1884

Properties3
descriptionThe year of Laging Tobias's February 1884 resignation, of the 16–17 June 1884 secret Staten-Generaal sessions, of the 19 August 1884 Concentratiebesluit proclamation by Van Rees, of Staatsblad No. 105 van 1884, and of Demmeni's hybrid besluit of 13 October 1884.
tagsyear, timeline, colonial, petroleum, aceh, military, atjeh, dutch, aceh-war, 19th-century, acheh, 20th-century, achehnese
aliasesYear 1884, 1884 AD, the year 1884, 1884 (year), 1884 (Van Heutsz 1893 perspective), 1884 CE, het jaar 1884

19 min read

1884 was the year in which Zijlker secured the first petroleum concession in the Landschap (“self-governing territory”) of Langkat on the Sumatra East Coast, immediately adjacent to Atjeh — the concession on which the Royal Petroleum Company was founded in 1890 and on which the modern Indonesian petroleum industry was built. The same year also figures in the Aceh War chronology as one of the middle years of the conflict, when the Dutch were extending their control over the inland areas and the Derde Bataljon and other colonial formations were engaged in the systematic reduction of Acehnese strongholds.

Zijlker’s Langkat petroleum concession

According to Ir. Van der Ploeg’s chapter Mijnbouw (“Mining”) in Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk (1946): “The first to drill oil in exploitable quantity was Zijlker, and indeed in a concession in the Landschap Langkat in the year 1884. But it was not until 1890 that the Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij founded on this came into being.” The choice of Langkat — a self-governing sultanate on the Sumatra East Coast immediately adjacent to Atjeh — placed the head of the modern Indonesian petroleum industry in the same territorial complex that had, since the seventeenth century, supplied pepper (and later tobacco) to the world market.

For the Atjeh-focused reader, the 1884 date is significant for the geographical and strategic proximity of the Langkat oilfield to Atjeh. The concession was secured eleven years after the first Aceh expedition of 1873 and three years after the establishment of civil government in Atjeh in 1881; the late-nineteenth-century development of the Langkat oilfield thus coincided with the Dutch military conquest of Atjeh, and the two processes — the petroleum development of the East Coast and the military subjugation of Atjeh — together reshaped the strategic significance of northern Sumatra in the late-colonial Indies.

The same chapter of Van der Ploeg further records that the Javanese toponym Pelantoengan — from lantoeng, “earth-oil” (petroleum) — preserves the indigenous knowledge of petroleum that long predated Zijlker’s 1884 concession, and that Jan Huygen van Linschoten had brought back from Goa a sample of petroleum “from a spring on Sumatra, that flows pure balm”. The early Dutch reports of Sumatran petroleum seeps — including the story of an oil spring at Deli “which burned on the sea and with which two Portuguese galleons were set alight” — are the European counterpart to the indigenous Pelantoengan toponymy.

Figures, places and events in Acehnese history associated with 1884

(From the standard corpus of Atjeh War sources.)

People

Places

Events

Account from Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. (1954) — 1884

1884 is mentioned in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. in connection with the Aceh War as one of the years of the middle phase of the war, when the Dutch were extending their control over the inland areas — “Derde Bataljon and other colonial formations were engaged in the systematic reduction of Acehnese strongholds.

Significance

The year 1884 stands at the intersection of two of the most consequential developments in late-colonial northern Sumatra: the Dutch military conquest of Atjeh (begun in 1873 and continuing into the 1880s–1890s) and the corporate-bureaucratic foundation of the modern Indonesian petroleum industry in the immediately adjacent Langkat sultanate. The two developments were not independent: the same colonial apparatus that produced the Atjeh War also produced the legal-bureaucratic framework (the zelfbesturen contract system, the erfpacht long-lease) within which Zijlker’s 1884 Langkat concession was secured.

Account from Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis (1955)

The following account is drawn from the parliamentary history of the Dutch Second Chamber as narrated by Vermeulen in the colonial section of the 1955 fourth revised edition of Rengers’s *Schets*.

1884 is the year in which the Dutch forces in Atjeh abandoned the attempt to conquer the interior of Groot-Atjeh and fell back upon the concentratie-stelling — the “concentrated position” — around Koeta Radja (Kuta Raja). The Concentratie-stelsel ([[1884-1896)|concentratie-stelsel]] thus begun would last, with growing parliamentary criticism, until 1896, when Toekoe Oemar’s defection ([[1896)|the defection of Toekoe Oemar]] forced its abandonment.

