1934

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tagsyear, colonial, aceh, knil, dutch, catholic, achehnese, 20th-century, mission-jubilee, publication
aliases1934, the year 1934, year 1934, 1934 mission jubilee, 1934 Vierhonderd jaren missie publication, 1934 Atjeh

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1934 was the year of the retirement of Dominee Thenu from the post he had held since 1894 — the end of his “veertig Atjeh-jaren” — and of his reis naar Nederland, where he was received in audience by Koningin Wilhelmina. It is also the year in which the author’s patrol could still read, at Leuhong, the note a soldier had written on 22 August 1912 about the 1918 opheffing of that detailchement — twenty-two years later, on bekas Marechaussee. The same year saw the publication at Batavia of the *Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch-Indië, 1593–1934* — the commemorative jubilee volume of the four-hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the first permanent Catholic mission station in the archipelago at Ternate in 1593.

People

  • Dominee Thenu — Inlands Godsdienstleraar and Soldaten-Dominee of the K.N.I.L. troops; retired in 1934 after forty years of service in Atjeh.

Places

  • Batavia — place of publication of the 1934 mission jubilee volume.
  • Koeta Radja — site of the Catholic mission of Koeta Radja-Atjeh recorded in the jubilee volume.
  • Sabang — haven regularly served from the Koeta Radja station in 1934.
  • Ternate — site of the first permanent Catholic mission station in the archipelago (1593), the quadricentennial of which the 1934 jubilee volume commemorates.
  • Leuhong — site at which the 1912 soldier’s note about the 1918 opheffing was still legible in 1934.
  • Ambarawa — site of the Legercommandant’s congratulation of the retired Javanese fusilier on 30 years Ridder M.W.O.

Events

Documents

Organizations

Other

Account from Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. (1954) — 1934

The retirement of Dominee Thenu

“Zijn veertig Atjeh-jaren waren in 1934 om.” Dominee Thenu — who had come to Aceh in 1894 and served for forty full years as the Inlands Godsdienstleraar and universally honoured Soldaten-Dominee of the K.N.I.L. troops — became too old in 1934 and had to hand over his taak. He was sent on a reis naar Nederland and was received by Koningin Wilhelmina.

The audience with the Queen

The audience with Koningin Wilhelmina was the political honour accorded to the Soldaten-Dominee at his retirement. “Lang heeft het geduurd eer hij de hand heeft gewassen, die door de Koningin was gedrukt” — for a long time he refused to wash the hand the Queen had shaken. For more than ten days no one else — until Generaal Swart — was permitted to shake that hand.

The Leuhong note

“in 1934” the author’s patrol could still read, at Leuhong, the note a soldier had written on 22 August 1912 about the 1918 opheffing of that detailchement — twenty-two years later, on bekas Marechaussee. The bekas of the colonne — marked by the brigade number cut in trees — was the colonial army’s own historical record: the marked trees and the soldier’s notes were the bekas of the Marechaussee’s presence in the rimboe, readable years later.

The broader colonial context

1934 was also the year of the Legercommandant’s congratulation of the retired Javanese fusilier on 30 years Ridder M.W.O. at Ambarawa — actually 1938, but the episode is mentioned in the same chapter. The broader colonial context of 1934 is the late-colonial peace: the Aceh War was politically over since 1918; the Celebes pacifications were long concluded; the colonial army was at the height of its inter-war strength. The retirement of Thenu in 1934 is therefore the book’s marker of the end of an era: the Soldaten-Dominee who had served the colonial army since 1894 was gone, and the Marechaussee he had served was, in 1934, an army of peace, not of war.

Account from Vierhonderd jaren missie (1934) — the publication of the jubilee volume

The year 1934 saw the publication at Batavia of the *Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch-Indië, 1593–1934* — the commemorative jubilee volume of the four-hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the first permanent Catholic mission station in the archipelago at Ternate in 1593. The volume, compiled by the Algemeen Comité van Voorbereiding tot de Feestelijke Herdenking van 400 jaar Missie in Ned.-Indië, records the Catholic mission of Koeta Radja-Atjeh — including the account of the Zusters van Schijndel schools, the Catholic population of “ver over de 1000” (“well over a thousand”), and the regular service of Sabang from the Koeta Radja station. The volume is the principal documentary source for the Catholic institutional presence in Atjeh in the late colonial period.

