© Carl Fredrik Feddersen, 2017
ISBN: 978-82-02-56660-9
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Cappelen Damm Akademisk/NOASP
This book is a revised version of my doctoral thesis submitted to the University of Leiden September 2016. I have revised the text with a special focus on some of the points and objections that were raised during the promotion, such as the role of religion in the politics of Makassar, the role of international law in the diplomatic thinking of the Company; and enlargement of the historiographic section with a special eye to the treatment of Jurrien van Goor.
The thesis has a long history, beginning with my approaches to Professor Leonard Blussé in the spring of 1996. For a number of reasons – some of them having to do with health – some of them with teaching commitments – it has taken me over fifteen years to complete the work. Over these years, four institutions have made this possible. First, I would like to thank the Research Council of Norway for awarding me a Doctoral grant for the years 1997–2000. Second, I would like to thank the Department of History of Leiden University and the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) at the University of Leiden, where a grant enabled me to stay as a guest researcher from 1997–98.
Returning to Norway, my ability to work was hampered by health problems over longer periods. This situation was relieved by the University of Agder’s willingness to lighten my teaching load, and this meant that I finally could finish the thesis. I would like to thank the University of Agder for that and especially the then Dean at the Faculty of Letters at that time, Ole Letnes.
Professor Leonard Blussé, who is something of an institution all by himself, has guided me through this work with a mix of scholarly suggestions and friendly scolding. He possesses a unique ability to never miss an opportunity for presenting anecdotal digressions, where the digressions, paradoxically, were always to the point. If it were not for Professor Blussé, there would have been no thesis. And, had there been no Blussé, it would not have been half the fun writing it.
Many of the people that I met during my year in Leiden have become good friends, and more than they probably know, they have been a great support. So, a big thank you and a smile go to Martha Chaiklin, Cynthia Vialle, and Paul A. Van Dyke. Lincoln Paine corrected my first English draft, and later proofreadings have been conducted by translators from the
A special thank you goes to Editor Lars Aase at the Cappelen Damm Akademisk for helping and facilitating in the process of publishing my thesis.
At the beginning of the writing of my thesis, and over the years, I have contacted a lot of people for advice. I have never met a person in this field who has not been forthcoming and helpful. All deserve my thanks, but I would like to mention two especially, Professor Jurrien van Goor of Utrecht University, who perhaps without knowing it, helped me pursue the matter, and Professor John E. Wills Jr., who helped get the project back on the right track at a time when it might have crashed. I have also over the years been in regular contact with Professor Peer Vries, and although we have not discussed my thesis in particular, our exchanges on global history have influenced my thinking about history.
A few words must also be said about Agder University and my colleagues there. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to discuss drafts of chapters with my colleagues at the History department. Special thanks go to Professor May-Brith Ohman Nielsen in this connection for her observant reading and to-the-point comments. Professor Ole Riis must also be included in this special list. I appreciated his merciless critical enthusiasm! Special thanks go to Professor Jonathan Baker, for his encouragement during more than three decades.
Finally, I would like to thank my three daughters, Kate, Frida, and Birgitte Maaike, first for just being there, second for never asking why I kept on doing this and just accepted that my writing about the Dutch and Makassar was a basic fact of our family life. And not only that; as the work finally started rapidly progressing, they showed genuine enthusiasm for it!
Last but far, far from least: My thanks for supportive understanding go to my love, Ruth Wangberg.
This thesis explores the nature of VOC diplomacy using the seventeenth century interaction between the Company and the sultanate of Makassar on the western coast of South Sulawesi as its case.
There has, but for some recent exceptions, been a noticeable trend in the historiography of the Company’s diplomacy to consider its diplomatic practice as based on dogmatic assumptions either of a legalist or cultural-Eurocentric nature. Implicit in both is that the diplomatic interaction between the Company and its Asian counterparts was a miscommunication as the meeting of the two represented a clash of cultures.
Against these propositions I argue that both the Director’s concerns and the determining factor in policy decisions in Batavia were predominantly based on contextual considerations. By its very nature such an approach begged for precise and accurate information about local conditions and affairs.
Working top down I start by arguing that the respective
As for the nature of mutual understanding in the diplomatic interaction between the Company and Makassar, the negotiations leading up to, and the formulations in the actual contract text of the first treaty between the two in 1637 bear witness to that the Company were playing the diplomatic game along compatible rules.
Turning to discussions on policy within the High Government itself, a disagreement arose between Governor-General Maetsuyker and Superintendent Arnold de Vlaming in 1655 on whether to take a hard- or a soft stand towards Makassar. That the issue was the subject of discussion in Batavia, and that the arguments from both sides were presented to the Heeren XVII, show that the Company’s decision process on diplomacy was flexible and reactive rather than dogmatic.
As for dynamics and trends in the High Government’s deliberations on Makassar, there is a decisive break after 1655 away from “soft diplomacy.” After the conclusion of the 1655 treaty there developed a growing belief that a lasting contractual order with Makassar could not be established unless accompanied by a complete military victory. A close reading of the sections on policy towards Makassar in the
When analysing the texts of the treaty record between the Company and Makassar, one is struck by an impression that the Company’s diplomatic approach is moving in a direction towards a more constructivist perception of “treaty” after 1655. This could be seen as an element in the learning process that characterised the High Government’s diplomatic practice towards Makassar after the 1655 treaty.
The Bongaya Treaty of 1667 and its follow up contracts in 1668 formed parts of a treaty complex that included not only Makassar but the other states in South Sulawesi and the outer islands. Taken together these treaties made up a system whereby the Company attained a hegemonic position in South Sulawesi. When looking at the construction of Company as hegemon by contract it is striking that appeals to principles of international law plays a limited and very narrowly defined role. On the contrary the primary political functions of the contracts were formulated not with references to international law, but in detailed, concrete and specific phrases pointing to the relevant issues at hand.
In addition to dealing with the Directors’ reflections on diplomacy and Batavian reports on and records of treaty making, as well as discussions within the Company on policy, and analyses of the implications of treaty formulations, I have also analysed reflections on policy by ‘the man on the spot’, Cornelis Speelman who in his
Two factors stand out as general traits of Speelman’s approach towards overseas diplomacy. Firstly, he advocates a case study approach. Decisions and choice of action must be based on as extensive empirical information as possible. The other trait is his emphasis on agency and personal diplomacy. Speelman’s analysis is primarily focused on local power networks and the personal relations connecting them, and the tactical options that are left for Company influence and control. Personality traits of men who are in, or aspire to, power therefore form a prominent part in Speelman’s text.
This personalised approach may be explained by the overall purpose of pre-empting the rise of foes and keeping the bonds of alliance with old and new allies in a political environment built on personal charisma and bonds. This emphasis on information gathering and the personalised approach seem to conform with the mode of diplomacy practiced by Company diplomacy at large.
Targeted gathering of information was consistently stressed in the General Instructions by the Gentlemen XVII, it was characteristic of the High Government’s deliberations on policy in Batavia, and it marked the conduct of diplomacy on site. Awareness of and adaptation to local particularities thus formed the basis for the conduct of pragmatic diplomacy. The Company’s practice of diplomacy towards Makassar conformed to this empirical and flexible rather than dogmatic
Consequently, this thesis refutes the proposition of a structural miscommunication in the Company’s diplomatic dealings with Asian rulers. Obviously there occurred some misunderstandings, but these were not of an insurmountable nature, and generally speaking, there was sufficient understanding to make functional communication possible. Contributing to this was the fact that Makassar, in the first decades of contact and interaction with the Company, was ruled by very able and open-minded men, who showed particular interest in things European and a very strong will to innovate.
In conclusion, if in the Company’s diplomatic mode, contextual considerations trumped a dogmatic approach to legal principles, this does not mean that it resulted in anarchy. What happened was that a pragmatic approach shaped the conceptualisation and the application of international law. On the one hand, this led to a constructivist perception of “treaty,” whereby treaties were particularly designed for the specific context to which they were applied. On the other hand, appeals to general principles of international law were applied in instances where this was considered to best serve the Company’s interests. In the final instance, both were based on pragmatic considerations. In this pragmatic approach was also an element of dynamism.
In 2006, Martine van Ittersum could write “With one or two exceptions, the VOC’s ideological and political dimensions have been neglected for a long time by both Dutch historians and specialists in the history of South East Asia.”
Three points need initial clarifications. First, as for the use of the term “diplomacy” in the early modern period two explanatory remarks must be made. “Diplomacy” and “diplomatic action” will be used in the present context to cover any communication between Company officials and local men of power concerning specifics or general aspects of their mutual interaction. In short, the use of the term “diplomacy” is closer to “negotiations about practical matters in reciprocal affairs” than to “political state interaction” in the modern sense.
Second, the present thesis is not a work of intellectual history, but rather a history of
My main propositions are that at the outset the Company’s diplomatic mode was neither Eurocentric, nor legally dogmatic, nor static, as has been claimed time and again in the historiography. To the contrary, I propose that the Company’s seventeenth-century diplomatic mode, as demonstrated by the interaction with Makassar, was programmatically non-Eurocentric, pragmatically orientated, and dynamic.
After these general introductory notes, I shall proceed by giving a historical introduction to the kingdom of Goa-Makassar and a chronology of its diplomatic interaction with the Company circa 1637– 68, and then present an overview of positions in the historiography of VOC diplomatic interaction. These positions and my own propositions will be further elaborated in
The term “Makassar” is originally an ethnic name, and could thus be applied to “where Makassarese” resided, but as a historical term it is applied to the twin kingdoms Goa and Tello, situated on the southwestern and southern tip of Sulawesi respectively.
There was a working relationship between Tello and Goa up to the second half of the 17th century where the ruler of Tello would be adviser or first minister to the king of Goa. In the Dutch records, this arrangement is reflected in that the ruler of Tello is designated as the “elder king” and the
While some hold forth that the collaboration between Tello and Goa was a harmonious affair,
The late sixteenth and seventeenth century rulers of Goa and Tello, of particular interest to us, are, beginning with Goa: Tumamenag ri Gaukanna, the sultan Alauddin (ruled 1593 to 15 June 1639), his son: Tumamenang ri Papambatuna, who ruled from 1639 to 5 November 1653, under the names of Sultan Malikusaid and Muhammad Said, and his son: Tumamenang ri Ballaq Pangkana, who ruled as Sultan Hasanuddin from 1653 to 17 June 1669 when he abdicated.
In the same period two important rulers of Tello who also functioned as advisers to the rulers of Goa, were: Karaeng Matoaya who ruled from 1593 to 1623, and Karaeng Pattingalloang, who ruled from 1641 to September 15 1654.
Added to this, and I shall return to this in more detail, is that both Matoaya and Pattingalloang displayed a preoccupation with all kinds of innovations, including European ones. Finally, it should be remarked that although Sultan Hasanuddin came to end the tradition of appointing the rulers of Tello as his advisor,
Political life in South Sulawesi centred on the split between four dominant ethnic groups, of which the Bugis and the Makassarese were the most important.
For reasons that we need not go into here, in 1643 Goa, assisted by the Bugis states of Wajo and Soppeng (to the north-east and east in South Sulawesi respectively) attacked and defeated the Bugis state of Bone.
Originally, political organisation was based on kinship groups and their offshoots, held together by origin myths of shared founding fathers.
One consequence of Goa’s victory in the “Islamic wars” was the conversion to Islam of the Bugis states of Soppeng (1609), Wajo (1610), and Bone (1611). The Islamic wars should be fitted into the struggle for hegemony in South Sulawesi where Islam gave Goa extra prestige and power, and at the same time created new bonds of equality between the conquered and conqueror.
Extra potential power was also added to the converted states in that they could align with the Islamic powers in the archipelago as well as with the Muslim Ottoman and Mughal empires. For Makassar, there was also a commercial aspect to this, as Goa and the port of Makassar now became a link in the trade of spices from the Moluccas, which later was to become the main cause for friction and conflict with the Company.
With the conversion to Islam there was also a transformation in the institutions of the polity, as Islamic administrative and judicial institutions replaced traditional bodies.
Although some would say Makassar did not develop into an important sea power until the 1620s,
However already in 1580 a regional political settlement was reached between Makassar and Ternate where it was recognised that Saleyer should belong to the sphere of Makassar, but Buton to the sphere of Ternate.
As it was, in the period of Matoaya, and after him up to the second half of the seventeenth century, Makassar led expeditions against Sumbawa in 1617, 1619, 1621 and 1632, against Lombok in 1624, against Buton in 1624, 1633, and 1639, and against Timor in 1640,
At this junction in time Makassar’s role as a regional power, and its role as a free haven for trade in spices, cloves and nutmegs from Ambon and Banda, which the Company regarded as a break of its monopoly rights, became enmeshed.
Asian trade in East-Indonesia after 1625 increasingly became a Makassarese activity,
Still illicit trade continued to a degree, which led to the Company extracting so-called Hongi services from the local population in Ambon to patrol the sea lanes for smuggling. The Hongi services meant the bringing together of several smaller vessels,
On 29 July 1655, the rebel stronghold Asahudi was conquered by the Dutch.
If there was a regional dimension to the Company’s conflict with Makassar, there certainly was a global dimension as well. The confrontation between the Company and the Iberian powers of Portugal and Spain [which were united (1580-1640)] in the Moluccas can for instance be interpreted as part of the larger conflict over the issue of confession between the Protestant and Catholic states in Europe.
Whatever the specifics of either the global or the regional dimension, both point to the fact that Makassar in the seventeenth century was a cosmopolitan harbour city which was part of both regional and global networks. This also meant that an increasing number of “outsiders” both visited and came to settle in the city too. I shall now take a closer look at these groups.
William Cummings points to the fact that already before the sixteenth century there had been centuries of Makassarese contact with Javanese and Malay traders.
The fall of Melaka in 1541 had worked as catalyst for a Malay diaspora to Makassar,
I shall return to the role of the Portuguese as agents of dynamism and innovation in Makassar in
As for the particularity of the historical context of the Makassar– Company interaction in the seventeenth century, five major factors should be kept in mind regarding the background and standing of Makassar at the coming of the Company: firstly that Makassar already was an international entrepôt; secondly that it was connected to the spice trade in the Moluccas; thirdly that it was a cornerstone of Islam in the region; fourthly that the period of the first half of the seventeenth century was a dynamic one; and finally that there was latent tension within the realm connected to its conquest and subjugation of the Bugis.
The first contact between Makassar and the Company took place in 1603,
The Dutch factory was temporarily closed in 1607, for internal Company reasons, but it reopened in 1609. Harassment against Company servants by the Portuguese, to which the sultan turned a blind eye, did not make life any more pleasant for the personnel of the VOC factory, with the result that it was closed again in 1615.
The core of the conflict between the Company and Makassar lay in the sultanate’s infringement of the monopoly rights that the Company began to impose on trade in the Spice Islands.
I have already accounted for the Ambonese wars, so suffice it here only to repeat that the product was cloves, or
The point of relevance in our context is that the Company’s monopoly rights in the Eastern Archipelago were to become the primary source of conflict between the Company and Makassar as the latter became a centre for the smuggling of “illicit”
The fact that the Portuguese, English, and Danes could snap up smuggled cloves and nutmeg in Makassar was a steady provocation to the Company.
Unable to move his ships closer to the coast, the commander of the Company’s fleet had to watch a fleet of Makassarese war vessels bound for the Moluccas escape from the mouth of the river into open waters. In May of the same year, the Dutch learned that Buton had fallen to the Makassarese. The blockade of Makassar continued until August, when the fleet was ordered to return to Batavia. Another expedition sent later the same year met with even less success. The situation worsened when in 1635 the Company learned that the Butonese had started to act aggressively against the Dutch. A Company revenge expedition achieved little else but the exchange of prisoners. Such was the situation when in June 1637 Governor-General Anthonio van Diemen, having re- established peace and order in Ambon, left for Makassar to make an effort to end the conflict with the sultanate.
The rebellion on Ambon had been intensifying since 1634 and in December 1636 Van Diemen, governor-general since January 1 of that year, set forth with an expedition to set matters straight. Having accomplished his mission, he left Ambon for Batavia in May the following year, but went via Makassar to see if difficulties could be overcome and peace concluded there.
The smuggling of cloves from Ambon via Makassar continued after 1637, and when in 1652 one of the Ambonese rebel leaders, a
After Hustard’s return to Batavia, Arnold de Vlaming van Oudshoorn visited Makassar on his return trip from Ambon to Batavia, and tried to persuade the sultan to send envoys to Batavia for negotiations. His proposal was rejected, but the sultan was willing to give De Vlaming a diplomatic letter for the governor-general. The sultan’s letter was of a general nature, just stating that he wanted to live in peace with the Company, but on condition that the Company allowed the people of Ambon and Ceram to live in peace and to practise their religion freely. As the self-styled protector of those rights, he also gave notice that he had sent envoys to Ambon. Batavia considered the sultan’s declaring himself protector and defender of peoples who were (by treaty) under the Company’s protection, nothing less than a
As in 1637, the 1653–55 cycle of war, negotiation, and treaty was rooted in the issue over what the Company considered Makassarese infringement on its monopoly rights in the Moluccas. What distinguishes the 1655 peace from that of 1637 was that the former to a large extent came about under pressure from the Company directors in the Netherlands, and that it was accompanied by a robust internal discussion between Governor-General Maetsuyker and De Vlaming van Oudshoorn, who disagreed with the lenient tactics that were applied. This discussion forms the topic of
Not long after the conclusion of the peace in 1655, it became clear that armed Makassarese vessels again had taken up sailings to the clove islands. In response, Governor-General Joan Maetsuyker sent Willem Basting as envoy to Makassar with the message that the sailings must stop or Makassar would once again find itself at war with the Company.
After the Company’s conquest of Panakkukang in June 1660, 10,000 Bugis, among them nobles such as Arung Palakka, were ordered to dig a canal to cut the fort off from the mainland. They refused to do so and fled back to their homeland on August 7.
What is of special relevance to us in this context is that the Bugis rebellion took place between the sending of Makassarese delegates to negotiate in Batavia in August and the countersigning of the treaty in Makassar in December. With the Bugis rebellion, an opportunity opened for the Company to renew the war with Makassar in alliance with the Bugis. But, by the start of the rebellion, the Company had already committed itself to negotiations, and by the time of the countersigning in Makassar in December, the Bugis rebellion had been quelled. Still the option of allying with the Bugis made its impact on Batavia’s reflections on policy towards Makassar. The impact on policy positions by shifting constellations of contexts forms the topic of
Neither a complete stop the illicit traffic with the Moluccas nor the expulsion of the Portuguese as were agreed in the 1660 treaty were met in the years to follow. The traffic in the Moluccas continued, and even if some of the lower strata of the Portuguese left Makassar, the richer merchants stayed on. The latter filled an important military function, too, in the construction defence works.
It is important to note that before the final decision for war was taken, several attempts were made to negotiate a solution. For instance, on October 25, 1661, the council decided to let the Makassarese who had been held as hostages as part of the 1660 peace settlement to return to Makassar.
What turned the atmosphere from tolerable disagreement into open conflict was the incident of the yacht
Yet another attempt to reach a peaceful solution by negotiations was made when on November 20, 1665 when Receiver-General Joan van Wesenhagen was sent to Makassar. No agreement was reached however. Quite the contrary, Wesenhagen considered the mood in Makassar bellicose. He sensed a dedication to war, encouraged by the English there, and noticed signs of preparations for a campaign against the Company’s ally, Ternate. Against the background of the threatening situation in the eastern quarters, on October 5 of the following year the High Government passed a resolution to prepare an expedition against Makassar.
A fleet under the command of Cornelis Speelman sailed on November 24 and arrived at Makassar December 19. War started with the bombardment of Makassar city in late December, followed by a landing of troops further south. Speelman then sailed for Buton, which was besieged and conquered on January 3, 1667.
After the successful attack on Buton it was decided that Arung Palakka should go to Bone with his fellow Bugis to prepare a general revolt against Makassar,
Speelman left Buton for the eastern quarters in February 1667 and returned to Makassar in June. In the Moluccas, Speelman brought about a peace between the sultans of Ternate and Tidore and linked them to the Company as their overlord and protector,
In late June 1667, Speelman returned to Makassar, and from July 1 hostilities in Makassar began and lasted until a ceasefire was reached at the end of October. The signing of a peace treaty, the Bongaya Treaty took place on November 18.
The news of the Bongaya treaty was received with celebrations in Batavia. A public mass of thanksgiving (
Even when Speelman had the raja of Tello and Karaeng Linques sign the treaty on March 9 and 31, 1668, respectively,
The Bongaya Treaty and its aftermath marked a break in the nature of the relationship between the Company and Makassar. The interaction regime now in place was a multilateral, hierarchical one, comprising both Makassar and polities of the Eastern Archipelago, who were all bound together under the overlordship of the Company.
A characteristic trait of the 1666 campaign, and without doubt the one that won the day for the Company, was that it was allied to an internal Makassarese opposition, namely the Bugis coalition under the leadership of Arung Palakka. Reflecting this, the restructuring of power relations on South Sulawesi itself was woven into the Bongaya Treaty. This guaranteed Bugis independence from Makassar and recognised their homelands as an autonomous realm under Arung Palakka.
The Dutch East India Company was given the power to sign treaties in the charter area. Counting from Heeres and Stapel’s compilations,
In this section, I shall be looking at approaches to the Company’s diplomatic interaction with Asian rulers in the historiography from the nineteenth century to the present. The section will be divided into three subsections in which I first give an overview of some central positions in the interpretation of the nature of VOC diplomacy and the nature of the Company’s interaction with local rulers in the charter area. I then place various positions and approaches along a historiographic timeline more generally, before I turn to a topical discussion focusing specifically on propositions about the role accorded to “international law” in the Company’s overseas treaties.
My typology of general approaches begins with the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
A selection of his essays, published in 1968 by the Royal Tropical Institute of Amsterdam as
Returning to my list of types of approaches, the third is what I call the “cultural embeddedness approach,” which is represented by Leonard Andaya’s article “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,”
Jan A. Somers’ Thesis:
I have also included Martine Julia van Ittersum’s work
Having outlined these respective types of approaches to VOC diplomacy, I shall now turn to placing them in a broad chronological overview, in which I shall also include a section on the approach to and handling of the Company’s diplomacy in Jurrien van Goor’s writing on the Company’s diplomacy. When I devote a separate section to him it is for two reasons mainly, first because he occupies a central position in the historiography, and secondly because I share his assumptions and propositions to an extent which makes it necessary to make clear what distinguishes my analysis from his.
Characteristic of the treatment of the Company’s politico-diplomatic interaction and treaty making in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historiography is that the topic was treated chiefly in a descriptive matter, fitted into a chronological narrative. A recurring feature is telling the story of how treaties came into being and commenting on their essential terms.
J. C. Van Leur
Another trend characteristic of the period after the Second World War was a shift of focus away from political interaction to economic history. So, while the changes in perspective starting with Van Leur came to relativize the role of the Company, with decolonisation the focus shifted away from narrative political-diplomatic history towards a more structural economic history.
Still, studies either directly or indirectly concerning the political interaction of the Company in the Asian arena came increasingly to be published after the 1970s, predominantly with a revisionist edge against Eurocentrism. Both European significance on a global scale and European modernity in global comparative perspectives were played down. Perhaps the most prominent exponent of this reorientation is Sanjay Subrahmanyam, who rejected both the contrast between Asian stability and “European dynamism”
Approximately ten years after Guillot, Johan Talens’ presented a bleaker evaluation of the dynamism and developmental potential of Banten,
Belonging to the general revisionism that followed Van Leur, but more radical in its perspective, was a reinterpretation, if not an outright rejection, of the idea of the West’s modernising impact on Asian society. For instance, M. N. Pearson could write “nor can one see the early European settlements on the Indian coast as introducing positive European notions such as the rule of law that providing security for property and persons inevitably attracted merchants from the surrounding Asian-ruled, and so implicitly less lawful, areas. Quite the contrary.”
As for the nature of interaction and the direction of impact, even an inverse constellation to Eurocentric assumptions has been argued, as, for instance, by referring to the indigenisation of the European colonial enclaves in the eighteenth century: “With their endemic family feuds and institutional splits,” Victor Lieberman writes, “the communities of 18th century Batavia and Manila resembled indigenous courts more closely than a concern with formal structures might suggest.”
Still, when looking at the historiography of the European impact as a whole, Lieberman finds a pattern in which there is a movement away from a Eurocentric approach, passing through a revisionist Asiacentric reaction, and back to a renewed emphasis on the European impact.
It was not until 1999 that the first initiative to open up the study of VOC overseas diplomacy as a new field in its own right was taken. In his
Regarding for instance general works on the Company or Dutch- Indonesian relations published from the second half of the 1990s, such as J. J. P. de Jong’s
In brief, Barendse’s view on the nature of the Company’s overseas diplomacy which he treats in The problem is not just that Asian states were perceived through the distorted lenses of Roman or common law but that the policy of the Company was justified by a peculiar interpretation of Asian societies
The pragmatic configuration Barendse has in mind more particularly, is a lack of “constitutional safeguards to liberty”, in other words, “despotism.”
So where does that leave us as far as the historical writing on the Company’s overseas diplomacy after the middle of the twentieth century is concerned? First, there was comparably little of it until after the 1970s, as the scene before then was dominated by economic history. The little there was on political interaction history was to a large degree dominated by a variety of revisionist trends. But, it was not until the end of the millennium that pleas for a “new overseas diplomatic history” by their own right began to make their mark.
The 1990s saw the publication of a number of case studies such as, Reinout Vos’ study on VOC diplomatic interaction on the Malay Peninsula,
While the plea for a new diplomatic history of the European overseas expansion and global interaction originally came from Leonard Blussé, one person who has exhibited a consistent interest in the cultural dimension of the Company and its diplomatic dealings with local rulers deserves to be brought forward, namely Jurrien van Goor.
An increased interest in and emphasis on the cultural dimension characterised the historiography of the Company from the late seventies. Typical topics were Asiatic modes of thinking about power and religion, interpersonal relations, ceremony and ritual considered both as form and substance, and miscellaneous aspects of the Company’s political and diplomatic practice in Asia.
These topics could well be described as typical of the historical writings of Jurrien Van Goor too. Born in 1939 and teaching at Groningen and Utrecht Universities before he retired in 2004, Van Goor is a prominent figure in the writing on Dutch colonial history. If we look at a selection of titles from his bibliography:
Van Goor raises the same kind of questions and propositions that I do in my theses, namely that the Company occupied a position in the various local diplomatic system, that its preferred mode of operation was by accommodation, unless forced by circumstances or particular interests to act otherwise, and that both the local parties and the Company managed to come up with a functional understanding of the other party’s concerns and intentions. Here I agree fundamentally with Van Goor.
Having pointed to these fundamental agreements, there are also some points where I do deviate from Van Goor’s propositions and assumptions. My plan of exhibition in this section is that I shall first elaborate and define Van Goor’s positions, and then will go on to point out what I say that Van Goor does not say, and where I disagree with him.
To clarify Van Goor’s positions on the nature of the Company’s diplomacy one may start with his more general positions on the Company historiography. While on the one hand he expresses support for Van Leur’s Asia-centric turn,
It is Van Goor’s contention that the Company in the archipelago represented a new actor playing in an already established game.
Variations in the mode of the Company’s interaction varied from withdrawal to accommodation to resorting to violence. Complete partnership was rarely present (
Regarding the comparative dimension in the diplomatic interaction between the Company and local rulers in Southeast Asia, Van Goor finds resemblances: “The regional states shared a number of characteristics of the
What then of the specificity of the Company’s diplomacy? On commentating on Coen’s “diplomatic mode”, Van Goor characterises it as based on a combination of legal arguments, power politics and sensitivity to local conditions.
Returning to the comparative aspect per se, if we move one step higher up the ladder to a more general level of comparisons, we find that Van Goor does not comply with the view that there was an absolute divide between the Company and local perceptions when it came to cultural models at the macro-cultural level. More specifically he rejects the assumption of an absolute divide between a European rational- and a mythological Asian world view. Quite contrarily he finds parallels as well as contrasts when it comes to integrating mythological aspects in Southeast Asia and the Republic, and thus recognises a role for “magical” interpretations in both places.
Having pointed out this relativism in Van Goor’s views, it must also be said that he still subscribes to the view that there was a difference between the Company’s institutional and the local personalised perception of power and interstate relations.
In a similar mode, although on a more general level, Van Goor points out that the political culture in the Indonesian archipelago often is characterized as a culture of shame (
In our context, the significance of Van Goor’s view that there was a degree of commensurability between the Company’s and local modes of diplomacy lies in the implication that there was possibility for meaningful communication.
As for Van Goor’s view on the particularity of the Company’s mode of diplomacy in a European comparative context, and the form of prestige and status constituent of it, he makes and important qualification. He on the one hand holds that the VOC constituted an
Another word for “flexibility”, is “pragmatism”, and on this as a general characterisation and the points of view outlined above I am in full agreement with Van Goor. This leaves us with the question as to on which issues we do not agree and the nature of our differences, or put in other words: What do I do in my thesis which Van Goor does not do?
If there is one topic, which admittedly is implicit in Van Goor’s discussions, but which I make much more explicit, it is the problem of whether and to which degree the Company did understand the diplomatic thinking and practices of their local partners and antagonists. Analysing this problem necessitates a consistent use of textual analysis of the actual wording in the Company’s diplomatic exchanges that separates my analysis from Van Goor’s. My proposition of commensurability between the Company and its diplomatic partners is thus both more consistently pursued and more explicitly advocated by textual analysis than is the case in Van Goor’s works.
Another difference is that whereas Van Goor often treats the Company’s diplomacy in conjunction with other overarching problems, my primary focus is and remains the nature of the Company’s thinking about and practice of diplomacy. My “topical case” is Company diplomacy. Viewing it from one historical case, Makassar, made it possible for me to analyse the Company’s diplomatic practice from different angles and levels, ranging from the advice from Patria to the advice from Company servants in Makassar to Batavia and to do so, when needed, at the microlevel. Two additional aspects of choosing Makassar as my case stand out.
Firstly, in the interaction between the Company and Makassar, we are faced with a case of shift of diplomatic approach in that an initial flexible-pragmatic approach of peaceful negotiations was abandoned for a strategy to intervene militarily directly in the internal politics of Makassar. The latter option arose by the possibility to ally with a local actor, also in conflict with Makassar. In Batavia, there was debate over strategy in conjunction with this possibility which made it possible for me to get a peep into the Company’s internal debate on policy.
Case Makassar: then let me analyse and compare the Company’s diplomacy in three distinct approaches: Wooing by negotiations with peaceful intent, negotiating and warring with the intent of intervention to restructure the political order, and tying bonds with a local ally. These variations in contexts make Makassar a perfect match for an in-depth analysis of a set of complementary aspects of the nature and dynamics of the Company’s diplomacy.
Second, the already existing historiography on Makassar made it possible for me to go in depth into and formulate counterpropositions to theoretical assumptions of a structural kind of analysis which I hold to contain structural weaknesses. In my explicit discussion on these theoretical problems I do something which is not openly set out in Van Goor’s works.
Bringing this overview up to date, but by no means claiming to present an exhaustive list, another person who has made a mark in the recent historiography on cultural contact and diplomacy is Markus Vink.
Finally, in the finishing stages of my own work, I was made aware of Guido van Meersbergen’s PhD thesis
Although Van Meersbergen’s work and mine clearly overlap as far as topic and issue are concerned, there are also some differences. Van Meersbergen presents his analysis of the VOC and EIC documentation as focused on “what it reveals about perceptions of Others, categories of human difference, and approaches to cross-cultural interaction.”
I shall briefly state some points that follow from this difference. First, I hold that the Company was not acting on an overarching theory or general assumptions of cross-cultural interaction; it primarily relied on casuistic reflections and advice. The whole issue of diplomacy was approached practically and pragmatically. This is to say—and this may be the main difference between Van Meersbergen’s thesis and my own— that I am not convinced that VOC personnel brought a set of cultural meta-conceptualisations with them overseas that were then used uncritically as a grid through which all their observations and reflections were processed. The Company’s servants were perfectly aware that they were in foreign lands and adopted ways of reflection to adapt to that fact.
Second, as for modes of adaptation, Company servants could draw on the Portuguese cross-cultural experience, from which they could pick and choose, to model their behaviour as outsiders. Third, and this is the view that I shall particularly be pursuing in the following, the Company’s overseas experience was by itself a learning process by which the Company came up with different responses and adjusted them to the overseas challenges.
The present thesis is meant as a contribution to a “new history” of overseas early modern diplomacy, by presenting a case study in the Company’s seventeenth-century overseas diplomatic practice. In particular, I intend to clarify the restricted role of international law, the specific meaning and function of the overseas diplomatic treaty, and the rules guiding negotiations for regimes of interaction in the Company’s diplomacy.
My reasons for undertaking this project are that I think that the nature and dynamics of the Company’s diplomatic practice have been misunderstood or distorted. Too much emphasis has been placed on law, too little on the practical dimensions of diplomacy and negotiations. Before elaborating on my own positions on these points,
Nobody denies that exchange of envoys and letters as well as conclusion of agreements between rulers took place in both early modern Southeast Asia and Europe. Opinion is split, however, as to whether these diplomatic activities meant the same in Asia as in Europe and also whether transcultural diplomacy in early modern Asia represented a clash of political cultures or an interaction between compatible systems.