The retreat to Koeta Radja

After more than a decade of inconclusive fighting in the Atjeh-oorlog ([[1873-1904)|Atjeh-oorlog]], the Dutch expeditionary force in 1884 withdrew into a perimeter centred on Koeta Radja and limited its activity to holding this reconcentrated line. Idenburg, later minister of Colonies, would defend the measure retrospectively in the Tweede Kamer: in Atjeh, he argued, “geduld geoefend [is] in de tijd van de concentratie” — patience was exercised in the time of the concentration — and the result was that “het verzet zich des te sterker heeft kunnen organiseren” — the resistance had been able to organise itself all the stronger.

Consequences

The retreat of 1884 became a parliamentary byword for the futility of half-measures in Atjeh. Critics in the Tweede Kamer — especially Van Kol, Kuyper and Fransen van de Putte — repeatedly used the Concentratie-stelsel ([[1884-1896)|concentratie]] period to argue that the Netherlands should either subjugate Atjeh outright or withdraw entirely. The rebuttal by Idenburg in 1904 that the concentratie had merely permitted the resistance to regroup was the standard ministerial reply.

Significance

1884 marks the beginning of a twelve-year parenthesis in the Dutch Atjehnese war during which Groot-Atjeh outside Koeta Radja was effectively abandoned to the Atjehnese. The collapse of the concentratie-stelsel in 1896 set in motion the chain of events — the Van Heutsz system, the Van Daalen expedition — that would, by 1904, bring the entire sultanate under Dutch control.

Account from Atjeh by H.C. Zentgraff (1938)

Zentgraff records that in 1884 Habib Abdoerrachman el Zahir — from his exile in Mekka — sent his memorandum to the Dutch Indies government proposing himself as Regent of Atjeh, dated 3 Moharram 1302 (October 1884), setting out six conditions for the administration of Acehnese affairs under his authority.

Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia.

Account from De Atjeh-Oorlog by J.A. Kruijt (1896)

1884, in Kruijt’s De Atjeh-Oorlog (1896), was the year of the decision in the Staten-Generaal that transformed the Dutch strategy in Atjeh — the year of the Nisero affair’s resolution, the visits of ‘s Jacob and Van Rees to Groot-Atjeh, the secret sessions of 16 June – 17 June 1884 that decreed the concentration system, and the inauguration of the Civiel en Militair Gouvernur under Colonel Demmeni.

Only in September 1884 was the release of the crew of the Nisero — wrecked near Tenom in November 1883 and held captive by the radja of Tenom — obtained, on payment of a ransom of ƒ100,000, while the Dutch bound themselves no longer to close the harbour of Tenom. The Gouverneur-Generaal ‘s Jacob had already visited Atjeh in August 1883 and found the situation highly unfavourable; the Gouverneur-Generaal Van Rees came in March 1884 to see and discuss the state of affairs.

In two secret sessions of the united Chambers of the Staten-Generaal on 16 June and 17 June 1884, it was decided to adopt a wholly new system for Atjeh: the so-called concentration or contraction of the Dutch stelling in Groot-Atjeh, the abolition of the coastal posts, the withdrawal of the scheepvaartregeling, and blockade. Laging Tobias, strongly opposed to this concentration — which according to him “de kroon zette op de Nederlandsche fouten in Atjeh” (set the crown on the Dutch mistakes in Atjeh) — retired in September 1884. Colonel Demmeni accordingly took office as Civiel en Militair Gouvernur in September 1884, on what Kruijt would call “de puinhoopen van het gesloopte gebouw onzer macht onder van der Heijden” (the ruins of the demolished building of our power under Van der Heijden). In October 1884 the scheepvaartregeling was wholly withdrawn by order of the High Government in the Netherlands — except on the East Coast, where it had worked for ten years, and where it was maintained in order not to lose all influence there as well.

De Atjeh-Oorlog: Kort Overzicht van Oorsprong, Verloop en Gevolg, door J. A. Kruijt. ‘s-Gravenhage: Loman & Funke, 1896. Chapter VIII, pp. 44–46.

