1656

1656 was the year of the death of Sayyid ʿUmar Bā Shaybān at Bilgrām — the last of the spiritual masters who had formed Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī in the Gujarati-Ḥadramī network of the Rifāʿiyya — and the year of the Blockade of Atjeh — the naval operation ordered by the Hooge Regeering at Batavia to close Atjeh’s coasts to all foreign trade, in retaliation for the Atjehsche governors’ persistent violation of the Truytman treaties of November 1649. In Dr. F. W. Stapel’s Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland it is the moment at which Acehnese-Dutch relations passed from diplomacy to coercion, and the operation that produced the arrest of Anthony van Voorst and the 1659 peace that closed the crisis.

The death of Bā Shaybān at Bilgrām

Sayyid ʿUmar Bā Shaybān, of Hadrami descent but born in India, was the shaikh of Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī in the Rifāʿiyya and the teacher of Shaikh Yūsuf al-Makassar. He had studied in Arabia but later settled in India, where he was received into the Rifāʿiyya by Muḥammad al-ʿAddārs at Surat. He lived chiefly at Bījāpūr, where he enjoyed the protection of the ruler Muḥammad ʿĀdilshāh. His death in 1656 removes the last of the spiritual masters who had formed Raniri in the Gujarati-Ḥadramī network of the Rifāʿiyya.

The Blockade of Atjeh

The Blockade of Atjeh was the central Westkust event of the year. “When oral and written protests did not help, one resolved in 1656 at Batavia to blockade Atjeh’s coasts, in order thereby to prevent the trade with others, as in conflict with the contract of 1649, ‘under however for the present not proceeding to any further acts of hostility’” (Toen mondelinge en schriftelijke protesten niet baatten, besloot men in 1656 te Batavia, Atjeh’s kusten te blokkeeren, om daardoor den handel met anderen, als in strijd met het contract van 1649, te beletten, ‘onder nogh vooreerst tot eenige verdere acten van hostiliteyt te treden’).

The arrest of Anthony van Voorst

The Compagnie’s calculation backfired. “This action had however an opposite effect, for instead of being intimidated by it, the sultane had the chief of the Compagnie’s trade on the West Coast, Anthony van Voorst, with all his officials arrested, and laid hands at the same time on the ‘effects’ of the Compagnie at Atjeh and on the West Coast” (Dit optreden had evenwel een averechtsche uitwerking, want in plaats van zich daardoor te laten intimideeren, liet de sultane het opperhoofd van ‘s Compagnies handel op de Westkust, Anthony van Voorst, met al zijn ambtenaren in arrest nemen, en legde tevens beslag op de ‘effecten’ der Compagnie te Atjeh en aan de Westkust).

The Menangkabau appeal

In preparing a forceful response the Hooge Regeering now also decided to enter into “the already repeatedly directed request of the Menangkabau chiefs ‘that we should bind ourselves to defend them against the Atchinders, both by water and by land’” (dat wy ons souden verbinden haar tegens d’Atchinders te defenderen, soo te water als te lande). The decision to accept the Menangkabau appeal was the political seed of the Painansch Contract of 6 July 1663.

The Kedah blockade

In the same year 1656 the Compagnie also blockaded the river of Kedah, in response to the 1651 Perak outrage. “The government now decided to blockade the river of Kedah, until satisfaction should be given. All native vessels which transported tin from the Kedahsche lands were stopped, and the tin taken out against payment” (De regeering besloot nu, de rivier van Kedah te blokkeeren, totdat satisfactie zou zijn gegeven. Alle inheemsche vaartuigen, welke tin uit de Kedahsche landen vervoerden, werden aangehouden, en het tin tegen betaling er uit genomen).

Significance

1656 is the moment at which the Dutch-Acehnese relationship passes from diplomacy to coercion. The Atjeh blockade and the Kedah blockade together define the year: the Compagnie is no longer willing to negotiate with the Atjehsche governors on the Westkust or with the Perak Malays on the peninsula; it is now using its naval power to coerce both. The sultane’s response — the arrest of Van Voorst — is the political signal that coercion could produce escalation rather than submission, and the 1657–1659 expeditions that produced the 1659 peace are the Compagnie’s response to that escalation.

The year is also the political precondition of the Painansch Contract of 1663. The Compagnie’s decision to enter into the Menangkabau appeal — also in 1656 — is the first formal step toward the secret Van Groenewegen negotiations of 1662 and the Painansch Contract of 6 July 1663.

People

Places

Other

Sources

Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī: in facsimile uitgegeven met aantekeningen door P. Voorhoeve. Uitgaven van de Stichting De Goeje, No. 16. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955.

The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.

De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 14, 64–65 (tekst bij blad 4: Atjeh en de Westkust van Sumatra in 1684, Malakka en het Maleische Schiereiland).

tags	year, timeline, 17th-century, aceh, religious-history, raniri, colonial, dutch, achehnese, sumatra, military
aliases	1656 C.E., 1656 CE, year 1656, the year 1656, MDCLVI

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