Tamaram was a tobacco plantation on Sumatra’s East Coast whose manager was wounded and one of whose assistants was killed during the Acehnese raids of 1876 — the most violent of the three attacks on plantations recorded by Dr. T. Volker for that year, alongside Glen Bervi and Ludwigsburg.
The 1876 attack
The attack on Tamaram took place during the intensification of Acehnese raiding into the northern reaches of the Gouvernement Oostkust van Sumatra, as the Atjeh War fought from 1873 onward drove armed Acehnese parties across the frontier into the plantation districts of Deli and Langkat. Volker records the attack matter-of-factly among a sequence of events that illustrate the threat posed to European estates by the unresolved war on the Acehnese side of the border: “de ondernemingen Glen Bervi, Tamaram en Ludwigsburg werden aangevallen; de administrateur van Tamaram gewond en een zijner assistenten gedood” (“the estates Glen Bervi, Tamaram and Ludwigsburg were attacked; the manager of Tamaram wounded and one of his assistants killed”).
The Kedjoeroean (district head) of Bohorok collaborated with the Acehnese raiders and subsequently fled with his followers to the Alas lands.
Consequences
The raids at Tamaram and neighbouring plantations intensified colonial awareness of the security gap on Sumatra’s East Coast frontier. They contributed to the decision to mount the military Expedition against Tamiang (1893), which drove out the Acehnese fighters threatening the plantation and petroleum belt and led to the establishment of fixed colonial authority in the Tamiang frontier zone. Final pacification was achieved in 1899.
See Also
- Acehnese raids on East Sumatra
- Glen Bervi
- Ludwigsburg
- Expedition against Tamiang (1893)
- Sultan of Langkat
- Bohorok
- Tamiang
- Gouvernement Oostkust van Sumatra
- 1876
- 1893
Source
Van Oerbosch tot Cultuurgebied: Een Schets van de Beteekenis van de Tabak, de Andere Cultures en de Industrie ter Oostkust van Sumatra, by Dr. T. Volker (Medan: Deli Planters Vereeniging, 1928), pp. 44–47. Delpher Digital Library, reference DLP-76. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shelfmark 09383.