant territory.

The 1927 closure and its consequences

The closure of the Salida gold mine in 1927 had direct consequences for the Bukit Durian, Bukit Pulai and Sarik coal concessions. With the gold mine closed, the coal mines lost their sole customer, and the mining rights for the concessions were accordingly returned to the Government: the Bukit Durian and Bukit Pulai concessions in 1934, the Sarik concession in 1941. The closure of the Salida gold mine accordingly marks the effective end of the colonial coal-mining industry in the West-Atjeh/Painan region, and the 1934 and 1941 returns of the coal-mining rights to the Government mark the formal dissolution of the Kinandam-Sumatra coal-mining enterprise.

Significance

Salida is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history because it was the sole customer for the only documented colonial-era coal-mining concessions on Atjeh-relevant territory (the 1909 Kinandam-Sumatra leases at Bukit Durian, Bukit Pulai and Sarik), and its closure in 1927 accordingly entailed the closure of the coal mines that supplied it. The Salida gold mine is also a representative case-study of the integrated coal-and-gold mining strategy that some smaller colonial mining companies pursued: the coal was mined not as a stand-alone operation but as a fuel-supply for the company’s own gold mine, and the closure of the gold mine accordingly entailed the closure of the coal mine. The Salida operation accordingly illustrates the modest scale and the integrated character of the colonial mining industry in the West-Atjeh/Painan region, and its closure in 1927 marks the end of the colonial coal-mining industry in the region.

See Also

Source

De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 17–22, 3 (tekst bij blad 4 en 5: Atjeh en de Westkust van Sumatra in 1684, De Compagnie in den Archipel na 1684 tot 1791 — Sumatra).

The Geology of Indonesia, by R. W. van Bemmelen, Vol. II: Economic Geology (The Hague: Government Printing Office; Martinus Nijhoff, 1949), p. 56 (Painan district coal concessions, Kinandam-Sumatra Mijnbouw Mij. and the Salida gold mine).

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