As these issues go directly to the heart of my thesis, I shall dedicate the rest of this chapter to clarifying a variety of positions and propositions on the understanding and meaning of “international law” and “treaty” and assumptions about compatibility and incompatibility among Asian and European systems of state interaction. I shall pick my examples from the selection of works already mentioned, starting with the “classical” historiography of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, then turn to C. H. Alexandrowicz’s propositions.
To accentuate the issues raised by Andaya I shall also include the controversy between Paulusz and Arasaratnam over the Company’s diplomatic interaction in Ceylon,
The historiography of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did not understate the fact that there was a difference between the diplomatic habits and traditions of the Company and its Asian counterparts, and that this must be taken into consideration when analysing the nature of their interactions. Heeres, for one, elaborated on the implications of the overseas setting for the mode of the Company’s performance in the following manner: Through the behaviour of its sons in the Orient the Dutch national character has manifested itself in all manners, good and bad, but above all in a specific accentuation exacerbated by the environment in which it interacted, exacerbated by the antagonism between white and black, Christian and non-Christian, European and Asian.
Another characteristic trait of nineteenth- and early twentieth- century historiography is its preoccupation with the Company’s politico- diplomatic and military actions.
Alexandrowicz’s work remains a classic study in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century international law and the nature of the diplomatic interaction between Europeans and Asians in Asia. Compared to the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century tradition, Alexandrowicz distinguished himself by his principled insistence on an essential similarity, and thus compatibility, between the thinking and practise of early modern international law in Asia and the West. He starts by admitting that initially there were differences in the Asian and Western systems of politico-diplomatic interaction, which originated in different conceptualisations of the nature of treaty making. For instance, the Asian systems and approaches were originally characterised by a “personal” approach, while those of the West by an “institutional” one.
A consequence of this was that up to the nineteenth century, the treaties between the Europeans and Asian rulers were basically concluded on an equal basis.
In his 1978 article, Andaya declared his intention to “provide a fair and balanced analysis of treaty relationships between Europe and non- European states prior to the 19th century.”
In his 1980 article, “The 1638 Westerwolt Treaty in Ceylon: Charges of Dutch Deceit Disproved,” Paulusz set out to clear the Company of charges of foul play in its conflict with the king of Kandy, Raja Singha, in the aftermath of the conclusion of the Westerwolt Treaty of 1638. Attacking views put forward by Arasaratnam and Goonewardena that the Company was consciously misleading the king, Paulusz holds that such charges are unfounded, and in fact should be reversed. While the Dutch had been “firmly upholding the basic terms of the contract against the king,” the king himself had, for instance, been claiming, misleadingly, that he was the “emperor” of the whole of Ceylon.
As a matter of fact, Raja Singha had been in breach of the treaty from the very outset as he had presented his motive for entering into an alliance with the Company as originating in their common goal of expelling the Portuguese from Ceylon.
As for the treaty concluded after the fall of the Portuguese fort in Batticaloa on May 18, the king was given a draft of the treaty text which he spent a couple of days deliberating over with his advisors
Arasaratnam came to disagree on all counts, and intensely so. Starting by referring to the unanimous opinion in the historiography that the Dutch “behaved with duplicity,”
Arasaratnam calls Paulusz’s interpretation of Singha’s claim to be emperor of all of Ceylon fraudulent and an example of Paulusz’s “ignorance of the philosophy and practice of state power in the island of Ceylon.”
Prior historiography he divides into three phases, starting with the writings of the original Company administrators, which were taken over by the professional historians of the colonial era. Both these periods shared the colonizer’s perspective, but the latter singled itself out by working professionally with colonial sources.
I shall not be taking a stand on the Paulusz–Arasaratnam exchange here. Their respective positions in the debate primarily go to illustrate two points that are particularly relevant to my case. First, Paulusz’s approach generally aligns with the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century positions of Company observance of international law and treaties, while Arasaratnam’s criticisms generally is in accord with Leonard Andaya’s anti-Eurocentric approach. Second, when Arasaratnam’s criticizes Paulusz for failing to see the Sinhalese tradition and thinking on kingship in their own terms, the implicit assumption is that the Dutch not only brought their own standards overseas, but that they also operated from them without any effort to try to understand local traditions. This is an assumption close to Andaya’s radical proposition of Eurocentric tunnel vision. One scholar who seems to try to balance these two positions in a moderate proposition is Jan A. Somers.
In this section, I address Jan A. Somers’ positions on VOC diplomacy as put forward in his Thesis:
I shall briefly point to Somers’ positions regarding international law and the conceptualisation of treaties in the Company period as they are depicted in both works. In general, I hold that Somers represents a view of the Company’s diplomacy as pragmatic, although his view on this may be said to be more explicitly voiced in the 2001 Thesis than in the 2005 book. It should also be said, that although I endorse his views on the nature of VOC diplomacy, Somers is more preoccupied with the formally legal aspect of the interaction than with the actual practice of diplomacy, as for instance in negotiations, than I am. I shall treat the two works in chronological order.
The
Somers’ focus is primarily on the way the Company saw itself as a diplomatic actor in various and changing contexts. Concerning the Banten case, Somers for instance distinguishes between two separate phases, namely the period between the establishment of Batavia in 1619, and the period after Banten’s submission to the Company in 1684. In the period up to 1684 the Company viewed its contracts with Banten as concluded between the governor-general as representing the Company, whereas after 1684 the governor-general acted as representing the States–General and the Prince
Mataram proves a contrary case to Banten, in that the Company never acted in the name of the States-General towards it, as it did towards Banten. Somers attributes this difference in approach to a difference in context and challenge. The need to keep European rivals out, i.e. the English from Banten, made stronger formal bonds necessary than in relations with Mataram, where no such external threats existed.
Regarding the Ceylon case, the Company acted as instrument of the States-General in its contracts with the kingdom of Kandy, and again this is explained by the presence of a European rival, in this case the Portuguese.
Cape the good hope is included in Somers’ sample as a case of
The résumé of Somers’ sample of cases above has been given to illustrate two general traits about his approach: Firstly, that his preoccupation lies with formal legal aspects of the Company’s diplomacy, and secondly the formal legal interaction is considered in historical context. What is particularly relevant to my own topic in this connection is Somers’ evaluation of the Company’s assumptions and mode in its diplomatic dealings.
It is basic for Somers that in the Company’s diplomatic world de facto power held primacy over formalities of contract. This came from the fact that the diplomatic challenges that the Company was confronted with in Asia were never foreseen in 1602. The Company’s diplomatic mode developed
In the 2005 book Somers starts his narrative of the Company period by stating that with the establishment of Batavia, the Company came to be perceived as and acted as an independent sovereign state in Asian waters.
This proposition of general similarity, and by implication of Eurasian compatibility, is one that Somers shares with Alexandrowicz. But to a greater degree than Alexandrowicz, Somers points to the difference between the pre- and post-nineteenth-century periods in holding up the early modern system in Asia as “incomparable” to the modern one.
All in all, Somers’ recognition of particularities and differences never glides into a position of incompatibility as far as communication between Company and local polities or Company and rulers is concerned. Where Andaya sees a breakdown in Company–Makassar communication, Somers points to accommodation as, one must assume, a relative successful communicative means employed by the Company. Similarly, Somers explicitly subscribes to Alexandrowicz’s proposition of functional understanding and increasing secularisation.
To sum up, Somers does not advocate a position of structural blockage for communication, but points out that the Company often had to accommodate the other side for practical reasons. But still, if Asian and European concepts of international law were not instantly compatible, and European law consequently had to be accommodated to local standards, the question that needs to be answered is which factors shaped the accommodation of the Company’s diplomatic practice and thus gave it a typical overseas “twist”? Alas, that is a question that Somers never really addresses. In his survey of the legal aspects of the VOC diplomacy and state interaction in Asia, the answer to this issue fades into the background.
Van Ittersum is the one in my sample who comes closest to offering a characterisation of VOC diplomacy in practice within a broader historical framework. She proposes that the Company’s legal theory was but a vehicle for politics of power. According to her, the Company not only held a pragmatic view on the use of law overseas, but an outright cynical one.
One of Van Ittersum’s objectives is to remedy what she considers to be shortcomings in the Cambridge school of political thought. Although the school must be credited for having disclosed “the dark side of rights theories,” such as demonstrating the thinking of Grotius, Hobbes, and Locke as “building blocks of Western Imperialism,
The point of departure for Van Ittersum is that Grotius’s legal theories were intrinsically bound to the interests of the Company. For its part, the VOC context was marked by the world of aggressive military and naval strategies in which the Republic was born,
It is a central proposition for Van Ittersum that once Grotius is identified as a Company spokesman and agent, his cynicism comes clearly to the fore. For example,
Grotius’s contract theory rested on the recognition of the local parties as legitimate legal subjects. Therefore, they were by natural law free to sign treaties with whomever they wished, but once a treaty had been signed, they were committed to keep their obligations by the principle of
The trick here, holds Van Ittersum, is that Grotius does not bring the imbalance in strength into the reckoning. Because of its relative weakness of power, the Spice Islands in practice “had little choice but to renew their contracts with the VOC year after year. They simply lacked the military means to dislodge the Company from their countries. Grotius blatantly ignored these power differentials in his rights and contract theories.”
Grotius’s rights and contract theories served two purposes: To undermine Iberian claims to the extra-European world and to legitimize Dutch participation in the age-old trading systems of the Indian Ocean and the China Seas.
Grotius is the “villain” in Van Ittersum’s story as he is the one who gave the Company the legal theory to justify their behaviour after the fact. In other words, he provided the opportunity to suppress local states by legal trickery. One assumption Van Ittersum shares with Andaya is that local people had an imperfect understanding of the implications of agreeing to treaties with the Company. But Van Ittersum’s emphasis is different. It is not the miscommunication in itself which is her point; it is the fraudulent way in which the company manipulated partial understanding or misguided interpretations in its treaty practice. This point also contrasts with the approach of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century tradition, as well as Somers’ view, in that Van Ittersum primarily analyses law in terms of power relations and as a means of extortion. When and where power relations were asymmetrical to the advantage of the Company, “law” could and did become a cynical instrument for achieving the Company’s ends.
Five approaches to the understanding of the nature of seventeenth- century VOC diplomacy and the nature of its interactions in Asia have been identified above. The classical approach of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries recognised differences in conceptualisations and practice, but still assumed a functional understanding between the Company and its Asian partners. The “the system compatibility approach” represented by Alexandrowicz advocated both a level of compatibility in thinking about international law at the outset as well as cumulative cross-cultural understanding by increased interaction. Andaya heavily attacked this approach, and advocated a cultural embeddedness approach that emphasized conceptual incompatibility and structural miscommunication as typical of pre nineteenth century East- West state interaction. Somers’ “legal-pragmatic approach” may be regarded as a variant of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century approach, though it should be distinguished from the former by being more explicit about its emphasis on cultural differences. Van Ittersum for her part shares the preoccupation with law with both classical historiography and Somers, but marks herself off by analysing law as primarily an instrument of power. The discussion between Paulusz and Arasaratnam marks no original positions on its own, but is primarily used to clarify the difference in positions between Andaya on the one hand and the nineteenth- and twentieth-century historiography and Alexandrowicz on the other.
I propose that the approaches I have treated here, with the possible exception of Van Ittersum, and with some modifications for Somers, “over-focus” on law as far as the nature of the Company’s diplomacy is concerned. By that I mean that they all seem to assume a direct and decisive impact of concepts of European international law on the Company’s diplomatic practice. I suggest not only that this was not the case, but that this misapprehension leads to a distortion of a relevant conceptualisation of Batavia’s diplomatic
There are some propositions in the above survey with which I particularly differ. I hold Andaya’s assumptions and propositions about the Eurocentric nature of VOC diplomacy to be anachronistic in that he seems to transfer nineteenth-century conceptualisations of treaty law to a seventeenth-century world of commerce by treaty. This has in its turn implications for his propositions about the structural misunderstanding in communications between Makassar and the Company. I think Andaya wrongly rejects the reciprocal understanding there was and underrates the dynamics of the Company’s understanding. I also object to the all- embracing pretensions that seem to be implied in Van Ittersum’s propositions about the Company’s cynical application of treaties. It may fit well in the smaller states in the Moluccas, but probably not in the Moluccas in general, and certainly not in the charter area as a whole. And, as a generalisation, it is contradicted by the instances of idealism that can be found in the Company treaties.
In the next chapter, I shall first analyse propositions about the nature of VOC diplomacy particularly as they come forth in Andaya’s analysis of seventeenth-century VOC–Makassar diplomatic interaction, and then elaborate on my own propositions.
Martine J. Van Ittersum,
See:
See for instance Leonard Blussé,
I am thinking of F. W. Stapel,
Christian Pelras,
Ibid. 114. More accurately the formation of the double monarchy of Goa and Tello can be set to 1560, see John Villiers, “Makassar: The Rise and Fall of an East Indonesian Maritime Trading State, 1512-1669”, in: J. Kathirithamby-Wells & John Villiers (eds.)
William Cummings,
For instance John Villiers, Kathirithamby-Wells & John Villiers (eds.) 1990, 149.
Arend de Roever,
Basset, D.K., “English Trade in Celebes, 1613-1677”,
All based on: William Cummings, Reign List for the Rulers of Gowa and Talloq, in
Reid, Anthony, “A great seventeenth century Indonesian family: Matoaya and Pattingalloang of Makassar”,
Noorduyn, Jacobus,
Reid, 1981, 26.
Boxer, C. R.,
Leonard Andaya,
Ibid.id. 9.
Ibid.id. 17.
Ibid.id. 28.
Ibid.id. 9.
Ibid. 41.
Ibid. 42.
Ibid. 10 ff.
Ibid. 13.
Noorduyn, 1955, 98, Cummings, 2002, 32.
Cummings, 2002, 154.
Cummings, 2002, 161. See also: 162 and 163.
Andaya, 1981, 28–35.
Ibid. 35.
De Roever 2002, 230.
Cummings, 2002, 27.
Pelras, 1996, 133.
Anthony, Reid, “The Rise of Makassar”,
Reid. 1981, 8.
where it came to have a lasting influence on the north coast, see Hans Hägerdal,
Pelras, 1996, 139.
Knaap, Gerrit,
Knaap 2004, 27.
Knaap 2004, 28.
Knaap 2004, 28, referring to Basset, 1958.
“Kora-kora en kruitdamp – De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in oorlog en vrede in Ambon”, in Knaap, Gerrit, and Teitler (eds.)
Knaap 2004, 29-30.
Knaap 2004, 33.
Knaap 2004, 34.
with the exception of Buru, where peace was not concluded not until 1658, Knaap, 2004, 34.
Knaap, Gerrit :«Kora-kora en kruitdamp – De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in oorlog en vrede in Ambon», in Knaap, Gerrit, and Teitler (eds.) 2002, 257-279, 258.
Basset, 1958, 18.
Hägerdal, 2001, 12. Referring to Anthony Reid, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450 – 1680, vol. 2, Expansion and crisis, 1993.
William Cummings, “The Melaka Malay diaspora in Makassar, c. 1500-1669”,
Cummings, 1998, 108,
Cummings, 1998, 111.
Reid, 1981, 10.
Pelras, 1996, 141.
Basset, 1958, 18.
Villiers, in Kathirithamby-Wells & John Villiers (ed.) 1990, 155.
Pelras, 1996, 150.
See vol. 2 of Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, 1450 - 1680, Expansion and crisis. And Reid, “Pluralism and Progress in seventeenth-century Makassar”, in: Roger Tol, Kees van Dijk and Greg Acciaioli (eds.),
Andaya has 1601 for the stationing of a Dutch factory on the invitation of Sultan Alauddin; Andaya 1981, 45.
F. W. Stapel,
Ibid., 193.
Ibid. 193–94.
I lean on Leonard Blussé and Jaap de Moor,
Ibid. 118–23.
Ibid. 123.
Ibid. 138. See also H. J. de Graaf,
“smuggling” and “illicit” in the eyes of the Company, of course.
Stapel,
Ibid. 246.
Ibid. 245–46.
Ibid. 244–45.
Stapel,
Ibid. 331.
Ibid. 331–32.
Ibid. 332.
Ibid. 332-333.
Ibid. 333.
Andaya,
Ibid. 49.
Ibid. 50.
Stapel,
Ibid. 334.
Ibid. 337.
Ibid. 338.
Ibid. 338.
Ibid. 338–39.
See
Stapel,
Ibid. 339–40.
Ibid. 340, see
Ibid. 341.
Ibid. 345.
Stapel,
Ibid. 345.
Ibid. 345.
Ibid. 346–49.
To name some representative works in this tradition: J. K. J. de Jonge, M. L. van Deventer, et al.
C. H. Alexandrowicz,
Foreword, G. J. Resink,
First printed in
See the editors’ “Foreword” in Resink,
Originally written to be given as a lecture at the Faculty of Law in Makassar, first published in Dutch as “Volkenrecht in vroeger Makassar,”
Leonard Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions: A Case Study from South Sulawesi,”
Andaya,
Respectively, J. H. O. Paulusz, “The 1638 Westerwolt Treaty in Ceylon: Charges of Dutch Deceit Disproved,”
Proefscrift, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, juni 2001.
Jan A. Somers,
See note 1.
The selection and structuring principle of the source extracts in de Jonge, van Deventer, et al.,
J. C. van Leur, Indonesian Trade and Society: Essays in Asian Social and Economic History (The Hague: Van Hove, 1955), printed posthumously.
Jurrien van Goor,
Piet Emmer and Jos Gommans,
Van Ittersum,
See for instance his “Aspects of State Formation in South India and Southeast Asia, 1500–1650,”
There was thus no break between the era of the Portuguese (16th century) and the 17th-century Company period. The Northwest European companies represented no break in mentality, Subrahmanyam - 93 p. 272.
Anthony Reid,
Claude Guillot, Hasan Muarif Ambary, and Jacques Dumarçay,
Johan Talens,
J. Talens “Ritual Power; The installation of a king in Banten, West Java, in 1691”,
M. N. Pearson, “Merchants and States,” in
Victor Lieberman, “Local Integration and Eurasian Analogies: Structuring Southeast Asian History,”
Ibid. 557.
Ibid. 554.
Blussé,
Ibid. 6.
Held in Den Helder and Leiden 2002, the contributions printed by Nederlandse Organisaties voor Wetenschappelilijk Onderzoek, 2002.
Namely Elsbeth Locher-Scholten and Peter Rietbergen, eds.,
Van Ittersum,
Sdu Uigervers, Den Haag, 1998.
Leiden: CNWS, 1998.
Leiden: CNWS Publications, 2006.
“diplomacy” is for instance neither in de Jong’s nor in Jacob’s index
Barendse 1999, 100-126.
Barendse 1999, 104.
Ibid. 105, 108.
See below.
Reinout Vos,
Lucas Wilhelmus Nagtegaal,
Femme S. Gaastra, “Competition or collaboration? Relations between the Duct East India Company and Indian Merchants around 1680,” in
Peter Rietbergen and Elsbeth Locher-Scholten, “Een dubbel perspectief; Aziatiasche hoven en de VOC, ca 1620 – ca 1720”, in Rietbergen and Locher-Scholten (ed.)
1978: Jurrien van Goor, Jan Kompenie as Schoolmaster: Dutch Education in Ceylon 1690–1795, (Groningen: Wolters Noordhoff, 1978).
Jurrien van Goor,
Jurrien van Goor,
Jurrien van Goor,
Jurrien van Goor,
Jurrien van Goor,
Van Goor, 1982, 12f.
Van Goor, 1982, 12f.
Van Goor, (1993) 1997, 75.
Van Goor, 2004, 27, Van Goor 2015, 522.
Van Goor, 2004, 28.
Van Goor, (1993) 1997, 75.
Van Goor (ed.), 1986, “Introduction”, 16.
Van Goor, 2004, 34.
Van Goor, “Seapower, Trade and Stateformation: Pontianak and the Dutch”, in Jurrien van Goor (ed),
Van Goor, 2015, 522.
Van Goor, (ed.) 1986, 104.
Van Goor, (1993) 1997, 84, 91.
Van Goor, (1993) 1997, 91.
Van Goor, (1993) 1997, 130.
Van Goor, (ed.) 1986, 85.
Van Goor, 2004, 25.
Van Goor, 2015, 460f, and referring to Van Goor 1982,
Van Goor, 2015, 344.
Van Goor, (1993) 1997, 134.
Van Goor, 2015, 460f, referring to Van Goor 1982, 66–76 and Van Goor (ed.) 1986 23–33.
Van Goor, 2004, 28.
Van Goor, 2004, 35.
Van Goor, 2004, 40.
Van Goor, 2004, 43.
Van Goor 2015, 132.
Van Goor 2015. 132.
Van Goor, 2015, 468.
Van Goor, 2004, 24.
Van Goor, (ed.) 1986, 85.
Van Goor, 2004, 33.
Jurrien van Goor,
Jurrien van Goor,
Jurrien Van Goor,
See n. 92, above.
See, for instance, Markus P. M. Vink, “Images and Ideologies of Dutch-South Asian Contact: Cross-Cultural Encounters between the Nayak State of Madurai and the Dutch East India Company in the Seventeenth Century,”
Leonard Blussé, “Peeking into Empires: Dutch Embassies to the Courts of China and Japan”,
Siegfried Huigen, Jan L. de Jong, and Elmer Kolfin, eds.,
Adam Clulow,
Matthias van Rossum,
Guido van Meersbergen,
Ibid. “Abstract,” 5.
See
Alexandrowicz, C.H.,
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” and
Paulusz, “The 1638 Westerwolt Treaty in Ceylon,” and Arasaratnam, “J. H. O. Paulusz on the Westerwolt treaty in Ceylon: A Rejoinder.”
“Het Nederlandsche volkskarakter heeft zich in de daden van Neerlands zonen in het Oosten vertoond in al zijn uitingen, in al zijn kanten; goede en slechte. … Maar vooral in zeer bijzondere accentuatie, verscherpt door het milieu, waarin het daar optrad, verscherpt in de eerste plaats door de tegenstelling van blank en bruin, van Christen en niet-Christen, van Europeaan en Aziaat.”
The selection of sources and comments in de Jonge, van Deventer, et al.,
See the discussion on Andaya’s views on this below.
Alexandrowicz,
Ibid. p. 176. For his views on the dynamics and development of politico-diplomatic relations between European and Asian rulers, see p. 203–204.
Ibid. 231.
Ibid. 224.
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 292.
Ibid. 276–77, quoting Alexandrowicz,
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 291.
Paulusz, “The 1638 Westerwolt Treaty in Ceylon,” 321.
Ibid. 321.
Ibid. 323.
Ibid. 325.
Ibid. 325
Ibid. 325
Implying that they were thought to be able to comprehend its contents.
Arasaratnam, “J. H. O. Paulusz on the Westerwolt Treaty in Ceylon: A Rejoinder,” 191–92.
Ibid. 193.
Ibid. 193.
Ibid. 193.
Ibid. 193.
Ibid. 194–95.
Ibid. 202–203.
Ibid. 203.
Ibid. 203.
Somers, Jan A., De VOC as volkenrechtelijke actor, Proefschrift Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Juni 2001, and
Somers,
Somers, volkenrechtelijke actor 2001, 245.
Somers, volkenrechtelijke actor 2001, 245.
Somers, volkenrechtelijke actor 2001, 246.
Somers, volkenrechtelijke actor 2001, 246.
Somers, volkenrechtelijke actor 2001, 247.
Somers, volkenrechtelijke actor 2001, 247.
Somers, volkenrechtelijke actor, 2001, 247.
Somers, volkenrechtelijke actor 2001, 247.
Somers,
“een volstrekt andere culturele omgeving.”
Somers, Nederlandsch-Indië, 2005, 33.
Somers,
Somers,
“De volkenkundige constellatie in Azië, voorafgaand aan de Europese expansie, was vol eigenaardige aspecten, die doorwerkend in het Indisch staatsrecht, mede een stempel hebben gedrukt op de staatsvorming.”, Somers, Nederlandsch-Indië, 2005Ibid. 35.
“Bovendien bleken de machthebbers onderling betrekkingen te onderhouden, zich te erdragen als volkenrechtssubjecten.” Somers,
“In de toenmalige volkenrechtelijke constellatie, onvergelijkbar met de huidige internationale verhoudingen.” Somers,
Somers,
“Wel heeft de Compagnie altijd getracht de door machtsverhoudingen feitelijk onstane situatie in te kaderen.”
Somers,
Van Ittersum,
“If the Cambridge school is gradually broadening its scope … its methodology does not always seem compatible with its self-proclaimed mission to write the history of political thought.” Ibid. xl.
“remains preoccupied with the canon of Western philosophy.” Ibid. xli. “Although the Cambridge School continues to maintain a refreshingly critical stance towards the cannon of Western philosophy, it refuses to abandon the notion of a canon as such.” Ibid. xlii.
Ibid. xliii.
Ibid. xliii.
“The VOC itself was a product of the aggressive military and naval strategies of the Dutch Republic at the start of the seventeenth century.” Ibid. lii.
VOC directors: “hard-headed capitalists and opportunistic to the core.” Ibid. lii.
Ibid. liv.
Ibid. lxi.
Ibid. lxi.
Ibid. lxi
Ibid. lv.
Ibid. lv.
Ibid. xxii.
Ibid. xxii.
Ibid. lx-lxi.
Ibid. lxi.
In this chapter, I turn specifically to the historiography on Makassar. I shall start by briefly introducing F. W. Stapel’s now classic thesis of 1922 before concentrating on Andaya’s views on the contrasting nature of South Sulawesian and European diplomacy. In a separate section, I contrast Andaya’s views to Resink’s view on Makassarese international law to clarify my own positions. Finally, I present the structure of my argument and plan of exposition in the empirical chapters, before I round off with some comments on sources and method.
F. W. Stapel’s
However, the remark leaves some assumptions uncommented. It combines an explicit proposition of difference and the implicit assumption that the Company in spite of such difference, had been able to decipher the Makassarese code of conduct. In other words, Stapel operates from assumptions that there were differences in codes of behaviour between the Company and Makassar but that they did not prevent the Company from having a functional understanding of the situation. In other words, their respective systems of interaction and communication were compatible to a degree that enabled the Company to have a meaningful interpretation of the Makassarese system. Such propositions of compatibility and the possibility of functional understanding came to form the main targets of Leonard Andaya’s two publications on the diplomatic interaction between Makassar and the Company,
In his analysis of the VOC’s diplomatic interaction with Makassar, Andaya vehemently rejects Stapel’s assumption that the Company’s personnel were capable of understanding the nature and therefore the “ways” of the Makassarese. On the contrary, he holds that for South Sulawesians and the Company, the meaning of state interaction and treaty were totally incompatible. Thus, there was no foundation for meaningful communication between the two. The diplomatic communication between the Company and Makassar represented a structural miscommunication grounded in antagonistic political cultures and perceptions.
I shall clarify Andaya’s positions about the incompatibility between South Sulawesian and European diplomatic conceptualisations with a focus on his propositions and assumptions about the nature of the VOC’s overseas diplomacy primarily using his 1978 article as my reference.
The basic difference between the Dutch and South Sulawesian conceptions of how treaties functioned was that while the Western tradition operated within a secular, rational logic, the South Sulawesian tradition was confined within sacred, mythical beliefs and perceptions. Andaya builds to a large degree on Noorduyn’s
Gerrit Knaap is also pointing to the same logic when he characterises the mentality on Ambon as backwards-looking with an emphasis on honouring the tradition with a belief in spirits in the guise of forefathers to guard and protect it.
Having demonstrated that Andaya both stands in a tradition preceding him of emphasising the peculiar sacral or mythological foundations of society and polity in maritime Southeast Asia him and that this tradition is still vital, I shall return to his treatment of it as a determining factor in the understanding of the logic of state-interaction and diplomacy in the region.
Andaya considers what he calls “the spiritual element” of the treaties, “as important as the political to South Sulawesi states.”
In introducing this statement, Andaya also warns that such a mythological worldview or mode of perception is hard to grasp for “the cynical modern-day observer … tempted to see everything in terms of Realpolitik.”
The “cosmological,” “sacred,” and ritual nature of South Sulawesian diplomatic treaties was embedded in oral traditions and lived on when these were written down. This can be seen in the “ritual-like repetition of certain phrases,”
The sacred or “cosmological” conceptualisation of treaty making in the South Sulawesian tradition also revealed itself in the ritual modes of confirming treaties, and the sanctions invoked for breaking them. The traditional confirmation ritual by drinking palm wine that had been stirred by the overlord’s
One should note that Andaya’s proposition of an antagonistic difference between the South Sulawesian and European conceptualisations of state interaction rests on two basic assumptions. The South Sulawesian religious or sacred conceptualisation and mode of operation stood in such absolute contrast to those of secular Europeans as to make meaningful communication or interaction between the two impossible. Furthermore, Andaya does not consider the possibility that either party could apply modes of thinking and operation that differed from those inscribed in their respective cultural models of state- interaction. Both were locked within and unable to transgress their respective monolithic cultural models.
The point of departure in Andaya’s comparison between treaty making in Europe and South Sulawesi is that while the Western tradition operated within a secular, rational logic, the South Sulawesian tradition was confined within sacred, mythical beliefs and perceptions. From this it follows that the concrete form and function of treaty making was basically different, too. For instance, the South Sulawesi treaties had a particularly localised function and meaning that could be found in the preamble, where the “precise relationship of the treating parties was declared in purely conventional terms.”
The spiritual primacy in treaty conception meant that no treaty once concluded was ever considered totally dead and done with. On the contrary, it was thought of as a perpetual part of the sacred lineage heritage: “The words and oaths of the ancestors contained in the treaties became a moral and supernatural sanction which adumbrated all interstate relations.”
As for flexibility, Andaya goes so far as to rank the South Sulawesi states diplomatic system as superior to the Company’s, because in the latter, treaties were used and functioned as “instruments of oppression,”
Distribution of
Recognising the
The seventeenth-century contractual record between Makassar and the Company up to and including the Bongaya Treaty serves as Andaya’s main example of systemic misunderstanding. It is central to his argument that the Makassarese were inexperienced in the Western mode of treaty making. Thus, he stresses that there is no evidence of any treaty making with the Portuguese, and that the treaties with the VOC of 1637, 1655, and 1660, represented the only three previous occasions in which the sultanate had entered into “a formal treaty arrangement with a European power prior to the one of 1667.”
The Company, says Andaya, “was not unaware of the existence of local treaty traditions in South Sulawesi as it “actually became party to such treaties.”
Looking at Andaya’s use of the 1655 treaty as an example of Company accommodation to local standards in more detail, one of the accommodations he sees is that although “the framework of the treaty is borrowed from the Western European practice of including each new subject in separate numbered articles, the contents read like a typical South Sulawesi treaty.”
In cases where the Company felt it held the upper hand, accommodation to local forms concerned the vassal–overlord relationship, in which the Company was recognised as ruler in the “traditional South Sulawesi treaty idiom.” Another example Andaya uses is the fact that the swearing of the treaty also took the traditional form by swearing on the Koran and drinking the ritual palm wine “all in the traditional fashion.”
After demonstrating how Arung Palakka perceived the Bongaya Treaty in terms of local conceptions and how he continued to act in accordance with these conceptions vis à vis the Company,
When the Company, acting on their own set of conceptions, failed to meet local expectations, the South Sulawese considered the treaty to have been broken: “But this expectation turned to bewilderment and anger when the Company failed to adhere to the proper code of behaviour expected of an overlord.”
The examples that Andaya uses to illustrate the Company’s failure to meet South Sulawesians’ expectations mainly concern Sulawesian fears of the Company’s infringements on local autonomy.
Andaya describes the Company’s approach to its Asian counterparts as based on three features: A principled lack of intention to understand the local treaty traditions; an all-embracing dominance of the “European” model in the Company’s treaties with states in South Sulawesi; and a lack of interest in accommodating local practices. “There is little indication that any effort was made to understand the whole intent of local treaties,” he writes. “Almost the entire corpus of the treaties between the Company and the South Sulawesi states was framed in the Western European tradition of treaty making, with little or no attempt to accommodate local practices.”
Andaya’s message is clear: Company servants suffered from a form of Eurocentric tunnel vision. They brought with them a Western model of “treaty” to Asia and made no adjustments when applying it in the Asian context. Given that the “European beliefs and concepts” brought overseas were in total opposition to local perceptions, the treaty making by necessity had to end in a clash of cultures. I shall end my exposition of Andaya’s viewpoints by demonstrating how conflicting conceptualisations of “treaty” lay at the heart of the Company’s recurring complaints about “breaches of contract” by its South Sulawesian opposites.
As we have seen, Andaya claims that the difference between the Company and its South Sulawesian counterparts’ conception of what a treaty was can be ascribed to the fact that the Company’s intention was to establish regulations on specific issues to which both parties agreed, whereas the South Sulawesian intention was to signal positions within a hierarchy of implicit, but still specific reciprocal obligations. A divergent view of what constituted a breach of contract was thus built in at the outset. For the Company, it followed that any failure by the treating parties to honour the explicit regulations agreed to in the treaty was considered a violation of its terms. From the South Sulawesian point of view, however, such explicit and specific regulations were peripheral to the intention of entering into a treaty at the outset, as the centrality of the agreement lay in its function as a regulator of a given state’s position and thereby implicit rights and obligations within a hierarchy of states. In South Sulawesi the state interaction system was set in a mental framework in which “the local states viewed the treaty not in its individual parts, but as a total document.”
To the local South Sulawesi treaties represented a mechanism for the distribution of political and spiritual “capital.” To the Company, these treaties were intended as a political means for acquiring profit: “The treaties between the Company and the native states were … always basically commercial with the foremost aim being the acquisition of trading advantages for the Company.”
