Troemon

Troemon — also Trumon — is a region on the Westkust of Atjeh, the region whose zelfbestuurder (native self-administrator) reported the rogue elephant to the visiting kolonel at Bakongan in 1933, and the region whose Troemonse moerassen — with Ië Itam (Zwart Water, Black Water) and Ië Merah (Rood Water, Red Water) — were notorious for their gemeen stinkende, troebele inktwater. In Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. Troemon is the setting of the Troemon tragedy of 1926 and of the woudloper anecdotes of Thijs de Fretes. In Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh, Troemon was also the west-coast statelet at the western extremity of the Atjehnese Onderhoorigheden that served as the western limit of the rigoureuse blokkade the Regeering had prescribed in 1884 and that was to extend van Tamiang op de Oostkust tot Troemon op de Westkust — from Tamiang on the East Coast to Troemon on the West Coast.

The zelfbestuurder

“De zelfbestuurder van Troemon had het over een solitair, die gevaarlijk was voor de bevolking en schade aanrichtte.” The zelfbestuurder — the native self-administrator — of Troemon reported the rogue elephant to the visiting kolonel at Bakongan in 1933. The zelfbestuurder was the native official through whom the Dutch colonial administration governed the inheemse bevolking of Troemon.

The Troemonse moerassen

The Troemonse moerassen — with Ië Itam (Zwart Water, Black Water) and Ië Merah (Rood Water, Red Water) — were notorious for their gemeen stinkende, troebele inktwater (foul-smelling, cloudy ink-water). The water was used both for washing and for cooking rijst and thee — and it was brak. The Troemonse moerassen were the setting of the woudloper work of Thijs de Fretes, whose plain-spoken Dutch about the stinkende rotwater was comprehensible only to those who had spent days in the moerassen.

The Troemon tragedy 1926

The Troemon tragedy of 1926 is mentioned in the book in connection with the *Westkust verzet 1925-1927|Westkust verzet]] of 1925-1927. The tragedy was part of the cycle of unrest on the Westkust of Aceh in the inter-war period.

Significance

Troemon is significant in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. as the region on the Westkust of Aceh whose zelfbestuurder reported the rogue elephant, and whose Troemonse moerassen were the setting of the woudloper work of Thijs de Fretes. The book’s argument is that Troemon — with its zelfbestuurder, its moerassen, and its stinkende rotwater — was the kind of place that made the woudloper tradition of the old Marechaussee what it was: the men who knew the moerassen and their stinkende rotwater as well as they knew the rimboe.

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

In Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh, Troemon — Trumon in the modern Indonesian spelling — was the west-coast statelet at the western extremity of the Atjehnese Onderhoorigheden that served as the western limit of the rigoureuse blokkade the Regeering had prescribed in 1884 and that was to extend van Tamiang op de Oostkust tot Troemon op de Westkust — from Tamiang on the East Coast to Troemon on the West Coast. The statelet’s geographic position — at the southern and western end of the Atjehnese coast, on the Westkust continuum that ran through Melaboeh, Telok Kroet, Tampat Toean and the southern pepper-settlements — made it, in Van Heutsz’s diagnosis, the prescribed western anchor of the closure whose eastern anchor was Tamiang, and the southern terminus of the scheepvaartregeling Van Heutsz would himself prescribe in 1893.

The western limit of the 1884 rigorous blokkade

The Concentratie of 19 August 1884 — ordered by besluit of the Gouverneur-Generaal and authorised by Staatsblad No. 105 van 1884 — prescribed, as its second operational component, a rigoureuse sluiting van het geheele kustgebied, d. w. z. van Tamiang op de Oostkust tot Troemon op de Westkust (a rigorous closure of the entire coastal territory, i.e., from Tamiang on the Oostkust to Troemon on the Westkust). Van Heutsz records the prescription: the rigoureuse sluiting of the entire coast from Tamiang to Troemon was the tweede deel of the Concentratiestelsel — the part that was van kracht getuigde (testified to strength) — as distinct from the non-interventie part that, in Atjehnese eyes, could only betoken weakness. Troemon’s role as the western limit fixed the geographic scope of the prescribed closure: every kuststaatje from Tamiang round the entire coast to Troemon was to be closed to foreign trade, with the Dutch marine enlarged to enforce the seal.

