1919 was the year of T. Radja Sabi’s mèl. On 13 March 1919, after fourteen years in the forests of the Noordkust, the adelaarsjong of Keureutoe — the son of T. Tjhi Toenong who had been executed at Lho Seumawé in March 1905 and of Tjoet Meuthia who had been killed by Mosselman in October 1910 — walked into Lho Seumawé, eene geweldige stad voor iemand die veertien jaren in en om de bosschen had gezworven. There one of his vroegere kawans — a former companion of his childhood — recognised him, pakte hem bij den arm en zei: “Nu is het uit met dat zwerven; nu moet je mèl!” — Now it is over with that wandering; now you must submit. The companion brought him to his oom, T. Tjhi Bentara, oeléëbalang van Keureutoe. Caron sent him to school at Koetaradja on landskosten.
The pseudo-Radja Sabi
The submission of the real Radja Sabi was, in its way, the close of the mystification of December 1913. The boy Doellah — son of Tengkoe Radja Imeum of Mbang, who had been accepted as T. Radja Sabi by Swart’s meeting at Lho Seumawé in December 1913 — was now dispossessed of his borrowed name. Voor den pseudo-Radja Sabi was het goede leven nu uit; hij heette weer Doellah, zonder meer, en hij mocht nog als boekbinder werken op het bestuurskantoor. Hij deugde niet erg, en viel terug in nòg ondergeschikter baantjes; tijdens mijn laatste bezoek aan Atjeh was hij mandoer aan de wegen in het landschap Tjoenda.
People
Places
Events
- Aceh War
- False T. Radja Sabi (1913)
- Execution of T. Tjhi Toenong (1905)
- Death of Tjoet Meuthia (1910)
Documents
Other
- Zijne terugkomst nu twijfelde niemand meer aan zijne identiteit was op de geheele Noordkust en een deel der Oostkust “the topic of the day”. The real Radja Sabi’s return was the topic of the day on the whole Noordkust and the Oostkust.
- The mèl of 13 March 1919 — the formal submission, with the kniekus and voetkus — closes, in Zentgraff’s narrative, the epos of T. Radja Sabi.
Account from Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
1919 was the year of the first civilian governor of the Gouvernement Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden — the principal political event of the early civilian period. With the civil governor came a further reduction of the fist and a diminution of the interest-free advances, but the policy remained friendly-cautious towards the peaceful population and stern towards the inciters. The Handelsvereeniging Amsterdam opened the estate Boeloeh Blang Ara in the onderafdeeling Lho’ Seumawé in 1919 (other accounts say 1920). The preparation of palm-oil at the Soengei Lipoet Cultuur-Mij in Tamiang began in 1919. The rice-shortage of 1919 drove the pepper-planters from the eastern coast back to their home-regions of Pidië, Pasei and Pensangan.
Account in du Croo’s Generaal Swart (1943)
On 12 February 1919 Hense, manager of the Oranjehotel at Koeta Radja, was murdered — the last of the Atjeh murders listed by du Croo. On 13 March 1919 T. Radja Sabi, then eighteen, was recognised at Lho’ Seumawè and brought to his uncle T. Tjhi’ Béntara, ending nine years of wandering. On 20 May 1919 the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant published I. Feenstra’s account of Swart’s departure. A photograph shows Swart as Vice-President of the Raad van Nederlandsch-Indië in his study at Batavia in 1919.
The two Staatsbladen of 1919 and the Atjehnese land revenues
1919 was the year of the two Netherlands-Indies enactments that reshaped the fiscal relation of the Atjehnese oeléëbalangs to the soil, as recorded by D. W. N. de Boer in his survey of Atjehnese land law.
Staatsblad 1919 No. 822 — abolition of the sovereign land levies
By article 15 sub I of the zelfbestuursordonnantie, Staatsblad 1919 No. 822, the older taxes which the oeléëbalangs had levied as sovereigns in their own territories were brought to an end. These were the boeët oemòng — the Atjehnese land rent on wet rice fields within the gampong boundaries, at one naleh of padi per naleh of seed, roughly two to three per cent of the yield — and, outside the gampong, the adat glé, comprising an identical levy on wet fields, the padi lintjah on dry fields at two naleh per hippaang padi, and the thiploeëh-tha, the tithe of the crop on gardens. All of these, De Boer noted, “left much room for arbitrariness.” In compensation each oeléëbalang was allotted a fixed civiele lijst (civil list), calculated separately for each of them. Article 15 sub I read with article 29 sub 3 of the same Zelfbestuursregelen also brought the alienation of land to persons not belonging to the indigenous population under the control of the Gouvernement.
Staatsblad 1919 No. 61 jo No. 281 — the concession revenues
Staatsblad 1919 No. 61 jo No. 281 governed the pachtschat (concession rent, also canon or quit-rent), the vastrecht (fixed due) and the cijns payable by holders of land and mining concessions. De Boer judged that the beschikkingsrecht as an emolument of the sovereign — and with it the fixing of the several zelfbestuur boundaries through Netherlands mediation — became genuinely important only when European capital began to interest itself in these lands and the right promised to become for the self-governing rulers “a Deli-like source of income.” For Atjeh the division of those revenues was six-tenths for the Gouvernement and four-tenths for the landschap; and of the latter, seven-tenths for the oeléëbalang and three-tenths for the landschapskas.
See Also
- 1905
- 1910
- 1913
- 1919
- 1920
- Aceh War
- Atjeh Patchouli-Olie (1932)
- Death of Tjoet Meuthia (1910)
- Execution of T. Tjhi Toenong (1905)
- False T. Radja Sabi (1913)
- Keureutoe
- Koetaradja
- Lho Seumawé
- Mèl
- Nieuw beleid in Atjeh (1908)
- Pang Nanggroë
- Sembah
- T. Radja Sabi
- T. Tjhi Bentara
- T. Tjhi Toenong
- Tjoet Meuthia
- Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)
- H. N. A. Swart
- General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh (1943)
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- Atjeh-oorlog
- Staatsblad 1919 No. 822
- Staatsblad 1919 No. 61 jo No. 281
- Beschikkingsrecht in Atjeh
- Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (De Boer)
Source
Atjeh, door H.C. Zentgraff. Gedrukt bij Drukkerij “De Unie”, 1938, Batavia. OCR-filename: 20260709_002148_DLP-81-Atjeh_OCR.txt.
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.
Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (“The Right to the Soil in Atjeh”), by D. W. N. de Boer, dated Scheveningen, November 1931, pp. 59-80. Offprint DLP-141, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, ‘s-Gravenhage; Bibliotheek KITLV accession 0060 4460 60 081470 428.