In general, Andaya purports that the very idea of entering into treaty relationships for commercial purposes was not an integral part of the South Sulawesian perception of “treaty”: “Such a treaty whose central concern was trade was totally alien to the concept of treaties in South Sulawesi.”
Besides that, the wording of the Company’s treaty regulations was formulated so intricately that the local ruler was left with no other option but to protest against the most “outrageous” of them, while leaving the rest in the belief that “all things would find their proper place according to well-known traditional practices.”
Whatever the contextual reasons Andaya offers to explain the exceptions to the VOC’s mode of treaty making, in the main he offers a structural explanation for the typical meaning and mode of diplomatic practice by both the Company and the South Sulawesi polities. Because these meanings and modes sprang from incompatible conceptualisations, there was no real communication between the two. Such diplomatic interaction as occurred was based on mutual misunderstanding.
Andaya’s analysis is as I have pointed out, to a large degree built on Noorduyn, and assumptions supporting his propositions have been shared by more recent authors. Yet, at the end of this section I would like to draw attention to some interpretations that complement or modify Andaya’s view. Noorduyn for instance draws attention to what he calls “pragmatic opportunism” as a feature of the Bugis political system by the fact that people would back the person considered to manifest the greatest concentration of power as leader. This convention thus represented an additional source of flexibility to the enduring life of treaties to be brought back and forth according to the demands of situation and context.
Anthony Reid takes this a step further in pointing to the fact that despite the sacred and binding nature of oaths taken before the spirits of the ancestors, there are plenty of examples where these were broken,
There is little space left for dynamism in Andaya’s analysis. Both the Company and the South Sulawesian states acted on their cultural structures well up into the twentieth century. Diplomatic interaction between the two was consequently a continuous process of repeated misunderstandings and conflict.
The picture of seventeenth-century South Sulawesian diplomacy Andaya draws also rests on the basic assumption that even in communication with European outsiders the South Sulawesians applied their traditional logic and approach to state interactions. Likewise, regarding the Company, Andaya’s proposition is that it applied its heritage of European diplomatic means and modes without adjusting its expectations to the Asian context. I shall argue that Andaya’s static assumptions are historically wrong for both parties. Diplomatic interaction between Makassar and the Company represented a dynamic process. My counterproposition can be illustrated by comparing Andaya’s assumptions to those of G. J. Resink’s interpretations of seventeenth-century international law in the Indonesian archipelago and Makassar. I shall go through Resink’s points of view, and their implications for Andaya’s assumptions, mainly relying on Resink’s analysis in
In
I shall first treat Resink’s identifications of constitutive institutions in the Makassarese variant of international law and then look at the instances where he singles out particular traits or variances in the Makassarese system. Finally, I shall sum up the instances where he finds integration of Makassarese elements into the Company’s mode of diplomacy. My discussion follows a pattern where I first expose Resink’s positions and then contrast them to Andaya’s proposition with focus on the implications of Resink’s view for Andaya’s argument. Before I go on to the analysis, it should be mentioned that Resink’s argument rests on empirical research at the time of writing.
Whereas Andaya points to the difference in meaning and intent in concluding interstate treaties in Europe and South Sulawesi, Resink starts his argument by stating that there was a long-established tradition for concluding diplomatic treaties in South Sulawesi. Examples of such contracts, such as the
The same goes for the perception of boundaries and territories. Pointing to studies by Van Vollenhoven and Korn, Resink claims the existence of “fixed boundaries” for the Makassarese and Buginese principalities “with frontiers sedulously described and delineated ages ago.”
Resink finds a similar modern and secular trait in the Makassarese conceptualisation of international law in the field of maritime territorial rights. In the treaty of 1637 with the Company for instance, one finds “recognition of maritime authority in the customary sense of territorial waters.”
Given this background, Resink believes the conflict between Makassar and the Company in the seventeenth century can be seen as a struggle over this kind of maritime authority “in the broader sense.”
According to Andaya Makassar and the Company were pursuing quite different goals. While the company sought profit, Makassar was interested in prestige. The root of the conflict for Andaya lay in the Makassarese pursuit of the recognition of overlordship in areas where the Company had vested monopoly claims.
For Andaya, the conflict over the Moluccas between the Company and Makassar sprang from the fact that the one could not have its wishes fulfilled without trespassing on the interests of the other. But they did not have shared interests. The conflict originated in different motivations, namely Makassar’s quest for prestige and the Company’s for profit. What caused the clash was the fact that control over the Spice Islands served as means to both ends.
For Resink, the conflict between the Company and Makassar over the Moluccas was a conflict over shared interests, as the core of the conflict was that the Company’s monopoly claims ran counter to Makassar’s economic interests. Thus, when Makassar applied an open seas argument, it did so to protect its interests as a transit harbour, while the Company tried to protect its monopoly interests by outlawing the transit traffic from the Moluccas on Makassar. In other words, they were both trying to protect their respective commercial interests. The conflict lay in the Makassarese refusal to recognise or adhere to the Company’s monopoly claims: “What the Dutch looked upon as Makassarese smuggling … was perfectly legal trade in the Makassarese view. Hence the (Makassarese) struggle for the
The institution of diplomatic envoys, for one, was one of long standing in Indonesia,
Resink finds similarities between the
Whatever the particularities of the institutions of the
Referring to A. A. Cense, Resink states that “Makassarese and Buginese manuscripts time and again contain regulations defining the rights and duties of foreigners, and thus: “in Makassar there must have been a fairly well-defined status for aliens.”
As we have seen, Andaya pays no attention to specific regulations for outsiders in Makassar. His argument of incompatibility between the Makassarese and the Company’s modes of diplomacy rests on the assumption that the Makassarese applied the same diplomatic approach towards the Company that they would to a neighbouring South Sulawesi state. In other words, Andaya’s proposition of incompatibility and structural misunderstanding rests on the assumption that Makassar saw the coming of and contact with the Company as it was approached by a South Sulawesian
Furthermore, when Resink points to that the Makassarese system contained a separate category particularly designed for the “outsider,” it undermines the foundation of Andaya’s dichotomy between the Makassarese and Company’s system of interaction, because the very existence of such a category raises the possibility of a plurality of regulatory forms. More specifically, Andaya’s assumption that Makassar would simply apply endogenous traditions established to handle interstate affairs in South Sulawesi to its dealing with outsiders is not credible. There were alternative modes reserved precisely for such cases, and common sense suggests that Makassarese rulers would have found these far more attractive than treating the Company as a South Sulawesian “insider.”
The presence of outsiders in the Makassarese community further necessitated internationally organised administration of justice at the individual level.
Besides the identification of both similarities and differences of international law in Makassar and Europe, Resink also points to instances of Company adoption of local institutions and usages. One I have mentioned already, namely the appointing of a
As we have seen, Andaya emphasises that South Sulawesian treaties typically specified the nature of the relationship between the treating parties in the preamble. The fact that naming the type of relationship also made further explication of the reciprocal rights and obligations redundant further distinguished the South Sulawesian tradition from the European. Resink’s demonstration of the Company’s adoption of certain local treaty elements, however, weakens Andaya’s argument about the absolute dichotomy between the “Western and South Sulawesian treaties.” If elements from one tradition could be integrated into the other, there must have been some sort of compatibility. Such part-by-part adoption is blocked in Andaya’s structural assumptions.
It is important to note the contrast between Resink’s and Andaya’s views on the possibility of cultural exchange more generally, as they represent diametrically opposite approaches. By proposing an absolute antagonism between the South Sulawesian and Western European modes of conceptualisation, Andaya presupposes an insurmountable barrier to learning by exchange between the two modes. Resink’s proposition of compatibility opens the possibility that such cultural exchanges could in fact take place. To which degree the Company adopted local practices I shall not consider here, but I would argue for a broadening of Resink’s implicit proposition of cultural borrowing in a general direction, and propose that adaptation to Asian contexts was a hallmark of the Company’s diplomacy.
Resink sums up the aim of his article in the following manner: “that a knowledge of the history of non-European international law thus in this case the specific international law of Indonesia … can in its turn help to free our knowledge of the history of international law in general from its emphatically European stamp.”
Andaya is also anti-Eurocentric, but from diametrically different comparative assumptions. Resink identifies both similarities and differences between the systems and practices of international law in early modern Europe and Indonesia, and operates from assumptions of compatibility that allow for an analysis of mutual influence. The latter is barred in Andaya’s contrasting approach of structural incompatibility. Which point of view encourages the most fruitful interpretation of the nature of the Company’s diplomatic method, and which is the more fruitful in analysing the nature of Makassar-Company interaction? I shall restrict myself to summarising how my own propositions look if we take the contrast between Resink’s and Andaya’s positions as our point of departure.
First, the examples of similarity in Resink’s comparison weaken Andaya’s propositions of an absolute dichotomy between the Company’s and local perceptions of diplomatic interaction. Second, the particular institutions of international law that Resink identifies in the Makassarese system lessen the likelihood that it would have restricted itself to local endogenous models of interaction in its dealings with the Company. Third, the Company’s adoption of local elements of international law could probably be regarded as examples of a policy of Company accommodation rooted in a general pragmatic approach.
In the following, I build on all these propositions. There was some compatibility between the Makassarese and the Company’s perceptions of international law, and thus structural space for meaningful communication between them. Makassar was not confined to one single model as far as its dealings with the Company went. As a harbour state, the Makassarese had developed a system of international law that offered structural space and institutions in which the Company could be categorised as an “outsider” on par with other outsiders. But it was neither the first nor the most important one.
In this section I present two views on Makassarese dynamism, mainly represented by William Cummings and Anthony Reid. The former holds that there was dynamism in early modern Makassar, particularly embedded in the coming of writing, whereas the latter also subscribes to that there were dynamics and change, but primarily sees this in conjunction with expansion in trade and cultural contacts. More importantly the two differ in the contents and nature of the dynamics. Whereas as Cummings sees it as a change that gives a new forms and meanings to existing “traditional” structures, Reid interprets the changes he finds as parts of a process towards more “modern” structures. I shall clarify their respective positions, with a particular focus on Reid and the implications his positions on dynamics of modernity has for Andaya’s propositions.
Cummings is not alone in countering propositions of societies in the Eastern archipelago as “self-perpetuating systems.” Hans Hägerdal for one has argued change and dynamism in Timor, subscribing it to increased income from trade.
Cummings singles himself out in that he declares himself in opposition to the all-embracing and exclusive status he thinks Reid gives to commerce as the driving force of historical dynamics.
As one of the changes brought with the transition to literacy was an increased importance put on ancestors or the written past, with it came a new emphasis on genealogies.
On a more general level the changes that writing brought to Makassarese society were firstly, an enhanced authority to those who possessed written texts, be it genealogies or histories, and a change of view on past and present (by the enhanced weight put on genealogies for instance, and that the past came to be viewed as something that could be possessed (by manuscripts or objects). Put together these changes extended and refined the social hierarchy in a direction that later came to be viewed as “classical.”
Christian Pelras stresses as characteristic of the Bugis their ability in cultural borrowing of novelties from the outside, particularly brought about by external contact and trade which up to the 19th century “produced by a continuous process of change.”
Reid points to similar dynamic traits, although possibly more restricted to the ruling elite, but nonetheless depicted as a general trait in Makassar from the end of the sixteenth until the second half of the seventeenth centuries. As examples of innovations and changes in this dynamic period Reid mentions that in the wake of an incident with the Dutch in 1615 the then sultan Alauddin and his first minister Matoaya
With respect to the population growth in Makassar, the rise is estimated to be from only a few thousands in the 1590s to about 25,000 in 1615 and 100,000 at its peak 1640-1660, and is taken as an overall indication of the seventeenth century’s economic growth and dynamism.
As for Matoaya, ruler of Tello and chancellor of Goa 1593-1637, Noorduyn praises his sensible politics as for instance in his non- offensive, conciliatory policy towards Bone during the Islam-wars.
Indicative of Pattingalloang’s openness and intellectual curiosity is that he was exceptionally fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, and had a library of European books. He also showed an interest in applied mathematics.
After Pattingalloang’s death in 1654 and with the succession of Sultan Hasanuddin, according to Reid, there was a change of system of government. Goa and Tello were unable to agree who should be the Chancellor, Hasanuddin himself, or one of two of the sons of Pattingalloang, Karaeng Sumana or Karaeng Karunrung.
Besides the luck of quality in the two chancellors, Matoaya and his son Pattingalloang, Reid primarily points to the capacity to attract trade and traders; by providing security of life and property and by offering an open society as structural factors behind Makassarese dynamism.
There is no doubt that the Portuguese in Makassar were the main providers of arms and gunpowder and the main agents of diffusion of Western written books and on such various subjects as fort building, artillery, mathematics, astronomy, geography and cartography, some of which were translated into Makassar and Bugis.
After the shift to Islam there was toleration of Portuguese Christian worship, four new places,
Reid’s positions on Makassarese dynamism, is that it on the one hand formed part of a pattern of global integration where Southeast Asia as other cultures after 1500 came into continuous contact with each other “with an intensity not previously imagined.”
Reid clearly indicates that these innovations might be part of a greater shift in mentality, and then in the direction of “modernity” in a broad definition of the term which would include a direction towards a more pragmatic approach to myth and religion. Models taken over from the Dutch, under Pattinggaloang, in the writing of “state diaries”, which recorded state events, chronologically, with dates both in the Christian as well as the Islamic form, Reid takes as an example of this.
The picture that Reid paints of Makassarese dynamism stands in opposition to the tendencies towards a new and enhanced “traditionalism” portrayed by Cummings. One may thus wonder whether Knaap’s criticism that Reid is making it “too macro economically rational”
I shall not approach this issue on a general basis, but point by way of example that even if Cummings is right on the general level, Reid’s propositions about seventeenth-century Makassarese dynamism are primarily about members of the leadership in a restricted period of time. For all its merits or faults the argument is of vital importance in our context because these were the people that the Company was negotiating and concluding treaties and waging war and concluding peace with. It simply strongly implies that the Makassarese leadership had a certain grip on the motives and modes of operation of their Dutch adversaries.
In
The encounter between the Company and Makassar in 1637 that ended up with the first treaty between the two forms the topic of
In
In his defence of the soft approach, Maetsuyker systematically presents De Vlaming’s arguments point by point. Ironically, the discussion on the one hand gives us an insight into their disagreement on policy, but although the two men disagreed, they also shared some basic tenets, for example about the goals. The disagreement was over assumptions and means, and was based on diametrically different perceptions of Sultan Hasanuddin’s character and plans. Maetsuyker trusted that Hasanuddin had learnt his lesson and would not interfere in the Moluccas anymore, while De Vlaming, distrusting the Sultan, was convinced that he would.
Equally important, the very existence of this disagreement and discussion weakens propositions about the Company as a monolithic body. The fact is that the issue of whether to take a “soft” or a “hard” stand against Makassar was the subject of discussion in Batavia, and that the arguments from both sides were presented to the Heeren XVII, shows that the Company’s diplomacy was flexible and reactive rather than dogmatic. Moreover, both sides based their arguments on contextual considerations rather than fixed legal principles.
As for dynamics and trends in the High Government’s deliberations on Makassar, there is a decisive break after 1655 away from “soft diplomacy.” With the disillusionment after the conclusion of the 1655 treaty there came a growing belief that a lasting contractual order with Makassar could not be established unless it was preceded by a complete military victory. I elaborate on this shift in
In
Symptomatic of Batavia’s devaluation of its trust in the Makassarese after 1655 is that not only was the number of clauses of the 1660 treaty increased significantly, they were far more detailed and specific than they had been previously. This elaboration would reach its acme with the Bongaya Treaty. These traits, including an almost ritually repetitive insistence on the binding nature of the treaty, do not reflect a “legalist obsession” on the part of the Company; they were meant as safeguards against a breach of contract. The contents and form of the 1660 treaty thus reflect a move towards a more realistic and possibly cynical perception of treaty making compared to the High Government’s assumptions and beliefs in 1655.
The difference between the 1660 and 1667 contracts reflects the fact that the latter was drafted in the aftermath of a total military victory for the Company and its allies and the unconditional surrender of the Makassarese. The Bongaya Treaty was part of a treaty complex that included not only Makassar but the other states in South Sulawesi and the outer islands. Together this treaty complex made up a system whereby the Company was hegemon. The 1660 treaty on the other hand was a bilateral one that represented a “middle ground” as far as the Company’s political status was concerned.
Speelman’s reflections on how to maintain the hegemonic position created by the Bongaya treaty complex, as recorded in his
“Reconstruction” is the keyword here, because one of my basic points is that Speelman worked on a case-by-case basis and never presented a general model of overseas diplomacy. His “model of diplomacy” thus must be constructed from his specific advice.
It is also important to note that Speelman’s case-based approach was dependent on getting precise and accurate information about local affairs. The
Context also played a part in Speelman’s political perspective, though it seems to be subsidiary to agency.
The material I use for my reconstruction of the Company’s model of overseas diplomacy comprises documents that were produced at various levels of, and served separate functions in, the Company hierarchy. The reconstruction of diplomatic mode as initially devised by the Heeren XVII, the
As for the shift after 1655 from the optimistic view that the Makassarese could be trusted not to interfere in the Moluccas, to the more realistic view that the Makassarese would interfere if not deterred, analysed in
The nature and dynamics of the High Government’s treaty making with Makassar in the period 1637 to 1668 in
The sources on which I base my analysis range from the Directors’ orders sent from the Republic to the on-the-spot decisions and deliberations on policy in Batavia. The documents span from Instructions from the Heeren XVII to the Company’s authorities in Asia, to reports from Company servants in the charter area (
The sources I use have admittedly all been used before, but not for the same primary purposes, and neither have they been used in the way that I have. I do not intend to use my sources as building blocks in a general reconstruction of interaction. That has been done before. I treat and analyse my relevant documents to find indications about a mode of thinking about diplomatic practice in a cross-cultural setting. Therein lies the originality of this study. The method that follows from this approach is to read these documents closely to see what they may reveal about the Company’s diplomatic mind. There is nothing fancy about my method. It is simply based on close reading of meaning and intent in these official documents with the aim to establish characteristic traits and typical dynamics in the Company’s assumptions and thinking about its diplomatic practice towards Makassar in the seventeenth century. Using Company–Makassarese interaction as a
F. W. Stapel:
“voor hem, die den aard der Makassaren kende.” Ibid. 34.
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” and
Proefschrift, Universiteit te Leiden, ‘s Gravenhage, 1955.
Hägerdal, Hans, Lords of the land, lords of the sea: conflict and adaptation in early colonial Timor, 1600-1800 Leiden: KITLV Press, 2012, and: Cummings, W., Making Blood White: Historical Transformations in Early Modern Makassar. Honululu: University of Hawai’I Press, 2002, respectively.
Hägerdal 2012, 5, n. 7.
Hägerdal 2012, 171 n. 76.
Hägerdal 2012, 61 and 69-70.
Hägerdal, 2012, preface, xi.
Hägerdal 2012, 74.
de Roever, 2002, 20.
Cummings, 2002, 48-49.
Gerrit Knaap, Kruidnagelen en Christenen: De VOC en de bevolking van Ambon 1656-1696, tweede herziende druk Leiden: KITLV Uitgeverij, 2004, 90.
Knaap 2004, 91.
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 283.
Ibid. 283, emphasis added. See also Andaya,
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 283.
See section on “misunderstandings,” below.
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 278.
Ibid. 278-279, for the same views in a more recent work, see for instance: Cummings, 2002, 11, 41.
Ibid. 278.
Ibid. 279.
Ibid. 281.
Ibid. 279–80.
Ibid. 283–84.
See also “miscommunication”, below.
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 280.
Ibid. 280.
Ibid. 280.
Ibid. 280.
Ibid. 281.
Ibid. 278.
Ibid. 283–84.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 284. See also: Pelras, 1996, 206 and Cummings, 2002, 164.
Ibid. 285. For these concepts, see also Andaya,
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 284.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 284–85.
Ibid. 289 (referring to Stapel,
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 289.
Ibid. 286.
December 28, 1655 treaty with Makassar, see analysis in Chapters 4 and 5.
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 287.
Ibid. 287.
Ibid. 287.
Art. 8 is the final one of the treaty.
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 287.
Ibid. 287.
Ibid. 290.
Ibid. 291.
Ibid. 291.
Ibid. 291.
Ibid., 291
Ibid. 291
Ibid. 291, “customary law” and “autonomy.”
Ibid. 287-88.
Ibid. 288.
Ibid. 288
Ibid. 288
Ibid. 288.
Ibid. 288.
Ibid. 288.
Ibid. 288.
Ibid. 288.
Noorduyn, Jacobus, “The Wajorese merchants’ community in Makassar”, in: Roger Tol, Kees van Dijk and Greg Acciaioli (eds.),
Christian Pelras,
Anthony Reid, “The Rise of Makassar”, Review of Indonesian and Malaysian affairs, 17, 1983, 117-160 136.
Reid, in Tol et al. eds., 2000, 64.
Reid in Tol et al. eds., 2000, 66, 70.
First published as “Volkenrecht in vroeger Makassar”,
In particular A. A. Cense, “Enige aantekeningen over Makassars-Boeginese geschiedschrijving,”
Resink,
Ibid. 43, referring to Vollenhoven and Korn.
Ibid. 45. For an analysis of the making of the treaty and its contents, see
Ibid. referring to Vollenhoven.
See
Resink,
Ibid. 45.
Ibid. 45.
Andaya,
Reid for one, shares the impression of Makassar as a champion of an
Andaya, The Heritage of Arung Palakka, 46.
Resink,
Compare “This essentially economic struggle,” ibid. 45.
Ibid. 48.
This is institution is also treated by Cummings, who traces it back to the 1539s, and notes that the institution was never occupied by high ranking nobles, indicating that it did not have particularly high prestige. See Cummings 2002, 29 and 111 respectively.
Ibid. 48–50.
Ibid. 51.
Ibid. 50. Referring to Pieter van Dam’s use of the term.
Ibid. 47.
Ibid. 47.
Ibid. 47.
Ibid. 51.
Ibid. 52.
Referring to Cense, “Enige aantekeningen,” and using the Bongaya Treaty as a prime example.” Ibid. 42.
Ibid. 42–43.
Ibid. 42.
Ibid. 42–43.
Resink,
Hägerdal 2012, 55.
Knaap 2004, 12-13.
Cummings, 2002, 127.
Cummings, 2002, 12.
Cummings, 2002, 169, 170, 172.
Cummings, 2002, 177.
Cummings, 2002, 195.
Cummings, 2002, 104.
Cummings, 2002 106.
Cummings, 2002, 126.
Cummings, 2002, 11.
Pelras, 1996, 149.
Pelras, 1996, 150.
See:
Reid, Anthony, “A great seventeenth century Indonesian family: Matoaya and Pattingalloang of Makassar”, Masyarakat Indonesia, 8/1, 1-28, 1981, 11.
Reid, 1981, 12.
Reid in Tol et al., eds., 2000, 60.
Reid, 1981, 13.
Reid inTol et al., eds., 2000, 58.
See: Reid, Anthony, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680, vol. 2: Expansion and Crisis, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.
Reid in Tol et al., eds., 2000, 58.
Noorduyn, 1955, 98.
Pelras, 1996, 135.
Reid, 1981, 3.
Reid, 1981, 20-21.
Reid, 1981, 22. I should also make a reference to Tristan Mostert’s contribution: “Ik vertrauwe dat de wereldtbhem naar dien twee polen keert” in Lodewijk Wagenaar (ed):
Reid in Tol et al., eds., 2000, 60. “a man of great knowledge, science and understanding.”
Reid in Tol et al., eds., 2000, 70-71.
Reid, 1981, 26.
Reid in Tol et al., eds., 2000, 70.
Reid in Tol et al., eds., 2000, 61.
Reid in Tol et al., eds., 2000, 64.
Pelras, 1996, 141.
Reid, 1983, 139.
Reid, 1981, 18, and Reid in Tol et al eds., 2000, 60.
Reid, 1981 18.
Reid in Tol et al., eds., 2000, 58.
Reid: “Early Modernity as Cosmopolis: Some Suggestions from Southeast Asia”, in Sven Trakulhum and Ralph Weber (eds.),
Reid, 2015, 135.
Reid, 2015, 136.
Reid in Tol et al., eds., 2000, 59.
Reid in Tol et al., eds., 2000, 61.
Knaap. Gerrit: “Kora-kora en kruitdamp – De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in oorlog en vrede in Ambon”, in Knaap, Gerrit, and Teitler (eds.)
December 24, 1655, in W. Ph. Coolhaas,
Cornelis Speelman: Notitie dienende voor eenen corten tijt en tot nader last van de Hooge Regeeringe op Batavia, tot naarrigtinge van de Onderkoopman Jan van den Oppijnen, bij provisie gesteldt tot Opperhooft en Commandant in ‘t Casteel Rotterdam, op Maccasser, en van den Capitain Jan Fransz; als hoofd over de Militie, mitsgaders die van den Raadt, anno 1669. VOC 1276 OB,
“Instructie voor Pieter Both, Gouverneur Generaal en die van den Raad van Indiën,” November 14, 1609;
“Ordonnancie en Instructie voor den Gouverneur Generaal en den Raden van India,” August 22, 1617; “Punten en artikelen, in Forma van Instructie, voor Hendrik Brouwer, Gouverneur en Generaal en de Raden van Indië,” March 17, 1632; and “Punten en artikelen in form van Generale Instructie voor den Gouverneur Generaal en de bijvoegde Raden,” April 26, 1650, all in Pieter Mijer,
“Verhaell vant gene d’Heer Generaall van Diemmen wedervaren is zyjne Amboijnesche voijage int weder keeren voor Macassar,” June 22–26, 1637, in
“Treaty of peace between the king of Makassar and the noble Gentleman General Governor Antonio van Diemen, June 26, 1637.”
December 24, 1655,
During the Company’s existence, five sets of General Instructions were sent from the Heeren XVII in the Republic to the High Government in the charter area, namely the
All these instructions were primarily concerned with the conduct of trade, but the Company’s trade was always intertwined with politico- diplomatic implications. Advice on how to act towards local rulers in the charter area was thus also offered in the instructions. The General Instructions may therefore serve as a source of the Directors’ ideas about the politico-diplomatic dimension of trade. My aim in this chapter is to reconstruct how the Directors’ thinking on overseas diplomacy was reflected in their explicit advice and implicit assumptions in their comments on how the High Government should act when dealing with respective rulers and states in Asia. As for the Directors’ comments on Makassar in their particular letters, I have primarily checked these to see to what degree they conform to the thinking in the general instructions.
Already in 1965, Charles Boxer noted of the 1650 Instructions that in the areas where the Company held no territorial rights or privileges by exclusive treaty, which comprised by far the largest part of its area of operation, the Company was instructed to proceed in a conciliatory and accommodating manner.
I argue that the Directors accorded a restricted and specific role of not only international law but also European legal concepts in their thinking and advice on overseas diplomacy. Legal theory was reserved as rules of conduct or legitimising devices in two specific areas: Relations with other Europeans, and legitimation of the Company’s position as a territorial sovereign and exclusive privileged party. Elsewhere, one had to improvise without being legally compromised. The General Instructions consistently advocate a flexible and accommodating approach to overseas diplomacy based on an assumption that we now would label “cultural relativism.”
Pragmatism goes together with dynamics. The Directors’ “model” of overseas diplomacy became increasingly insistent on the need for an open, flexible approach. Conversely, the stress on the need to adhere to principles of international law became more and more restricted. This tendency seems to have been proportional to the expansion of the Company’s area of operations, and thus invites the proposition that even in the Netherlands, views of overseas diplomacy reflected a learning process in which experience rather than legal theory explained the dynamics.
Before I go on to present the structure of my argument, I would like to comment on two points of criticism that were raised during my promotion.
In conjunction with my defense it was argued that the VOC acted as a
The validity of the proposition in which I underplayed the role of international law in the Company’s dealings with its local Asian partners all depends on what is meant by the concept “international law”. If by it we understand a system of bi- or multinational agreements or treaties between two parties of a state nature, the VOC’s trade in Asia was certainly based on it, and on no point has my intention been to reject such a proposition.
The proposition I reject is a proposition of the
Another point of criticism that was raised was that I underrated the influence of Islam in the political thinking of the Makassarese elite. The numerous appeals made to Islam by the Makassarese in the negotiations with the Company and the references to Islam in the contracts to support claims by the former could point to this. However, religion and politics were difficult to disentangle in seventeenth century maritime Islam.
My analysis is split in two main parts. In the first part of the chapter I give an overview of context, general concerns, and the relative position of diplomacy in each of the General Instructions. In the second part, I conduct a more detailed textual analysis of the advice on overseas diplomacy in the 1650 Instructions, which ends up by pointing to continuities and changes as compared to prior ones. I have also added a brief section on the Directors’ comments on relations with Makassar in their particular letters to the High Government. I conclude by summarising the nature and dynamics in the Directors’ advice on diplomacy, ending up in a clarification of to what extent and under which conditions we may legitimately speak of a “diplomatic model” in the General Instructions.
Finally, I discuss whether it is possible to reconstruct an “ideological superstructure” by which the Company’s commercial activity was legitimised by the non-commercial values of the Directors. Affirming this, I give some tentative characteristics of the nature of this ideological superstructure and its implications for the conduct of diplomacy.
As for my selection of examples of diplomatic interaction in the General Instructions, the Banda Islands and Ambon, as conquered Company possessions, fall outside diplomacy proper. The diplomatic interaction with other European parties could be viewed as “inter- European practice and parlour” brought overseas, and thus also falls outside the bounds “cross-cultural diplomacy” proper. I shall, therefore only briefly account for the advice given with respect to the Moluccas and relations with European enemies and rivals, and concentrate the analysis on the Directors’ advice concerning the interaction with independent Asian rulers. Regarding the comments and advice on Makassar in the particular patriase letters, I have placed these at the end of the chapter.
As for method, particularly in the textual analysis of the Instructions, I mainly apply close reading: What was the Directors’ meaning and intention in saying what they did - or did not say - regarding diplomatic interaction with Asian princes and rulers? From what assumptions about overseas diplomacy did these utterances spring?
The General Instructions of 1609 were written the same year that Habsburg Spain and the Dutch Republic signed the Twelve Years’ Truce. The final agreement on the Dutch trade in Asia in the Twelve Years’ Truce was that the Dutch were allowed to trade anywhere outside the domains of the united Spanish-Portuguese crown. In the Dutch Republic, however, there was little faith that the Spanish would honour this agreement. Besides, the agreement was not to become known in the charter area until one year after its original signing. In short, the 1609 General Instructions, although written at the outset of an armistice, were conceived with an eye to a condition of war with the Iberian powers.
Seen in terms of the Company’s internal development, the historical importance of the 1609
The General Instructions of 1609 comprised forty-two articles in all. Articles 1 through 7 laid down the institutional structure and procedures for the administration of the Company in Asia. Articles 8–10 come the closest to offering general advice on diplomacy, covering both relations with local kings and princes as well as with the Portuguese. Article 8 introduces a section of advice on various specific issues; whereas article 9 deals with measures to be taken in Banten, then the centre of the VOC’s activities in Asia. Tellingly the emphasis is on information gathering, repeated in article 10 which calls for the pursuit of information on local affairs in general and the situation of the Portuguese in particular.
Although the successive General Instructions after 1609 were to become increasingly encompassing and more structured, a general pattern of organisation is visible already in those of 1609, namely in the general division between matters of internal administration and order, and particular advice on respective places of operation. The section on particular places of trade always remained the largest, and although we find articles that include comments on overseas diplomacy in general, most of the advice on diplomacy is found in the respective sections on particular places of trade.
Recommendations for dealing with the Portuguese are a recurrent subject. In the 1609 Instructions the subject is treated in separate articles,
the Directors also give clear note, that as for actual performance in diplomacy with local kings and princes, as in the case of trade, it must be up to the High Government to take the final decision. Thus reads, for instance, the message in article 8, which makes the topical bridge between the section on the administration of the Company’s headquarters and the section on particular places of operation: “Regarding how you choose to handle other matters (i.e. other than internal administration) government, trade, and alliances with the Kings and Potentates in Asia, we cannot give you any standing instructions, but only advise, instruct, and partly command as follows.”
When the Directors proclaimed not to be in the position to offer specific advice on how to behave towards independent Asian rulers it was most likely because of a felt lack of information. Pointing in that direction is that they consistently stressed the need to gather information about local rulers and their external relations, particularly with the Portuguese.
Much of what applied to the 1609 instructions applied to the 1613 instructions, too. In the negotiations which ended in the twelve years armistice between the Republic and the Iberian powers the Directors had both been pressing for the conclusion of as many treaties of alliance with Asian princes as possible, as well as plans for a consolidation of the Company’s structure in the Charter area.
The 1613 Instructions comprise thirty-six numbered articles,
The first article lays down the rules for the constitution of the Council of the Indies (note: 545),
After having thus delimited various aspects of the Company’s internal organisation in Asia in the first seven articles, article 8 demonstrates the great space of authority placed in the hands of the governor-general and Council by the Directors, in that as for the issues to be treated in the rest of the Instructions, be they about other items of internal government, trade and diplomatic relations with kings or potentates in Asia, the Directors did not consider themselves in a state to give general orders, but would offer advice in the specific,
The conduct of commerce and diplomatic dealings with Asian princes in general is mentioned in article 8 (546), as topics on which, as we saw above, the Directors considered themselves not to be able to offer general advice. Still, in article 10, diplomacy with the Asian rulers with whom the Company did trade is presented as a topic on its own, although not entirely, as the Asian princes’ relations with the Portuguese and thus the Company-Portuguese is the dominant topic. I shall treat both these aspects of instructions on the Company’s diplomacy in more detail below.
