Segli

Segli — Sigli in the modern Indonesian spelling — was a coast-state and port on the north coast of Atjeh, to which the Dutch establishment at Pedir was moved in February 1877 after the original post at Pedir proved less favourably situated for the supervision of trade. The post at Segli was attacked by a great force under Toekoe di Tiroe in May 1878, leading to an expedition by the governor Van der Heyden to Gighen and the upper lands of Pedir. Under the administrative reorganisation of March 1881, Segli became one of the three controleurs of the assistant-residency of the Noord- en Oostkust, alongside Edi and Samalanga. In Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh, Segli is also the seat of the postcommandant te Segli — the military post-commander charged with the civil administration of the Pedir-Gighen stretch of the coast — and one of the three open call-ports established by the Demmeni besluit of 13 October 1884 for the entire Noord- en Oostkust.

The Move from Pedir, February 1877

When in 1876 the Dutch set up a fortification at Pedir, they met all kinds of opposition and difficulties from the population, among whom Toekoe di Tiroe proved particularly hostile. After the arrival of military reinforcements in June 1876 the resistance gave way, and by the end of that month the post was in a sufficient state. “It later proved, however, to be less favourably situated for the supervision of trade, as continually great quantities of rice were imported, which seemed to find their way to the enemy.” On the north coast it was therefore decided in February 1877 to move the establishment from Pedir to Segli, and to that end a column in February marched along the coast from Kroëng Rajah to Segli.

The Attack of May 1878

In May 1878 the governor Van der Heyden led an expedition to Gighen and the upper lands of Pedir, where Toekoe di Tiroe remained hostile and the post at Segli had been attacked by a great force. The actual object of the expedition — the kampong Garouw, the headquarters of Toekoe di Tiroe — was not reached, but the taking of Telok Kadjoe, which had been mistaken for Garouw, had the consequence that the radja of Gighen offered his submission and promised the surrender of Toekoe di Tiroe.

The Administrative Reorganisation, March 1881

Under the administrative reorganisation of March 1881, Segli became one of the three controleurs of the assistant-residency of the Noord- en Oostkust (with Telok Semawé as chief place), alongside Edi and Samalanga.

Account from De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)

In Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh, Segli is the north-coast port on the landschap of Pedir in the Noordkust of the Atjehnese Onderhoorigheden that served as the seat of the postcommandant te Segli — the military post-commander charged with the civil administration of the Pedir-Gighen stretch of the coast — and as one of the three open call-ports established by the Demmeni besluit of 13 October 1884 for the entire Noord- en Oostkust. The port’s significance rose to its high-water mark in 1890–1891 when, under Generaal van Teijn’s progressive closure of the Noord- en Westkust, the postcommandant te Segli enforced the rigorous sluiting on the most strategically weighty stretch of the Atjehnese coast, and a Chinese toko inside the Dutch versterking te Segli became Van Heutsz’s textbook example of how even a tiny licensed purchase, multiplied by the closure’s scarcity, became a powerful fiscal lever.

The 1884 partial closure: one of three open call-ports

Segli’s emergence as a Dutch-administered open port came with the Demmeni besluit of 13 October 1884, which prescribed the three call-ports through which all foreign trade with the Noord- en Oostkust had to pass. Van Heutsz records the arrangement: alleen Edi, Segli en Oleh-leh voor de geheele Noord- en Oostkust (only Edi, Segli, and Olehleh, for the entire Noord- en Oostkust). The three call-ports were the operational core of Demmeni’s hybrid scheme — a partieele blokkade (partial blockade) combined with a soort scheepvaartregeling (a kind of shipping-regulation) — under which all foreign ships had to call first at one of the three before proceeding to any of the not-closed points of the coast. The arrangement survived the withdrawal of the posts at Telok Semawé and Samalanga — deze waren, toen de posten Telok Semawé en Samalanga waren ingetrokken, alleen Edi, Segli en Oleh-leh voor de geheele Noord- en Oostkust (these were, when the posts Telok Semawé and Samalanga had been withdrawn, only Edi, Segli and Oleh-leh for the entire Noord- en Oostkust) — and Segli retained its open-port status into the Van Teijn governorship.

