Jambi (Sultanate)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Sultanate of Jambi, commonly spelled Djambi in colonial times , existed in the southern part of the island of Sumatra until Indonesia's independence . Jambi has been an autonomous province since 1957 . The seat of government was and is the capital of the same name , which lies almost 90 km inland on the southern bank of the Hari and was called Telanaipura for some time. A sub-district of the capital still bears this name today.

Regional studies

The colonial residence Jambi with approx. 50,000 km² bordered on land on the districts of Indragiri , West Sumatra , Benkoelen (border along the watershed) and Palembang . The mostly muddy coast bordered the Strait of Berhala . The western border region to the residence Padangsche Oberländer is mountainous, there is the highest mountain of Sumatra, the Korintji (3805 m). In Koerintij , in the volcanic highlands, there is a 40 × 12 km depression filled with alluvial material. The first comprehensive geological investigations were carried out by A. Tobler in 1904–1912. The average rainfall is around 3000 mm, the drier season lasts from April to October.

population

The 1915 census showed 209,399 natives, 1,343 Chinese, 108 Europeans, 606 Arabs and 45 other foreigners. In 1905 the main town had a total of 8,815 inhabitants. With 4.26 (1912) and 5.5 inhabitants / km² (1930), the area remained the most sparsely populated of Sumatra. Settlements were mainly along the rivers, which were the only traffic routes until country roads were built after 1900. The predominantly Muslim inhabitants were not considered to be fanatical; before the First World War, around 300 were able to make pilgrimages to Mecca every year . Numerous indigenous tribes live in the mountainous regions .

history

Chinese sources dated around the year 600 mention two empires in Sumatra: one on the coast in Jambi and one in Palembang, with Jambi perhaps the more important kingdom that was more closely related to China at the time . Jambi was already taken over by Srivijaya after a campaign around 683 , of which the pilgrim monk I Ching bears testimony. In the 14th century, the area came under the influence of the Javanese kingdom of Majapahit when it was at the height of its power. The Islamized Malays , who immigrated from the seaside , made up the upper class of society. The traditionally religious indigenous people were pushed back more and more in the 18th century.

1445 to 1823

A first Faktorei the VOC was established on September 15, 1615 in the capital; it existed until 1768. From around 1630 onwards, Chinese middlemen were increasingly used. From 1640, at the time of the aggressive expansion of Aceh , the Sultan increasingly sought the support of the VOC. The ruler was so unpopular after 1690 that a large part of the population emigrated. The VOC therefore intervened in local politics and helped to keep him in power. From 1717 there was a permanent small garrison in the fort of Muara Kompeh until it withdrew in 1868. Jambi was also the market for the slaves traded by the VOC. There are few reports for the period from 1724 to 1833.

1823 to 1907

Sultan Achmad Nazaruddin (r. 1858–1881)
"Palace" of the Sultan (1878)

The tyrannical Sultan Mahudin (ruled approx. 1811-1833) was expelled in 1833 and went into exile in Batavia. Sultan Facharuddin asked for help from the Dutch in fighting pirates in 1833, which he also received. In return he had to accept a small garrison , allow free trade and cede the salt monopoly. When his successor Taha Safi ud-Din wanted to revoke the concessions in 1858, he was deposed in November by a military intervention by the colonial rulers and replaced by his uncle Ahmad Nazaruddin († 1881). A new treaty made the ruler a vassal of Batavia, banned foreign contacts, made immigrant Chinese and Arabs subject to colonial jurisdiction and introduced smallpox vaccination . This contract had been considered necessary by the Dutch because American interests, first in 1852 in the form of the adventurer Walter Murray Gibson , then also the US Navy a . a. by the Perry mission between their stays in Japan, then until January 1857 the Dutch sovereignty was in doubt. The prince's allowance was initially increased to 10,000 and a few years later to 15,000  florins . From 1860 a "political agent" with a garrison was installed at the court. Further interventions in 1868, 1878 and 1881 led to the expansion of colonial control. As in 1857, Taha tried several times to obtain recognition from the caliph as an independent Muslim state under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. The Sumatra expedition 1877-1879 feared to be attacked by the supporters of Tahas and the garrison was reinforced again. For the next few years, apart from ethnologists and naturalists, little was given to the small country.

After three Europeans were murdered in 1883 and unrest broke out again and again in 1885/56, 1888 and 1895, the ruler was finally relegated to a puppet . Sultan Zain ud-Din (ruled from 1885) got a seven-year-old son Tahas to serve as crown prince. Although he was allowed to move freely within his "empire", he had to report to the political agent every quarter. The sultan was compensated for the increasing loss of power by increasing his appanage . The monopolies operated throughout the Dutch East Indies were also established in Jambi.