To continue listing the content of the articles, article 11 covers the internal, administrative structure in a narrower perspective as it deals with the issue of where the Council should make its headquarters,
In article 17 the Directors ask to be informed about the state of the Company’s ships and the eventual need for more ships in Asia, which is followed up by repeating the ban on private trade and sanctions for those breaking it in article 18.
Article 21 will be analysed in more detail below as it exclusively and explicitly gives advice on how the Company should act towards Asian princes and thus on the mode of the Company’s overseas diplomacy. The same goes for article 22 as it, in addition to dealing with the relations with Banten and complaints about the high tariffs demanded by the rulers of the Sultanate, also expresses concerns about what this harassment might do to the prestige and standing of the Company and thus indirectly comments on overseas diplomacy.
Advice on the diplomatic approach with respect to specific places and in conjunction with the approach of trade is also given in article 23, whereas the treatment of trade with China, in article 24, is solely focused on the possibilities of trade and trade relations.
Article 25 is another article that concerns a purely practical topic, namely an instruction to unload and fit out for return the ships coming in from Patria as quickly as possible because of the wear and tear on both ships and equipment when in Asian waters.
Articles 27 and 28 establish the unrestricted authority of the governor-general and Council,
Article 33 concerns an incident of the murder of a Company servant in Surat and how the Company should respond, but as this topic leads to reflections that carry advice on the mode of diplomacy, I shall analyse this aspect and article 33 in conjunction with the other articles which do the same.
In articles nos 34 and 35, the focus is again on internal issues as these articles provide instructions on the succession procedure in case of the death of the Governor-General Reynst, and practicalities concerning provisions for former members of the Council.
From the overview of topics given in the above paragraph, it could be said that as for relative volume, diplomacy plays a secondary role compared to the matters concerning the running and consolidation of the Company’s presence in the archipelago. But still there are some features in the treatment of diplomacy in the 1613 Instructions well worth commenting upon.
In chronological order, diplomacy, whether it is with Asian princes or the Portuguese or the two viewed together, appears in the 1613 Instructions in articles 8, 10, 21, 22, 23, 26 and 33. I shall first treat them in chronological order, and then see whether some general traits can be drawn from the particular advice given. Still, to begin with, I would like to point out that the bundle of advice on diplomacy that we
The first time the topic of diplomatic dealings with Asian princes in the general is mentioned is in article 8, but there is little else to remark on it than that it juxtapositions trade and diplomacy.
Article 10 on the other hand is more specific in that it requires the obtaining of precise information about the standing and attitude towards the Company of all the princes and peoples that the Company had dealings with in all quarters of the Company’s area of operation.
In this connection, international law is brought into the picture in that one is asked to find out who were friends and who were enemies of the Portuguese, and in particular to clarify the legal standing of the Portuguese in relation to their Asian friends.
Overseas diplomacy is the implicit topic of article 10, in the request to gather information about the attitude of local princes towards the Company and the Portuguese, but it must be added that possibly the issue is understood primarily in conjunction with the Company’s relationship with the Portuguese. One trait is worth noticing regarding the relative weight put on the legal side of the matter. I am inclined to argue that getting to know what the legal standing of the Portuguese was with Asian princes, must be interpreted as a survey of the possibilities for the Company to make their own alliances and block the Portuguese. Anyway, in the next article where diplomacy is treated, article 21, international law is given a more universal quality.
Article 21 starts by emphasising the importance of maintaining steady correspondence with Asian princes as a necessary support for keeping up and expanding trade.
As mentioned above, article 22 deals at the outset with complaints about the ruler of Banten imposing new and too high tariffs and tolls on the Company. But concerns are voiced in conjunction with these complaints about the negative effects of these actions. They might lead to a loss of the Company’s prestige with other rulers. The Bantenese action was thus not only insulting but could result in serious loss for the Company.
Article 23 says nothing about the conduct of diplomacy, but encourages keeping or establishing friendly relations with, engaging in trade with, and establishing factories in Johor, Patani, and other places. The instruction is formulated generally to “maintain and establish new alliances of friendship and trade and establish factories wherever possible,
The subject of article 26 is the relations with the Iberian powers and thus strictly speaking it falls outside of my field, as it does not say anything about Asian rulers. Suffice it therefore to say that here the Directors warn that Portugal and Spain certainly will try to harass the Company, which on its side should seek to deter the Iberians in every possible way. However, if the Portuguese and Spaniards should forget and [breach treaties?] then reparations must be sought.
Article 33 represents an example where the article starts by commenting on a concrete-specific case and then evolves into more general advice, in this case on diplomacy. This issue at the outset is retaliation against Surat because of an incident including the murder of a Company servant there. The instruction is to retaliate by any means possible.
To my mind, the latter modification sums up the essence of the advice on diplomacy in the 1613 Instructions. The Company should approach Asian rulers with the aim to increase its influence and trade, and should do so by relying on treaties according to international law. But this may also turn to violence, as seen in the instructions with respect to the Iberian powers as well as in the instruction on retaliation against Surat. Still, above all, as is implicit in the emphasis put on acquiring information on local affairs and political relations, and as explicitly stated as concerns in article 22 on Banten and no 33 on Surat, the primary function of diplomacy remained to establish friendly relations and possibly alliances to facilitate the conduct of trade. Knowledge of local affairs and knowledge of how not to provoke, which was the same as to say knowledge of local manners, were essential constituents in this part of the package.
Mijer characterises the 1617 Instructions as more encompassing, more determined in tone, and more structured in the ordering of issues than the preceding ones.
Besides the obligatory section on particular places of operations, the 1617 Instructions covered a number of topics such as administration of internal justice, the promotion of the Christian creed, conditions for allowing private trade, as well as the promotion of settler-colonisation by free burghers.
The 1617 Instructions comprised eighty articles, almost double those of the 1609 Instructions, and well over double of the Instructions of 1613. The subjects can be grouped into issues in the following order: Articles 1 through 6 covered the administrative structure of the factory in Banten, including the order of succession in case of the death of the governor- general, the enlargement of the Council of the Indies from five to nine members,
Articles 35–44 covered miscellaneous topics such as how to handle third-party intrusion into the Company’s monopoly possessions,
The next seventeen articles all concern regulations on private trade.
Although we may agree with Mijer that there is a more defined structure in the 1617 Instructions than there is in those of 1609 and 1613, we should at the same time notice that diplomacy is not accorded a section of its own in the 1617 Instructions, either. It is treated in conjunction with respective relevant cases. These comments demonstrate a defined contrast. Advice on performance towards independent Asian princes recommends accommodation. Recommendations on how to approach the Iberian powers, which occur mostly in conjunction with the advice on the Moluccas, are bellicose, completely unlike the approach to the former. This pattern we have already seen in embryo in the 1609 Instructions and fully articulated in the Instructions of 1613, and it is repeated in those of 1632 and 1650.
Of special interest in our context is that the Instructions for Governor- General Hendrik Brouwer and the Council of the Indies dated March 17, 1632, were the first after the Company had established Batavia as its Asian headquarters. It is thus not surprising that almost half of the ninety-six articles are dedicated to the administrative and judicial running of the Company’s headquarters in the charter area. The 1620s had witnessed a phase of geographical expansion of Company-trade, which is reflected in the more extensive advice on conduct in particular places of trade in the 1632 Instructions. Growing self-confidence given the successful repulsion of the attacks on Batavia in 1628 and 1629 must also be taken into account regarding the background of the 1632 Instructions. Fear of rising defence costs is a prominent topic in the 1632 Instructions,
The 1632 Instructions have an even more defined structure than the preceding one. They can be split in three main parts. The first thirty-nine articles all concern the running of Batavia as a colonial institution, with articles 1-3 covering the administration of justice and the rest are devoted to various practical matters related to the daily running of Batavia. The next forty-six articles
Articles 63 to 80 are all dedicated to the Moluccas
There follow five articles that cover “miscellaneous” issues as the inspection of the factories outside Batavia,
Diplomacy is not accorded a subsection in its own right in the 1632 Instructions. There is, for instance, no general formulation on “foreign policy” stating that international law is the foundation for overseas diplomacy equivalent to the statement in article 1, which declares “the laws and practices in the United Provinces” to be the basis of the judicial regime in Batavia.
The 1632 Instructions, the sheer volume of advice on places of commercial operations in the second section taken into account, contains broader and richer material regarding explicit and implicit advice on diplomatic conduct than the predecessors. I shall give some examples on the treatment of diplomacy to illustrate the complexity of the overseas diplomatic challenges, and the Directors’ empirical and pragmatic approach to how to handle the Company’s diplomatic challenges.
The section on the conduct of trade covers the Company’s commercial operations from Persia to Japan. The articles concerning trade in Persia instruct how to deter the recurrence of English influence
The Moluccas fell under the category in which third-party influence had to be countered given the Company’s sovereignty and monopoly rights on Ambon and the Banda islands. As we have seen, this meant military concerns of territorial defence and the ability to protect the Company’s monopoly rights by force. But it also meant keeping a sharp eye on the other island polities in the Eastern Archipelago, and if possible trying to make alliances with them. Ternate was the obvious ally in the Eastern Archipelago in blocking Makassarese influence and actions in the archipelago. The 1632 Instructions offered a lengthy passage on how to sustain the alliance with Ternate. Article 64, on relations with the king of Ternate, reads:
Despite the fact we consider all this behaviour feigned, and try to keep him estranged from the Spanish, and support him with courteous compliments, under no circumstance must we, except for reasons of utmost importance, fall into conflict with him, which would jeopardise the cause of the Company and only serve the interests of the enemy.
Therefore, one must post rational, reasonable, and wise men there who would know how to defend the interest of the Company with competence … because if we from our side act properly, we may to expect them to act in an obliging manner.
If the stakes were higher in the Moluccas, the instructions on Ternate were in line with the advice on trade on Persia and China above. The latter two reflected a context where European rivalry meant a kind of “diplomatic competition” for local goodwill. That logic required men of tact and competence to handle relations with local power-holders more than intimate acquaintance with international law. This approach can be found as an assumption in all the
A tripartite order of the Company’s diplomatic position and subsequent approach was formalised in the 1650 Instructions. The three categories were areas where the Company held sovereignty rights, areas where it held exclusive contracts, and areas where it had to trade on equal terms with other parties.
The 1650 Instructions can be regarded as the richest source of information about the Heeren XVII’s model of overseas diplomacy of all the General Instructions, not only for its explication of the Company’s overseas diplomatic system, but for its sheer length—164 articles in all, covering places of operation across the whole charter area. Still the 1650 Instructions conform with their predecessors in that no one section or group of articles deals strictly with how to conduct bilateral diplomacy. Except for the article on the tripartite system, the advice on diplomatic mode was given in conjunction with specific cases. Not only did this case approach still apply, but as Mijer stresses, one of the peculiarities of the 1650 Instructions was its enhanced casuistic nature, which went both for approach and style.
Its comprehensive and practical nature helps explain why the 1650 Instructions was the last body of General Instructions for the Company. As late as 1746, they were still acknowledged as the basis for the Company’s operations in the charter area.
The years between 1632 and 1650 were the “dramatic period” of Van Diemen’s governor-generalship,
As the 1650 General Instructions offer the richest material for a reconstruction of a Patriase model of diplomacy of the four extant Instructions, I shall analyse them in detail to demonstrate that, while the Directors’ approach towards diplomatic performance should be viewed as pragmatic at the outset, this pragmatism became ultimately more embedded and increasingly explicit in the 1650 Instructions.
I start by giving an overview of the relative position of international law, and the advice on the relative position on the use of force versus accommodations and negotiations regarding the three categories of the 1650 Instructions. Here I draw particular attention to the emphasis that the Directors put on acquiring information about local conditions and affairs. After reviewing the “diplomatic model” of the 1650 Instructions, I return to its predecessors with an eye to demonstrating the extent to which the pragmatic model of diplomacy was developed or foreshadowed in these. I conclude by discussing whether, and on which grounds, it is fair to speak of a non-commercial ideological dimension in the Directors’ General Instructions that may have implications for the interpretation of its approach to and conceptualisation of overseas diplomacy.
As in all the General Instructions, the Company’s possessions in the Moluccas, namely the areas that had been won by the sword and areas where the Company held contracts of exclusive privilege (covered in categories 1 and 2 of the 1650 division) were also to be defended by the sword.
To understand the meaning of “treaty” in the nexus between the VOC and independent Asian states, one must first repeat the obvious: These contracts were vehicles for profitable trade. Where political matters were regulated, they were regulated with the intention of facilitating trade. It therefore seems more relevant to analyse these treaties as commercial contracts in which legal and political issues were addressed pragmatically as a means to secure profit rather than principally to secure an international order in its own right. At best, international law was a means to legitimise a political trading regime. But it did not form it. This is not to say that “law” had nothing to do with it, but in the process of the actual treaty making, it was secondary. The Directors’ primary concern regarding the High Government’s performance was that the latter negotiate the most profitable treaty possible. Their basic concern about the treating parties was that they honour their contractual obligations. This latter concern really amounted to a feeble hope that they could be trusted to do so. The difficulty of establishing contractual arrangements in Persia, for instance, was attributed to an inherent lack of trustworthiness on the part of the Persian people. Contracts with the Persians had “always been renewed under the most difficult and arduous conditions, due to the devious, proud nature of that people.”
By implication: To get a bilateral treaty with local rulers—and not least to convince them to stick to it—took both knowledge and skills. This is a point that is stressed repeatedly in the Instructions’ advice on particular places of trade, far more often than specific comments on legal aspects per se. For one simple reason, I propose, the legal dimension lay in the right
The heterogeneity of the overseas context in category 3, which comprised polities of such different size and power as Tokugawa Japan, China, the Mughal, and Safavid Empires, on one hand, and lesser states and port polities in southern Indian and the Indonesian archipelago on the other, meant that the diplomatic mode had to be adjusted to a variety of local conditions and circumstances. This in turn begged for an awareness and appreciation of the particularity of context and local conditions and modes. In other words, diplomatic interaction in category 3 posed a challenge that by its very composite nature opposed a generalised “Eurocentric mode of thinking,” if the Company should reach its goals. Here, the Company’s submissive approach to defend their position in Japan is often pointed to.
The particular advice on the conduct of trade in Persia in the 1650 Instructions illustrates both the point of a case approach, and the way specific advice on a case could slide into more general ideas on transcultural diplomacy. Here the Directors’ shifted their focus from particular advice to advocating a pragmatic, even cultural relativistic approach as a first principle of overseas diplomacy. They emphasise that the High Government must not try to enforce European standards in places where they “find the law and do not bring it.” The only permissible principle is to adhere closely to local norms and rules: “The abovementioned trade cannot be pursued by applying our own standards or by use of force, as we (in these places)
The recommended cultural relativism argued above was at the outset conditioned by the relative imbalance of strength in favour of the Safavid Empire. So, even though it could be argued that the above examples do not explicitly point to “cultural relativism” (an anachronistic term, in any case) as a general principle in the Directors’ thinking, what stands out as the general rule is that the Company was instructed to assess local norms and follow them as far as need be. Different terms, same substance. The practical consequence of this pragmatic advice was cultural accommodation.
Article 53 of the 1650 Instructions underlines the accommodating approach to be applied, taking particularly the pride of the people in the overseas areas into consideration. The article starts with a reminder of how misconduct has previously damaged the interests of the Company:
The differences regarding the relative value accorded to prestige by the Dutch and the Asian peoples must be taken into account in all the Company’s dealings in the East … the debauches of many Company servants in many quarters of India has caused setbacks in their daily dealings, whereby it is important to take into consideration that Asian peoples are very sensitive as to respect, and therefore harbour little affection for the Dutch nation.
Put between the advice particular to Malacca and Sumatra, the generality of the message is all the same clear: Lack of appreciation of local ways and sensitivities was counterproductive to the goals of the Company. The way to further these goals was accommodation to local standards. The message was repeated in conjunction with the advice on Tonkin. “Take care not to cause the slightest offence to the king or his nobles”
Tonkin was of a strategic commercial importance in that it delivered silk that could be traded for silver in Japan. Its relation to the Company represented a typical category 3 constellation in that the Dutch could have no realistic hope of forcing their own conditions of trade upon the local rulers. The instructions on the Tonkin trade represent yet another example where the Directors go on to enunciate a principle of cultural relativism as the basis of Company diplomacy in places where it could not itself make the rules: “There is no alternative but to play the game according to local rules, especially in places where we are in no position to change things, but must conduct our trade on the basis of local laws.”
The Directors’ reasoning regarding interaction with cases in category 3 was then that in some, if not most, of those places, “rules were different.” As the Company was neither in a position, nor had the legitimate grounds, to change the rules, it must and should play by the local ones. But to do that, one needed Company servants who were culturally observant and knew how to “play the game” by the local rules.
General human qualities such as the ability to observe and accommodate local norms were the qualities that counted in the kind of personnel the Directors wanted to be appointed to positions in the places where the Company could dictate neither the law nor customs. “Do primarily base your conduct on modesty, humbleness, politeness, and amity; always acknowledging your inferior position,” ran the advice to the governor in Deshima in the 1650 Instructions.
Admittedly, Ambon was not an independent state, but the qualities and mode of performance sought for in prospective governors fit perfectly well with the recommendations for personal qualities and mode of performance in diplomatic interaction with independent states offered in the 1650 Instructions. The advice essentially came down to this: do not stir feelings of discontent or disrespect, accommodate to local standards, and be pragmatic so long as it serves the interest of the Company. This “principled pragmatism” also stands out as a defining trait in the Directors’ advice on the respective means of diplomacy at hand in dealing with the Asian rulers in category 3 of the 1650 Instructions.
Gift exchange and diplomatic missions were constituent elements in the diplomatic interaction in early modern Southeast Asia as it was in Europe.
Article 10 of the 1609 Instructions illustrates how pragmatism was built into the Directors’ perception of overseas diplomacy from the start. The article states that the Company must gather information on Asian princes and their ways of trade and on the standing of the Portuguese; but it also puts emphasis on the need to gather information about the political situation in different ports of call. The article opens with an order to “accurately inform the Directors of the circumstances, the feelings, and approach of “each and every single one” of the kings, nations and peoples over the whole of Asia where the Company conducts or is licensed to conduct trade.”
The pursuit of information must be understood as being sought after because it was instrumental to trade, but the desired knowledge was not restricted to matters of commerce alone. Included was information about the diplomatic relations between local rulers, as well as their relations with other Europeans. The governor-general and Council were instructed to take note of Asian princes’ relations with the Portuguese and others: Who were their enemies? Who were their friends? And what were the legal foundations and considerations of their relationships? The quest for this kind of information was obviously motivated by the Company’s struggle to wrest control of the trade dominated by the Portuguese. Still, in the overseas context, this struggle was a triangular affair with the commercial prospects and political stand of Asian trading states as one of the dimensions. To get a better idea of the Asian dimension, the Directors asked for information not only of the current state of politico-diplomatic stands of the Asian princes, but also about their political and economic power and diplomatic performance towards the Portuguese and the Dutch in the past. The article goes on to specify the kind of information one should look for. Information about Asian polities was thus not restricted to trade relations, it was meant to serve the purpose of establishing and easing the Company’s diplomatic relations with them:
“One therefore must seek information about domestic politics: such as “specifically by whom and in what manner all the respective states were governed in all matters, (and) by which means to communicate and establish relations with them, and consistently increase the Company’s pool of knowledge.”
What is being demonstrated here is that already in the first of the General Instructions, the Directors regarded information on local conditions of power, politics, and policy as the foundation for the Company’s success when interacting with independent Asian rulers. Although the implications for diplomatic practice could have been more explicit, the message is nonetheless clear: The Directors were not ethnographers, they were men of business, and the information they sought served the purpose of establishing and preserving profitable trade relations. No sane person with that intention would go about it by breaking local customs and rules or challenging the local rulers and authorities. The pragmatic approach and accommodating mode outlined in the 1650 Instructions is implicitly preconceived in the emphasis laid on the importance of gathering information about Asian rulers, their politics, and their policies in the 1609 Instructions.
Squeezed between an article on the general conduct of trade and particular advice on the trade in the Moluccas,
The 1609 Instructions state that law was the foundation upon which to build the Company’s interaction with Asian rulers. Having considered who to fight and who to make friends with “on the basis of law” (
International law primarily came into the picture as a basis for the appeal to get it, and the defence of it in the case of third party intrusion. Still bilateral negotiations centred on the treaty were thus the crux of the Company’s overseas diplomacy. This explains the emphasis on information about local context and conditions. Assessing the prospects for securing a treaty and the right performance in getting it were dependent on accurate assessments of local conditions. Implicitly contextual awareness and cultural sensitivity were vital to successful diplomatic performance. This is the same kind of configuration between information-gathering and pragmatic diplomatic performance and treaty making that we find fully elaborated in the 1650 Instructions.
This “pragmatic package” can also be found in the 1613, 1617 and 1632 Instructions, as we have seen, articles no 21 of the 1613 and no 45of the 1617 Instructions more or less repeat the wording of article 21 of the 1609 Instructions by stating that the High Government must keep its correspondence and make friendships and alliances with “all the kings, princes, republics, and men of power” in Asia with all due discretion and caution,” yet again leaving the actual decisions about how to proceed up to the High Government, as it “thought best in the interest of the Company.”
Although the Directors’ basic approach regarding the purpose and mode of diplomacy remains the same in 1617 as in 1609 and 1613, there are differences. The naming of the Asian counterparts in general terms as “the kings, nations, and peoples” in 1609 and in the same general terms in 1613 is replaced by a more nuanced terminology in 1617 which then included “kings, princes, republics, and men of power.”
In the 1632 Instructions, regarding trade on Siam, an appeal for accommodation and pragmatism is made explicit. To get a firm foothold in the Siam trade, the Directors had discussed whether to approach the king directly or to approach subaltern ministers responsible for the trade
In this case the Directors did not consider it sufficient or relevant to act dogmatically and try to force the Company’s rights by reference to international law. The process of negotiating terms of access to, and rules for the conduct of trade was far too concrete and specific than to be handled by in general terms of law in the final instance. The Directors knew this in 1632, as they did in 1609, 1613 and 1617, even if they would most unequivocally express it in 1650. If cultural sensitivity, accommodation to local norms and pragmatism in negotiating the political terms of trade with independent Asian rulers were only fully explicated in the 1650 Instructions, these precautions were no doubt all foreshadowed and if not fully expressed in the preceding Instructions.
Pragmatism was the Directors’ recommended means to get what the Company wanted in a political environment different from their own. International law could only do so much: Give legitimacy to the claim to trade on par with third parties in category 3, and legitimise sovereignty and exclusive monopoly rights in the Moluccas, that is categories 1 and 2 of the 1650 Instructions. But this is where the function of international law stopped. The basic building block of the Company’s overseas interaction regime remained the bilateral treaty concluded on site and designed to meet the requirements defined by local conditions and policies. That is why the Directors’ General Instructions bore the stamp of a principled pragmatism. That in its turn was founded on an assumption of cultural difference.
I have so far treated the Directors’ advice on diplomacy as embedded in a pragmatic, commercial logic. I think that was the core of it, but this still does not give us the whole picture. There was also an idealistic—and not necessarily ideological— dimension as far as values and motives were concerned.
Configuring a hierarchy of values or means-to-an-end relations in the General Instructions on one hand puts one in the position of repeating the obvious. The Company was a commercial institution, and its primary purpose was to conduct profitable trade: “De eenige ziel van’s Comp. lichaam zijnde.”
Qualifying the proposition that the pursuit of the “Glory of the Company” may have been a motive by its own right for the Directors is that such appeals may well have been instrumental to the accumulation of diplomatic capital. Still, my point is that whatever the exact configuration of the relationship between means and ends with respect to concerns other than profit, a survey of the more encompassing package of mixed concerns that I
I shall narrow the problem down to how non-commercial concerns were presented in the Directors’ General Instructions. Whether they served legitimating purposes or were conceived as values in themselves is difficult to tell, but generally, my proposition is that the rational “Reasons of Company” thinking was supplemented by “idealistic,” moral-religious, and even emotional dimensions.
As for the evidence of religious appeal in the Directors’ General Instructions, I have tried to leave out the instances where references to “higher powers” (God) are purely conventional. My focus will be on instances where the Directors depict the venture of the Company as part of a “greater plan” and interpret its successes as a sign of “providential blessings.” Such appeals are particularly found in the closing paragraphs where the Company’s secular success is portrayed as evidence of providential blessings for a righteous, “higher” cause. The two are depicted as two sides of the same coin.
The concluding article of the 1650 Instructions
The commitment of the High Government is then put into a religious perspective. All their efforts “will fall upon them lightly, especially as God himself, who knows what is best for man, will give the work his blessings.”
But, as all good deeds finally depend on the moral example of the persons in charge, must we remind you members of the High Government and the Councillors of the Indies to serve collectively as an exemplary model in all your domains of office, execution of justice, law-enforcement, trade and all other matters.
One should of course be careful not to read too much into such formulations. Cynically read, the text might basically mean, “Stop your individual smuggling.” But what is also clear is that the Directors’ stress that just as righteous conduct has rewards and blessings at the individual level, so does the Company’s success as a corporate body depend on the virtue and moral conduct of the High Government as a collective body.
In the final paragraph of article 164, a unity of morals at the individual- and at the corporate level is linked together. Committed service to the Company according to the “laws of God” would bring it secular rewards guaranteed by providential blessings:
That you Councillors of the Company should take the interest of the Company so to your heart that the long-awaited fruits may be anticipated, for which we pray to the Lord that you jointly, will be spared all ‘misfortunes,’ and that he will bless trade more and more under his long continuing blessings and protection.
The same linking of God and the Company’s success is found, although in a somewhat different form, in article 10 of the 1609 Instructions, which summarises the general aim and purpose of the Company as being “Not only to continue, but to seek to increase and broaden the commercial activities in the name of Christ, to the salvation of the non-Christian peoples, to the honour and respect of our Nation and to the benefit of the Company, in all possible ways.”
As it stands, it is not explicitly made clear what the priorities among mission, national glory, and profitable trade should be. In fact, article 10 could be read to mean that trade was instrumental to mission (
We find a more secular “trinity” in article 20 of the 1609 Instructions, which concerns the Company’s intra-Asian trade. The Directors do not find themselves in position to give specific advice on this, but in general the trade must be conducted to “serve the Republic, accrue profit to the Company, and protect and defend the honour of the Company.”
In the concluding article of the 1632 Instructions, heavenly providence and corporate commitment are called upon in the following manner: “That the prosperity of the honourable United Company so goes to your heart that we may reap the fruits, for which we pray God to spare you from all mischiefs and accidents, (and) to preserve the trade of the Indies.”
Here, then, we encounter the same configuration as in the 1650 Instructions: Individual commitment to the Company is likened to taking part in an endeavour for a collective body under heavenly blessings.
References to “God” or appeals to a “higher order” are also invoked as a source of consolation and encouragement in the face of hardship. In the concluding paragraph of article 72 of the 1650 Instructions (concerning trade with Persia), the High Government is instructed not to retaliate violently to local injustice or harassment, unless clearly provoked to do so, and then only as a last resort. The sufferings and injustice that may be inflicted upon the Dutch should instead be viewed with calm and as being temporary. At the end of the day, seen from the perspective of cosmological justice, the wrongdoers would be punished and those showing restraint and righteous conduct rewarded: “Just as one must never lose confidence in the justice of God, it is our aim that those who follow evil ways will receive punishment, just as those who follow the righteous path in this behaviour can expect God’s blessings.”
There is a common denominator in all these references to the providential dimension to the Company’s venture. Divine blessing is consistently linked to the secular success of the Company, which again is combined with an implicit or explicit appeal to individual commitment and dedication to the execution of work in the Company’s service. What is particularly relevant in this context is the relationship between means and ends; in the final instance providence and individual morale are both seen as means to the Company’s collective success. This is, I think, as far as we can get in trying to establish a more general worldview or ideological framework from the Generale Instructiens. It represents a
All in all, nineteen entries were made about Makassar in the particular patriase letters to the High Government in the period covered by my study
The Directors’ remarks and advice on Makassar cover a wide range of issues such as smuggling of spices via Makassar, as in the letters of September 2, 1634, April 21, 1635
The particular patriase letters containing direct and specific advice on policy and mode of diplomacy towards Makassar are in chronological order the letters of: September 22, 1648, October 13, 1656, October 9, 1657, August 23, 1661, August 24, 1663, October 23, 1666, May 14, 1667, August 22, 1668 and of May 9, 1669, already mentioned.
In their letter of September 10, 1650, the Directors called upon the High Government to “evict all Portuguese from Batavia and close all other Company residencies to them as their presence was “bad for the Company.”
Within the sample of advice on policy towards Makassar proper, the series of letters up to October 23, 1666 is broken by insertions of advice on practical and commercial matters as already noted above. But in the letters after the sending of Speelman’s expedition in 1666 up to and including the ones of May 9, 1669 the patriase comments on Makassar form an unbroken chain of reflections and advice. I shall analyse the Directors’ view in the whole sample with an eye to how it fits in with or contradicts my findings in the analysis of the Directors’ model of diplomacy in the General Instructions.
I have not been able to find any comments by the Directors on the 1637 Treaty. The first entry containing direct advice on mode of diplomacy is thus in the letter of September 22, 1648, where the subject is whether the Company should go to war or find peaceful solutions with Makassar. The Directors come up with a strong advocacy for the latter: a war against Makassar is hard to win, and one should strive to maintain the friendship so as not to end up with even more enemies. The ideal situation was to continue “trading in peace”
The letter of October 13, 1656 also concerns the issue of war and peace, but this time in a more immediate context, because of the Directors’ fears that the Company might become involved in a war with Mataram and Banten. The High Government is therefore recommended to keep peace with Makassar to avoid a situation where the Company is “threatened from all sides”
When in the letter of Oct. 9, 1657, the High Government is reminded by the Directors to just keep an eye on Makassar with no other specific instructions,
The comments on Makassar in the patriase letter of August 23, 1661, written in the aftermath of the successful campaign against Makassar in 1660, are more specific than the prior ones. The Directors start by expressing their joy over the victory in the general and the destruction of Portuguese ships at the Makassarese roadstead in particular. Then they go on to emphasise that when the Makassarese had been forced to conclude “such an advantageous peace”, it contributed to increasing the Company’s reputation in the area
More concrete and specific advice was given in the letter of August 24, 1663, however, where the High Government was asked to approach and invite the Sultan of Ternate’s brother, Calamatta to Batavia instead of having him walk freely in Makassar which meant “running the risk that he might conspire with the English.”
In the letter of October 23, 1666, the Directors state that they are awaiting what will eventually happen regarding the relations with Makassar, but repeat their general advice to stay out of trouble and conflict, while at the same time stressing that the High Government must consolidate the Company’s position in the Eastern quarters.
Even more so does the following letter of May 14, 1667, where the appeal to seek peaceful solutions once again is voiced. In 1667 the appeal for peaceful solutions starts by the Directors expressing their hopes that relations with Makassar would improve, and that the Company would soon be allowed to trade there again.
With the news of Speelman’s victories in the fall of 1667
The Directors’ comments on how to deal with Makassar after the victories of 1667 thus on the one hand expresses pride in the Company’s victories but on the other hand also worries that a final settlement be established as quickly as possible so as not to jeopardize the Company’s current advantageous position. This ambiguity signals that the Directors in autumn of 1668 perceived the Company’s position in relation to Makassar had not been radically changed so as to call for a reconstruction of the political map of South Sulawesi with the Company as hegemon, which in fact became the de facto result of the war. The Directors’ mode of arguing in August 1668 however much jubilant, was still one basically characterised by caution and restraint.
There are two entries about Makassar in the patriase letter of May 9, 1669. The first entry is based on news in a letter from Speelman that the Makassarese have guns and are able in using them. Apart from worries over this fact, the Bewindhebbers state that victory over Makassar depends on the support of the Bugis.
The two entries on Makassar in the May 1669 letter must have been entered respectively before and after knowledge of the contracts with Prince Tello and Karaung Linques in Mars 1668, which finally secured the settlement of the Bongaya treaty
Speelman’s was praised for his outstanding performance in the middle of the dehumanising effects of war, a war which he had brought to a happy conclusion by his vigilance, dedicated effort and bravery.
Strictly speaking, the “Patriase model of overseas diplomacy” in the General Instructions issued between 1609 and 1650 can hardly be called a “model” at all, if by “model” we mean an explicit set of general principles from which are deducted more elaborately defined rules. Advice on diplomacy there was, but the process of formulating advice was not a deductive one, it was an inductive one. The predominant body of advice on diplomatic performance offered by the Directors reflected a pragmatic approach by which a recommended line of action was suggested, where the actual implementation of it to a large degree was put in the hands of the Company’s authorities in Asia. From time to time, the Directors’ particular advice would slide into more general reflections, but the point of departure was in the final instance case-bound. In other words, the Directors’ “model” of overseas diplomacy must be reconstructed from this bundle of practical advice and general elaborations originating in specific cases.
Three characteristics of this “model-in-the-making” stand out: the way by which it testifies to a general pragmatic approach towards overseas diplomacy at the outset; how appeals to take a pragmatic stand were implied or explicitly inscribed in the texts of the Instructions; and an inherent drive to acquire as precise information about local conditions as possible. To assume that principles of international law directed the Company’s overseas diplomacy is misguided at best. The evidence in the General Instructions, as well as the in the Directors’ particular advice on Makassar suggest that their approach towards overseas diplomacy was neither Eurocentric, nor legally dogmatic, but culturally sensitive and inter-culturally pragmatic.