Account from De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893) — the groote politieke fout

Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh identifies 1884 as the year of the Concentratie — the besluit van 19 Augustus 1884 by which Gouverneur-Generaal van Rees ordered the withdrawal of all outlying Dutch posts to the geconcentreerde stelling of Groot-Atjeh and promulgated it by the proclamatie of the same date to the Atjehnese — and of the Staatsblad No. 105 of 1884 that prescribed the rigoureuse blokkade of the entire coast from Tamiang to Troemon. The year is, in Van Heutsz’s diagnosis, the principal bête noire of the entire Atjeh record: the groote politieke fout that reversed the Van der Heijden conquest of Groot-Atjeh and condemned the colony to another fifteen years of war.

The February 1884 resignation of Laging Tobias

The year opened with the February 1884 resignation of Gouverneur Laging Tobias — “toen de Regeering het eenige middel verwierp waarvan hij in de bestaande omstandigheden een goede uitkomst verwachtte”:

“Meende de Gouverneur Laging Tobias zijn ontslag te moeten vragen, toen de Regeering het eenige middel verwierp waarvan hij in de bestaande omstandigheden een goede uitkomst verwachtte. Dit was in Februari 1884”.

The new G.-G. Van Rees, who visited Atjeh in March 1884, “betuigde, dat hij de inzichten van den Gouverneur Laging Tobias omtrent den met Atjeh te volgen weg vrij juist vond” — declared that he found Governor Laging Tobias’s views on the path to be followed with Atjeh quite correct — but the declaration was overridden by the Concentratiebesluit of 19 August 1884.

The 16–17 June 1884 secret Staten-Generaal sessions

The Concentratie was authorised, in the first instance, by the secret sessions of the Staten-Generaal of 16 and 17 June 1884 in The Hague:

“Dat de hangende plannen de kort daarop ingevoerde Concentratie zouden wezen, waartoe besloten was in de geheime zittingen van de Staten-Generaal van 16 en 17 Juni 1884”.

The decision was taken at the metropolitan level — opperbestuur in Nederland — without consultation of the colonial Atjeh authorities, “zonder dat aan de autoriteiten te Atjeh om eenig nader advies was gevraagd”.

The 19 August 1884 Concentratiebesluit and Staatsblad No. 105 van 1884

The Concentratie was promulgated in the colony by Van Rees by proclamatie of 19 August 1884:

“in weerwil van de op 19 Augustus door den Gouverneur-Generaal van Rees uitgevaardigde proclamatie, waarin hij aan de Atjehers deed verkondigen dat zij er nooit in zouden slagen ons een enkelen stap terugtedringen”.

The Atjehnese “waren zoo vrij te gelooven, dat ons terugtrekken in de geconcentreerde stelling niet vrijwillig, maar gedwongen was en voortsproot uit zwakte, uit onmacht om den strijd langer vol te houden”. The legal instrument of the rigorous-blockade component of the Concentratie was the Staatsblad No. 105 of 1884 — which prescribed the rigoureuse sluiting van het geheele kustgebied, “d. w. z. van Tamiang op de Oostkust tot Troemon op de Westkust”. Van Heutsz’s retrospective on the choice of blokkade over scheepvaartregeling is severe:

“Dit alles pleitte dus in 1884 tegen de blokkade en voor de scheepvaartregeling, maar toch koos de Regeering blokkade. Dit was dus eene fout, maar een ramp werd het, toen dezelfbe Regeering, die de rigoureuse blokkade decreteerde, geen consequente doorvoering van dit in ieder geval van kracht getuigende beginsel eischte”.

The 13 October 1884 hybrid besluit by Demmeni and Scherer’s resignation

The rigoureuse blokkade was, however, never applied in its rigorous form. Generaal Demmeni wankelde in his plan to apply the prescribed blockade under the pressure of Scherer’s betoogingen and the nota’s co-signed by assistent-resident van Groot-Atjeh van Langen:

“De Generaal Demmeni werd door Scherer’s betoogingen en zijne nota’s, waarmede de assistent-resident van Groot-Atjeh van Langen instemde, aan het wankelen gebracht in zijn plan om eenvoudig uit te voeren, wat hem door de Regeering opgedragen was en voerde niet de algemeene rigoureuse blokkade in, maar liet slechts sommige gedeelten van de kust sluiten en blokkeeren en dit niet eens consequent, terwijl hij voor andere gedeelten, reeds bij besluit van 13 October 1884 eene soort scheepvaartregeling invoerde”.