Significance

1934 is significant in Oom Ambon van het K.N.I.L. as the year of the retirement of Dominee Thenu and of his audience with Koningin Wilhelmina. The book’s argument is that Thenu’s retirement — and the honour the Queen paid him — was the political recognition of the geestelijk gezag that had held the colonial army together for forty years. The year 1934 is therefore the book’s marker of the end of the Thenu era: the Soldaten-Dominee was gone, and the Marechaussee he had served would, in 1937, bury him with four M.W.O.-ridders as slippendragers. The publication of the Vierhonderd jaren missie in the same year marks, in the parallel Catholic institutional record, the quadricentennial consolidation of the mission history that had begun at Ternate in 1593 and that, by 1934, had extended to the Koeta Radja-Atjeh station, the Sabang service, and the schools of the Zusters van Schijndel.

Account from Een strijd in Atjeh (1934)

For the medical history of Atjeh, 1934 was the year in which the Vereeniging SIMAVI published at Rotterdam the pamphlet Een strijd in Atjeh (1934), reprinting the three letters written for the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant by C. Graadt van Roggen on the eye-surgery campaigns of Dr. J. Tijssen in the kampongs of Atjeh.

The foreword by H. Wanting, editor of the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, is dated September 1934. It records that Graadt van Roggen had died within half a year of the shipboard meeting of February 1933 on which the letters were based, and that the pamphlet was published in part as an act of piëteit towards him.

The pamphlet records that in that year SIMAVI expended f 26,500 on medical assistance to the indigenous population of the Netherlands East and West Indies, of which f 4,400 was for medicines and dressings alone. It also quotes Tijssen’s statement in Medische Nood, 1934, no. 1: “Ik ken de zendingsziekenhuizen. Ik wenschte, dat er in Ned. Indië in plaats van 33 zendingsartsen 330 waren! Zijn er 20 zendingshospitalen, ik wenschte, dat „Simavi” het geld bij elkaar kreeg om het tot 200 te brengen! Maar ook dan zouden er menschen noodig zijn, die naast het mooie werk in de hospitalen het vuile werk in de kampong willen doen.” — I know the mission hospitals. I could wish that in the Netherlands Indies, instead of 33 mission physicians, there were 330! Are there 20 mission hospitals — I could wish that „Simavi” got the money together to bring it to 200!

The figures cited — thirty-three mission physicians and twenty mission hospitals for the whole of the Netherlands Indies — are among the few statistics of Protestant medical provision in the archipelago given for that year, and form the numerical background to the doctrine set out at Kampong medicine in Atjeh.

See Also

Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu

Administrative redivision: Gajo Loeös, Alaslanden and Serbödjadi transferred out of the Gajolanden (to afdeeling Oostkust van Atjeh); the Gajolanden now fall under the afdeelingschef of Atjeh’s Noordkust. October 1934 — Bireuën airfield opened (but no second plane ever landed there since).

Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 24, 25, 79, 85, 201.

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), chapter “Dominee Thenu” and chapter “De patrouille.”

Vierhonderd jaren missie in Nederlandsch-Indië, 1593–1934 (Batavia: Algemeen Comité van Voorbereiding tot de Feestelijke Herdenking van 400 jaar Missie in Ned.-Indië, [1934]).

Een strijd in Atjeh (Een oogarts op het oorlogspad), door Mr. C. Graadt van Roggen, met een voorrede van den heer H. Wanting, redacteur Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant (Rotterdam: N.V. Drukkerij Korteweg, uitgave van de Vereeniging „SIMAVI”, 1934), pp. 1–2, 16.

Acknowledgement of sources. This article combines material from the publications cited above; the material newly added derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897) and Een strijd in Atjeh (Rotterdam: N.V. Drukkerij Korteweg for the Vereeniging „SIMAVI”, 1934). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.

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. 24, 25, 79, 85, 201.

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