The Regeering’s intent, in Van Heutsz’s diagnosis, was unambiguous: the volkomen afsluiting van het geheele gebied van Tamiang op de Oostkust tot aan Troemon op de Westkust lay in Hare bedoeling en in die van het Opperbestuur (in the Regeering’s and the Opperbestuur’s intent). The Demmeni partieele blokkade — the partial closure Demmeni actually imposed, combined with the soort scheepvaartregeling of 13 October 1884 — was, in Van Heutsz’s diagnosis, the operational default that converted the rigoureuse sluiting from Tamiang to Troemon into a partieele closure that left great stretches of the coast open. The result was the worst of both worlds — geen rigoureuse blokkade (no rigorous blockade) but also geen echte scheepvaartregeling (no true shipping-regulation) — and the Concentratie of 1884 failed to produce the coercive effect the Regeering had intended.

The 1873 alt-history: the closure that should have been

Van Heutsz’s argument for the Tamiang-to-Troemon scope reaches back to the beginning of the war in 1873. The retrospective alt-history: had the Dutch held the closure from Tamiang to Troemon from 1873 onward, the chiefs of both Groot-Atjeh and the Onderhoorigheden would have had to submit after the Dutch successes of late 1873 and early 1874. The 1884 Concentratie was, in this argument, the belated operationalisation of the 1873 prescription, and the Demmeni partial application the second betrayal of it.

The 1893 prescription: Troemon as the western limit, retained

In Van Heutsz’s own 1893 prescription, Troemon was retained as the western limit of the scheepvaartregeling. The prescription codifies the Tamiang-to-Troemon scope:

“Over de geheele kust van Atjeh — dus van Tamiang op de Oostkust tot aan Troemon op de Westkust — Groot-Atjeh niet uitgezonderd — moeten alleen eenige door ons aan te wijzen plaatsen voor den algemeenen handel worden opengesteld” (Over the entire coast of Atjeh — thus from Tamiang on the Oostkust to Troemon on the Westkust — Groot-Atjeh not excepted — only a few places to be designated by us must be opened for general trade).

The 1893 prescription was, in operational terms, the codification of the 1884 Concentratie’s intended scope — the volkomen afsluiting from Tamiang to Troemon — combined with the scheepvaartregeling of open ports at named places. Troemon retained its role as the western limit of the closure, and the prescription’s emphasis on the snelvarende marine — the fast-cruiser marine — was, in Van Heutsz’s argument, the operational answer to the long Westkust coastline whose enforcement had defeated Demmeni’s partieele blokkade. The prescription was the codification of the operational lesson the Westkust had taught — the lesson Van Heutsz would himself implement as Governor of Atjeh from 1898 onward.

The Westkust context: the southern pepper-settlements

Troemon’s position at the southern and western end of the Atjehnese coast placed it on the Westkust continuum that ran through the southern pepper-settlements — Kloewang, Rigas, Tenom, Melaboeh, Telok Kroet, Tampat Toean — and on to the pepper-gardens of the Zuidelijke nederzettingen (southern settlements) where Haschim’s and Toekoe Oemar’s pepertuinen lay. The Westkust continuum was, in Van Heutsz’s diagnosis, the closed-coast counterpart of the Noordkust — the place where the scheepvaartregeling was to be enforced by the same combination of H. M. marine and postcommandant that operated on the Noordkust. The 1893 prescription’s open ports on the Westkust — Telok Kroet (Poeloe Raja), Melaboeh and Tampat Toean — were the operational anchors of the scheepvaartregeling on the Westkust, with Troemon as the southern terminus of the closed coast beyond them. Troemon was also one of the two originating signatories of the vrouwelijk-vee verordening of 1 August 1927 (Reg. No. 17, together with Kloeet) — the only regulation in the 1930 compilation prohibiting the slaughter of female cattle and buffaloes — under the Zelfbestuursverordeningen Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden (the Zelfbesturen van de Landschappen Kloeet en Troemon).

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Landschap formerly ressorterend under Singkel; combined with the southern part of Tapa’Toean to form the new onderafdeeling Zuidelijke Atjehsche landschappen during the 1925-1927 troubles.

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 327.

Sources

Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L., by G. W. T. Dames, Maj. Inf. K.N.I.L. b.d. (‘s-Gravenhage: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1954), chapter “Thijs” and chapter “Ooms leger.”

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. 30, 32, 36, 50, 72, 77, 86. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt. The Achehnese, Vol. II, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

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. 327.

tags	place, region, aceh, westkust, statelet, atjeh, aceh-war, 19th-century, west-coast, onderhoorigheden, scheepvaartregeling, north-east-coast
aliases	Trumon, Troemonse, Trumon on the West Coast

Explorer