Uprising (1901–1904 / 7)

Advancing KLIN artillery in the village of Rantau Kapas Muda (1902)
Surrender of Crown Prince Marta Ringat (3rd from left) with handover of the insignia to the resident O. L. Helfrich (2nd from right; March 26, 1904)

In June 1899, Sultan Zain ud-Din (also Cakra Negara; † May 21, 1903 in Jambi), a brother of Tahas, who had been crown prince from 1881-1885 and ruled since September 1886, was forced to resign from the Dutch side. The colonial power had intended to intervene more directly in the administration in view of the expected natural resources . The treaty with the Sultanate was to be replaced by a new three paragraphs long ( Korte Verklaring ), which demanded complete submission. Despite several attempts by the resident of Palembang, IA van Rijn, to get the electoral body to meet, no new sultan was elected until June 1901. The resident took over the office of sultan himself on February 27th.

After abandoning the policy of non-interference that had been pursued since 1870 in the Hague , he was given permission to proceed militarily in September 1901. A guerrilla war developed against guerrilla groups living in the jungle , which usually comprised around 30-40 men under the command of a nobleman. These groups were wiped out in a protracted campaign. The Hungarian adventurer Karl Hirsch posed as an Ottoman colonel and pretended to the rebels that he could secure recognition of Turkish sovereignty for a fee. He was arrested by the Dutch with the crooked money in 1905 and sentenced in Batavia. Crown Prince Marta Ringat handed over the Sultan's insignia after his surrender in March 1904. Taha was shot in September. A few stragglers submitted in 1903/04, some continued to fight until 1907. The Sultan's subjects did not always side with the rebels, but often supported the colonial rulers. The territory and inevitably the adjacent areas such as Kerinci came under direct colonial rule as a resident.

1907 to 1941

The surviving members of the ruling family were forcibly resettled in a hamlet outside Jambi. Although they still enjoyed respect in society, they became increasingly impoverished since their appanage had been canceled in 1901. The garrison with three officers and 240 gendarmerie remained, the local law continued. In 1909 there was a cholera epidemic. Hermann Hesse visited the “pacified” region in 1911. Since the dominance of the Dutch was now assured, little happened between the wars, apart from a peasant uprising in 1916 and minor economic development. The Korintij district was added to West Sumatra in 1921, after which the residence only had an area of ​​44,542 km² with 164,618 inhabitants. There were six subdistricts. The Orang Kerdjan among the indigenous peoples had traditional self-government at village level, they settled along the upper reaches of the Hari, as well as the Orang Bedjadjah, among whom the matriarchy is common. A separate boss ( hoofplaats ) has been appointed for the Chinese . Sarekat Islam was the first political party to open an office in 1939 .

1942 to 1951

During the Second World War, one of the 19 internment camps on Sumatra was set up under Japanese administration in the capital . The last internees were taken elsewhere in 1944.

Colonial rulers in Jambi (before 1939)

In Jambi, which was not occupied by the British at the end of 1945, a republican administration was initially established. In November, Raden Inoue Kertopati , a son of Taha, who was around 60 at the time, was appointed civil administrator. However, there was a strong separatist tendency among the conservative inhabitants who wanted a sultanate again. This faction, which Kertopati later also joined, repeatedly called on the Dutch to drive out the republic's troops. Nevertheless, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta were warmly welcomed when they visited the site in July and November 1948, respectively. With rubber exports resumed, the region flourished quickly. On 29./30. December 1948 colonial paratroopers carried out a "police action", as a result of which about three quarters of the capital was destroyed. There have been numerous reports of looting and arbitrary shooting of civilians. A provisional regional government created in March 1949, the Dewan Jambi Sementara, tried in vain to create an autonomous sultanate within an Indonesian union. In December the Republican government finally took over the administration. After independence, the region became part of the Central Sumatra Province, and in 1957 the autonomous Jambi Province was created.