See “On the primary sources”, above.
F. W. Stapel (ed.) 's Gravenhage, Matinus Nijhoff, 1943, 544-556.
In: Mijer,
C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600–1800 (London: Hutchinson, 1965), 106.
Anthony Reid, “Islamization and Christianization in Sou theast Asia: The Critical Phase, 1550-1650”, in Reid (ed.),
Mijer,
Blussé and de Moor,
See 1609 Instructions, arts. 1–8, Mijer,
1609 Instructions, arts. 8–10, ibid. 7–8.
1609 Instructions, arts. 11–13, ibid. 9–10.
1609 Instructions, arts. 14–19, ibid. 10 – 13.
1609 Instructions, arts. 22–37, ibid. 13–19.
1609 Instructions, arts. 28–29, ibid. 16.
1609 Instructions, arts. 38–42, ibid. 19–21.
The 1609 Instructions marks an exception here, which must be explained by the particularity of the 1609 context.
“Aangaande hoe gij U in andere zaken, de regering, commercie, trafique, mitsgaders de alliantiën met de Koningen en Pottentaten van Indië betreffende, zult hebben te gedragen, daaop kunnen wij U geene faste ordre stellen, maar alleen raadgeven, instrueren ok eensdeel ordonneren als volgt.” 1609 Instructions, ibid. 7. For the same contents, see art. 21, ibid. 13.
See particularly arts. 9 and 10, ibid. 7–9, see below for textual analysis.
J. van Goor:
All the references to the General Instructions of 1613 are to the reprint of it in: F. W. Stapel (ed.): Pieter van Dam:
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 544-45.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 545.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 545-46.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 546.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 546.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 547
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 547-48.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 548.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 548-49.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 549.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 549.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 550.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 551.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 551-52.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 552-53.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 553.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 553-54.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 554.
Stapel (ed.), 1943, 554-55
Compare the formulation:
Ibid. Inleiding p. ix.
Ibid. Inleiding, p ix.
Stapel,
Stapel,
Compare particularly arts. 35 and 45, Mijer,
1617 Instructions, arts. 1 and 3, ibid. 25–26.
1617 Instructions, art. 4, 1617, ibid. 26.
1617 Instructions, art. 34, ibid. 34.
1617 Instructions, art. 35, ibid. 34.
1617 Instructions, arts. 36–40, ibid. 36.
1617 Instructions, arts. 40–44, 1609, ibid. 37.
1617 Instructions, art. 45, 1617, ibid. 37.
1617 Instructions, art. 46, 1617, ibid. 37.
1617 Instructions, art. 47, ibid. 37.
1617 Instructions, art. 48, ibid. 37.
1617 Instructions, art. 46, ibid. 37.
1617 Instructions, art. 47, ibid. 37.
1617 Instructions, arts. 49–45, ibid. 38–39.
1617 Instructions, arts. 56–73, ibid. 39–43.
1617 Instructions, art. 74, ibid. 43.
1617 Instructions, art. 75, ibid. 43.
1617 Instructions, arts. 75 and 76, ibid. 44.
1617 Instructions, art. 78, ibid. 45.
1617 Instructions, arts. 79 and 80, ibid. 45.
For warnings against unnecessary defence costs, see arts. 19 and 33, Mijer,
See below, 88-89.
1632 Instructions, arts. 40–86, Mijer,
1632 Instructions, arts. 62–65, ibid. 62-63.
1632 Instructions, arts. 63, 72, 69, and 79, ibid. 62-63, 64, 66. Art. 69, on Ambon, is on the reduction of the garrison, to economise the Company’s expenses there.
1632 Instructions, arts. 65, 73, and 78, ibid.63-64, 65, 66.
1632 Instructions, arts. 66–68, and 80, ibid. 64, 66.
Het aanhouden van scholen aldaar, nademaal het naturel van de Bandanezen bevonden woort zoo kwaadaardig te zijn, dat er geen hoop is om deselve te verwinnen … en daarom oordelen de kwaadaardige Bandanezen te versenden.” 1632 Instructions, art. 75, Mijer,
1632 Instructions, arts. 84–90, ibid. 67-68.
1632 Instructions, art. 90, ibid. 67–68.
1632 Instructions, art. 94, ibid. 69.
1632 Instructions, art. 95, ibid. 69.
“eene regtmatige justitie …mag worden bediend volgens de instructien en praktijken in de Vereenigde Nederlandsche Provinciën doorgaans.” 1632 Instructions, art. 1, ibid. 47.
1632 Instructions, art. 40, Mijer,
1632 Instructions, art. 43, ibid. 58.
1632 Instructions, arts. 56–58, ibid. 61.
1632 Instructions, art. 57, ibid. 61.
“om den Portuguesen dien handel infructueus te maken”, 1632 Instructions, art. 62, ibid. 62.
De koning van Ternate “niettegenstaande Wij al zijn doen voor geveinsd, en hem vervreemd van den Spanjaard houden en met hoofsche complimenten onderhouden, en men geene, als om hoogwigtige redenen in rupture van vrede met hem te vervallen, waardoor de zaken van de Compagnie al te zeer verachteren en den vijand te groot voordeel op Ons krijgen zoude. Verstandige, kloeke vredzame persoonen, het regt van De Compagnie met goed beleid wetende te defenderen, dienen aldaar, zoo als hiervoor gezegd is, want als Wij van Onze zijde wel doen, kunnen van hen afvorderen ’t geen zij schuldig zijn te presteren.” 1632 Instructions, art. 64, ibid. 63.
1650 Instructions, art. 18, ibid. 76.
C. G. Roelofsen, “De periode 1450-1712,” in
Mijer,
Ibid. Inleiding, xiii.
Governor-General 1636–45.
To be followed by Carel Reynierzoon in 1650.
In 1645 and 1646, respectively.
Stapel,
Ibid. 285.
1650 Instructions, arts. 19 and 20, Mijer,
“Onze magt en wapenen…alleen gebruikt moeten worden tegen geweld en ongelijk, dat Ons aangedaan wordt, als hetzelve met vrede niet uit den weg kan gelegd worden.” 1650 Instructions, art. 72, ibid. 89.
“Zoodanige contracten altijd vernieuwd geweest zijn met vele moeijelijkheden en vexatiën, naar den aard van die schrapende, superbe natie.” 1650 Instructions, art. 67, ibid. 88.
See for Instance, Blussé and de Moor,
“Den vornoemden handel Ons op eigen concepten niet toeeigenen en zoodanige natiën met magt daartoe mogen constringeren Alwaar Wij de wetten
“Gelijk de Comp. ook niet verstaan zoude kunnen, dat op plaatsen onder haar gebied sorterende, andere natiën op de manier van handelen haar de wet zoude willen stellen.” 1650 Instructions, art. 71, ibid. 89.
“Dat de debauche van vele Compagnie ministers in verscheiden kwartieren van Indië extraordinaire verachtering in de dagelijksche affaires geeft, waarbij geconsidereerd, dat de Indische natiën zeer gevoelig van hun respect zijnde, daardoor kleine affective tot de Nederlandsche natie zetten.” 1650 Instructions, art. 53. ibid. 84.
“Onze ministers zich voor al wachten moeten, om den Koning en den grooten van’t rijk eenige de minste offensie te geven.” 1650 Instructions, art. 116, ibid. 100.
“Niet anders te doen is, als anderen met gelijke munt te betaalen, zonder te denken op feitelijke resistentiën, inzonderheid op plaatsen, daar wij niets te zeggen hebben, maar ons naar de wetten van die landen op het stuk van den handel reguleren moeten, 1650 Instructions, art. 116, ibid. 100.
“Compagnie’s ministers …vooral gewapend moeten gaan met modestie, nederigheid, beleefdheid en vriendschap, altijd de minste zijnde.” 1650 Instructions, art. 114, ibid. 99.
For a balanced comparison between European and Asian diplomatic systems and modes in the Early modern period, see Jeremy Black,
“De gunst van de grooten te mogen capteren, de Koning en Berquelang met jaarlijksch vereering, hun aangenaam zijnde, begroet moet worden; welcke kosten, ten aanzien van de groote commoditeit daaruit voor de Compagnie resulterende, op profijt aangelegd worden, en derhalven niet te menagerende mogen zijn.” 1650 Instructions, art. 85, Mijer,
“Zult gij U pertentelijk informeren op de genegenheid, affection en gunsten van alle en een iegelijke koningen, natiën en volken van de gansche kwartieren van India … om te weten, welcke gunst en genegenheid dezelve koningen, natiën of volken tot den handel met die van de Compagnie zijn hebbende.” 1609 Instructions, art. 10, ibid. 8.
“als te weten: hoe, bij wie en welke personen alle zaken in de resp. Rijken gereegeerd worden; wat middel, om communicatie en access hij dezelve te hebben, aangewend moet worden, … goede intelligentie …zooveel mogelijk is te vermeerderen.” 1609 Instructions, art. 10, ibid. 8.
1609 Instructions, arts. 20 and 22, respectively, ibid. 13.
“Belangende alle goede correspondentiën met de koningen van Indië te houden, daarop kunnen Wij U geen particulariere vaste instructie geven, maar in ‘t generaal zeggen, dat aan ‘t zelve een goed deel van de conservatie van den handel voor Ons en Onze nakomelingen gelegen is, zulcks gij U dienshalve zeer wijselijk, voorzigtelijk en gansch discretelijk moet gedragen, wie om haar profijt of uit haar eigen belang Uwe vrienden of vijanden behoeven of te zijn.” 1609 Instructions, art. 21, ibid. 13.
Roelofsen, “De periode 1450-1712,” 91–92.
1613 Instructions, art. 21, Stapel (ed.) 1943, 550-51, 1617 Instructions, art. 45, Mijer,
Ibid. 37.
“Alle koningen, prinsen, republikeinen en heeren.” Ibid. 37.
“gedelibereerd zijnde, of met den handel met den koning of met particuieren … stabiliëren zoude.” 1632 Instructions, art. 41, ibid. 57.
“Houdende nietteminmet Malambeek en alle andere van den koning dependererende goede vriendschap en correspondentie.” 1632 Instructions, art. 41, ibid. 57.
“Alle openstaande dissentiën ten meesten dienste van de Compagnie zoude zoeken af te handelen.” 1632 Instructions, art. 41, ibid. 58.
1650 Instructions, art. 123, particular advice on Coromandel, Ibid. 102.
1650 Instructions, art. 164, Mijer,
“Dat Ued. Alle Uwe gedachten en mediatiën op het generaal en particullier werk van de Comp. dagelijks latende gaan.” 1650 Instructions, art. 164, ibid.
“zeer ligt en onbezwaard toevallen zal, inzonderheid als God de Heere, die weet wat den mensch nut is, ‘t zelve gelieft te zegenen.” 1650 Instructions, art. 164, ibid.
“Maar gelijk alle deugden haar gevolgen krijgen uit goede opperhoofden en voorgangers wordt UEd. En den Raden van Indië geszamentlijk, als een lichaam representerende, ten hooghste gerecommandeerd med goede exempelen in de justicie, policie, handel en al hetgeen daarvan verder dependert, te toonen.” 1650 Instructions, art. 164, ibid. 116.
“Dat Ued. Het welvaren van deze loffelijke Nederlandsche geocrtoijeerde Oost- Indische Comp. zoo te harte gaat, dat daarvan de lang verwachte vruchten te gemoet mogen zien waartoe wij God den Heere bidden, Ued. te zamen en in het bijzonder voor alle ongeluk en onheil te bewaren, den handel van Inidië onder Ued. beleid meer en meer te zegenen, en onder Zijne heilige bescherming lang voorspoedig te willen houden.” 1650 Instructions, art. 164, ibid. 116.
“Om den Oost-Indischen handel tot verbreiding van den naam van Christus, zaligheden der onchristenen, eere en reputatie van Onse natie, ten profijt van de Comp. niet alleen te continueren, maar bij alle mogelijke middelen en wegen te vergrooten.” 1609 Instructions, art. 10, ibid. 8., and is repeated almost word by word in article 10 of the 1613 Instructions, Stapel (ed.) 1943, 547.
1609 Instructions, art. 20, Mijer, Verzameling van instructiën, 13.
“Onzen voet in Indië vast, Onze vriendschappen en de trafique tot Godes eere, der Landen welvaart, en den Comp. Profijt bevorderd en gedreven mag worden.” 1609 Instructions, art. 21, ibid. 13.
“Dat U.Ed. het welvaren van de loffelijk Vereenigde Geooctroieerde Oost Indische Comp. Zoo ter harte gaat, dat daarvan de vruchten zullen mogen tegemoet zien, waartoe God bidden U.Ed. voor alle onheilen en ongelucken te bewaren, den handel van Indie te willen onderhouden.” 1632 Instructions, art. 96, ibid. 70.
“Gelijk aan Gods rechtvaardigheid geenzins getwijfeld mag worden, zoo gaat ook zeker, dat degenen, die onregtvaardig wegen inslaan, de straffen daarvan gevoelen zullen, maar degene den regten weg in hunnen handel volgende, Gods zegen daarop te verwachten hebben.” 1650 Instructions, art. 72, ibid. 80.
The sources consulted in this subsection are respectively: Johan van Hoorn’s book of extracts of letters by the XVII to the GGs 1629-1697: Notulen getrocken uijt de brieven van de Heeren Bewindhebberen van de Generale Nederlandsche Geoctroijeerde Oostindische Compagnie ter Vergadering vande Seventienen: Beginnende met die van den 28 Augustij anno 1629 en Eijndigende met die van 27 December 1697, KITLV, collection H 45, from now on: “Van Hoorn, Notulen“, and the original letters in the NA: VOC, 1.04.02, Invnrs. 316-319.
Patriase letter, September 3, 1634, Van Hoorn, Notulen, fol. 7: NA, Inv.nr. 316 fol. 45b.
Patriase letter, May 9 1669, two entries, Van Hoorn, Notulen, fol. 108b and 113b respectively. NA, Inv.nr. 319, unf.
Patriase letter, April 21, 1635, Van Hoorn, Notulen, fol. 7b, NA, invnr. 316, fol. 67b.
Patriase letter, September 25, 1642, Van Hoorn, Notulen, fol. 14b, NA, invnr. 350, fol. 380-380b.
Patriase letter April 7, 1663, Van Hoorn, fol. 74. NA, invnr. 318, fol. 591.
Patriase letter September 21, 1644, Van Hoorn, fol. 17., NA, invnr. 317, fol. 3b-4.
Patriase letter April 29, 1664, Van Hoorn, Notulen, fol. 78 b, NA, invnr. 351, fol.666-667.
den Mataram ende Bantam ….ons van alle kanten op luyf souden vallen, Patriase letter, October 13 1656, Van Hoorn, Notulen fol. 48, NA, Invnr. 317, fol. 450.
To keep an eye on the goings on in Makassar, Patriase letter Oct. 9, 1657, Van Hoorn, Notulen, fol. 52b, NA, Invnr. 317, fol. 508b-509.
(de vrede)
blyven de Heeren afwagten, met recommandatie om met dat ryk (Makassar) buyten werveyderinge en hostiliteyten te blyven, …. in de oosterse quartieren te consolideren, Patriase letter October 23, 1666, Van Hoorn, Notulen fol. 91b, NA Invnr. 319, unf.
Hopen dat de saken met Maccassar ten beter sullen uytvallen, en wy daar verder geadmittert, Patriase letter May 14, 1667, Van Hoorn, Notulen fol. 93. NA Invnr. 319, unf.
geen vordeligh … een considerable negotie en… goede advancen gehad, Patriase letter May 14, 1667, Van Hoorn, Notulen fol. 93. NA Invnr. 319, unf.
See
dat hierop een honorable vrede gevolgt was, alsoo ‘t niet apparent is, wy met continuatie onser wapenen met voordeel, de Makassaren geheel t’onder sullen brengen, Patriase letter August 22, 1668, Van Hoorn, Notulen fol. 105.: NA Invnr. 319, unf.
daar ….op Ceylon soo noodige is, Patriase letter August 22, 1668 Van Hoorn, Notulen fol. 105.: NA Invnr. 319, unf.
uit een hartneckigh wolck te doen heben, Patriase letter, August 22, 1668, Van Hoorn, Notulen fol. 105. NA Invnr. 319, unf.
de Makassaren by langere continuatie van den Oorlog …dardor te stoutmoedigen worden, Patriase letter, August 22, 1668, Van Hoorn, Notulen fol. 105. NA Invnr. 319, unf.
Patriase letter, May 9, 1669, in Van Hoorn, Notulen, Folio 108b and and 113b, NA Invnr. 319, unf.
hadden noit gedagt dat wy Makassar tot sulken vernedringe souden hebben konnen brengen dat hy tot het aangaan van sulcken disreputatien en nadeligen contract, in genoegsame submissie soude hebben konnen verstaan, Patriase letter, May 9, 1669, Van Hoorn, Notulen fol. 113b. NA Invnr. 319, unf.
See
In this chapter, I shall discuss Andaya’s propositions about the cultural bias and incommensurability of treaty conceptions using the Company’s treaty with South-Sulawesi of June 26, 1637 as my case.
The background before Van Diemen’s expedition to the Moluccas 1637 was that after
In addition, on western Java war with Banten had broken out in November 1633, but negotiations for settlement were opened in March 1636 and a truce signed between the Sultanate and the Company.
In conjunction with his 1637 campaign against the rebels in Ambon,
The 1637 treaty was primarily a political treaty. Of the twelve regulations only one dealt directly with bilateral trade between the Company and Makassar.
The immediate background of the 1637 treaty was Van Diemen’s expedition to Ambon and the Moluccas. The
One important feature of the 1637 treaty is that some of the articles in the final text were proposed by Sultan Alauddin.
What I aim to demonstrate in this chapter is that the 1637 treaty in fact represented a product of negotiated compromises between competing interests. Contrary to Andaya, I also claim that there was “real” communication between the two negotiating parties in the sense that they both had a realistic grip on the issues at hand and that they understood each other’s positions. In short, they were negotiating within a shared conceptual framework.
The negotiations and final formulation of the terms of the 1637 treaty was thus a result of a tug of war in which both parties demonstrated a functional understanding of the other’s intention and motives. The nature of the 1637 treaty as a negotiated compromise between antagonistic secular interests that presupposed a kind of functional communication is symptomatically lost in Andaya’s structural approach.
The analysis has three main sections. In the first, I discuss Andaya’s general argument about the cultural collision between European and South Sulawesian treaty concepts and his views on the 1637 treaty in particular. In the second, I analyse what actually took place during the negotiations leading up to the treaty, with a focus on the nature of the issues and the exchanges that led to the compromises accepted by both parties. In the third, I analyse the formulations of the regulations agreed to in the 1637 treaty, arguing that both the substance of the issues and the formulation of them demonstrate a shared ground of understanding in the Company–Makassar treaty making at the time. The negotiations and final text of the treaty reflect pragmatism on both sides as they struggled to advance and protect their respective secular interests.
The analysis mainly rests on the VOC sources, namely Van Diemen’s report on the negotiations in Makassar June 24–26, 1637,
For Leonard Andaya, the treaty making between the Company and Makassar in general represented a continuous miscommunication as the expectations and concepts of the two parties sprang from a “fundamental difference in cultural attitudes,”
Stemming from antagonistic and deeply embedded cultural perceptions and expectations, the mutual misunderstandings between the Company’s servants and South Sulawesi states constituted a constant feature and caused endemic friction and eventually ended in war between the two: “treaties between the Company and a South Sulawesi state were characterised by conflicting expectations, leading to frustration, then mutual recriminations, and finally war.”
This friction was present from the first treaties with the Company in the early seventeenth century and persisted well into the colonial period.
Andaya points to instances of local influence in some of the treaties between the Company and Makassar, especially in the 1655 treaty,
Andaya claims that: “There is little indication that any effort was made to understand the whole intent of local treaties. Almost the entire corpus of the treaties between the Company and the South Sulawesi states was framed in the Western European tradition of treaty making, with little or no attempt to accommodate local practices.”
I reject this on two grounds. First, the 1637 treaty basically focuses on the regulation of specific, concrete issues that were not formulated in Western legal parlance. Second, the Makassarese did not meet the Company’s demands by retreating to their local practices or modes of thinking. Therefore, the Dutch did not need to familiarise themselves with deep-seated cultural conceptions, as these were not particularly relevant in the Makassarese dealings with a European company. What the Dutch needed to understand was the tactical intent behind the Makassarese suggestions and proposed revisions, as secular interests were primary concerns in these, too. In other words, I shall be arguing that a more contextual and secular interpretation of the Makassarese actions and their meaning might be as plausible as Andaya’s structural cultural interpretation.
One imprint of the typical South Sulawesi conception of the protection of sovereignty in the 1637 treaty was, according to Andaya, that it “forbade the Dutch from continuing their hostilities against the enemies in the lands and seas belonging to the ruler of Goa, and explicitly stated that the enemies of one would not become the enemies of the other.”
At the outset, it is hard to accept that concern about autonomy by itself was peculiar to South Sulawesians. Just a brief look at early modern European history suggests otherwise.
Andaya’s structural line of argumentation for one presupposes that when dealing with Europeans, Alauddin in the 1637 case, and his successors in negotiating for the other treaties, were unable to switch their approach to negotiation from a fixed local mode. But how sure can we be that the Makassarese considered their dealings with the Dutch from a “metaphysical” or “spiritual” point of view, and did not apply a more “realist,” secular approach in these cases, which definitely did not form part of the internal South Sulawesian hierarchy of power? Secondly, Andaya does not take into account the existence of a category for state interaction particularly designed for outsiders, pointed out by Resink and others.
Speaking for the realist alterative as the relevant interpretation key for the 1637 negotiation is that power relations in the secular sense were a preoccupation for the Makassarese during the treaty negotiations.
Lastly, there is a comparative argument that undermines Andaya’s insistence on incommensurability. Let us again accept that conceptions, practices, and institutions of diplomacy differed in early modern Europe and Southeast Asia. The key question remains whether such differences made for systematic miscommunication. As for Andaya’s example of “sovereignty,” I do not think there was. Sovereignty issues in their general form—that is autonomy of territorial decision making—represented a type of conflict that was well known in both Europe and Southeast Asia. So, there are a number of reasons why we should not at the outset accept that Alauddin and the Dutch negotiators were caught in a game of mutual misunderstanding.
Nor should we assume that the treaty itself contained two distinct and separate parts, one Eurocentric treaty blueprint and one typical South Sulawesian component. If there was a kind of mutual understanding and haggling over conflicts over shared issues, the miscellaneous regulations might just as well be seen as products of compromise on secular issues with differences in the colouration of meaning, but nonetheless mutually comprehensible.
My own proposition is that such was the case in this instance: The 1637 treaty represented a negotiated compromise between actors who
When Sultan Alauddin insisted that the 1637 treaty was binding not only for the present, but for future governors-general,
So, according to Andaya, the perpetuity claim in the 1637 treaty originated from the South Sulawesi tradition even if it was presented “in the form of a European treaty.”
As for the possibility of Makassarese familiarity with the European treaty tradition, Andaya holds that they could not have gained any knowledge or experience in European treaty making from the Portuguese, as there simply is no evidence of any treaty making with them.
One consequence of the divergent meanings of the perpetuity of a treaty in the European and South Sulawesian traditions is that the notion of “breach of contract” did not really exist in the South Sulawesian tradition. Whereas in the European sense breach of contract was conceived as specific actions that ran contrary to specific terms in the treaty, the South Sulawesian conception of treaty allowed for shifts in alliances reflecting changes in the real world without considering such shifts a breach of prior treaties. The treaties were still considered valid, as an integral part of the realm’s living tradition. When actual power centres changed and old alliances were broken and new ones formed, the de facto obsolete treaties fell into the shadow of the new ones, but always with the possibility of reactivation should further changes in power relations or spiritual prestige require it: “Once a treaty had been agreed upon, it remained a permanent agreement which could be resurrected and renewed or allowed to recede into the background in face of other superior political and spiritual forces.”
The notion of the treaties as “enduring sacred documents”
On this background Andaya ranks the South Sulawesi states’ diplomatic interactions as superior to that of Europeans or the Company in this regard, the latter representing a use of treaties as “instruments of oppression,”
Leaving the moral contest aside, the problem with Andaya’s contrast here, as in the above, is that it rests upon the assumption that the Makassarese would apply their local conceptions and norms of treaty making in their dealings with a non-local, outside party that was not an integrated part of the South Sulawesian hierarchy.
The convention of insisting on the perpetuity of the treaty, in the sense of “enduring” (
Andaya points out that the typical form for a Company (and by extension the typical “Western European”) treaty was to number the treaty clauses and reserve one single issue for each respective article.
The regulations of the 1637 treaty are not numbered, and the absence of numbering could then be taken as a Company concession to South Sulawesian tradition. But to conclude that is simply wrong. The treaty clauses, although not numbered, are all one-issue regulations, starting with “that”—twelve in all. Moreover, as we shall see, there is a consistent logic in the chronology of the unnumbered clauses. So, disregarding the absence of formal numbering, the treaty is, in Andaya’s view, a typical Western treaty. By implication, it should therefore be “foreign” to Alauddin in the sense that it was culturally incomprehensible. Again, the counter-argument can be made that several of the specific points were raised by Alauddin himself, and the final formulation of these points came about as results of revisions proposed by Alauddin.
A final example of a local trait from South Sulawesian treaty making was the mode of swearing on it. Here, Andaya points to the ritual drinking of palm wine stirred with a
The examples that Andaya gives of local imprints in the 1637 treaty do not shake his conviction that it represented a European type of treaty. Following Andaya’s assumption of mutually incompatible conceptions regarding contracts, the negotiations represented a miscommunication between the Company negotiators and the Makassarese. Seen from the South Sulawesi side, the specific regulations in the Company’s proposed treaty were regarded as unimportant, and their implications were not fully understood by the Makassarese. This proposition assumes that both parties were “prisoners” of their respective traditions, which blocked functional communication.
Illustrative of this view is that as late as the Bongaya Treaty, Andaya holds that the Company and Makassar “differed fundamentally in the manner they invoked the treaty as a legitimizing document.”
Andaya concedes then that the Company’s negotiators were neither unaware nor totally ignorant of the local mode of local treaty making.
The events from the arrival of Van Diemen’s fleet outside the roadstead of Makassar on June 22 and up to the signing of the treaty on June 26 can be split into two main phases. From June 23 to the afternoon of the 24th was spent on establishing contact with Alauddin, and seeking out his position on entering into a treaty with the Company. Having received an affirmative reply about this (via middlemen), the Company’s conditions for the treaty were presented to the Makassarese envoys on June 24. This was the start of the real negotiations. All that happened from then on followed a pattern in which the Dutch presented conditions and propositions for the treaty, which were reviewed by Alauddin and members of his court. In this process, the sultan came up with revisions and amendments, which in their turn were reviewed jointly by the Company’s chief negotiators, Anthony Caen and Van Diemen, aboard ship. Caen would then return to shore with the revised propositions, which again were reviewed by Alauddin. This “ping-pong” game of treaty bargaining took place June 24–26. I shall analyse both phases in detail.
My proposition is that the conclusion of a treaty between Sultan Alauddin and the Company on June 26 was the result of a process of actors communicating and bargaining within a shared framework of conceptions. This was so because the treaty communication was determined neither by European conceptions brought from overseas by the Company nor the Makassarese acting from genuinely South Sulawesian conceptions. The negotiations took place in a mutual understanding of the issues and their implications for both parties. This interpretation finds corroboration in the actual chronology of events from the time Van Diemen anchored outside the roadstead of Makassar up to and including the signing ceremony.
On June 22, Van Diemen’s fleet anchored off Makassar. The first observations noted were an Achenese vessel in the roadstead, the flags of the English and Danish lodges inside the city, and more significant, five “blood flags” flying from various Makassarese fortifications.
This ambiguity of this response must have fitted well with the Dutch expectations. When arriving at Makassar, Van Diemen did not know whether to expect hostile actions or a willingness to negotiate. So far, Van Diemen and Alauddin could be said to have behaved like dogs meeting not yet knowing whether to bark, bite or wag their tails.
Two immediate tasks presented themselves after the first encounter June 22, namely to find out Alauddin’s intentions and if they were friendly, determine how to establish a communication channel with him. As it turned out, both tasks were solved with the assistance of the Achenese anchored at the roadstead. As no Makassarese vessel had approached the Dutch by the following morning, a decision was made at the ship’s council to launch a smaller vessel, carrying a white flag to approach the Achenese in order to get information about the state of affairs in Makassar and to see if the Achenese would be willing to act as go- betweens and bring a message of the Company’s intentions of peace to Alauddin.
Their report on Alauddin’s feelings concerning the arrival of the Dutch explained both the ambiguous actions the evening before as well as the absence of any vessels to greet them that morning. According to the Achenese envoys, Alauddin was fearful of Dutch intentions and had forbidden any ship to approach the Dutch vessels. Furthermore, Makassar had recently been hit by a plague with a death toll of a “hundred thousand,” obviously implying that the Company had arrived at a difficult time in Makassar.
Having in any case cleared up the reasons for the absence of any Makassarese initiatives for contact so far, as well as having acquired a clearer indication of Alauddin’s situation, it was time for the Dutch to act. Van Diemen asked the Achenese to inform the sultan that the Dutch had come with peaceful intentions, and therefore wanted to send envoys ashore. For this to take place, the sultan must indicate his intentions for peace by hoisting a white flag as the Dutch had done.
It is worth noticing that up to and including the hoisting of the flag of peace, all communications between the Company and Alauddin had been either by signals or via third parties. I take this as indicative of both Van Diemen’s and Alauddin’s doubts about each other’s intentions at the time. It seems plausible to argue that had it not been for the Achenese middlemen, the whole communication could be viewed as “dumb barter” diplomacy.
With the Makassarese hoisting of a white flag, the next step was to prepare for direct negotiations. As it turned out, these were a no less complicated affair than establishing communications had been. The negotiations were characterised not so much by misunderstandings springing from cultural incompatibility as by mutual suspicion of each other’s intentions and motives, and by conflicting interests.
With the goodwill sign given by Alauddin, around noon a five-man Dutch delegation, including a “halberdier” and a trumpeter, was sent ashore to establish a procedure for the negotiations.
The Dutch mission was received by Sultan Alauddin, his father, and nobles of the realm. The Dutch delegation placed themselves with legs crossed “according to the customs of the land.”
When Alauddin’s two envoys boarded the Company’s ship around five in the afternoon, it had already been decided that Anthonie Caen, being fluent in Malay should do the talking.
The plan to attack the Spanish galleons at the Makassar roadstead clearly presupposed the sultan’s acceptance of the Dutch waging war against their enemies in Makassarese waters. Whether aware of it or not, it is clear that Caen’s opening statement in the preliminary talks entailed a position that could be taken as a provocation by Alauddin. That it was a delicate issue can clearly be seen from the wording about this in the final treaty.
It is noteworthy that the Company’s initial intentions were presented as not only seeking a treaty of peace, but one of peace
Regarding the Company’s conditions for the peace, the only one presented by Caen at the preliminary meeting of June 23 was that the sultan should not allow his subjects to trade in “enemy places” such as Malacca and the coast of Ceram.
The demand for sailing restrictions concluded Caen’s list of the Company’s conditions for a treaty. Caen then went on to discuss the procedure for further negotiations. If the Dutch conditions were accepted, the Dutch proposition was that negotiations should take place the following morning. The proposed procedure was that Alauddin should notify the Dutch, who would then send “competent persons and an honourable delegation”
What had the Dutch achieved in their second day of negotiations? Quite a lot actually: Not only had they been received with apparent goodwill by the sultan, but they had also entered into direct negotiations and had presented their claims. What, then, were their further expectations for the negotiations to follow? Clearly that the treaty would be agreed on, signed, and sealed the following day! It was not to be that simple, however.
The agreement with Alauddin’s two envoys on the afternoon of June 23 was that if Alauddin accepted the Company’s conditions, he would give notice the following morning for the Dutch delegation to come ashore to conclude the treaty. But as morning came, there was no sign of messengers from the sultan. Van Diemen then again turned to the Achenese for information as to what was happening. The Achenese explained that the sultan had been waiting for the Dutch to come ashore for quite a while. When informed about the Dutch expectations, Alauddin had declared his intentions and wish for peace, and had been expecting the Company’s envoys already the day before. He proposed that the negotiations should proceed as originally suggested by the Dutch.
It is probably indicative of Van Diemen’s doubts about the sultan’s real intentions that he sent no delegation ashore right away. Instead, it was decided that a message be sent to the sultan to inquire if an audience now was convenient.
The “misunderstanding” about proper procedure was critical in the sense that if it had not been cleared up, it would have led to an increased lack of trust. And had it escalated, that lack of trust might well have led to a breakdown in negotiations before they even started. Van Diemen’s way of handling it was, as we have seen, to suggest that the sultan’s side was not upholding its agreements. Alauddin preferred simply to brush the affair aside while at the same time he offered an outstretched hand to the Dutch. Judging by his actions, Alauddin seems to have had a fairly accurate perception of what was at stake at the time. In any case, having thus cleared up the initial misunderstanding, on the morning June 24, the scene was set for “real negotiations,” namely an agreement on the specific contents of the treaty.
