1910

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tagsyear, colonial, dutch, statistics, timeline, achehnese, administration, finance, tramway, aceh, mining, oil, 20th-century
aliasesYear 1910, 1910 AD, the year 1910, 1910 (year)

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1910 was a year of sustained colonial bookkeeping and logistical management in Acheh, situated within the Dutch East Indies. As the Dutch administration sought to stabilize its control over northern Sumatra following the intense campaigns of the Aceh War, the focus of colonial records shifted heavily toward quantifiable metrics of governance, trade, and garrison maintenance.

Statistical and Administrative Record

The Atjeh up to date compilation preserves extensive tabular data for 1910, illustrating the material scale of the colonial enterprise:

  • Financial Expenditures: Aggregate colonial financial lines for 1910 record outlays reaching 7,811,471 guilders. Specific departmental ledgers show distinct allocations, such as 1,002,330 and 1,145,435 in separate accounting categories.
  • Trade and Logistics: Monthly and annual tracking of shipping and trade metrics shows figures such as 158,320; 79,718; 90,158; 92,013; and 66,737 across various regional and commodity categories.
  • Shipping Registries: Vessel arrivals and tonnage registries for the year record specific logistical movements indexed at 103, 227, and 49 in primary tracking columns.

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*.

1910 is the year in which a new Article 5a was inserted into the Rengers-era Mijnwet requiring the approval of the legislature for any government-exploitation contract of mineral resources in the Nederlandsch-Indische archipelago. The amendment was the direct parliamentary response to the disclosure by Van Heutsz — then governor of Atjeh — of the contract under which the Perlak Petroleum Maatschappij allowed the Koninklijke to work its Atjeh fields for ƒ 2.50 per ton of petroleum extracted.

The Perlak-Koninklijke disclosure

When, soon after the Rengers-era Mijnwet of Cremer had been enacted, Van Heutsz — then governor of Atjeh — reported that the Perlak Petroleum Maatschappij had ceded its Atjeh fields to the Koninklijke for exploitation against a payment of ƒ 2.50 per ton of petroleum extracted, he expressed the opinion that contracts such as the Perlak-Koninklijke contract could equally well be concluded by the Indies government itself, with greater benefit to the treasury.

The Mijnwet art. 5a amendment

To remove doubts about the legal validity of such government-exploitation contracts, the Mijnwet was amended in 1910 by the insertion of a new Article 5a. Henceforth the contracts the government concluded for mineral exploitation would require the approval of the wetgever — legislature — just as ordinary concession contracts already required the approval of the Staten-Generaal. The amendment was the legislative climax of the Cremer mining-law debates that had begun in the late 1890s.

Significance for Atjeh

The 1910 amendment is significant for Atjeh history because it brought Atjeh oil contracts within the purview of the Tweede Kamer for the first time. The Atjeh north-coast fields — at Pedirse, Peureula, Pasé and elsewhere — would henceforth be the subject of explicit legislative scrutiny, a development that lies in the background of the later Atjeh oil complex formed by the N.L.A.M., N.K.P.M. and N.P.P.M. fields.

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

Zentgraff calls 1910 het vernietigingsjaar van het Tiro-verzet — the year of destruction of the Tiro resistance. From 28 February 1910 Schmidt had his orders: Het opsporen en tot onderwerping brengen dan wel onschadelijk maken van de vijandige elementen in het landschap Tangsé, met name: 1. de Tiro Teungkoes: Tgk. Tjhi Majèt en Tgk. di Boekèt. On 2 May 1910 Peutoea Gam Masèn — de “heerscher over de tijgers” — was killed by sergeant Van Dongelen’s hinderlaag on a ladang the patrol had tracked for five days. On 21 May 1910 Schmidt’s overval of the Tiro schuilplaats left twelve dead, including Tgk. di Boekit and Habib Tjoet. On 5 September 1910 Tgk. Majet di Tiro was killed on a rotshelling in Tangsé. On 9 December 1910 Tgk. Tjhi Maät — the last of the family — was killed by Nussy. In the same autumn Pang Nanggroë fell to Van Slooten on 25 September–26 September 1910, and Tjoet Meuthia — de blanke vrouw met losgeraakte haren die tot elken prijs sjahid wilde worden — and Tgk. Seupot Mata fell to Mosselman on 25 October 1910.

Tgk. di Boekit’s body was carried off by his people; in derdaad vond men later op de plaats van den strijd twaalf versche graven. Tgk. Majet di Tiro’s wife fell, severely wounded, into Schmidt’s hands; zij verkoos den dood boven het leven uit de handen van een kaphé. The son T. Radja Sabi would continue in the forests for another nine years.

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

Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)

1910 was the decisive year of the resistance: Pang Nanggròë was killed in the Paja Tjitjém on 26 September and Tgk. Sjeh di Paja Bakong, Tgk. Mat Saleh and Tjoet Meutia at the Kroeëng Peutòë on 25 October. In Keureutòë seventy-one resistance men were killed, fifty-one taken prisoner and eighty submitted; in Pidië 186 killed, twenty-eight prisoners and 174 submissions, Tgk. Tjhi’ Majét and Tgk. di Boekét falling in May and Keudjroeën Leupoe in August; in Bireuën sixty-two killed, thirty-one prisoners and 161 submissions; in the Meergebied eighty-five killed; in the Gajò Loeös 141 killed and 302 submissions. On the west coast Tgk. Poeti’ submitted in December with sixty followers, but lieutenant S. van Eendenburg was killed in October. In 1910 the Normaalcursus was founded at Koeta Radja; the afdeeling Bambél was abolished; police functions passed increasingly to the chiefs; and the interest of estate entrepreneurs in Atjeh began.

See Also

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Christoffel bloodily suppressed the fierce and embittered struggle in the Lho’Soekon area.

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 87, 194.

Source

Atjeh up to date (Statistical and Administrative Compilation, c. 1914). Archival reference DLP-10. Fragmentary OCR extraction containing financial ledgers, shipping registries, and colonial budget tables for 1910.

De Buitenbezittingen 1904 tot 1914, Deel I, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen, Aflevering X (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), pp. 9–10 (Landschapskassen), p. 70 (section “De Atjeh-tram”)

1910 was a year of sustained colonial bookkeeping and logistical management in Acheh, situated within the Dutch East Indies. As the Dutch administration sought to stabilize its control over northern Sumatra following the intense campaigns of the Aceh War, the focus of colonial records shifted heavily toward quantifiable metrics of governance, trade, and garrison maintenance.

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), p. 306.

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.

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. 87, 194.

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