The postcommandant te Segli: civil and military authority combined

The institutional form by which Segli was administered was the postcommandant te Segli — a military post-commander charged, in addition to his military command, with the civil administration of the surrounding coast. The arrangement was the Atjeh-pattern of combining the Civiel Gezaghebber and military command in a single officer. The postcommandant te Segli appears in Van Heutsz’s catalogue of Van Teijn’s enforcement instruments as the officer entrusted with both the civil administration and the military execution of the closure on the most weighty stretch of the coast — the gebied van Pedir en Gighen:

“zij toegepast werd door een Gouverneur als Generaal van Teijn, die met veel beleid en energie te werk ging en daarbij krachtig en vol toewijding gesteund werd, in de eerste plaats door H. M. marine en verder op het gewichtigste deel der kust het gebied van Pedir en Gighen door den met het civiel bestuur belasten postcommandant te Segli, die evenzeer van het groote nut van eene rigoureuse sluiting overtuigd tot herstel van ons gezag en door onttrekking van middelen aan de Atjehers … met veel energie te werk ging” (it was applied by a Governor like Generaal van Teijn, who proceeded with much discretion and energy and was powerfully and devotedly supported, in the first place by H. M. navy, and further on the most weighty part of the coast — the territory of Pedir and Gighen — by the post-commander at Segli charged with the civil administration, who, equally convinced of the great usefulness of a rigorous closure for the restoration of our authority and the deprivation of means from the Atjehers, proceeded with much energy).

The 1890–1891 enforcement: Pedir-Gighen under the postcommandant

The high-water mark of Dutch closure-policy on the Pedir-Gighen stretch was reached in the beginning of 1890, when Van Teijn’s progressive closure of the Noord- en Westkust — begun in January 1888 and extended in stages — was in ‘t begin van 1890 eindelijk was uitgestrekt over de geheele Noord- en Westkust (in the beginning of 1890 finally extended over the entire Noord- en Westkust). The closure was enforced, on the Pedir-Gighen stretch of the coast, by the postcommandant te Segli. Van Heutsz records the institutional arrangement as the empirical proof of the closure’s coercive capacity: by the beginning of 1891 die zoo krachtig en stelselmatig toegepaste sluiting reeds in ruim één jaar tijd begin 1891 een effect had teweeggebracht, dat zelfs de verwachting van Generaal van Teijn overtrof (that closure, so forcefully and systematically applied, had within little more than a year by the beginning of 1891 produced an effect that exceeded even General van Teijn’s own expectations). The closure reduced Pedir to starvation: by 1891 de rijke passar te Pedir door de sluiting geheel verarmd en zoo goed als verloopen was — the rich market of Pedir had been impoverished by the closure and was as good as ruined — and the crushed Tengkoe Pakeh Pedir submitted verbally: Mijnheer, repliceerde Tengkoe Pakeh, Uwe hand drukt zwaar, maar ik onderwerp mij aan Uwen wil (Sir, replied Tengkoe Pakeh, your hand presses heavily, but I submit to your will).

The Chineesche toko at Segli: a fiscal proof-of-concept

The Segli toko experiment was Van Heutsz’s textbook example of how even a tiny vergunning (license), multiplied by the closure’s scarcity, became a powerful fiscal lever. The experiment is recorded in Van Heutsz’s catalogue of the operational instruments of the closure:

“Bij onze versterking te Segli had een Chinees een, tijdens de sluiting, peperdure toko. Ter aanmoediging van het passarbezoek in Sigli, waar dagelijks maar + 15 man kwamen, werd op autorisatie van den Gouverneur Pompe aan de passargangers toegestaan om, na verkoop hunner waren, in die peperdure toko per man voor een halven gulden, per vrouw voor één gulden te koopen” (At our fortification at Segli a Chinese had, during the closure, a pepper-expensive toko. To encourage the pasar-visit in Sigli, where daily only ± 15 men came, on the authorisation of Governor Pompe the pasar-goers were allowed, after the sale of their wares, to buy in that pepper-expensive toko — per man for half a guilder, per woman for one guilder).