Caen, who had done the initial talking with the Makassarese envoys the day before, was appointed chief negotiator of a six-person delegation, including a trumpeter, all “well-dressed” for the task. Once ashore, the delegation was received with honour and brought to the court to meet with the Makassarese negotiation party: Alauddin himself, and prominent members of the elite.
After giving another concession to protocol by passing on the governor-general’s greetings to Alauddin, Caen repeated that the purpose of their mission was to negotiate the terms for a formal peace with the sultan.
The Company’s initial conditions for peace were also repeated, but they were not phrased in the same manner. On June 24, the demand for a ban on sailing to Malacca was openly stated as being directed against the Portuguese. The sultan should prohibit his subjects from sailing to Malacca and Ceram because the former was in the hands of Company’s declared “arch-enemies.”
After Alauddin had conferred with his suite, prince of Tello acted as spokesman. He declared once more that the sultan “highly applauded the offered peace”
As for a Dutch prohibition on Makassarese sailing to Malacca and Ceram, the sultan held forth that sailing to those destinations were traditional rights of his people and beneficial to the welfare of his realm.
Seen in this light Alauddin seems to have been acting rationally to protect the secular interests of Makassar, in particular its sovereignty and livelihood. When he made concessions, as in the above example, his strategy seems to have been to give away what the Company would very likely take anyway, given their superior naval strength. From such considerations of the asymmetrical balance of military strength it seems reasonable to suggest that Alauddin’s thinking went something like the following: If he refused to comply with the Dutch condition, they would act to enforce it anyway, while he himself risked war with the Company. Total compliance, on the other hand, would mean that if he failed to enforce the prohibition, which he in all likelihood would, he would himself be accused of a breach of contract, the likely outcome of which again could be open war.
If we view the Makassarese acceptance of this perspective, it might as likely originate from a shared reason of state rationality between the Makassarese and the Company’s negotiators as from a miscommunication between two parties who were unable to transgress their traditional mental framework. It is also well worth noticing that the Dutch demand for a sailing ban was not phrased in legal generalities. The formulation of the regulation was casuistic and concrete. This all suggests that Alauddin and Van Diemen not only were players in the same game, but were able to perceive it as such.
With the Makassarese acceptance of the Company’s conditions for peace on June 24, the conditions for a treaty seemed settled. Depending on Dutch approval of the Makassarese revisions, all that remained was the signing and sealing of the treaty.
But, from the Makassarese point of view, the request for a permanent Dutch lodge was both controversial and delicate. It put Alauddin in a dilemma, because to reject it outright would be offensive, while conceding to it would put Makassar in an awkward position. A Dutch presence in Makassar would increase the probability of outright violence between the Dutch and other Europeans in the realm itself. More important, it might expose the Makassarese to increased Dutch influence in all their affairs. In that sense, the request for a permanent lodge went to the heart of their concerns over Makassarese autonomy and sovereignty. Alauddin solved the dilemma by replying that an establishment of a Dutch lodge “may well happen, but first they had to come to trade.”
In the final treaty text Alauddin’s vague answer was worked into a compromise: The Company was allowed to establish a lodge, but not on a permanent basis, the right was restricted to periods of stay for Company ships.
Furthermore, the establishment of a Company lodge in Makassar meant that a whole new range of issues, particularly concerning jurisdiction in cases of conflict between Company servants and the sultan’s subjects or third parties residing in Makassar, had to be regulated. Such concerns figured either implicitly or explicitly in several of the clauses of the final treaty text.
After Alauddin’s response on the lodge issue, Caen returned to the ships for deliberations and instructions on how to respond to Alauddin’s response. Van Diemen was quick to accept Alauddin’s propositions, and ordered the firing of the salute to confirm his signing of the treaty, thirty-two shots in all. “After some waiting,” a “counter-salute” was fired from the Makassarese fort, from “three pieces.”
Van Diemen noted both the imbalance in numbers of shots fired and the interval between the Dutch and Makassarese salutes, which suggests he thought the Makassarese response was asymmetrical. He still may have harboured doubts about Alauddin’s real intentions and motives, as he “seems to be totally under the spell of our enemies and feigned friends.”
On the other hand, there can be no doubt that after receiving Caen’s report Van Diemen was convinced that only a few formalities remained before the Company could sign and seal the treaty with Makassar. Nevertheless, the following day, when Van Diemen and Caen originally planned to devote to the concluding formalities, saw another round of negotiations.
On sending Caen ashore with an “honourable” retinue on the morning of June 25, the Dutch expected Alauddin to sign the treaty agreed to the previous day. Instead, Caen was met by several amendments proposed by Alauddin. As these undisputedly represented Makassarese deliberations and a further response to the Dutch proposals of June 24, the sultan’s proposals for amendments and his way of putting them forward on June 25 are worth analysing in detail. In them we are faced with an autonomous Makassarese diplomatic response to the Dutch initiative “in the raw.”
Alauddin’s proposed amendments, written in Malay, were presented as intended “to strengthen the obligations and commitments of the contract for both sides.”
It was a clever and cunning move by Alauddin. Ironically, Caen’s request for a lodge after the formal ending of the meeting June 24 was met by a symmetrical breach of protocol by Alauddin, because he demanded new revisions after the negotiations were supposed to have been concluded. Alauddin’s wish to amend and revise put the Dutch in a dilemma. Given his intentions of making the treaty more solid and binding, the Dutch could hardly object without a loss of face. Alauddin’s amendment raised the question of jurisdiction in criminal cases in Makassar when Company servants were accused of crimes. Here the sultan demanded that he should hold supreme and sole authority.
On board the ship, all Alauddin’s amendments were found acceptable, except for the one concerning jurisdiction over the Company’s subjects when residing in Makassar. Although he euphemistically said that it must be “slightly revised,”
On Friday, June 26, Caen went ashore with an “impressive following”
It should be noticed that Caen’s argument here is not built upon general principles of law, but on precedents and actual practice. If the argument here is used tactically to acquire rights on par with those of other nations and peoples, it still aligns more with the Directors’ recommendations of pragmatism than an appeal to European legal formulas.
In his response, Alauddin stuck to his original position of maintaining sole and unabridged jurisdiction. Any outsider, be they English, Danish or Portuguese, or any other outside people who came to trade, were under the sultan’s jurisdiction.
After hearing Alauddin’s position and his argument for it, Caen concluded that they would “come no further on this point.”
The revised proposal was then included in the (new) draft treaty, which was signed and sealed anew by Van Diemen. What was left then should be for Alauddin to accept and sign. Around noon then, and for the second time Caen went ashore, and we must assume in the hope that the treaty would now finally be signed.
Meeting with the sultan for the second time on June 26, Caen offered the revised treaty text to Alauddin for his signature, with the appropriate deference,
The issue of the treaty’s duration illustrates problems in Andaya’s approach on a number of issues. It is difficult to see what precisely Andaya would have us believe is the cultural specificity of Alauddin’s claim.
Even if Andaya’s view of the sacred nature of South Sulawesi contract logic is accepted, the question remains: Was it this perception that “directed” Alauddin’s expectations and performance during the June 1637 negotiations? Some facts contradict such an assumption. Alauddin was not dealing with another Makassarese power. He was dealing with a European outsider. Second, the issues involved concerned practicalities in formalising a relation with this outside power, not issues of relative hierarchical rank. The context implies that the concerns and conceptions in the South Sulawesian model of diplomacy were irrelevant in the negotiations with the Company from the start.
Third, Alauddin’s performance during the negotiations shows that his preoccupation lay with obtaining the optimal results on the practical issues raised by the Dutch. Concerns of prestige and hierarchy were only indirectly involved. Suppose, then, that from Alauddin’s point of view, the terms he got at the end of the June 26 session were the best he could get, considering the balance of strength between himself and the Company. Alauddin’s insistence on the permanence of the treaty may too just as well be explained by contextual as by structural reasons. The former explanation is actually supported by Alauddin’s remark in the treaty text itself, where he says that he would have wished it otherwise, but in view of the Dutch naval military strength he saw no other option but to accept.
Finally, Alauddin was acting in a mode that was understood by the Dutch. As for miscommunications, insistence that the treaty was binding “forever” was not a foreign idea never formulated in the VOC contracts
There is hardly any correspondence between Alauddin’s actions during the June negotiations 1637 and what one might expect from Andaya’s conception of the typical South Sulawesi treaty. Contrary to Andaya’s propositions about the relatively peripheral position of specific regulations
That Alauddin’s insistence on permanence was accepted on the spot corroborates the proposition that the Dutch also felt that they had obtained the optimum result. In fact, for all the initial misunderstandings leading up to the negotiations per se, and for all the hurdles during the negotiations, the two parties understood each other well enough to conclude a treaty that was characterised by compromises.
For Andaya, what caused the clash in making the Company–Makassar treaty was that the former stuck to European standards and methods that were incompatible with the South Sulawesian tradition. In the section on the negotiations for the 1637 treaty, I have argued that this seems a dubious proposition. What I shall do in this section is to demonstrate that neither Andaya’s proposition about the typical European reference to international law, nor his assumption of miscommunication due to conflicting and incompatible frames of cultural references are convincing when we consider the text of the final treaty.
The expectation in the South Sulawesi function and meaning of “treaty” was that it served to reflect shifts in power relations and alliances. It was dynamic and flexible: the constant alignment and realignment of vassal states from one overlord to another was an expected phenomenon that resulted from an on-going process by which each state sought its proper level within the interstate hierarchy. Shifts in alliances that resulted from new agreements were not seen as breaches of contract in South Sulawesian logic, but as a reflection of the South Sulawesian leaders’ subtle understanding of the function of both while assuring the political as well as the spiritual welfare of their states.
Leaving aside the unlikely implicit proposition that South Sulawesians assumed that by concluding a treaty with an outsider party like the Company the latter was automatically included in the local hierarchy of power, Andaya’s point is that European standards and the Company’s practice were built on a totally different platform. In Andaya’s words, the Company “introduced a new concept of treaties and treaty-making in South Sulawesi.”
What was then so “new” and “different” about it? The emphasis in the European contracts lay on specified and detailed regulations with the expectation that these be honoured as to their precise and specific wording: According to Western European treaty practices at the time, once a treaty text had been formulated, “the provisions therein were considered to be binding to all signatories.”
So, both in meaning and intent, the treaty making between the Company and Makassar represented a clash between two conceptual worlds. That applied to the respective forms of the treaties, as well; i.e. between the South Sulawesian treaty whose general function lay in preserving “harmony in society,”
Andaya notes that elements from the South Sulawesian tradition could be incorporated into the treaty text. He also mentions that at times, the Company incorporated elements of the local treaty mode and form; but this was the exception, and limited to cases where the Company was in a weak negotiating position or in dealings with insignificant native states.
One should note that although Andaya seemingly allows for the possibility of compromise, the idea of compatibility is still rejected. If there is compromise, it is really the conjoining of separate forms. Andaya’s perspective does not allow for compromise as mixing and blending on the same and individual point, because real communication is ruled out by the assumption of antagonistic interpretative frameworks. But, as I have tried to demonstrate in my discussion on the negotiations, the making of the 1637 treaty was a process between actors who did communicate with each other in meaningful ways. That is reflected in the text of the treaty, which precisely puts down the mix of concessions and gains on both sides arrived at during the negotiations. To demonstrate my point that the treaty was a result of give and take, I shall give a brief overview of the contents of the respective clauses, before analysing in more detail how the issue of sovereignty is handled.
The specific regulations in the 1637 treaty are not numbered.
The first clause states that the Company’s right to establish a lodge remained restricted to the periods when its ships were in the roadstead of Makassar.
In the second clause, the Company’s obliges itself to guarantee the sultan’s sovereignty and safety,
Not introduced by a “that,” but still an issue by its own right, the ban on Makassarese sailing to Malacca and the coast of Ceram is included in the third clause.
The fourth item concerns the mode of action in case of conflict between the Company and the sultan’s subjects. Such conflicts should not be regarded as breaches of the peace between the Dutch and Makassarese people, but be handled in “the most delicate manner.”
The fifth ruling concerns how to handle eventual conflicts between the Company and the other European nations residing in Makassar. The procedure agreed upon is that the sultan should have “the final say.”
The sixth ruling is partly in favour of Alauddin’s interests as it expressly forbid violent actions by the Company against its European enemies in Makassar’s roadstead.
The issue of intra-European fighting in the harbour at Makassar is further elaborated on in the following paragraph, which simply states that the sultan neither could nor would be held responsible for such belligerent actions.
The eighth unnumbered clause treats the political relations between the Company and Makassar more generally, defining their rights of autonomy in foreign policy and defining limits to their mutual commitments. Each party was free to attack its own enemies, but neither was obliged to assist the other in case of an attack by a third party.
The ninth article represents a qualification of the preceding one. The non-alliance status was modified by a reciprocal vow not to enter secret negotiations with third parties, which might jeopardise the peace.
The tenth unnumbered article is the only one concerning trade directly, specifying export tolls,
The 1637 treaty presents regulations for practical issues concerning
Had Alauddin applied a local South Sulawesi treaty conception along the lines of Andaya’s model, he would have been blinkered. But his performance during the negotiations proves that he was not. The imprint of the negotiated compromises in the final treaty gives the same impression. I shall elaborate the proposition of Alauddin’s accommodated” concept of “sovereignty” in further detail.
Andaya’s proposition is that “sovereignty” in the South Sulawesian sense was a sacred concept infused with emotions of pride and prestige,
In the preamble of the Contact between Makassar and the Company of June 26, 1637, the type of treaty is given as “agreed conditions for peace.”
The same goes for labelling the agreement as a treaty of peace rather than as an alliance. Van Diemen probably hoped for the latter, but the request was quickly put aside. Alauddin, on his side, must have preferred a treaty of peace and peace only rather than an alliance, as his performance during the negotiations indicates that he was trying to avoid any tighter bonds than the ones he could not refuse without risking war with the Company.
The preamble is furthermore clearly “European” in the sense that it is presented as a symmetrical state-to-state treaty. Such symmetry does admittedly mark a break with the South Sulawesi traditional preoccupation with hierarchy.
Eight of the articles in the 1637 treaty concern the demarcation between the Company’s rights and the sultan’s sovereignty, either in his domestic realm or his and the Company’s relations with third parties. Not discounting that prestige and pride were parts of Alauddin’s package of concerns, and for the sake of argument, even accepting that metaphysical concerns held priority on the local scene, a concern for secular power compatible with the Dutch conception underlay the compromises reached during the negotiations and was inscribed in the final treaty.
Consider, for instance, the second clause concerning the keeping of peaceful relations. Alauddin demands a binding oath regarding the Company’s peaceful intentions “that [the Company] should never do him any harm.”
The fourth ruling, which stated that conflicts between Company servants and the sultan’s subjects should not be regarded as a breach of the peace and that such problems should be solved by delicate mediation, represented another negotiated compromise. But, if Alauddin ultimately felt that the final ruling meant an undermining of his sovereignty, the negotiated solution was still better than the initial Company proposition. Considering that a uncompromising stand on the issue might well have led to open war, which is the implication of Alauddin’s lament about his relative inferiority in strength, the final compromise on the issue of jurisdiction might well have represented considerations of a secular and contextual nature. The point is that primary concerns of prestige and pride and metaphysical considerations do not invite compromise to the same degree. The same goes for all the compromises in the treaty: in the procedure for handling conflicts between the Dutch and other Europeans in Makassar, as well as between the Dutch and the sultan’s subjects, treated in the fifth clause, and the threat to his sovereignty by the imminent danger of the Company bringing its wars with European rivals to Makassarese waters, the topic of the sixth and seventh articles. One can almost hear a sigh of resignation in Alauddin’s recognition of the Company’s right to pursue its enemies. It is followed up by Alauddin’s admission of his own impotence as far as naval warfare was concerned: “At sea, there was nothing he could do about it.”
In Alauddin’s admission above, we are confronted with a kind of conceptualisation of sovereignty and power that is neither abstract nor “mystic” but secular and contextual. The same goes for the regulations on prohibited and permissible alliances in the two succeeding articles, which obviously represented an infringement on Alauddin’s autonomy. But what Alauddin achieved was better than an enforced alliance. And it is clear that what the Dutch obtained was less than what they wanted, too, namely a treaty of “peace
That the Company–Makassar relationship was an evolving one, and thus both fragile and fluid, can also be seen in the curious ending of the eighth clause. Having stated beyond any reasonable doubt that the Company and Makassar were not allies, there comes a passage that presents a lamentation on the absence of positive obligations to assist each other: “even if inclined to do so,”
The hoped-for positive alliance becomes clear from the following paragraph, which is formulated like an advertisement for an alliance partnership with the Company. Compassion and loyalty were the typical traits of the Company’s treatment of its alliance partners: “The Dutch always felt an obligation to protect their allies against unreasonable harassment.”
The meaning of these formulations, which by the way clearly must be ascribed to the Dutch, can be interpreted in a different way, however. In addition to being seen as an implicit invitation for Alauddin to enter into an alliance with the Company, it could also be read as an implicit warning about the Company’s intention to interfere on behalf of its allies in Makassarese waters, if Makassar decided to go against them. Maybe for that reason it was a “protection” that Alauddin never asked for.
As for implicit subtleties, the above example is as close as we get in the treaty text. Furthermore, none of the articles are formulated with reference to or in terms of international law. The general characteristic of the treaty is that the regulations represented concise formulations on the compromises that had been reached during the negotiations. What we see in the final treaty is not at all the product of “cultural collision.” Neither is it a dual product with disconnected components of the South Sulawesian and Western treaty traditions. It represents the endresult of the give and take process that started with the negotiations of June 24–26.
Rumours about Van Diemen’s mercilessness in defending the Company’s monopoly in the Moluccas
The 1637 treaty was not the outcome of representatives of two parties speaking mutually unintelligible languages. It came about as a result of mutual negotiations over secular interests in a context in which both parties considered reaching a negotiated solution better than the alternative. The two parties understood each other well enough to make meaningful communication possible. Their initial modes or models of diplomacy and treaty making may have been different; but they were not so incompatible as to make meaningful communication impossible.
Knaap, 1992, 5.
Knaap 2004, 27.
J. Kathirithamby-Wells, “Banten: A West Indonesian Port and Polity During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries”, in Kathirithamby-Wells and John Villiers (eds.): The Southeast Asian Port and Polity, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1990, 107- 127, 115.
D. K. Basset, «English Trade in Celebes, 1613-1677”, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 31/1 1958, 1-39, 10-11.
See “
1637 treaty,
Specified rates of export tolls to be paid to the Sultan, 1637 treaty,
1637 treaty,
1637 treaty, unnumbered arts. 4–5 and 7–9,
1637 treaty, unnumbered arts. 1–3,
1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 11,
1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 12,
For the background, see Menno Witteveen,
For the negotiations on the issue, see
See
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 289.
“Verhaell vant gene d’Heer Generaall van Diemmen wedervaren is zijne Amboijnesche voijage int weder keeren voor Makassar.”
“Treaty of peace between the king of Makassar and the noble Gentleman General Governor Antonio van Diemen, June 26, 1637.”
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 288.
Ibid. 286, 288.
Ibid. 288.
Ibid. 291.
Ibid. 291.
Ibid. 287.
Ibid. 286–87.
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 289.
Ibid. 289.
See, for instance, M. S. Anderson,
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 278–86; see
See
As an emended note, included in the treaty text on Alauddin’s insistence,
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 289.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 289.
See
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 289.
Ibid. 289.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 287.
Ibid. 288.
Ibid. 280–81.
See
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 287.
Van Diemen’s Report,
See
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 278.
Ibid. 278.
Ibid. 287.
Ibid. 286.
Ibid. 288.
Ibid. 289.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 280.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 281.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 281.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 281.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 281.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 281.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 281.
“
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 281.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 282.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 281.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 283.
“dat nu in passant comende.” Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 283.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 22, 1637, 283.
The issue was more generally covered but modified in the final treaty text. See 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 7,
“vreede ende ende vruntschap.” Van Diemen’s Report,
The title of the 1637 treaty began “Condition for peace…” 1637 treaty,
1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 8,
“Behoudens dat de Nederlanders t’allen tijde haere geallieerde tegens onbehoorlijcke overlast moeten protegeren.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 8,
Van Diemen, Report,
1637 treaty, unnumbered arts. 3 and 6,
“Een ander gequalificeert person ende aensinnelijcke swiette.” Van Diemen’s report,
“om den vreede in behoorlycke forme te sluiten.” Van Diemen’s report,
Van Diemen’s report,
Van Diemen’s report, DRB June 23, 1637, 284.
“conform toesegginge op antwoort was blijven uit te zien Van Diemen’s Report.” Van Diemen’s report, DRB June 23, 1637, 284.
“een abuijs van zijn volk.” Van Diemen’s report, DRB June 23, 1637, 284.
Van Diemen’s report, DRB June 23, 1637, 284.
“Van de condition die op het sluijten des vrede mocten voorgestelt worden.” Van Diemen’s report, DRB June 23, 1637, 284. One should note that neither “friendship” nor “alliance” are mentioned.
“openbaere erfvijanden.” Van Diemen’s report, DRB June 23, 1637, 284.
“den aengeboden vrede op’t hooghste behaechte.” Van Diemen’s report, DRB June 23, 1637, 284.
“Item niet anders verlanghden alls om deselve te conformeeren ende voor eeuwich te continueeren.” Van Diemen’s report, DRB June 23, 1637, 284.
“Tot beter welvaert van zijn landt souwde exerceeren.” Van Diemen’s report, DRB June 23, 1637, 285.
“Datt wij zijn onderdaenen off subjecten op gemelte onvrij vaarwaetters bejegennende als vijanden aenslaen mochten.” Van Diemen’s report, DRB June 23, 1637, 285.
The grant of the Company’s right of sanctions continued thus: “sonder dat het selve eenige verbreckinghe van het selve eenige verbreckinghe aen dese contract veroorsaecken soude.” Van Diemen’s report, DRB June 23, 1637, 285.
1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 3,
See below, especially
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 24, 1637, 285.
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 24, 1637, 285.
“Alls off seer gaerren eenige residenten op Macassar wilde houwen.” Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 24, 1637, 285.
Van Diemen’s Report,
The crucial formulation was “zoo langh hier een off meer schepen ter rheede hebbebde.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 1,
1637 treaty, unnumbered arts. 2–3, 5–6, and 11–12. For the negotiations on these issues, see below. For the final formulation of the regulations, see
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 24, 1637, 285.
“Apparent door onse vijanden and geveijnsde vrunden d’ooren voll geblasend wesende.” Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 24, 1637, 285.
“omme te dienen tot bondiger onderhoudinghe ende meerder verseeckeringe van’t gecontracteerde aen weder sijde.” Van Diemen’s Report,
“den vreede recht meenende, ende niet anders socht dan die lang te continueeren.” Van Diemen’s Report,
“punctuelick conform de meeninge in’t bijwesen des Coninckx getransalateert ende in Nederlandts overgenomen hadde.” Van Diemen’s Report,
Van Diemen’s Report,
“d’onse wanner in sijn land coomen te vergrijpen. Off ijmant te beschadigen straffen sall.” Van Diemen’s Report,
“Een wenig veranderen.” Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 26, 1637, 286.
“dat van ons eigen volck souden blijven corrigeeren.” Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 26, 1637, 286.
See my treatment of Andaya’s positions above.
1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 5, in which the Sultan’s supreme authority was recognised: “alle voorvallende questien tusschen de Nederlandsche ende d’Engelschen, Deenen, Portuguesen, Makassaren etc. bij de Maijesteit affegedaen sall worden … mits dat het presente Nederlandts oppe hooffd mede in sijn raedt sall compareren.”
“aensienkijcke suijte.” Van Diemen’s Report,
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 26, 1637, 286.
Van Diemen’s Report,
“hoe wij in meest alle quartieren van Indien daer negotieeren meesters over ons volck waerren.” Van Diemen’s Report,
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 26, 1637, 287.
(Alauddin) “bleef parsisteerren ende vaststaen also seijde … d’Engelsen, Portugeesen ende alle andere vremdelingen die in sijn land resideerren off coomen handellen sulcx subject sijn.” Van Diemen’s Report,
Van Diemen’s Report,
Van Diemen’s Report,
“goetgevonden … tselve point een weijnich tot des koninckx begeeren tusschen beide te veranderen.” Van Diemen’s Report,
“hij [the sultan] over d’onse wanner in hun in sijn landt comen te verlopen of te vergrijppen recht ende justitie recht ende justitie sall mogen administreeren mits dat her presente Nederlants opperhoofd in sijnnen raet compareren ende stemme hebben sall.” Van Diemen’s Report,
“met de vereijste eerbiedicheijt.” Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 26, 1637, 287.
“darinne seer goet contentement nam.” Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 26, 1637, 287.
“Doch alsoo considereerden dat de Generaells oordonnararij naer drie jaerren verandert werden…datt dese contractie soo wel bij de naercomelingen als de presente generaell soude van weerden gekent ende achervolgcht warden.” Van Diemen’s Report,
Van Diemen’s Report, DRB June 26, 1637, 287.
See
“Dat hem in zijn rijck geensints sullen sullen mogen beschadigen, allsoo tegen de Nederlanders geringh van maght zegt te wesen.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 2 (see also unnumbered art. 7),
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 285–86.
Ibid. 286.
Ibid. 286.
Ibid. 288.
Ibid. 284.
Ibid. 286.
Ibid. 287.
See
“dat zoo lang hier een off meer schepen ter rheede hebbende.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 1,
See
“Hem in zijn rijck geensints sullen mogen beschadigen.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 2,
“De Nederlanders ook gedurende desen vreede niet vermogen zullen, tegen Zijne Maijt nogh niemandt onder desselfs gebiet sorterende vijandtlijckheidt te betoonen.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 3,
“Behoudens dat desselffs subjecten in onvrij vaarwaters, te weten omtrent Malaca, op de cust van Ceram etc. sullen vermogen als vianden aen te tasten ende te nemen, ‘t welck aen dit tractat geen infractie zall veroorzaeken.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 3,
“Dat om particuliere questie met ijmandt van de zijne geen verbrekingh van vrede comen, maer op het gevoeghelikste gemodereerdt werden zal.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 4,
“Bij de Maijt. affgedaen zall worden.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 5,
“Mits dat het presente Nederlandts opperhoofd mede in zijn raedt sall compareren.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 5,
“zijn rheede ongevioleerdt zullen laten.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 6,
“De Nederlanders ende ook gelijcke vrijheidt (as the other Europeans in Makassar) genieten.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 6,
“hem (the Sultan) allsdan de schullt niet sullen geven.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 6,
“allsoo sulx ter zee niet beletten kan.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 6,
“Mits dat de Nederlanders op gelijcke maniere bij gelegenheidt hare revenge sullen mogen nemen.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 7,
“Dat ijder met zijn vijanden zal aenspringen, sonder gehouden te wesen den andren te adsisteeren.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 8,
“Dat van beijde zijde geen vreemde praetjens ofte uijtstroijselen die den gamaeckt vreede eenighsints hinderlijck moghten wesen, lightelijck sullen aennemen.” 1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 9,
1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 10,
1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 11,
1637 treaty, unnumbered art. 11,
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 284.
Ibid. 285.
Ibid. 284.
“Conditien … op het treffen van de vrede.” 1637 treaty,
“den Nederlandtschen stant in Orienten.” 1637 treaty,
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 285.
“dat hem in zijn rijck geensints sullen mogen beschadigen.”
“also tegen de Nederlanders Gering van maght zeght te wesen.”
“hem (the Sultan), also sulx ter zee niet beletten en kan,” unnumbered art. 7,
See below, and: “
“off te ware sulx uijt lieffde deden,” unnumbered art. 8,
“behoudens dat de Nederlanders t’allen tijde haere gealieerde tegens onbehoorlijcke overlast moeten protegeren,” unnumbered art. 8.,
Witteveen,
The topic of this chapter is the deliberations that occurred within the High Government of Batavia concerning Makassar in 1655, and the treaty, which was made on basis of the decisions on policy that were reached.
On October 23, 1655, the High Government decided to find out if the Makassarese were inclined towards peace and sent members of the Council of the Indies, the governor of Ambon, Willem van der Beeck,
When the High Government took the initiative for peace negotiations in October 1655, it was for several reasons, chief among them the Directors’ worries about the high costs of the war and its detrimental effects on trade.
After the end of the truce with the Portuguese in 1651, the High Government received orders from the Directors to continue the struggle against the Portuguese east of the Cape.
I shall begin by giving a brief chronology of the diplomatic interaction between 1650 and 1655 to clarify my subject and my propositions. The analysis proper consists of three sections. The first concerns the Directors’ advice on Makassar in the 1650 General Instructions; I intend to identify the general scope of manoeuvre and approach that the Directors’ gave the High Government. I propose that the tenor of the advice on Makassar conforms with the generally pragmatic approach to overseas diplomacy in the 1650 Instructions. In the following section, I undertake a textual analysis of the conflicting views over policy between Governor-General Maetsuyker and the Governor of Ambon, De Vlaming van Oudshoorn, at the close of hostilities in 1655. The latter saw total victory over Makassar as a necessary precondition for the establishment of a lasting peace and the protection of the Company’s interests in the Spice Islands, whereas the former argued that the conclusion of a satisfactory treaty by fall 1655 was not dependent on a total military victory.
I propose that although the two parties held contrary views, their respective arguments sprang from the same
When Maetsuyker won the day, the form of the proposed peace treaty of 1655 was based on the assumptions that the Makassarese were sincere in their wish for peace and their vow not to interfere with the Company’s trade monopoly in the Spice Islands. In the third section, I analyse the regulations and formulations in the 1655 treaty from this perspective.
In summary, my aim is to demonstrate that the advice of the Heeren XVII on Makassar, the discussions between De Vlaming and Maetsuyker, and the regulations and formulations in the December 28 treaty all sprang from considerations of local context. The Company’s policy towards Makassar between 1651 and 1655, the 1655 discussions on how to deal with Makassar in the future, and the final arrangements in the 1655 treaty all serve as examples of pragmatic overseas diplomacy.
The following chronological overview is mainly based on Stapel’s
As for the discussion between Maetsuyker and De Vlaming, I rely on Maetsuyker’s general letter of December 24, 1655,
The High Government’s reports on its dealings with and decisions on policy to the Directors could well be said to represent justifications of how the Company rights and interests had been protected and defended. According to W. Ph. Coolhaas, Maetsuyker particularly underlined this. If the
The Makassarese stand on allowing permanent residency for the English and Portuguese but not for the Company was a thorn in Batavia’s side.
The conflict between the Company and Makassar stemmed from the fact that smuggling from Ambon undermined the Company’s monopoly regime in the Moluccas. When rebellion in Ambon broke out again in 1648,
It is important to note that the final decision to go to war on Makassar did not come until the fall of 1653 after a series of failed missions to seek a peaceful solution. These negotiations were respectively Jacob Hustard’s mission, which left Batavia January 16,
The decision to seek peace with Makassar by negotiations to be carried out by the Council of the Indies on October 23
As it was, Van der Beeck and Soliman, arrived in Makassar December 28, and were successful in their dealings. A treaty between Van der Beeck on behalf of the Company, and Sultan Hasanuddin of Makassar was signed December 28 and countersigned in Batavia February 2, 1656.
At the outset, Makassar belonged to the polities that fell under category 3 of the 1650 tripartite classification. As such it was a place of trade where the Company could neither dictate nor decide the terms of interaction, but should accommodate itself to the local ruler.
Yet, Makassar was an extraordinary case. Thanks to its proximity to and entanglement in affairs of the Eastern Archipelago, it was a place of primary importance to the Directors, as its actions had direct implications for the Company’s possessions and position in the region.
That Makassar was intrinsically intertwined with the Company’s vested interests in the Moluccas modified the recommended restraint and accommodation, and amplified the Company’s need to obtain information on Makassarese plans. This was, however, hampered by the absence of a permanent Company residency. In the 1650 Instructions, information gathering was stressed by the Directors as being vital to improving the Company’s relative position compared to the English and the Portuguese.
Two articles in the General Instructions of 1650 are devoted to Makassar, namely articles 44 and 45. In the former it is emphasised that the profits that could accrue from trade on Makassar should not be the High Government’s primary concern. Taking the magnitude of trade and therefore also the great numbers of people frequenting Makassar into consideration, the Company should trade there with the aim of obtaining information, particularly on the doings of other European traders.”
Profit-making motives were however entangled with political ones. The smuggling and trade of cloves from Ambon via Makassar was the subject of the article 45. The cloves brought by Makassarese sailing to Ambon and sold to the English and Portuguese residing there was causing “considerable damage”
Article 45 merely repeated the substance of the preceding one. The only difference between the two paragraphs was their perspective. Article 44 concerns the relative standing of the Company as compared to its European rivals in Makassar, while the second deals with the issue of smuggling directly. The shared message was that the High Government must acquire the most accurate information possible about plans in Makassar to serve the Company’s interests. No further instructions were given as to how exactly the High Government should go about improving the Company’s position in Makassar. The appreciation of the situation, as well as the specific mode of action was left to the discretion of the High Government. All this aligns well with the tenor of the General Instructions, namely that the High Government was expected to perform within the general framework laid down there and supplemented and elaborated in particular letters by the Directors.
As for choice of action and implementation of policy, the High Government was expected to adjust its approach to the context in situ. The Directors could only provide the general framework in the 1650 Instructions, and give some general advice. Still, the costs of war—both direct military expenditures and the loss of trade—were a worry that made the Directors press for a conclusion of peace.
