1931

Completion of Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (November 1931)

In November 1931 D. W. N. de Boer, formerly chairman (Voorzitter) of Atjehnese moesapat and landschapsgerecht courts, completed at Scheveningen in the Netherlands his study Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (“The Right to the Soil in Atjeh”), signing it with the colophon “Scheveningen, November 1931.”

De Boer described the work as a résumé of data he had gathered “te hooi en te gras” — haphazardly, as occasion offered — over many years on the bench, and stated his purpose in publishing it: “in de hoop dat ook deze bescheiden bijdrage voor de studie van het Adatrecht van nut zal kunnen zijn, al zou ze alleen maar aanleiding geven tot critiek, correctie, commentaar” — in the hope that even this modest contribution to the study of the adatrecht might be of use, if only by giving occasion for criticism, correction and commentary.

The study surveyed the beschikkingsrecht and the milik; the customary charges on clearance and cultivation; the court remedies haq padjoh asoé, haq toeleuèng and the obsolete haq thilangkob; the share-cropping and lease contracts mawaih and thiwa; the pepper planter’s contract; the securities gala and borok; the marital and inheritance institutions harta seuhareukat and atra peunoelang; and the introduction of verjaring in 1911. Its instalments appeared in print the following year, the running head of page 65 bearing the notation “1932 Januari 5.”

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Cable bridge at Tangsé over the confluence of Kroečng Tangsé and Kroečng Geumpang completed - an important link to bivak Geumpang.

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 61.

Source

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).

1931 is mentioned in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. in connection with the bivak at Bakongan — “een brigadecommandant, die vandaar in 1931 met pensioen was gegaan, maar die lezen noch schrijven kon” — the brigadecommandant who retired from Bakongan in 1931 and could neither read nor write, but who dictated his patrol reports from memory. “In Juli 1931 viel de laatste” — the last of the Westkust resistance fell in July 1931.

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. 61.

Account from The Geology of Indonesia (1949) — 1931

The N.P.P.M. founding

For the full account of the 1931 N.P.P.M. founding see the entry on N.P.P.M.. In summary: in 1931 the N.P.P.M. — a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company of California — entered the East Indian oil industry, but “production has not yet started” at the time of the entry. The N.P.P.M.’s late entry — two decades after the N.K.P.M. (Standard Oil of New Jersey) in 1912 and a quarter-century after the B.P.M. (Royal Dutch) in 1907 — is reflected in its modest production figures: the 1941 production of the Pasé field (1,797 tons) and the Rokan block (1,402 tons) together accounted for only 3,199 tons, or 0.04 % of the East Indian crude total of 7,241,254 tons in 1941.

Place in the East-Indian oil-industry sequence

For the full sequence see the entry on 1912. The 1931 N.P.P.M. founding occupies, in the documentary sequence of East-Indian oil-industry corporate development, the position between the 1912 entry of Standard Oil of New Jersey (through the N.K.P.M.) and the 1940–1941 production tables. The 1931 founding is accordingly the last of the three major corporate entrants to the East Indian oil industry, and the N.P.P.M.’s subsequent presence on Atjeh territory (the Pasé field) is the documentary evidence of the most recent corporate presence in the colonial Atjeh oil economy.

Significance

1931 is significant for the encyclopedia of Acheh history because it is the year in which the Standard Oil Company of California — through its subsidiary the N.P.P.M. — entered the East Indian oil industry, marking the third (and last) major corporate entrant to the colonial East Indian oil industry. The N.P.P.M. would subsequently become the operator of the Pasé field in the Atjeh oil complex — the only Atjeh-complex field operated by the company, and the only Atjeh-complex field brought into production in 1941 (i.e. the newest of the Atjeh-complex fields). The 1931 N.P.P.M. founding is accordingly part of the corporate-historical context of the colonial Atjeh oil economy, and the N.P.P.M.’s subsequent presence on Atjeh territory is the documentary evidence of the most recent corporate presence in the colonial Atjeh oil economy.

Account from Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)

1931 was the year of the principal laboratory-survey of the Atjeh patchouli-oil industry, in which six sample consignments of nilam-oil were received by the Afdeeling Handelsmuseum of the Kon. Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut in Amsterdam. The samples were analysed for soortelijk gewicht, brekingsindex, draaiing, zuurgetal, estergetal and solubility, and were sent to perfume manufacturers in the Netherlands, Germany, England and France. The Atjeh patchouli-leaf export was 638 tons in 1931, of which 9 tons went direct to the Netherlands — the first direct shipment to the Netherlands. The Atjeh nilam-oil export was 3.468 kg in 1931. By 1931 there were patchouli-distilleries near Kota Radja, at Meulaboh, and two or three at Tapa Toean.

Sources

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).

The Geology of Indonesia, by R. W. van Bemmelen, Vol. II: Economic Geology (The Hague: Government Printing Office; Martinus Nijhoff, 1949), p. 7 (N.P.P.M. founding).

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

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.

tags	year, aceh, colonial, knil, oil, acheh, 20th-century, adat, scholarship, land-law
aliases	the year 1931, 1931 (year), 1931 AD, 1931 CE

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