Tapanoeli (modern Tapanuli) is a bay and residency on the west coast of Sumatra, included by the Dutch in the cession of Benkoelen under article 10 of the treaty of 17 March 1824. In P. H. van der Kemp’s Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, the baai Tapanoeli is, together with the point of Anjer on Java, the second of the two places for which the Dutch plenipotentiaries of 1824 promised the British special rights of access — a concession that Minister Elout sharply criticised and that the King ultimately rejected.
Article 10 of the draft convention
The proposed article promised that “the Bay of Tapanoeli, included in the cession of the foregoing article, shall at all times remain open and accessible to ships under the British flag, and they shall there, during their stay, be treated on the same footing as the ships of His Majesty the King of the Netherlands.” The “foregoing article” was that by which the Dutch took over Benkoelen with Fort Marlborough in exchange for the Dutch factories in Hindostan and a cash payment; the Bay of Tapanoeli was ceded to the Dutch along with the Bencoolen residency. By promising the British continued access to the bay on equal terms with Dutch shipping, the plenipotentiaries gave away, in Elout’s view, a durable right which they need not have granted.
Elout’s nota of 12 February 1824
Elout devoted a passage of his nota of 12 February 1824 to the Bay of Tapanoeli: “The Bay of Tapanoeli is well situated for service. Nobody ought to be excluded. But what interpretation may hereafter be put on the treatment of British and Dutch ships on the same footing? (One remarks in passing that the expression as to treatment in the Bay of Tapanoeli ought to give no wider occasion for interpretation than that of Anjer.)” He classed the article with those of Anjer and the Carimons as grants of “special and durable privileges which one fears may be contested from more than one side,” and advised that the King accept a cash payment instead. The King followed his advice, and the special clauses were dropped from the definitive treaty.
A too-ready concession
Van der Kemp prints the article and the critique side by side as part of his indictment of the Dutch negotiators. The plenipotentiaries “who could dispose of Anjer and Tapanoeli for England’s benefit had of course no objection to this concession for a still independent port” — meaning, he explains, that they treated the bay as if it were a Dutch asset to be bargained away, when in truth it belonged to the wider Sumatran sphere which article 9 of the same treaty had just placed under exclusive Dutch influence. The Tapanoeli episode thus illustrates, in miniature, the looseness with which Falck and Fagel negotiated the treaty of 1824.
See Also
- Anjer
- Bencoolen
- Java
- Sumatra
- Elout
- Anton Reinhard Falck
- Hendrik Fagel
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Hindostan
- Netherlands India
Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu
Neighboring residency south of Aceh, reachable via Sidikalang (connection ‘under consideration’). Connected by Gouvernementsstoomer to Singkel every 2 months with Sibolga and NiasNeighboring residency on thewest coast of Sumatra; the tertiair heuvelland strip extends along the coast from Sumatra’s Oostkust through Aceh to TapanoeliNeighboringgewest; with Sibolga and Baroes serves Singkel/Simeuloeë commercially; part of Noord-SumatraNeighboring residency to the south of Atjeh;Singkel was originally part of Tapanoeli; the Westkustweg will eventually connect to it.
Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 55, 56, 188, 287, 327.
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.
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. 55, 56, 188, 287, 327.