The Directors’ advice on Makassar in the 1650 Instructions did not explicitly say much more than this: get your share of information and political influence at the expense of the Portuguese and the English. But, in this advice there were two important implications for Batavia’s diplomacy towards Makassar. Reducing the influence of other Europeans in Makassar implied undermining their influence at the Makassarese court, and enhancing that of the Company. This could only be achieved by a diplomatic approach that was at least superficially accommodating. An alternative would be to engage the Company’s European rivals at sea, but then this would mean the risk of falling out with the Makassarese at the political-diplomatic level. A third option was of course to engage the Makassarese directly in a costly campaign both at sea and on land. The 1650 Instructions remain silent on these options, but the High Government’s reflections in the period 1653–55 oscillated among them. The reason lay in the problem of deciding how Makassar’s role in the Ambonese rebellion against the Company’s monopoly regime should be tackled.
A disagreement rose between Governor-General Maetsuyker and De Vlaming concerning how and when to end the war with Makassar. De Vlaming’s position was that any treaty with Makassar should be based on a military victory. Against this position of “treaty by total victory only” Maetsuyker argued for negotiations as soon as the Makassarese were “ripe for it.” This discussion may have started already in fall 1654, when De Vlaming was in Batavia November 1–24, to confer with the High Government, and when he presented a letter to the Directors in which he proposed a strategy for a final victory over Makassar in order to settle the Company’s problems with it once and for all.
In this section, I focus on the respective arguments as presented by Maetsuyker in the
Maetsuyker was legally trained and had practised at the provincial court of Holland. He had been “headhunted” by the Directors as part of a campaign to straighten up corruption and irregularities in the judicial system in Batavia. He left for Batavia in 1636, and was the author of the
Arnold De Vlaming van Oudshoorn was appointed governor of Ambon in 1647. In the view of Stapel and others, he was a man of energy, but little empathy
The contrast in Maetsuyker’s and De Vlaming’s approaches to Makassar may be explained partly by differences in character: Maetsuyker was prudent and calculating, De Vlaming devious and energetic. Such armchair psychological judgement should not overshadow another important factor that reveals itself from a close reading of Maetsuyker’s counter-argument to De Vlaming’s offensive tactics. It becomes clear that their disagreement was embedded in diverging views on what to expect from the Makassarese, or, more specifically, Hasanuddin’s intentions and motives. Maetsuyker believed that Hasanuddin would honour a treaty in which Makassarese non-intervention in the Spice Islands was stated. De Vlaming believed that no matter what the treaty said on this point, the Makassarese would continue to interfere. Diverging appreciation of context conditioned the diverging views on tactics. This is supported by the shift in policy after 1655, when an appreciation of the sultan’s motives and real intentions were reinterpreted in line with De Vlaming’s positions, and in 1660, when direct military intervention in combination with opposition from within Makassar itself became promising.
Although Maetsuyker and De Vlaming started from distinct assumptions and arrived at different conclusions in 1655, both conformed to the pragmatic mode of thinking about overseas diplomacy. No appeal to international law was included in the respective arguments. Both applied a mode of argument that would now be termed a “cost-benefit analysis,” as seen from the Company’s perspective. Thus, even when Company opinion overseas was split on tactics, it is still possible to reconstruct a shared framework of thought about overseas diplomacy for the two divergent arguments.
The section on Makassar in the December 24
It was understood that the third parties reaping the fruits of the imperfect control were the other Europeans, particularly the Portuguese, residing in Makassar. The above argument sums up Maetsuyker’s general opposition to De Vlaming’s militant approach, which he considered counterproductive in terms of cultivating local goodwill, too costly to be effective, and therefore damaging to the Company’s interests.
The suggestion that De Vlaming’s hard method was alienating the locals and creating opposition instead of goodwill was further elaborated by Maetsuyker in a separate section. Maetsuyker criticised De Vlaming’s excessive use of force, which, according to him, alienated the locals and thus created opposition. He ventured more general considerations on the counter-productivity of using violence in the Moluccas to obtain good relations with Makassar. Maetsuyker then referred to De Vlaming’s conduct of operations against Buton and Makassar during the war. The High Government “had wished that his Excellency had not shown up there and had abstained from hostile actions against the city.”
As we have seen, Maetsuyker presents in essence a cost-benefit analysis, in which the argument against De Vlaming’s plan is that the costs of sanctions would exceed the returns. De Vlaming used the same type of reasoning for his pro-war stand, but argued that long-term gains would surpass short-term losses. According to De Vlaming, the Makassarese were not really inclined towards peace.
For De Vlaming then, war, whether openly declared or not, was structurally built into the Makassarese–Company rivalry over the Spice Islands. No matter what came out of the negotiations, or whatever the terms of their agreement, the Makassarese would always pose a threat to Banda and Ambon. Therefore, the Company would be obliged to direct resources to defending its interests in the Spice Islands. De Vlaming underscored his position with the cost-benefit argument that future commercial gains would outweigh the cost of war. The big volume of trade passing through Makassar was detrimental to the Company’s commercial interests. A military defeat of Makassar would put an end to that.
The cost-benefit argument in De Vlaming’s argument for a military solution was also illustrative of the long-term expansionist thinking in which today’s spending yields tomorrow’s profits. In any case, both aspects of the argument are indicative of the primary concern of the Company’s commercial balance sheet both in the republic and overseas.
Maetsuyker’s counter-argument to war as a means of securing future gains turned De Vlaming’s cost-benefit assumptions upside down. War would fall heavier on the Company than on Makassar, which could wage war with fewer costs, claimed Maetsuyker,
So, sharing the same general pursuit, and within the same framework of reasoning, Maetsuyker flipped De Vlaming’s conclusion on its head by a different reckoning of the prospected gains and costs. This difference over approach was not embedded in legal considerations; it was based on diverging assumptions as to what to expect from the Makassarese.
De Vlaming mentioned unreliability and opportunism as inherent character traits of the Makassarese. They had well proven to be “people that would never wink at breaking their word if it served their own interests.”
The divergence in opinion between De Vlaming and Maetsuyker rested on a fundamental difference in belief about Sultan Hasanuddin’s trustworthiness. With the conclusion of the 1655 war, a golden opportunity presented itself in which the Company’s aims could be achieved by negotiations alone.
Maetsuyker declared that ending the war and concluding a peace not only constituted the better option, but were also of vital importance to the Company’s interest in the long run.
Neither De Vlaming nor Maetsuyker appealed to legal arguments. Both of them appealed to cultural factors, understood as specific traits of the national character of the Makassarese. De Vlaming argued his position from an assumption of Makassarese ingrained deceit, Maetsuyker from a belief in their sensitivity and pride.
The next step in De Vlaming’s line of argument was to show how total victory could be obtained. A vital element in his grand strategy was that the Company must encourage local dissent and join forces with local insurgents rising in rebellion against Makassar. He deemed the prospect of finding a local ally who could be used in the interest of the Company good.
Maetsuyker rejected the idea of sowing discontent and division among the Makassarese and so intervening on the side of the rebels on the grounds that it was unrealistic and, moreover, counterproductive in that it would only sow hatred against the Company and foment anti- Company feelings.
De Vlaming’s war-plan was simple and bold, namely to attack the southernmost Makassarese forts with 1,200 troops, 600 from Batavia and the rest from Ambon and Banda. All were to land “with a clear dedication to either conquering or perishing.”
Added to the conviction that the present situation greatly favoured a settlement by negotiation was Maetsuyker’s opinion that De Vlaming grossly underestimated the risks involved in settling the issues with Makassar by continuing the war. First, the transfer of troops from Banda and Ambon would jeopardise the security of these “valuable possessions” so that the “enemy would meet an open door to go about as he liked.”
Maetsuyker logically discredited De Vlaming’s belief in obtaining local allies within Makassar itself. In fact, De Vlaming’s assumptions were reversed. First, Maetsuyker and the High Government repeated their view that finding allies among local rebels was highly uncertain.
Far from doctrinal legal arguments, the criticism of De Vlaming’s policy and defence of the negotiation option were formulated on basis of the nature of the Makassarese, their traits, and empirical, historical experience. The argument represented a form of realist tactical thinking; in a word, it was pragmatic. Having pointed that out, one should note the respective assumptions about the Makassarese.
Maetsuyker and the Council implicitly characterised De Vlaming’s approach as “military adventurism.” But, significantly neither party clearly labelled their own or their opponent’s position. Rather, they both assessed the situation in Makassar and weighed the options for Company action from a practical point of view. Maetsuyker’s and De Vlaming’s disagreement was one over means, and rested on diametrically opposing convictions about whether Hasanuddin could be trusted or not.
Maetsuyker’s diplomatic approach aimed for a negotiated peace that would provide the Company permanent residency and thus better access to information about goings-on in Makassar. The reasoning went like this: By obtaining a peace treaty without provoking the Makassarese into defiance, the Company would be granted a permanent establishment in Makassar and better access to information about Makassarese politics in the Eastern Archipelago. The need for keeping an enlarged garrison in the eastern quarters would be eliminated by the permanent residency of Company servants in Makassar itself, because based on the information by the Company’s resident, resources and men could be transferred to Banda and Ambon when needed.
Probably as a pre-emptive move against De Vlaming’s argument that the Makassarese could not be trusted regardless of what they might agree on in writing, Maetsuyker went on to say that reliable information could be obtained, even if the rulers of Makassar must be deemed “the most civil and discreet of all Moorish princes in these quarters.”
The Council’s point-by-point refutation of De Vlaming’s arguments for war ended with an appeal to the Heeren XVII that it shared a clear and unqualified conviction that negotiation would best serve the Company’s interests under the current circumstances. The credibility of the negotiation option rested on the premise that after years of warfare, in the fall of 1655 there was a sincere Makassarese wish for an enduring peace. This basic assumption was argued in contextual terms, namely that “Given the Makassarese lack of success over the last years, it is to be hoped that they had learnt the lesson not to once again ‘stick their noses’ into matters that were none of their business. Their interference so far had gained them nothing but had cost them a lot.”
The message to the Directors was clear: Now was the time for negotiations, not provocations. It was, in fact, an opportunity that the High Government already had seized by approaching Hasanuddin for a treaty.
The High Government believed an acceptable, negotiated solution to be imminently at hand.
Judged by the standards of international law in Europe at the time, De Vlaming’s grand strategy represented a clear breach of the rules since his plan involved outside interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. If Andaya’s proposition about the doctrinaire legalistic obsession of VOC diplomacy were correct, one would expect some comments on the legal dimension on this point. But legal considerations were not mentioned in Maetsuyker’s counter-argument to De Vlaming’s original proposition. Practical considerations as to chances of success were what mattered. Both men argued within a shared pragmatic framework; their difference lay in the prospects of success for their respective proposals.
In De Vlaming’s version of “divide and rule” as applied to Makassar, we might see embryonic features of a “greater scheme” for restructuring the political geography of South Sulawesi. As we know, this was what did take place after the joint Bugis–Company victory in the 1667 war. De Vlaming’s grand strategy came to mature in the five years after 1655, to reach a full explication in the
But in 1655, Maetsuyker still favoured negotiations based on his trust in Hasanuddin’s sincere intention for a lasting peace, and a commitment to non-interference in the eastern quarters.
As we have seen, none of the policy preferences were argued with reference to law. Both sides considered the problem with an eye to costs and benefits. Both sides considered their choice of tactics in terms of the overall context and pragmatism, not on basis of legal principals. The question remains, however, as to how much the above-sketched divergence in opinion could be explained by differences in personality.
There is a recurring trait in the historiography to ascribe differences in the formulation and execution of policy to differences in personality. Maetsuyker’s approach is thus explained by his being a “cautious person,” while De Vlaming is judged a “man of action.”
The lesson of the disagreement between De Vlaming and Maetsuyker in 1655 and the later shift in policy demonstrates on the one hand that deliberations on policy in Batavia were remarkably vivid, and that policy-making was dynamic. Both features deny fixity to legal principles or fixed personality traits as prime determining factors in policy deliberations and decisions. Both features were illustrative of a pragmatic approach. The determining factor was an appreciation of the situation on the ground. In 1655, Maetsuyker still deemed that the sultan’s behaviour warranted a soft approach. That was also the defining trait of the December 28, 1655, treaty.
Arguing from his “non-Eurocentric” point of view, Andaya holds that the 1655 treaty “clearly demonstrates the influence of treaty making” and that its contents “read like a typical South Sulawesian treaty.”
I present a somewhat different view of the 1655 treaty. As for Andaya’s proposition of its “typical” South Sulawesian nature, a good argument can be made to the contrary, namely that the Company’s concessions to Makassar can be read as specific regulations protecting Makassarese interests, in other words that they were conceived in a framework of secular power politics. Seen from the Company’s side, although the treaty was made as result of pressure for peace from the Netherlands, it can just as well be considered an exemplary product of the “soft diplomacy” advocated by Maetsuyker. That is my proposition. Hence, I aim to demonstrate that the wording and regulations in the 1655 treaty were wholly consistent with the basic policy assumption held by Maetsuyker at the time, namely that Hasanuddin would indeed ban Makassarese sailings to the Spice Islands. Thus, the governor-general and Council’s later criticism of both the treaty’s terms and Van der Beeck’s performance in Makassar should be seen in the light of a shift in thinking a year later,
One of the most telling parts of the 1655 treaty
The inclusion of Hasanuddin’s wish for the Company to stand out as the party asking for peace might have been perceived as a face-saving device addressed to the sultan’s home audience with no serious consequence for the Company. The transaction of prestige involved here represented a concession that the Company could afford. Given the High Government’s willingness to please Hasanuddin on this point, it seems reasonable to believe that the sultan’s ambiguous remarks on the peace as being forced on him because of his relative weakness, was accepted for the same reason. The transaction was however counterbalanced by Hasanuddin’s positive depiction of the peace at the end of the preamble. He had agreed to a treaty that was not harmful to his people. My point is That, with the possible exception of his remark about his relative inferior strength, Hasanuddin’s presentation of the treaty has as much to do with concerns of secular power as with traditional South Sulawesian concepts of symbolic power.
Seen from the Company’s side, both the transfer of prestige to Hasanuddin and the expressed ambiguity about the peace itself were tactical concessions that the High Government could accept as long as it obtained a formal declaration of commitment to stay out of the Moluccas from the Makassarese. Hasanuddin’s trustworthiness on this point was, as we have seen, what Maetsuyker had consistently argued for in his rejection of De Vlaming’s hard-line approach in 1655.
If Dutch concessions could be made on presumably insubstantial issues such as Hasanuddin’s prestige in Makassar, making them on regulations that could well be interpreted as creating loopholes in the Company’s privileges in the Spice Islands was another matter. Yet the 1655 treaty was full of such. The first clause, for instance, confirmed that the sultan’s subjects still residing in Ambon should be allowed to return to Makassar.
The second article in the treaty
Heeres regards the Company’s agreement to open up for traffic of Muslims from Ambon to Makassar as a “dangerous concession,” since some the Ternatese and Ambonese would qualify as “Muslim.”
Goals and means in Makassarese and Batavian policy may not have been identical, but their power politics overlapped. As long as both parties laid claims to influence and sovereignty in the same territory, in the end the agreement had to fail. But if in 1655 the High Government assumed that prestige recognition for internal use was Hasanuddin’s primary motive, this could well be traded against guaranties for the Company’s monopoly rights. I think such assumptions go a long way to explain all the concessions made in the 1655 treaty.
Another concession that was also based on Makassar’s role as a protector of its co-religionists was made in article 3, which simply states that none of the Muslims in Ambon would be punished.
In article 5, which concerned the exchange of prisoners, Hasanuddin achieved another advantage with an agreement for the exchange of prisoners: all prisoners being held in Batavia should be returned to Hasanuddin, as likewise all Company prisoners held by Hasanuddin should be returned by him, except those who had converted while in Hasanuddin’s custody.
If Hasanuddin was appealing to his role as defender of the faith for secular reasons and simply to buy time, as there is reason to believe judging by his later actions, there is every reason to admire his manoeuvring in 1655. The sultan succeeded in creating loopholes in the treaty to protect his own power position in the Eastern Archipelago by “playing the religious card.”
This interpretation, however, implies that Hasanuddin’s tactics were not based on the South Sulawesi treaty tradition à la Andaya, but that he exploited the Dutch assumptions that he was in pursuit of religious prestige. A feeling of having been outsmarted in 1655 may help explain Batavia’s uncompromising tone in its later hard-line approach.
In maritime Southeast Asia, the Company obviously was a Christian intruder in an environment in which Islam was dominant. This meant that local powers could always appeal to religion as a mobilising force against the Company. One should not, however, underestimate the psychological role of religion as an identity-marker for the Company. But it may have taken the form of the merger between Company honour and divine providence, as I have found in the General Instructions.
Article 5 represented the final modification of the Company’s monopoly and sovereignty in the Spice Islands. The Company’s privileged position in the Spice Islands itself was confirmed in the final article of the treaty, article 8. The two articles in between concerned how Makassar and the Company should act in relation to the Portuguese and other third parties in general. It is important to note that as we turn from bilateral to multilateral relations from article 5 onwards, the terms in the treaty increasingly favour the Company.
Regarding the issue of the Portuguese, the regulation was closer to a draw than a win for either party. Article 6 simply stated that “The Company’s enemies should not be regarded as the king’s enemies.”
It may seem puzzling that the Company, having gained the upper hand in war, not only made serious concessions regarding continued contact between Makassar and Ambon but also agreed to terms that guaranteed full autonomy for Makassar’s foreign policy. One factor was the pressure for peace from the Netherlands. Nor can the blame be put on Van der Beeck’s poor negotiating performance, because the treaty was, after all, countersigned in Batavia. A better explanation is to regard this puzzle as one that primarily arises in a realist and hard-line frame of thought.
Viewed in the idealistic, soft diplomacy approach of 1655, the concessions made to Makassar all made perfect sense. Makassar got no more than the standard rights prescribed by category 3 of the General Instructions of 1650. The concessions made were the price to be paid for what the Company got in the final article of the treaty, namely Makassarese recognition of the Company’s monopoly and sovereignty in the Spice Islands.
The first part of the eighth and concluding article of the 1655 treaty reads “The Honourable Willhelm van der Beeck requests of the king that no Makassarese, nor subjects of the king, be allowed to sail to Ambon, Banda or Ternate.”
This was what the Company’s envoys had come for in the first place, the issue on which the Company would not concede. Still it was phrased as a “request.” The phrasing clearly entailed yet another prestige transaction and once again in favour of Hasanuddin. But that was in line with the general tenor of the treaty as such.
Still more was working in Hasanuddin’s favour in the content and wording of Article 8. The “request” was also modified by the qualification that the sultan could be held responsible for his own subjects,
From the Company’s viewpoint, article 8 was the crux of the 1655 treaty. It fulfilled the High Government’s primary aim at the time, as it guaranteed Makassarese recognition of the Company’s commercial and political rights in the Moluccas, obligated the Makassarese not to interfere, and guaranteed the Company’s right to prevent third parties from doing so. These were Batavia’s primary aims in 1655, and securing these goals was what made the treaty acceptable. Maetsuyker’s stand on this must have rested on his belief that Hasanuddin would honour the rulings of article 8, and not misuse the concessions he gained in articles 1 through 5. None of this came true, but it was the basic assumption upon which the 1655 treaty rested. Given this background, it seems fair to say that later historians have either misunderstood or too harshly judged the 1655 treaty. At the least it deserves to be considered in terms of the assumptions from which it sprang.
The 1655 treaty and regulations make perfect sense within the framework of a soft diplomacy approach in which the defence and protection of the Company’s possession of the Spice Islands was the primary goal. It sprang from a conviction that the context and the Company’s position were such that more ambitious plans were unrealistic, too costly, and otherwise counter to the Company’s interests. Considering that Hasanuddin would no longer interfere with the Company’s interests in the Spice Islands, a negotiated peace was the better option. Maetsuyker’s positions and policies in 1655 were part and parcel of a pragmatic diplomatic approach, built on trust and good faith.
For the period from the conclusion of the 1637 Treaty to the outbreak of the war I refer to the chronology of Company-Makassar relations p 10-11. above.
Van der Beeck was until 1654 Governor of Ambon, Stapel,
Ibid. 53.
Ibid. 53.
Stapel,
Ibid. 312–13.
Ibid. 350.
Ibid. 355 ff.
Ibid. 366.
Ibid. 350.
“One of the principle causes of the renewal of the war in 1653”, Boxer calls it: Boxer, Francisco Vieira de Figueiredo – A Portuguese Merchant-adventurer in South Est Asia, 1624–1667, Verhandelingen, KITLV, 52, 1967, 11. For the details of the incidents, see Boxer 109–11.
Stapel,
François Valentijn,
All from Mijer,
December 24, 1655,
Stapel, Het
Ibid. 45.
Ibid. 45.
Ibid. 45.
For the various rebellions in Ambon, see Blussé and de Moor,
Stapel,
Ibid. 49.
Ibid. 46.
Ibid. 47.
Ibid. 49.
Ibid. 50.
Ibid. 53.
Ibid. 53.
1650 Instructions, art. 71. See
“in vrienschap en vrede, zonder eenige de minste offensie te geven.” 1650 Instructions, art. 116. See
See
“zonder te denken, om in eenige verwijderingen met de koningen en prinsen … te geraken.” See
“als ten hoogste nadeelig voor her welvaren van de Generaele Compagnie wezende.” See
“om nevens de kleine negotie van de Compagnie aldaer te hooren en te zien wat er passeert en zonderling ten regarde van de europeische negotianten.” 1650 Instructions, art. 44,
“op welcke action (de europeische negotianten) naauw gelet moet worden, om dezelve in tijd en wijle naar gelegenheid van zaken te mogen preveniëren.” 1650 Instructions, art. 44,
“merkelijcke schade.” 1650 Instructions, art. 45,
“de presentie van de ministers van de Compagnie omtrent het hof en den koning van Makassar te meer nodig is, om te hooren en te zien, wat aldaar passeert, en de Compagnie te mogen dienen.” 1650 Instructions, art. 45,
Stapel,
In 3.4–8. I have not been able to find De Vlaming’s original letter to the Directors.
All from Stapel,
Ibid. 310.
Ibid. 294.
Stapel,
Stapel,
See
“ons in groote becommeringen hout.” December 24, 1655,
“Dat om het minste dat iemant anders daarin willen participiren … de vremdelingen te detereren.” December 24, 1655,
“Maer dat deselve door ons groot woelen eer sullen worden waecker gemaeckt om haer totte cultur ende aenplantinge van nagelen te begeven, daer se anders noyt en souden hebben om gedacht.”
“Te meer om dat ons hetselfde (the smuggling) overal te beletten t’eenemael onmogelijck is.” December 24, 1655,
“In welcken gevalle de Compagnie onder de sware lasten sal moeten beswijcken ende andere mette vruchten van deselve doorgaen.” December 24, 1655,
“Wij wenschten wel, dat sijne E. daer op die wijse niet en ware verschenen of tenminste op de stadt uytter zee geen hostiliteyt hadde geplecht.” December 24, 1655,
“Also diergelijcke bravaden niet dan meerder verbitteringe en connen verwerken, tot verachteringe streckende van de vrede, die de Compagnie soo noodich is.” December 24, 1655,
“Geen groote genegenheyt tot vrede en accommodatie van sacken te hebben.” December 24, 1655,
“daer geen voordeel voor de Comp.e uyt gesien te connen worden.” December 24, 1655,
“Omdat sij doch echter altijt sowel bij vreede als oorlog hare Oosterse conquesten tegen derselver attentaten sal moeten versekert houden.” December 24, 1655,
“Sijnde besijden dien de vreede met Macassar de negotie tot Batavia schadelijck om de groote vaart, die sij hebben, dewelcke haer moste worden belet.” December 24, 1655,
“die hare oorlogen met seer cleyne costen connen voeren.” December 24, 1655,
“Daer deselve daerentegen de Comp.e soo lastich vallen, gelijck dese jaren genoechsam gebleken sijn.” December 24, 1655,
“Behalven dat ondertusschen andere exploiten, daer haer meer voordeel uyt soude connen toevloyen.” December 24, 1655,
“Als lieden sijnde, die van het verbreecken van haer wort gants geen werck en sijn maekend, als se daer maer voordeel met connen doen.” December 24, 1655,
“Gelijck se t’allen tijde connen, soo haest wij naelaten tegen haer op hoede te sijn ende onse plaetsen met genoeghsame macht beset te houden.” December 24, 1655,
December 24, 1655,
“Maer wij oordelen, dat de Comp.e nu haere saecken, God sij lof op soo gewensten voet gebracht sijn ende dat men hoope heeft tot een equitabile vrede te sullen konnen geraken, niet van node en heeft soodanigen hachelijken cans te wagen.” December 24, 1655,
“dat de vrede de Comp.e niet alleen dienstich, maer ten hoognodich is.” December 24, 1655,
“Om voor te komen, dat sij haer heyllose concepten niet meerder ernst en comen te vernemen.” December 24, 1655,
“gelijck het een obstinate, hertneckige natie is.” December 24, 1655,
“dat men bequamelijck twedracht onder de landtsaten soude connen veroorsaecken ende daermet ons voordeel doen.” December 24, 1655,
“dat eenige gemisconteerende landtsaten dan terstont souden gereet staen met ons te spannen ende tegen de Maccasarse croone op te staen, dat soude t’eenemael op het onseecker gebout sijn. Sijnde eer te gelooven dat sij, haer van een uytheemse ende Christenen vijandt op haere eygen bodem besprongen siende, sich te vaster met den ander souden verbinden om denselven met gemene macht van het landt te drijven, gelijk men dat veeltijds soo heeft sien geschieden.” December 24, 1655,
“met resolutie te overwinnen of daer alle te sterven.” December 24, 1655,
“hetselve beswaerlick sal wesen in ’t werk te stellen, tensij alvooren voet op het landt hebben.” December 24, 1655,
“ende de viandt bij verlies van soodanigen getal crijghsvolck een deur geopent om in deselve te gaan grasseren na sijn geliefte.” December 24, 1655,
“Ende genomen, den aenslach quam al te gelucken ende wij wierden van hetselve casteel meester, wat hoope om hetselve in te houden tegen de macht van soo menighte duysenden seer moedige menschen als den Macassar in minder dan een uyr tijts tegen ons soude connen op de been brengen.” December 24, 1655,
“dat eenige gemisconteerde landsaten dan terstont souden gereet staen met ons aen te spannen ende tegen de Macassarese croone op te staen, dat sou ‘teenemael op het onseecker gebout sijn.” December 24, 1655,
“Sijnde eer te geloven, dat sij, haer van een uytheemsen ende Christen vijandt op haren eygen boden besprongen siende, sich te vaster met den ander souden verbinden om denselven met gemene macht van het landt te verdrijven.” December 24, 1655,
“gelijck men dat veeltijds soo heeft sien geschieden.” December 24, 1655,
“Ende waneer wij weder een residentie in Macassar nemen, gelijck, soo de vrede getroffen wort, sal dienen te geschieden, soo sullen wij door middel van deselve altijt een oogh in ‘t seyl connen houden ende van haer doen en ondernenen tijdich advijs hebben om ons van te dienen ende in ‘t versorgen van deselve provintiën na te reguleren.” December 24, 1655,
“Behalven dat die van Macassar altijt gehouden sijn geworden wel de civielste ende discreetste te sijn van alle de Moorse vorsten, hier omtrent gelegen.” December 24, 1655,
“Sijnde te verhopen, dat den Macassar door de quade successen, die hij in dese laeste jaren heeft behaelt, de lust oock sal sijn vergaen om voorerst hem weder te steecken in saecken, hem geensints raekende ende die hem tot noch toe geen voordeel, maer wel groote schade hebben toegebracht.” December 24, 1655,
December 24, 1655,
“Invoegen dat wij van geloven blijven dat de Compagniee in alle maniere de vrede, soo daer onder goede conditiën toe comen can, behoort te amplecteren om eens een een eynde van dien lastigen oorlogh te maecken.” December 24, 1655,
“ondertusschen daerop afwachten de ordre die U Ed. Ons dienangaende sullen gelieven te geven.” December 24, 1655,
Maetsuyker would not use the sword as long as there was another way out, while De Vaming’s fury was “repudiated”; Stapel,
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 287.
Ibid. 287–88.
See for instance Valentijn,
Stapel,
See below.
See
See analysis below.
I follow the text as reproduced in the
The ruler of Goa and Lord of Tello and Ambassador Van Der Beeck on behalf of the Company,
“Om dat den Gouverneuir Generael will vrede maken.”
As was done by Alauddin in 1637, see
“en een groodt man is ende sterck.”
“ende ik, die zoo veell cleiner ben en onmaghtigh.”
“Zoude ick geen vreede maeken wanneer geen quadt aen onse onderdanen doet.”
1655 treaty, art. 1,
“Dat alle Mooren, die met haren vrije will near Maccassar willen, hem zullen toegestaen werden.” 1655 treaty, art. 2,
“om dat het voor haer weens hare religie een groodte gesonde i, die onder de Christenen te laten.”
See the foregoing discussion of Maetsuyker’s advocasy for the soft diplomacy approach.
“Dat alle de Moren, die in Ambon zijn, niet sullen gestraft zijn.” 1655 treaty, art. 3,
“Dat den Coningh zijn schulden, die in Ambon heft uijtstaende, zall mogen doen inmanen.” 1655 treaty, art. 4,
“Excepto die Moorse gewerden zijn.” 1655 treaty, art. 5,
See
See
See
See treaty with Banten, art. 1,
See treaty with Banten, art. 6,
“Dat de vijanden van d’E. Compagnie des Conings vijanden niet sullen wesen.” 1655 treaty, art. 6,
“Dat zoo den Coningh met dese off gene natien benedenwints in questie (is), dat d’E. Compagnie haer daermede niet sall mogen bemoeijen.” 1655 treaty, art. 7,
“D’H Willhelm van der Beeck versoekt op den Coningh datter geen Maccassaresen offte andere natien, onderdanen van de Coningh, near Amboijna, Banda offte Ternaten sullen mogen varen.” 1655 treaty, art. 8,
“dat hij zijn volk can inhouden.” 1655 treaty, art. 8,
“maer dat hij veell vremdelingen en coopluyden in sijn landt hadt, die hij t varen niet can verbieden.” 1655 treaty, art. 8,
“maer zoo wij desellve connen crijgen, mogen vrijelijck nemen ende daermede handelen, sulx als wij cunnen.” 1655 treaty, art. 8,
“soo en sall ‘t noghtans dese vrede niet verbreeken ende sall den Coningh daerom niet quat wesen.” 1655 treaty, art. 8,
The difference in opinion between Maetsuyker and De Vlaming in 1655 originated, as we have seen, from diverging appreciations of Sultan Hasanuddin’s intentions. In the period after the conclusion of the 1655 treaty up to the war in 1660 however, there was a shift towards De Vlaming’s position that Hasanuddin was inherently untrustworthy. The actual choice of policy was predominantly determined by the logic of the situation. This chapter analyses the shift in policy assumptions from 1656 and the reasons behind the fluctuations in policy decisions as they can be read from the High Government’s presentation of them in the
Although policy recommendations between 1656 and 1660 fluctuated between accommodation and intervention, the basic underlying assumption for both positions marked a break in that there was now little left of the trust in Hasanuddin that had been the basis of the 1655 treaty. This meant that negotiations were increasingly regarded in purely tactical terms. The restructuring of the political order in South Sulawesi by military intervention increasingly came to be viewed as the optimal solution to the Company’s problems with Makassar. In 1659, a situation arose in which the prospects of setting forth De Vlaming’s grand strategy of 1655 looked promising. As this situation subsided, the arguments against military intervention in conjunction with an internal rebellion were not precisely the same as in 1655. Instead of claiming the absolute impracticality of implementation, the counter-argument implicitly added “for the time being,” that is postponing it until favourable conditions would again arise.
The High Government asserted that this shift of thinking was forced on the Company by Hasanuddin’s devious manoeuvres and continued aggressive schemes for the Spice Islands. There was clearly an element of “selling” the argument to the Directors, who always regarded war as a last resort. But, there can be no doubt that Hasanuddin’s claims to his rights to sail to the Spice Islands, and his exercise of that right after the conclusion of the 1655 treaty, formed the basis for a break with the 1655 assumptions as well as the revitalisation of the grand strategy for Makassar.
Besides the internal unrest caused by the Bugis rebellion, attention also had to be paid to affairs outside Sulawesi and the Moluccas. In the period 1659–60, one of the most pressing issues for the High Government was Ceylon. At the end of June 1658, the Portuguese gave up their last fort in Ceylon
In 1658, the Company had also ousted the Portuguese both in Coromandel and Malabar,
But there were also other factors that may have both distracted the High Government’s attention from Makassar, or made peace seem an alluring alternative. Aceh was one such factor. The period between a peace treaty agreed in December 1655 and one concluded in June 1659
Probably more alarming were developments in China and their implications for the Company’s position in Taiwan. As in 1655, the concern was about the war between the advancing Manchu forces and Ming loyalists in Southern China. The leader of the resisting warlords of the southern provinces was the famous Coxinga. In a letter to the High Government in early 1660, the Dutch governor of Taiwan, Frederick Coyet, reported on rumours that Coxinga harboured plans to evacuate to Taiwan because he could no longer withstand the Manchus, and that a number of Chinese on the island were already in his service and supplying him with information.
So, all in all, if circumstances in South Sulawesi at one point seemed to offer the Company a complete solution to its problems with Makassar, there were clearly circumstances outside the Moluccas that weighed against it.
