Introduction: a New Source for Seventeenth Century Aceh

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Introduction:ito and A New Reid Source for Seventeenth Century Aceh 1 Introduction: A New Source for Seventeenth Century Aceh

Ito Takeshi and Anthony Reid

The Dutch documents of this collection provide a new and indispensable re- cord of the Islamic sultanate of Aceh during its seventeenth century flores- cence. Aceh was then the intellectual hothouse of Islamic Southeast Asia, a key factor in the trade between India and Southeast Asia, and ruled by queens for more than half a century. The documents allow us an exceptional day-to-day insight into the workings of the court and the port, through the particular eyes of the Dutch chartered company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC).

The Rise of Aceh as Indian Ocean Port

Aceh’s centrality in the interaction between the Islamic trading world of the Indian Ocean and its Southeast Asian frontier had begun with the Portuguese intrusion into Southeast Asia in 1509. Seeking to find the sources of Southeast Asian spices and pepper, the Portuguese began interfering with the long-established north Sumatran port-polities of Pasai and Pidie, and then spectacularly in 1511 conquered Melaka (Malacca), the fulcrum of Muslim trade in Southeast Asia at the time. By effectively driving the Muslim traders out of Melaka, the Portuguese ensured the rise of another centre for the Muslim trade, strong enough to keep the Portuguese at bay. This proved to be Aceh, which conquered Pidie and Pasai in the 1520s, uniting the north Sumatran coast for the first time. Aceh thereby became the natural easternmost partner of Ottoman Turkey, which had in the same period developed an Indian Ocean power by its con- quest of Egypt, the Islamic holy places of Mecca and Madinah, and Yemen. Aceh sought and received Turkish military assistance from the 1530s through to the peak of relations in the 1560s.1 Muslim Gujerati merchants were the third vital partner in this triangular anti-Portuguese alliance, which became a very effective rival of the Portuguese in shipping Southeast Asian pepper and

1 Giancarlo Casale, The Ottoman Age of Exploration (Oxford: 2010), pp. 117–151; Anthony Reid, An Indonesian Frontier (Singapore: 2005), pp. 69–93; Ismail Hakki Göksoy, ‘Ottoman- Aceh relations as documented in Turkish sources,’ in Mapping the Acehnese Past, ed. Michael Feener, Patrick Daly and Anthony Reid (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011), pp. 65–96.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004288829_002 2 Ito And Reid spices to the Mediterranean. This link also established the image of Aceh as “the verandah of Mecca” (serambi Mekkah), since the pepper ships were the most convenient way for aspiring pilgrims and scholars to reach the holy cities.2 The Portuguese nevertheless maintained their monopoly of the Cape of Good Hope route around Africa to Europe until the arrival of the first Dutch and English ships in 1596 and 1601 respectively. At war with the Catholic Portu- guese and their monopoly pretensions, both saw Aceh as an alternative market for the pepper and spices they also sought. The first Dutch fleet to reach Aceh, in 1599, had to face a sudden Aceh attack upon it, provoked by the arrogance of its leader Cornelis de Houtman and the skill of a Portuguese envoy in convinc- ing the Acehnese that the Dutch were dangerous pirates who opposed all mon- archy. To his more capable brother Frederick taken captive for two years we owe a useful narrative of this captivity, and one of the first dictionaries of Ma- lay with a lively series of Malay dialogues between Aceh residents and foreign visitors.3 The first English visit led by James Lancaster in 1601 fared better, ex- changing a letter from Queen Elizabeth with a reply from the Sultan, thereby establishing what was sometimes later hailed as England’s “oldest ally in Asia”. In practice, however, both Lancaster and his immediate successors found Banten, in west Java, a more profitable centre for the spice trade.4 A French ship from St. Malo appeared in Aceh one year later and stayed for five months in Banda Aceh.5 In 1607, Aceh’s most renowned and successful king (1607–36), known as Mahkota Alam (Crown of the world) or more widely as Iskandar Muda (the young Alexander) came to the throne. This ruler ruthlessly suppressed all dis- sent and rivalry within Aceh, and built the most powerful Southeast Asian na- val force, with, according to a French observer, “about a hundred big galleys….

2 Popular in the twentieth century, this designation first appeared in writing in the 1640s, in the work of Aceh’s most prolific author, Nuru’d-din ar-Raniri, Bustanu’s-Salatin: bab II, fasal 13, ed. T. Iskandar (Kuala Lumpur: 1966), p. 68. 3 The core of the narrative is translated in Witnesses to Sumatra: A Travellers’ Anthology, ed. Anthony Reid (Kuala Lumpur, 1995), pp. 43–49. The dictionary and dialogues were given a modern edition by Denys Lombard, Le ‘Spraeck ende Woord-boek’ de Frederick de Hout- man (Paris, 1970). 4 William Foster (ed.), The Voyages of Sir James Lancaster to Brazil and the East Indies, 1591– 1603 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1940), pp. 90–112. 5 An expedition from St Malo under the command of Michel Frotet, Sieur de la Bordelière, came to in Banda Aceh in 1602, loading a cargo of pepper. It was chronicled in François Martin, Description du premier voyage faict aux Indes Orientales par les François en l’an 1603 (Paris, 1603), partly translated in Reid, Witnesses to Sumatra, pp. 56–63.