The Gouverneur Pompe autorisatie — the authorisation of the eleventh Governor of Atjeh, Governor Pompe — allowed pasar-goers at Sigli to buy, after the sale of their wares, up to half a guilder (per man) or one guilder (per woman) of merchandise from the Chinese toko inside the Dutch versterking te Segli. The licensing was tiny — ± 15 man came daily to the Sigli pasar, and the per-head purchase ceiling was half a guilder — yet the scarcity-multiplied effect was disproportionate: under the closure, even a half-guilder purchase at the peperdure toko became a coveted privilege. The experiment was, in Van Heutsz’s argument, the empirical proof of the closure’s fiscal capacity: a tiny vergunning at a single toko could be made, by the closure’s scarcity, into a powerful instrument of fiscal and political control — the operational proof that the scheepvaartregeling could place the Dutch in den volsten zin des woords op de geldkist van Atjeh (in the fullest sense of the word on the cash-box of Atjeh).

The 1893 prescription: Segli as one of four Noordkust ports

In Van Heutsz’s own 1893 prescription, Segli was retained as one of the open ports of the scheepvaartregeling. Scherer’s 20 January 1891 lezing (lecture) before the Indisch Genootschap had named Segli as one of four Noordkust ports — Op de Noordkust: 1 Edi. 2 Telok Semawé 3 Samalanga 4 Segli (On the Noordkust: 1. Edi, 2. Telok Semawé, 3. Samalanga, 4. Segli) — and Van Teijn had endorsed the reduced list of three: De Generaal van Teijn achtte op de Oost- en Noordkust: Edi, Telok Semawé en Segli, althans vooreerst, voldoende (General van Teijn considered Edi, Telok Semawé and Segli sufficient, at least for the present, on the East- and North Coast). Van Heutsz concurred, and the prescription that closed the 1893 tract retained Segli as one of the open call-ports of the scheepvaartregeling Van Heutsz would himself implement as Governor of Atjeh from 1898 onward.

Account from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer (1897)

Segli was repeatedly invoked in the Atjeh debate of 16–17 November 1897 as the test case of the new Dutch system in Atjeh.

Van Vlijmen’s approval

Van Vlijmen told the chamber that the princes on the coast would now begin to understand that the Dutch were in earnest with the maintenance of their authority. In the previous year he had suggested that it would be useful to set some of the so-called friends to rights: “Inderdaad heeft Segli nu eens een lesje gehad, en ik hoop dat nog andere vrienden spoedig eene vermaning mogen ontvangen, opdat de vriendschap bevestigd worde.” — Segli has indeed now had a lesson, and I hope that other friends too may soon receive an admonition, so that the friendship may be confirmed.

Cremer’s explanation of the expedition

The Minister of Colonies Cremer used Segli to answer Pijnacker Hordijk’s question whether the Dutch would not be compelled to go further, into Pedir and Gighen, and whether they had men not only to make war on those districts but to occupy and hold them.

He referred to what had happened at Segli. There, he said, roughly the same condition prevailed as in the Pedir country: “de vorsten aan de kust zijn ons niet vijandig gezind, maar zij zijn niet krachtig genoeg om de in de Tanawaqt of in de VII Moekims samengestroomde Delama-benden te verjagen.” — the princes on the coast are not hostile to us, but they are not strong enough to drive out the Delama bands that have streamed together in the Tanawaqt or in the VII Moekims, and for that reason the expedition to Segli took place. For that reason the expedition to Segli had taken place — “niet om Segli zelf te nemen, maar wel om de vijandelijke benden uit de moekims Pakan Baroe en Pokan Soth te verjagen.” — not to take Segli itself, but to drive the hostile bands out of the moekims Pakan Baroe and Pokan Soth.

That, he said, had been done. After the expulsion the chief of that district had taken the land under his management, and it was not at all necessary to keep the place occupied. Only from the fixed post of Segli was daily supervision kept over the swept district, to which the population was gradually returning. “Zoo is het ook met Pedir.” — So it is also with Pedir. Should similar clearances become necessary in the interior or elsewhere, that would be done, and then the completion of the steam tram to Selimoen would be of great advantage and use to the troops and would facilitate eventual action in those interior districts.

The departure of the expedition

Answering the charge of cruelty, Cremer described the departure of the expedition to Segli as reported to him by an eyewitness: a general excitement prevailed among the soldiers as they marched out; short addresses were delivered by the battalion commanders reminding them of their duty towards Queen, fatherland and colours; the Christian natives were addressed in simple words by their own voorgangers, and these words were greeted with great cheering — “geen gejuich van bloeddorstige dieren,” he insisted, but testimony to a cheerful and glad acceptance of a heavy task.