Economy and Infrastructure

The VOC dealers were initially interested in the pepper grown in Jambi, the purchase price of which was forcibly lowered at the end of the 17th century. From the 18th century onwards, the predominant local variety was hardly appreciated because of its poor quality. South Sumatra was also an important market for the Dutch for their slaves . The Muslim rulers, for their part, often enslaved the indigenous Orang Kubu ; this people was related to the Jambi Malay, but spoke their own language, a dialect of Malay. Alluvial gold hoped for in the 1860s was not found. The so-called dragon's blood , which was used both as a dye and as a medicine, was obtained from the red resin of the fruits of a rattan type . Some coffee was grown at higher altitudes. Five times as much dry rice was grown as on the irrigated land. In addition, large quantities of rice were imported via Singapore. Jambi was exempt from the uniform customs tariff for the Dutch East Indies introduced in 1873 until after 1920.

Between 1880 and 1900 exports seldom exceeded ½ million florins. From the 1890s on, numerous rubber plantations were established, especially around the capital and near the rivers, and their workers were recruited from abroad. Recruiting coolies was a profitable business. At the time of the rubber boom (1909/10), plantation operators paid around 80 florins per person. Rubbercultuur- en Handelmaatschappij Djambi controlled the trade . Kapok , copra and gambir were less important . The sultanate remained a poor and economically backward area. The most important traffic route to the coast has always been the Hari , which is 80 km navigable for seagoing vessels and almost 900 km for boats. In 1914 the first telegraph and telephone connections to Palembang were installed.

The small trade was in the hands of the Chinese, the coolies used almost exclusively by the Chinese and Javanese, who made up 6 percent of the population in 1930. The locals, who showed little interest in schooling and had an illiteracy rate of around 92 percent in 1930, were excluded from economic life. In 1909, the daily wages for male coolies were 14–16 cents, in mines 16–24 ¢, skilled workers earned up to 32 ¢. Large advances, often in the amount of several years' salary, when the contract was signed, usually for three to five years, forced the workers into debt bondage . This practice was restricted by law in 1911. As early as 1917, pens fetched 50–75 ¢ and skilled craftsmen from 1–2.50 florins per day.

The first oil wells were opened up in 1922. The major fields, employing 2,400 workers in 1929, were Bajubang, Tempino, and in the 1930s Kenali Assam. By 1938 the yield had increased to 14 percent of total production in the Dutch East Indies. These springs were destroyed when the KLIN withdrew in 1942. The semi-state oil company NIAM also largely financed the first asphalt road in 1930, 92 km from Jambi to Muara Tembesi , after a connection to the trunk road network through unpaved roads had existed since the First World War. In 1936 the Palembang- Padang line was open to traffic. An airfield, today “Sultan Taha Airport” (DJB) south of the capital, was built in 1933. There was no local newspaper.

Monetary affairs

Although the undercovered and inferior silver guilders ( rupia ) issued by the Javaan Bank had been tied to the gold-covered guilders of the motherland since 1873 , in the 19th century, except for copper coins, ran all over East Sumatra - especially among the Chinese, who were practically the only part of the People took part in monetary transactions - the undercover Straits dollar , the advantage of which was that it was common in China like the Mexican silver dollar (fine weight 24.433 g Ag). At first the acceptance of foreign currency at the state coffers was forbidden, from 1912 their circulation was suppressed and the government's own notes and coins became the only legal tender.

See also

Commons : Jambi  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Sumatra expedition 1877-1879  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

