Tjot Bada — Cot Bada — was an Atjehnese kampong of the VII Moekims of Groot-Atjeh — the kampong of Toekoe Moeda Baid, oeloebalang of the VII Moekims, in whose custody the young Sultan Toeankoe Machmoed was held after the death of Sultan Saleiman Iskander in 1837. The kampong is named in the Atjeh-Album of 1896 as the site of Habib Abdoe’r Rachman’s armed expedition against Toekoe Moeda Baid — the expedition by which the Habib compelled the surrender of the young prince and installed him as Sultan under the Habib’s regency.
The 1837 succession crisis
The Atjeh-Album of 1896 records that, after the death of Sultan Saleiman Iskander in 1837, the young prince Toeankoe Machmoed was in the custody of Toekoe Moeda Baid at his kampong of Tjot Bada. Habib Abdoe’r Rachman wished to install the prince as Sultan and to act as regent during his minority, but Toekoe Moeda Baid refused to release him. The Habib accordingly assembled a force of two thousand men from the XXVI Moekims and marched on Tjot Bada — met groote macht daartoe in zijn kampong Tjot Bada te komen dwingen (with great force to come to compel him [to do so] in his kampong Tjot Bada).
The second expedition to Tjot Bada
The Atjeh-Album records that the Habib made a second expedition to Tjot Bada in connection with the marriage to Potjoet — the widow of Sultan Saleiman Iskander and sister of Toekoe Moeda Baid. Toekoe Moeda Baid had accepted a payment of 400 dollars for the marriage promise, but had repeatedly deferred the actual delivery of the bride — zoo lang, dat Habib genoodzaakt werd hem met groote macht daartoe in zijn kampong Tjot Bada te komen dwingen — so long, that the Habib was compelled to come with great force to compel him [to do so] in his kampong Tjot Bada.
Significance
Tjot Bada’s significance in the documentary record of the Atjeh-oorlog is as the kampong of Toekoe Moeda Baid — the oeloebalang of the VII Moekims whose resistance to Habib Abdoe’r Rachman’s centralising reforms marks the limit of the centralising experiment of the 1860s–1870s. The kampong was the site of two of the Habib’s armed expeditions against Toekoe Moeda Baid — the expedition to compel the surrender of the young Sultan Toeankoe Machmoed, and the expedition to compel the delivery of the bride Potjoet. The kampong’s appearance in the Atjeh-Album of 1896 is brief, but it identifies the site of two of the principal conflicts between the Habib and the oeloebalang class.
See Also
- VII Moekims
- Groot-Atjeh
- Toekoe Moeda Baid
- Habib Abdurrahman Zahir
- Toeankoe Machmoed
- Sultan Saleiman Iskander
- Potjoet
- XXVI Moekims
- Aceh War
- 1837
- Atjeh-Album (Eigen Haard, 1896)
Source
Atjeh-Album van Eigen Haard, uitgave van de N.V. Het Tijdschrift “Eigen Haard”, Amsterdam, 1896, pp. 14–15 (De Geestelijkheid in Atjeh — Habib Abdoe’r Rachman).