Account from H. F. Meijer (1883) — Segli and the planned move from Pidir

Meijer records at the close of his Chapter VIII — completing the story which the occupation of Pidir of June 1876 began — that the civil and military commander returned afterwards to his first plan: the fortification not at Pidir but near Gigiëng, on the so-called Tanah Raja or neutral ground, at the right bank of the Segli river, over which a bridge was thrown afterwards, and through the sodden ground a road traced to the residence of the prince of Pidir. The Pidir fortification was abolished; but, he wrote at the time of his book, the carrying out of the road from strand to royal residence had not begun to the beginning of 1879.

Against this fortification during the two years of the breach with Gigiëng Meijer records the post at Segli was repeatedly alarmed and attacked, not only by the people of that realm but by the band of the notorious Toekoe di Tiroe descending from Pidir ground.

Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)

Verstege records that with the new policy of the concentration, the garrisons of the coast states were given up; only at Edi and at Segli was the maintenance of a military garrison judged necessary (see Blokkade of 1884-1885 and Malaboeh).

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Town on Noordkust at K.M. 71 (Saré pass at 475 m is highest point before descent). With Lho’Seumawe shares the doubtful honour of being ‘the eel of Atjeh’. Big pinang, copra, and pepper export, suffered from malaise. Atjeh-tram workshop with ~200 coolies (since 1935 also ambachtsleergang with metaalbewerking; houtbewerking added 1937-1938). Artesian well water brackish; waterleiding since December 1932 fed by wadoek of 245,000 m³. Europeesche lagere school, electric light, sea bath Pasir RawaHot messy town comparable toLho’Seumawé; grew randomly around an old benteng (fort) as core. Has NIGM central. The author was stationed at Sigli and rushed from there to Lho’Soekonon news of Schmid’s murder.Onderafdeeling on the north coast of Aceh, capital of the Pidiëregion; diluvial heuvelland is entirely absent here.Noordkust; central workshop of Atjeh Staatsspoor; KPM connection; bijkantoor Atjehsche Handel Mij; N.I. GasmaatschappijOnderafdeelingshoofdplaats and standplaats of theAssistent-Resident of the afdeeling Noordkust van Atjeh. One of the starting points of the transversaalweg (transverse road) toward Meulaboh. Site of the openbare ambachtsleergang (vocational school) at the Atjeh-spoor workshops. Has mukim-style divisions like Groot-AtjehTown on the Northkust; one of the two places (with Lho-Soekon) where mostatjeh-moorden occur. Site of 1925 Van der Sluys Veer and 1935 Birkenfeld murders. Pretendent-Sultan was escorted here by chiefs of Groot-Atjeh on his way to submit at Koetaradja. Author tells story of a leprous complainant visit at his Sigli house.

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 57, 58, 59, 60, 85, 86, 87, 89, 102, 190, 287, 291, 312, 323, 329, 341, 360, 362, 367, 383, 386.

Sources

De geschiedenis van Nederland in onzen tijd, by J. A. de Bruyne, Directeur der Hoogere Burgerschool te Zierikzee. Deel IV. 1872-1883. Nieuwe uitgave. Schiedam: J. F. Dupont, 1912, Hoofdstuk I, pp. 80, 84, 96, 114.

De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, esp. pp. 29, 31, 35, 50, 56, 60, 67, 68, 77, 91, 92. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.

Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898, uitgave van de Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij in Nederland (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br P95-178, pp. 33, 55, 59.

Acknowledgement of sources. This article combines material from the publications cited above; the material newly added derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897) and Een strijd in Atjeh (Rotterdam: N.V. Drukkerij Korteweg for the Vereeniging „SIMAVI”, 1934). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.

Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 57, 58, 59, 60, 85, 86, 87, 89, 102, 190, 287, 291, 312, 323, 329, 341, 360, 362, 367, 383, 386.

Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), pp. 87. OCR: DLP-158.

tags	place, coast-state, dutch-colonial, aceh-war, port, atjeh, 19th-century, north-coast, dutch-post, onderhoorigheden, scheepvaartregeling
aliases	Segli, Seulimeum, Segli on the Noordkust, Sigli

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