The year 1599 was, in the school-textbook narrative and in Godee Molsbergen’s account, the year of the Houtman brothers’ first Dutch visit to the kingdom of Atjeh and of the death of Cornelis de Houtman at Atjeh — the terminus a quo of Dutch-Atjehnese relations. In the summer of 1599 the brothers Cornelis de Houtman and Frederik de Houtman, commanding two ships sent out by the South-Netherlander Balthasar de Moucheron with the English pilot John Davis aboard, conducted the first Dutch visit to Atjeh on Sumatra, were ambushed by the Atjehnese, lost most of their crew (Cornelis among the dead), and abandoned Frederik de Houtman as a captive at the Atjehnese court — the captivity out of which the first European Malay dictionary would be composed.
The Houtman brothers’ visit
The Wijma school reader records the visit of 1599 in Lesson 3: two of them had been sent out by Zeeland merchants. Cornelis Houtman and his brother Frederik were in command. The brothers had little fortune on this voyage. They were the first Netherlands to visit the kingdom of Atjeh on Sumatra.
The visit’s end point in the Atjehnese ambush is the school reader’s principal instance of the treacherous character of the Atjehnese in the Dutch school-textbook imagination: suddenly the Atjehnese attacked our men. A fierce fight followed, and on both sides many fell. The sailors who were on shore were also seized, and all were killed except eight. Among those eight was Frederik Houtman.
The De Moucheron expedition and the disaster at Atjeh
In Godee Molsbergen’s fuller account, the South-Netherlander of French descent Balthasar de Moucheron, trusting the experience of the De Houtman brothers, took them into his service on a fleet of two ships. The English pilot John Davis served as pilot “om in opdracht van den Graaf van Essex spionnenwerk te verrichten” — to do spy-work on behalf of the Earl of Essex. The voyage to the Indies took fifteen months. The Madagascar population fled at the reappearance of the rough Dutchmen — this was the second Dutch landing there, the first having already left a bad reputation under De Houtman’s own first expedition.
When the fleet reached Atjeh in June 1599, the good understanding with the Sultan Aloeddin lasted only briefly. With poisoned fruits and drinks, later with a kris-attack, the Atjehnese sought to be rid of the foreigners. There were many dead, including Cornelis de Houtman, and many prisoners, including Frederik de Houtman. See Death of Cornelis de Houtman at Atjeh (1599).
The escape to Pedir and the homeward voyage
The ships that escaped Atjeh made for Pedir, where they beat off an Atjehnese naval attack; they then touched at the Nicobars and, after much misfortune, reached Middelburg in the summer of 1600. De Moucheron suffered heavy losses from the expedition. Davis turned his spy-material to English advantage.
The captivity of Frederik de Houtman
Frederik de Houtman remained a prisoner in Atjeh for twenty-six months — the captivity that would produce the first European Malay dictionary of 1603 and one of the earliest European catalogues of the southern-hemisphere stars.
People
Places
Events
- Death of Cornelis de Houtman at Atjeh (1599)
- Houtman brothers’ visit to Atjeh (1599)
- The captivity of Frederik de Houtman at Atjeh begins (continues to 1601)
Significance
The year 1599 is, in the school-textbook narrative and in Godee Molsbergen’s account, the terminus a quo of Dutch-Atjehnese relations. The visit of 1599 initiated a sequence of Dutch-Atjehnese encounters that would culminate in the Atjeh embassy to Prince Maurits of 1602 and, two-and-a-half centuries later, in the Aceh War of 1873–1903. The year 1599 thus marks the beginning of the Dutch-Atjehnese relationship that the rest of the school reader’s Atjeh lessons would trace. Godee Molsbergen’s framing of the episode — emphasising the role of De Moucheron, the spy-work of Davis, and the captivity of Frederik — adds the international and intelligence dimensions that the school reader omits.
See Also
- De Kleine Oosterling
- Houtman brothers’ visit to Atjeh (1599)
- Death of Cornelis de Houtman at Atjeh (1599)
- Cornelis de Houtman
- Frederik de Houtman
- Balthazar de Moucheron
- John Davis
- Sultan Aloeddin of Atjeh
- Spraeck ende woord-boeck (1603)
- Atjeh embassy to Prince Maurits at Grave (1602)
- Pedir
- 1600
- 1601
- 1602
- 1603
Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu
De Houtman brothers (Cornelis and Frederik) received very disappointingly in Atjeh - early hostile Dutch-Acehnese encounter with manslaughter and imprisonment.
Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 30.
Sources
De Kleine Oosterling — Iets uit de Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch-Indië. Leesboekje voor de Lagere Scholen, door J. Wijma, Tweede Druk (Kampen: Laurens van Hulst, 1901), Les 3 (“Een gezantschap”).
Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapters XXIII and XXXII (“Sint Thomas. De Madoera-ziekte. Malakka. Het groote kanon in Atjeh”; “Het Kasteel van Verre. De brief op varkensvel in Atjeh”), pp. 81, 114–118 of the numbered-letter sequence.
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. 30.