  • JWJ Wellan, OL Helfrich (Zuid-Sumatra Instituut): Zuid-Sumatra. Overzicht van de literatuur of the west Bengkoelen, Djambi, de Lampongsche districten en Palembang . Nederlandsche Boek- en Steendrukkerij, 's-Gravenhage, 1923–1928; Volume 1: End of the loop dead het einde van 1915 . Volume 2: Loopende van 1916 tot en met 1925 . (Bibliography).
  • Taufik Abdullah: Responses to Colonial Powers. The Jambi Experience… In: Prisma, the Indonesian Indicator 33, 1984, pp. 13-29.
  • CM Kan: De Nederlandsche expeditie naar de Boven-Djambi en Korintji-Vallei . Beijers, Utrecht 1876.
  • B. Hagen: The Orang Kubu on Sumatra . Baer, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1908 ( publications from the Städtisches Völker-Museum, Frankfurt am Main 2, ZDB -ID 567725-7 ).
  • Elsbeth Locher-Scholten: Sumatraans sultanaat en colonial state. De relatie Djambi-Batavia (1830–1907) en het Nederlandse imperialisme . KITLV Uitgeverij, Leiden 1994, ISBN 90-6718-068-8 ( Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 161), (English: Sumatran sultanate and colonial state. Jambi and the rise of Dutch imperialism, 1830– 1907. Southeast Asia Program Publications, Ithaca NY 2004, ISBN 0-87727-736-2 ( Studies on Southeast Asia 37)).
  • Elsbeth Locher-Scholten: Rivals and Rituals in Jambi (1858–1901) . In: Modern Asian Studies . 27, 1993, ISSN  0026-749X , pp. 573-591.
  • William Marsden : The History of Sumatra. Containing an Account of the Government, Laws, Customs and Manners of the Native Inhabitants. With a description of the natural productions, and a relation of the ancient political state of that island . Third edition. Longman, London 1811 ( Gutenberg EBook # 16768 ).
  • JJ Nortier: Orde en rustverstoring in het Djambische, February 1942 . In: Militaire Spectator . NS 152, 1983, ISSN  0026-3869 , pp. 565-577.
  • Anthony Reid: Nineteenth Century Pan-Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia . In: The Journal of Asian Studies . 26, 1967, ISSN  0021-9118 , pp. 267-283.
  • J. Tideman: Djambi . Bussy, Amsterdam 1938 ( Koloniaal Instituut (Amsterdam) - Mededeeling 42, ZDB -ID 779154-9 ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For the structure see: Staatsblad van Nederlandsch Indië 1913, No. 241
  2. ↑ Set of cards (20 pieces; 1: 200,000, 1: 25,000): Dienst van het Mijnwezen; Kaarten behoorende bij de korte Beschrijving the petroleum terreinen located in the zuidoostelijk deel of the residentie Djambi (Sumatra) ; Batavia: Dienst van het Mijnwezen, 1912.
  3. ↑ a b Djambi . In: Pieter A. van der Lith (Ed.): Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië , Volume 1. 2nd edition. 's-Gravenhage 1917
  4. ↑ Arabic: Zābaj , which in the pronunciation of the Hokkien dialect comes close to the characters 三 佛 齊 used in Chinese sources for the country. See G. Schlegel: Geographical Notes, XVI: The Old States… ; T'oung Pao (2nd Ser.), 2 (1901), pp. 107-138
  5. ↑ Gottfried Simon: Progress and arrest of Islam in Sumatra . London 1912
  6. ↑ The tribe of the Suku Pindah migrated back and forth between Jambi and Palembang for generations, depending on which ruler required less labor . Michael Adas: From footdragging to flight: the evasive history of peasant avoidance in South and Southeast Asia ; Journal of Peasant Studies 13 (1981), p. 65
  7. ↑ Around 45 km inland on the Hari River, about halfway between the coast and the capital.
  8. ^ Markus Vink: The World's Oldest Trade: Dutch Slavery and Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century . In: Journal of World History , June 14, 2, 2003, pp. 131-177
  9. ^ Jambi Uprising in the English language Wikipedia
  10. ↑ 1898 by Snouck Hurgronje, 1889–1906 consultant in Indonesia, then professor of Arabic in Leiden. E. Gobée, C. Adriaanse (ed.): Ambtelijke adviezen van C. Snouck Hurgronje 1889-1936 . The Hague 1957–1965, 3 volumes
  11. ^ Staatsblad van Nederlandsch Indië 1906, no.321 and 1908, no.360
  12. ^ Hermann Hesse: From India  - Internet Archive Berlin 1919, pp. 60-62, 74.
  13. ↑ Djambi . In: Pieter A. van der Lith (Ed.): Encyclopædie van Nederlandsch-Indië , Volume 5. 's-Gravenhage 1927, pp. 139-142
  14. ↑ See the hateful report by Rita la Fontaine-de Clercq-Zubli: Disguised as a boy . In: Jan Krancher (Ed.): The Defining Years of the Dutch East Indies, 1942–1949. Survivors Accounts ... Jefferson NC 1996, ISBN 0-7864-0070-6 , pp. 196-213
  15. ↑ B. Hagen: The Orang Kubu on Sumatra ; Frankfurt 1908; P. 16. Legend of origin: P. 8–10
  16. ↑ 1960 about 3000 speakers. FM Voegelin, CF Voegelin: Languages ​​of the World: Indo-Pacific Fascicle Four . In: Anthropological Linguistics , 7/2, Feb. 1965, pp. 1-297.
  17. ^ East Indian Dragon's Blood ; Bull. Misc. Info., 1906, No. 6, pp. 197-199
  18. ^ A b F. A. Schöppel: Commercial Handbook of the Dutch East Indies ; Vienna 1907.
  19. ↑ 25 km south of Jambi
  20. ^ Course 1906 to 2 ' 6d. fixed.