The besluit of 13 October 1884 established Edi, Segli and Oleh-leh as the only call-ports for the entire Noord- en Oostkust — a soort scheepvaartregeling in form but, Van Heutsz argues, “deze had in mindere mate dezelfde gebreken had van de alleréerste onder Generaal van der Heijden”. The hybrid was thus, in Van Heutsz’s reading, “een tweeslachtig ding” — a two-headed thing. The Concentratie was also the immediate occasion of the resignation of Scherer in early October 1884:

“toen hij bemerkte, dat de Generaal Demmeni, hoe ook diens denkbeelden omtrent de Atjeh-zaak waren, eenvoudig het hem voorgeschreven stelsel in practijk zou brengen, besloot om heen te gaan; hij vroeg toen intrekking zijner plaatsing te Atjeh en vertrok in het begin van October, na eerst nog in een paar met redenen omkleede nota’s, den kolonel Demmeni ernstig tegen het opheffen der scheepvaartregeling en van de posten op de kust gewaarschuwd te hebben”.

The resignation took with it, in Van Heutsz’s reading, the only man who could have advised Demmeni how to construct the scheepvaartregeling he had begun to introduce: “de man, die den Generaal het beste had kunnen voorlichten omtrent de wijze, waarop die scheepvaartregeling diende ingericht te zijn en waarom eene andere regeling niet deugde, was heengegaan”. The counter-factual is explicit: “Ware hij gebleven en had hij gestreden met zijne argumenten tegen de blokkade en voor de scheepvaartregeling, zeker zou dan geene contrôle op handel en scheepvaart getroffen zijn, zooals thans het geval is geweest, vermoedelijk ook geen tweeslachtige regeling”.

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. 24, 28–35, 40, 53. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.

Account from Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)

1884 was the year of the Dutch concentratie — the Concentration — by which the Netherlands forces restricted themselves to a ring round Kota Radja and a ceintuurbaan (girdle-road) connecting the sixteen posts with the recently shortened railway, while three straalbanen (ray-roads) connected the chief station at Kota Radja with the ceintuurbaan. For a telephone in that post-ring provision was likewise made. The concentratie remained the Dutch military policy in Groot-Atjeh until 1896, when other insights prevailed and the line of concentration was given up.

Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)

By 1884 the costs of the Atjeh-oorlog had risen to 150 million guilders, while the deficit in the Indies treasury had risen to eighty-six million.

Account in Hooijer’s De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897)

1884 was the year in which the Netherlands withdrew behind the geconcentreerde linie in Groot-Atjeh, abandoning Anagaloeng and Toengkoeb and inaugurating the ten-year concentratie period.

The withdrawal

G. B. Hooijer recorded that the benteng the Dutch had kept at Anagaloeng after the fighting was decided was in 1884 verlaten, daar de onverzoenlijke en slechts voor macht bukkende Atjehers opnieuw de wapenen hadden kunnen opnemen en ons noodzaakten achter de geconcentreerde linie te wijken. At Toengkoeb, the Dutch soldiers who returned in 1893 sat again op de plaats, die in 1884 door hen verlaten was, nadat zij er vier jaren lang heer en meester waren geweest.

The death of Teungkoe di Tiro

The Achehnese spiritual leader in the holy war, Teungkoe di Tiro, died at Anagaloeng in this period, lying on the gravestone erected there for Kapitein Miseroy during the Dutch occupation.

Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)

The year of decision — and of secrecy. The Nisero question, which brought the true state of Atjeh so clearly to light, was the nearest occasion that the concentration came to execution: in the geheime Kamerzittingen (secret sessions) of 16 and 17 June 1884 the retreat was decided upon, with the nation kept, as before, deliberately in the dark; Verstege wrote in January 1886 that even the principal advisers of this sad war operation must remain unnamed, while rumour credited the then Raad van Indië, later again Minister of Colonies Sprenger van Eijk, and governor Laging Tobias and kolonel Demmeni with advice against it. On 19 August kolonel Demmeni entered office as civil and military governor after Laging Tobias’s proposal of reunification; the same day the Governor-General van Rees addressed the proclamation to the Indies princes and the population of the dependencies of Atjeh that the foolish attackers would never succeed “in driving us back a single step” — while the concentration was already in preparation. The year saw also: on 16 June the vote of 1⅔ million guilders for the blockade of the Atjeh coast, with the London conditions of July (Tenom’s harbours open; re-opening of Atjeh’s havens afterwards) and the ragtag fleet quoted by Verstege; the Lambaroe-Kota Radja steam tram working since mid-1884 (see Atjeh-tram); on 3 July the treason of Toekoe Oemar at Lambesi; on 29 July the ambush of Imam Habib near Tjot-Goe; in August the declaration of age of the pretender Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed at Kemala; the occupation of Poeloe Waai (Pulo Weh); the occupation of the new posts of Kota Pohama and Roempit on 25 and 29 September — “reeds vóór het voltooien der nieuwe postenketen een aanvang werd gemaakt met de ontruiming der daarbuiten gelegen versterkingen” (“already before the completion of the new chain of posts a start was made with the evacuation of the fortifications outside it”) — and the return to Atjeh of formerly exiled chiefs, foremost of them Toekoe Moeda Baid (exiled to Banda in 1879), who in November issued a day order to the Atjehers not to trouble the Dutch soldiers while abandoning the outer posts. On 19 December the member Rutgers van Rozenburg asked who the military specialists were — “the Dutch Moltke’s” — whom the Minister had consulted about the concentration plan, and got only an evasive answer.

See Also

Sources

The Geconcentreerde Stelling: Implementation (1884)

Following the concentration decree of 19 August 1884, implementation began immediately. Colonel H. Demmeni was appointed Civiele en Militaire Gouverneur (Civil and Military Governor). Key events in the concentration implementation:

  • 25 September 1884: Garrison of Samalanga (North Coast) transferred to Kota-Pohama; construction of Kota-Pohama post begun
  • 25 October 1884: Capture of kampongs Lampoe-Tjot-Iri, Lamtjot, and Tjot-Iri for new post construction
  • 6 November 1884: Withdrawal from bivouac at Tjot-Iri; permanent garrison established at Tjot-Iri
  • 10 November 1884: Evacuation of Telok-Semawé (North Coast); materials reused for new Lamtih post
  • 14 November 1884: Establishment of Siroen post
  • 20 November 1884: Establishment of Lamtih post
  • 22 November 1884: Establishment of Boekit-Karang post
  • December 1884: Roempit post established

Construction was rapid and organized, with materials from evacuated northern posts reused for the new southern line. The new geconcentreerde stelling would be completed by 1 March 1885.

Source

Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, samengesteld en verzorgd onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., onder de auspiciën van het Indisch Instituut, 1946), p. 252 (chapter Mijnbouw door Ir. F. P. C. S. van der Ploeg).

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.

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.

De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Afl. 3: Oostkust van Sumatra. Eerste Stuk, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1918), p. 115. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shelfmark LS.08781.

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).

Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland van 1849 tot 1901, by Mr W. J. van Welderen baron Rengers, 4th rev. ed., Vol. IV: Oost-Indië 1891-1918 by Dr W. H. Vermeulen (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955), pp. 270-272.

Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923); Atjeh Patchouli-Olie, by Ir. W. Spoon (1932), where applicable.

Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), passim.

De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh, door G. B. Hooijer, Gep. Luit.-Kolonel O. I. Leger, met 24 platen (Haarlem: De Erven F. Bohn; Batavia: G. Kolff & Co., 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Centrale Boekerij, Amsterdam. OCR-filename: 20260719_140140_DLP-134-De_verlaten_posten_in_Groot_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 22, 48.

Acknowledgement of sources. This article is a single consolidated account combining the material previously held in this entry with the account given in De verlaten posten in Groot-Atjeh (1897) by G. B. Hooijer. Dutch terminology has been rendered in English, the original Dutch being retained only in direct quotations and in bibliographic citations.

De Geconcentreerde Stelling in Groot-Atjeh, ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders Van Cleef, 1885, pp. 5–6, 24–25.

Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), pp. 66-87, 78-80. OCR: DLP-158.

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