My main propositions are that as trust in Hasanuddin decreased the attraction of De Vlaming’s original “grand strategy” increased. Shifts in attitude towards Hasanuddin meant that “negotiations” and negotiated revisions to the treaty on symmetrical terms came to be looked on in Batavia as secondary to waiting for an opportunity to force a “final showdown.” The political reordering of South Sulawesi by military intervention came to be viewed as
In this process, the meanings of “negotiations,” “treaty,” and “war” were readjusted. Negotiations were grounded in the lack of opportunity and a means to implement the grand strategy—that is in the absence of a powerful local ally. Whenever there were prospects of such an alliance appeared, so did advocacy for the grand strategy. This all goes to corroborate my general proposition that the High Government’s diplomatic thinking was pragmatic through and through, and not driven by European preconceptions of international law. The aim of this chapter is to show that the pragmatism was dynamic and grounded in considerations of local context and situation.
The High Government’s presentation of policy deliberations and decisions concerning Makassar in the
As the primary sources here are letters from the
The
The focus on Makassar in the
Although ostracised because of his poor performance in 1655, Van der Beeck was still made commander of the return fleet in 1656.
A definite shift in Maetsuyker’s assumptions and recommended policy towards Makassar is obvious in a comparison of the
By December 1657, the Company’s relations with Banten and Mataram had changed for the better compared to the previous year. Although the Bantenese had been provocatively aggressive in 1656, the mood turned during 1657, culminating with a Bantenese initiative for negotiations for peace in December.
The policy advocated for Makassar in the
In December 1657, the High Government wrote that only a successful military campaign, devastating Makassarese power once and for all, could in the end secure a viable and lasting interaction regime with the sultanate. This in fact represented an endorsement of De Vlaming’s long-held assumption that Hasanuddin and the Makassarese were by nature deceitful and could not be trusted in diplomatic dealings. With this newly adopted framework of principled distrust “negotiations” and “treaty making” came to be understood primarily in tactical terms.
The High Government harboured no doubt that Hasanuddin was pressing his right to sail to Ambon in order to inspire a new rebellion there among the VOC’s subjects.
Hasanuddin’s spite in turning the Company’s virtue into a vice and transforming his own vice into a virtue was but one incident where the High Government perceived a generally defiant arrogance and ill will towards the Company building up in Makassar. The Company’s commissioners and residents were shown very little respect in public, and a demonstrative haughtiness by certain Makassarese nobles clearly indicated that Makassar was not inclined towards peaceful coexistence with the Company.
The High Government’s main point in the drawing attention to the above incidents was clearly aimed at underlining the probability of plans for war in Makassar. The Company was facing a challenge of power politics. Still one should not underestimate the impact of Makassarese provocations to the Company’s prestige. The issue of prestige had important implications for the Company’s diplomacy, viewed both instrumentally in power politics, as well as taken as an insult to the Company by its own right. From a power politics perspective, not answering Makassarese provocations meant potentially undermining the Company’s diplomatic capital in the archipelago at large as well as among potential allies in Sulawesi.
But there are strong indications that the High Government’s grievances about the lack of respect may well have had purely emotional motives too. When Maetsuyker’s and other advocates of accommodation held forth in 1657 that the sultan was acting with defiant arrogance against the Company, they must have done so with some feelings of having been deceived. After all, the Hasanuddin whom they in 1655 had presented as having learnt not to stick his nose into affairs that were none of his business was in 1657 presented as thumbing his nose at the Company. This may well help explain the peculiarly “heated” tone in the deliberations on Makassar in the December 17
If not explaining the emotional aspect of its turnaround regarding what to expect from Makassar, the High Government did emphasise that Hasanuddin’s provocations and the demonstrations of anti-Company sentiment in Makassar could only mean that the sultan and his nobles were once again planning for war.
If the political-military conspiracy had not appeared in the open yet, at the commercial level a joint Makassarese-Portuguese conspiracy was already at work. By sailing under the Makassarese flag, Portuguese in Makassar were free to trade wherever they pleased
It was time for the High Government to explain its new strategy. The shift in assumptions and the break with the 1655 line on accommodation began in a “soft voice,” but soon rose in volume. The High Government had “seriously begun to have grave doubts about whether staying on friendly terms under the present conditions would serve the Company’s interests and whether it would not be better served by once again going to war.”
The High Government’s argument for negotiations in 1655 had rested on the assumption that Hasanuddin could be trusted. The call for war in 1657 rested on the contrary assumption. Still, in the
It is reasonable to think that, for the High Government, the Directors’ acceptance of the war option rested on their conviction of the irredeemably deceitful nature of the Makassarese. The High Government worked hard to convince the Directors. Its first argument was that Hasanuddin’s motives in signing the 1655 treaty had been purely tactical, and his agreement to a peace had only come about because at the time he was unable able to wage war effectively.
On top of the harassment of continued Makassarese sailings to the Spice Islands, the High Government pointed to a range of incidents that clearly indicated that Hasanuddin and his supporters were escalating their activities in the Eastern Archipelago. The Directors were however assured that measures had been taken to defend the Company’s “precious” (
The reference to the Company’s legitimate claims to defend its position in Ambon and on Banda “by right of conquest” is the only reference to international law in the deliberations on Makassar in the December 17
An important argument in the High Government’s promotion of the war option in December 1657 was that the relatively low costs of war outweighed the gross long-term benefits to be gained from it. In essence, this was an endorsement of De Vlaming’s position in 1655. Disregarding its argument of the lack of realism in the war plan in 1655, and countering the 1655 argument that war would mean a lessening of trade, and thus a loss of profit for the Company, in 1657 the High Government pointed out that war would disturb Makassar’s trade.
The arguments presented for war in 1657 illustrate not only the break with the positions of 1655, but point to a break in the High Government’s general mode of thinking about the VOC’s relations with Makassar. In 1655, Maetsuyker’s assumption about Makassarese intentions in seeking peace rested on potential losses of trade due to war. The mode of argumentation in 1655 thus built on an assumption of
The High Government’s positions in 1657 regarding the costs of war equalled De Vlaming’s positions of 1655. The High Government now argued that the military expense of a campaign might well be kept within reasonable limits. A campaign would not imply much of an increase compared to what the Company was already spending on its defence of Ambon and Banda. In 1657 alone, the High Government had had to deploy 573 soldiers to discourage and prevent Makassarese intrusion.
The 1655 counter-argument to war had been that the transfer of troops from Ambon and Banda would jeopardise the defence there. This argument was rejected in 1657. Now the argument ran that the transfer of troops from Ambon and Banda was not only a necessary prerequisite for the success of the campaign, it should also be regarded as a tactically sound adjustment since the troops were already there, ready, and packed.
Having advocated the arguments for going to war and the good prospects for success, the appeal to the Directors to endorse the plan returned to the basic premise, that the Makassarese could never be trusted. In its 1657 version, this view is given an additional twist. Deceit by the Makassarese towards the Company was described as a structurally inherent trait in Makassarese character and society. When the Makassarese had proven to be untrustworthy, it was because they were by nature opportunistic and would break contractual obligations at any time to serve their own best interests.
The psychological argument for inherent Makassarese deviousness was supplemented by a cultural-religious argument. When the Makassarese by their nature would gladly break any promise with any party, the case for the Company was even worse, representing as it was a Christian party.
Propositions that this negative portrayal of the Makassarese represents a typical Eurocentric perception would do well to consider the
In no way can the above remarks be regarded as originating from fixed Eurocentric preconceptions. The contrast between the declared optimism and trust that provided the arguments for the initiative for peace and the negotiations in 1655 and the realism that characterises the thinking in 1657 goes to disprove that. The thinking about the role of religion and the appeal to religious concerns may be said to have beencompletely reversed. The concessions made on religious grounds in the 1655 treaty sprang from an assumption of a separation between the religious and political spheres in Makassar. In 1657 the political implications constituted the primary focus. Learning from experience must explain this change of position from 1655 to 1657.
The 1656 letter marks a general break with the optimism of 1655 and the belief that the differences with Makassar had been sorted out by the treaty that year. The 1657
In the deliberations over Makassar presented to the Directors after 1657, the issue was not whether to war, but whether the moment was ripe or not, or whether the desired result could be achieved in some other way. The
The background for the approach to Makassar in the
The High Government’s outward response to the Makassarese challenges of 1658 was accommodation, but it kept a sharp eye on the possibility of war. On August 20, merchants Joan Barra and Pieter Schuyftang were sent to Makassar to ease tension and keep relations as normal as possible.
The section on relations with Makassar in the December 1658 letter started with a repetition of the 1657 position that the Company should not trust the Makassarese, but be on the alert.
The mobilisation appeal behind the anti-Company alliance was taken to lie in the religious division between the Company and its Muslim antagonists. Makassar’s religious prestige made possible a rallying of its co-religionists in the archipelago against the Company. The fact that a significant Makassarese fleet had been sent to Mena on northern Timor to offer “protection” was but one example of how the political and religious dimensions were intertwined in Makassar’s expansionism. The population on Mena was still heathen, but the Makassarese initiative could be regarded as part of a more encompassing plan by which the Makassarese sought to secure dominance over Mena by converting the population to Islam.
The worries over the Makassarese approach towards Mena serve well as a springboard to offer some comments on the High Government’s thoughts on the role of religion and religious prestige in Makassar’s expansion effort after 1655. As we saw in
My proposition regarding the Company’s concessions is that these were given with the implicit understanding that Hasanuddin’s motives had to do with religion and prestige only. Seen from the viewpoint of power politics, they were insubstantial. The Company’s understanding at the time was congruent with Andaya’s propositions. But in 1658, the explicit understanding was that the appeal to religion went hand in hand with, or was even deliberately used for, political purposes. When the High Government that year pointed out that the Makassarese court was well known for its religious zeal,
Andaya’s cultural-divergence model shows an absolute dichotomy between the Company’s quest for influence in the Eastern Archipelago and that of the Makassarese: Makassar sought pride and prestige, the Company optimal trading opportunities. As I have pointed out in the analysis of the 1657
A comparable, if not necessarily identical sense of “prestige” and “pride,” whatever its cultural particularities, likely played a part in both Batavian and Makassarese politics. If the Company’s politics were not free from “contamination” by non-commercial concerns, it seems unlikely that Hasanuddin’s politics were absolutely “uncontaminated” by secular concerns of profit and power. Such differences as there were between the Company and Makassar seem more appropriately explained as a divergence in “mix” and balances than by absolute dichotomies.
The proposition of the December 1658
A striking feature of the 1658
What distinguishes the approach to Makassar in the three
Three events mark the period January–December 1659: the sending of another embassy to Makassar, headed by Willem Basting, who left Batavia on February 25; the outbreak of rebellions against Makassar by Mandars and Bugis;
The High Government did not refer to the possibility of creating an alliance with the Mandars and Bugis however. (Those issues would receive full attention and elaboration in the
On January 10, the High Government sent lengthy instructions to Barra and Schuyftang in Makassar, informing them of its plans to send out a negotiation mission to “seek out” the possibilities for an agreement with Makassar, even though there was little hope of success. On February 10, the Council decided to send Willem Basting on this mission. He was instructed to be accommodating with respect to Makassarese damage claims, but he was to stay firm on the demand that the Makassarese must keep out of the Spice Islands.
The chronology of the negotiations suggests that the main purpose of this embassy might well have been to buy time. In response to Hasanuddin’s claims of his contractual right to sail to the Spice Islands, Basting insisted that he had to confer with his superiors in Ambon before taking a decision. For his part, the governor of Ambon, Jacob Hustard, declared himself unauthorised to take a decision on the matter. Basting’s mission in Makassar ended inconclusively when he asked the sultan for permission to return to Batavia to discuss the matter and get a decision from the highest authority directly. On his return to Batavia on September 16, Basting gave his oral report. The crux of the problem remained the sultan’s insistence on his lawful right to sail to and from the eastern quarters.
The essence of the High Government’s presentation of the 1659 negotiations to the Directors was that it had stuck to an outwardly accommodating approach. During the negotiations, it had, for instance, let go of its initial claim that Hasanuddin swear by oath that once his damage claims had been met, he would have no further claims on the Company.
The decision for new negotiations in the beginning of 1659 must be seen against the background of general pressure from home to avoid war, and because the peace with Banten had not yet been concluded.
Considering the change of context in the autumn of 1659, it is a puzzle that a more offensive approach was not considered. The High Government’s presentation of Basting’s report quickly kills any propositions about a possible return to the accommodation model. The High Government felt provoked by what it deemed as Hasanuddin’s contemptuous treatment of Basting. However much the High Government regarded its own proposals and claims to be “totally fair and reasonable,”
The report to the Directors on the negotiations in the December 1659
The
In January and February 1660, a war fleet under the command of Major Johan van Dam and chief merchant Johan Truytman sailed for Makassar via Ambon. On June 7, they arrived at the Makassar roadstead where they engaged in a sea fight with the Portuguese. The Makassarese responded by hoisting the war flag. On June 12, Company forces succeeded in taking the strategically important Fort Panakkukang, south of Makassar city. With the fall of the fort, the Makassarese asked for an armistice, which was agreed to the next day. Two important conditions were set for an armistice, namely that the Makassarese send envoys to Batavia to sign a new treaty, and that the Company evacuate the fort until a final peace had been signed.
Van Dam returned in Batavia on July 17 with the Makassarese envoys, and negotiations started in Batavia on July 29. On August 19, a new treaty between the Company and Makassar was signed in Batavia. ZachariasWagenaar and Jacob Cau were assigned to bring the Makassarese envoys home and obtain the sultan’s countersignature. They arrived in Makassar October 13, but were not given access to Hasanuddin until November, when they found themselves in a different kind of negotiation situation than they had expected. Hasanuddin proposed radical revisions of the Batavia text and raised new claims. Nonetheless, on December 3, Hasanuddin countersigned a revised version of the August 19 treaty in Makassar.
Hasanuddin was aware of the possibility that the Company might seek an alliance with rebellious Bugis.
Stapel comments on a divergence in the historiography regarding the High Government’s instructions to Van Dam.
If the tactical options of the Bugis and Mandar rebellion in 1659 were not yet commented upon in the
With the Bugis uprising in August 1660 and its final repression by the Makassarese in early October, the
The section on Makassar in the December 16, 1660
It was an opportunity neglected. The defence of the decision for war was accorded one paragraph only, and the argument for it was exclusively contextual: At the time of the decision it was considered that either Batavia or Makassar would start a war; and it was deemed that it had better be the Company as “the time seemed right.
With the outbreak of the Bugis rebellion in August, a Company alliance with them and others chafing under Makassarese authority, of which there were plenty, to overthrow the present regime was presented as highly realistic.
Despite its hardly concealed optimism for a final resolution of the “Makassar problem,” the call for implementing the “grand strategy” was remarkably calm considering the dramatic measures it proposed. Not only a direct military intervention, but a role for the Company in the construction of a new political order was implied. But with the Makassarese defeat of the Bugis in October, the scheme was put aside for the time being.
Van Dam returned to Batavia with the Makassarese negotiators on July 17,
What is striking about the 1660 negotiations for counter-signature of the treaty signed in Batavia on August 19 is that it represented a “double play” in the sense that Batavia was negotiating for a treaty while at the same time searching for possibilities to overthrow its treaty partner. This might be indicative of the fact that negotiations had been “devaluated” to purely tactical devices to be reverted to as long as the grand strategy could not be carried out. Moreover, the Company in the first place
In the final paragraph of the section on Makassar in the December 1660
One of the terms of the August 19 treaty in Batavia was that the Company could hold on to Fort Panakkukang until the treaty had been countersigned in Makassar.
In my view, the position of the High Government towards Makassar as presented to the Directors in the
The temptation to make use of the Bugis rebellion as the springboard for launching the grand strategy in 1660 must understood as preconditioned in a decreasing trust in Hasanuddin as a reliable partner after 1655. The loss of trust hardened the belief in the war option as the favoured means of bringing him to heel. With that came a more cynical view of “negotiations” and “contracts” as second-best options.
One of the clauses of the 1660 treaty stated that the Portuguese had to leave Makassar within a year.
The
But the High Government also presented the exclusion of the Portuguese as the first step of a broader plan to gain a commercial monopoly in Makassar. The catch was that to succeed the High Government had to play its cards shrewdly. To make commercial dependence on the Company more palatable, assurances had to be made to the sultan that the Company would provide even more cloth and other items than had hitherto been brought to Makassar by the Portuguese.
These concessions were made so as not to suffocate the local economy of Makassar and were directly linked to the plan of replacing the Portuguese in foreign trade by the Company. The plans for the Company’s enhanced commercial position in Makassar can thus be seen as a part of the grand strategy of political domination by economic means. The High Government only implicitly revealed the political aspect of its commercial grand strategy. But when it stated that by occupying the role of chief provider of Makassar’s imports, it was clear that the Company would in due course drive out both the English and the local Moorish traders.
The accommodation advocated was no more than a tactical device to make the plan work. It simply required some co-operation from the sultan, and his co-operation in its turn required obtaining his goodwill. One of the proposed means of easing his worries was, as we saw above, to convince him of the advantages of co-operating commercially with the Company. Another was to obtain his goodwill by buying him off. To give a better “grip” on the Company’s takeover of Makassar’s foreign trade the High Government thus decided to give the sultan a substantial gift, to the value of around 20000 guilders, in order to “soothe his losses” and “ease his bitterness.”
The December 1661 tactics towards Makassar reflected adaptations to the context after the Bugis rebellion had been quelled. Prospects for a war in combination with an internal uprising had waned, and the High Government had to work with what they had obtained in the 1660 treaty. Of primary importance in the treaty was that it guaranteed—in writing, anyway—that the Portuguese would leave Makassar. That opened the opportunity for the Company to drive all unwanted third parties out. To make that happen, the Company had to act with courtesy and accommodation towards the sultan.
In essence the High Government’s strategy as spelled out in the
I have included the High Government’s plan of 1661 of establishing a viable interaction regime by commercial dependence because it succinctly illustrates the range of tactical options deliberated and advocated by the High Government in the period after the signing of the 1655 treaty and in the immediate aftermath of the signing of the 1660 treaty. When there were fluctuations in perspectives on particular points of policy, these can generally be accounted for by changes in appreciation of the contextual constrictions and opportunities encompassing the wider world of insular Southeast Asia. Flexibility by considerations of context, in other words, was the basic principle in the High Government’s policy planning. Principles of law mattered less, if at all. The former went with a pragmatic approach, the latter with a dogmatic one. In general, pragmatism reigned supreme.
Stapel,
Ibid. 321.
Ibid. 319.
Ibid. 321.
Ibid. 322.
Ibid. 356 and 358, respectively.
Ibid. 357–58.
Ibid. 366.
Symptomatically none of these are found worth mentioning in the relevant section in Stapel,
Ibid. 54 “weinig vertrouwen”
Ibid. 54–55.
“Gans weynich contentement connen scheppen.” December 4, 1656,
“schijnende onse ordre ende mijninge daerinne qualijck te hebben begrepen.” December 4, 1656,
“directelijk met onse intentie strijdigh.” December 4, 1656,
“Geheel ‘t onsen nadeele.” December 4, 1656,
December 4, 1656,
“De goede officien … aen d’Ed. Comp.”
“doch uyt veele opsichten het contrarie seer soude mogen vresen.” December 4, 1656,
“Dien voorst (the Sultan of Makasar) vooreerst al wat te simuleren ende in te sien, maer sullen daeronder echter niet naerlaten naer vermogen op hoeden te sijn.” December 4, 1656,
“Soo den Maccassaeren haer maer voor een jaar á drie aen haere onderhandelinge trouwelijck houden gebonden.” December 4, 1656,
Somers,
De Graaf, 1977, 106-107.
Stapel,
“buyten twijfel niet anders voor hebbende gehadt dan maer occasie te houden om U.Ed. onderdanen tegen U.Ed. daer weder op te ruyen.” December 17, 1657,
“Om daeruyt d’inwonders te doen blijcken van de liefde ende genegenheit, die sij (quasi) in het besluyten van hetselve met haerl. pardon van ons t’ obtineren tot haerl. hebben bethoont om haer met hetselve op haer sijde te trekken.” December 17, 1657,
“is onsen commisaris ende residenten daer doorgaens seer cleen respect aengedaen, sulx sijl. Uyt verscheyde hoofden wel claerlijck doen blijcken haer aen U Ed. Vrundtschap gantsch niet en laten sijn gelegen.” December 17, 1657,
“Soowel de Coningh en de grooten aengaet, alsoo lief met U Ed. weder tot oorloge traden, als in vrede bleven.” December 17, 1657,
“Daertoe haer buyten twijfel de Portguesen seer animeren om daerdoor alle uwe wapenen op de custe van Indïen ende elders, waer se haer drucken, van hare halsen te crijgen.” December 17, 1657,
“Trachtende haren handeel herwaerts ende derwaerts onder de naeme der Maccassaren ende haerl. ontsagh onbecommert uyt die platse te drijven.” December 17, 1657,
In this context to be read as “decoy-arrangments” i.e. on par with the Makassarese sailing flagging themselves as Portuguese.
“Al hetwelcke en meer en andere absurditeiten, de Comp.e bij dat hof aengedaen werdende, van ons sijnde ingesien ende dat sijl. onaengesien de vrede, die met haer gemaekt hebben, al echter niet sullen naerlaeten d’oosterse quartieren te bevaeren.” December 17, 1657,
“Soo beginnen wij grootelijckx te twijffelen of deselve vrede op dien voet de Comp.e al voordeelijck sal wesen, en of niet goet en sal sijn weder met haer in oorlogh te comen.” December 17, 1657,
“One had begun to wonder if war was the preferable option.” See above.
See
“Niet anders namentlijck also deselve (tegen haer Haer Ed. Comp.e) met publicque oorloge niet hebben subsisteren.” December 17, 1657,
“hoe wij haerl. meer inwillingen ende caresseren, sij noch al meer ende van ons begeeren ende te stouter warden.” December 17, 1657,
“Soo hebben wij nu ordre gegeven, als voors. Plaetsen Comp.s eigen landen metten den swaarde gewonnen sijnde de voorsz. Vestinge daer hetsij met ofte tegen haerl. gemoede geweldelijck te doen leggen, ende de Maccasaren ende alle andere vremdelingen van daer en omtrent te houden.” December 17, 1657,
“Als wanneer wij haer in retorsie tenminsten oock haeren handel seer souden becommeren.” December 17, 1657,
“Want wij desen jaere al echter om op haer ende haerl. bedrijf toe te sien een nombre van 573 soldaten sijn genootsaeckt geweest uyt te setten.” December 17, 1657,
“Dat al omtrent sooveel is wij by tijde van oorloge te doen plachten, ende dan weynich of gene oncosten mede gepraevenieert warden.” December 17, 1657,
“Indien wij deselve chrijghsmacht van daer over becomen.” December 17, 1657,
“gelijck vreesen, dat niet sullen doen mogen, soo wij geen pericul willen loopen.” December 17, 1657,
Meaning the period October–February.
December 17, 1657,
“een onversettelijcke schade aengedaen te werden.” December 17, 1657,
“wie haer aen eeden trouwe ofte beloften niet houden gebonden, als sij met dezelve te breecken maer voordeelen te behaalen weten.” December 17, 1657,
“Doch vornaementlijck tegen ons Christenen te doen hebbende.” December 17, 1657,
“Die sij voor ongelovige houden en geen sonde van en maecken of sij bedriegen ende te cort doen ofte niet.” December 17, 1657,
H.J. De Graaf,
Ibid. 105.
Stapel,
Ibid. 58–59.
“Invogen wij voor dat rijcke altos wel verdacht ende op hoede sullen dien te sijn.” December 14, 1658,
“Havens voor ons weder soude sluyten om ons daermede tot necessiteyt ende hongersnoot te brengen.” December 14, 1658,
“Dat sij wel weten, dat in de oosterse quartiren strackx mede ongelegentheden verorsaeckt.” December 14, 1658,
“waeruyt men met recht wel soude presumeren, de voors. Maccassaren van geen goet voornemen tegen de Compagnie.” December 14, 1658,
“Sij haere dominie over die eylanden noch mede sullen soecken te verbreyden ende desselve, noch heydenen sijnde, tot de Mahumetise religie te brengen.” December 14, 1658,
Andaya,
“In hetwelck het Maccassars hoff op haere wijse vrij devoot schijnt te sijn.” December 14, 1658,
See F. De Haan, Oud Batavia, 2nd ed. (Bandoeng: A.C. Nix, 1935), 135 ff.
“als behoudens Compagnies reputatie eenigzins mogelijk was.” Instructions to Barra, August 20, 1657, in Stapel,
Andaya,
Stapel,
See
Stapel,
For this and the below on Basting’as mission, see ibid. 60–62.
December 16, 1659,
De Graaf, 1961, 49-50.
“sij allenigh sonder uytenlandts behulp tegen de Comp.e niet substisteren connen.” December 16, 1659,
“niet dan volcomen redelijk ende billicke sijn.” December 16, 1659,
“Hebbende haer begeeren oock op een seer laetdunckende wijse den commisaris bekentgemaeckt.” December 16, 1659,
“Waeruyt men eerder soude mogen geloven, sij maer redenen soecken om met ons weder tot oorlogh te comen ofte ons t’eenmemael naer haere pijpen dansen, dan dat se van ons trachten voldaan te wesen.” December 16, 1659,
Basset 1958, 31.
The below based on Stapel, Het Bongaais Verdrag, 61–68, who in his turn draws heavily on Van Dam Van Ijselt, Mr. Johan van Dam en sijne tuchting van Makassar in 1660, Bijdragen, KITLV, series 7, part 6 (1908): 16 ff.
Andaya, The
Ibid. 48, referring to Stapel, Het Bongaais Verdrag, 65–66.
Andaya,
Ibid. 50.
Stapel,
Ibid. 64, referring to Van Dam van Ijselt.
Ibid. 64.
Compare for instance the procedure in 1654, See
“De waardevolle provincie Amboina is royaal van alles voorzien, zo van 700 soldaten w.o. voor Banda, en dat wegens Makassar, waartegens overal dient gewaakt.” Dececember 16, 1660,
“hebben dan geraden geacht beeter te sijn, wij selfst eerst op waren ende trachten…Indien het de tijt noch veelen conde, haer in haer eygen landtbodem te vallen.” December 16, 1660,
“Op hoope soodanig dese ende gene gemisconteerden (wie daer veele sijn) mochten gaende werden om de wapenen beneffens ons tegen de presente monerchale regeringe mede op te nemen.” December 16, 1660,
“Mitsgaders deselve trachten te destrueren ende het gemelte rijck weder onder verscheyde cleyne souvereyne Coningjens verdelt te helpen Sooals hetselve voor desen geweest is. December 16, 1660,
Stapel,
Ibid. 67.
December 16, 1660,
“Sulcx het schijnt, offer bij dusdanige gelegenheyt door ons niet veel op te doen soude sijn.” December 16, 1660,
August 19, 1660, treaty, art. 25, Corpus Diplomaticum 2.176.
“Conde het wel sijn, wij reputatieushalve de voorsz. Vestinge noch voor een wijle tijt bleven in behouden … De vrees van de omliggende volken voor dat rijck (Makassar) is gedaald.” December 16, 1660,
“Wat veranderingh hetselve in de keeteloorige Boegesen soude veroorsacken mogen.” December 16, 1660,
December 2, 1660, treaty, unnumbered clause 7, Corpus Diplomaticum, 2.178.
“van gevoelen sijn dat als ‘t niet en ware om de Engelsen, en dat wij deselve niet mogen verhinderen op vijantlijcke plaetsen te varen, het voor de Comp.e al soo dienstich soude wesen met Mqacassar in oorlogh te continueren dan vrede te maecken.” January 26, 1661,
“Maer om sijn gem. Hooghheyt sooveel doenel. tegenmoet te comen.” December 22, 1661,
“De apprehensie, die hij van Macassars ondergangck sij hebbende te doen verdwijnen.” December 22, 1661,
“Het lant van Macassar nu wat meerder van alle hande lijwaten ende andere getrockene waren te voorsien als voor desen.” December 22, 1661,
“ende daermede wat neering in de stadt te maken.” December 22, 1661,
“ende sal hetselve meteene dienen om de Engelsen en de Mooren mettertijt mede te doen verhuysen.” December 22, 1661,
“ende om hetselve noch wat meer klem te geven soo is oock verstaen Sijn gem. Hoockheyt dit eerste iaer tot versoetinge van sijn schade ende om het ongenoegen weg te nemen, toe te senden een aensienel. Schekagie, begroot 20000 gl. of daeromtrent.” December 22, 1661,
The topic of this chapter is the nature and dynamics of the High Government’s treaty making with Makassar between 1637 and 1660. The relevant contracts include in addition to those of 1637 and 1655, already analysed, also the one agreed on in Batavia August 1660. The ones concluded in Makassar in November 1667 and the March 1668 treaty with Tello will be treated in the subsequent chapter. Of the three treaties treated in this chapter, the one of August 1660 will be given priority. The 1637 and 1655 contracts will primarily be referred to for comparative purposes.
According to Andaya, the 1655 treaty marks a deviation from the norm of Eurocentrism in the Company’s treaty making with Makassar.
If we seek to establish phases in the Company’s needs and perceptions, the period following the 1655 treaty could regarded as marking a break between two distinct phases. Up to and including the 1655 treaty, the dominant view in Batavia was that forcing the Company into a privileged position in Makassar was unrealistic. After the 1655 treaty had proved unproductive, the option of forcing or luring Makassar into a dependent position became, as we saw in
I argue below that the notion and meaning of “treaty” underwent a change after 1655. The meaning of “treaty” in 1637 and 1655 carried far more passive connotations than the one of 1660. The two former contracts carried a conceptualisation of “treaty” as “agreed rules of the game to be adhered to”—whereas the latter ones held far more active connotations, namely “treaty” understood as something to be “worked with to construct an optimal interaction order.” The change signalled a move towards a constructivist view of a treaty as a political instrument. It goes without saying that if the contracts were made with an eye to the local situation, the turn towards a more political, constructivist view of treaty meant a sharpening of this focus.
My emphasis in this chapter is on the August 1660 treaty, but I start the discussion with a comparison of the 1637 and 1655 contracts to corroborate my point that they can both be seen as contracts aimed at regulating by rules. I then turn to an analysis of the political constructivist contract of 1660. All the analyses are based on the texts in Heeres’
The context for the treaty making in 1637 and 1655 was different, but not fundamentally so. In 1637, the Company had come to Makassar to open relations with a strategic view to ending smuggling and protecting its possessions in the Spice Islands.
As for the contents of the two contracts, the major difference lay in the different role that religion was accorded in the later treaty, and the concessions that allowed for continued contact between Makassar and the Spice Islands.
The appeal to religion in the 1655 treaty was made because of the sultan’s self-professed commitment to his co-religionists outside Makassar, whereas in 1637 the issue of runaways and converts were treated as issues of bilateral interaction and accordingly formulated in terms of symmetrical, reciprocal obligations.
Admittedly, the Company may have achieved more in the treaty of 1637 than in 1655, but regarding the 1655 treaty as a sell-out seems unwarranted. Although it contained concessions that later proved to be loopholes, by article 8, confirming the Company’s monopoly rights, the High Government obtained what it must have considered its primary diplomatic target at the time. For after all, the treaty contained Makassarese recognition and a commitment to respect the Company’s privileged position in the Spice Islands. Other concessions were insignificant compared to this vital issue. It thus seems proper to regard the 1655 treaty as a special, but still typical product of the dominating frame of diplomatic thinking in Batavia at the time. Based as this approach was on confidence in Hasanuddin’s intentions to stick to his obligations, concessions could be conceded. As I have pointed out in
I find there to be a distinctive difference between the contracts signed before and after 1655. In the 1637 and 1655 contracts, the voices and viewpoints of Sultan Alauddin and Sultan Hasanuddin, respectively, are quite distinct. Many of the rulings are phrased as regulations of what the Company was allowed. In this sense, the 1637 and 1655 contracts are distinguished as agreements by which the Company partly had to take what it had been forced to accept in negotiations. In 1637, this happened by rephrasing through negotiations. In 1655, the concessions were thought compensated by a single article protecting the Company’s basic interests. The texts of the August 1660 and November 1667 contracts, on the other hand, bear a quite different stamp, because they present detailed prescriptions for an interaction regime that was meant to serve and protect the Company’s interests. This signals that in the post-1655 framework, the “treaty” was turned into something of a constructivist, political instrument. This change did not represent a return to a Eurocentric model of treaty making. It represented an intensification of the overseas contextual approach.
The August 1660 treaty comprised twenty-seven articles covering all subjects from the status and position of Ambon and Banda, the role of Makassar and the Company in the regional interaction order, to the expulsion of the Portuguese and the mode of enforcing this, the handling of miscellaneous damage claims, and decisions on tariffs. It was thus a far more encompassing treaty both in size and scope than the earlier ones.
Treaty making as political construction would come to full maturity only in the treaty of November 18, 1667; but the treaty of August 1660 represented a turn in this direction. It also demonstrated an increased drive towards formulating the treaty clauses more specifically and concretely.
These turns in the August 1660 treaty were not a shift to a European standard brought overseas. The change in treaty making had to do with the shift in expectations towards Makassar as a trustworthy signatory. The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how this shift towards contractual constructivism was reflected in the contents and formulations of the post 1655 treaties, starting with the break represented by the August 1660 treaty, and ending with the treaties establishing Company hegemony in 1667 and 1668.
In demonstrating the contextual imprint in the form and nature of the August 1660 treaty, I shall be concentrating on the Makassarese traffic to the Moluccas, and the issue of the expulsion of the Portuguese. In conjunction with the latter issue, I shall analyse the implicit Company invitation to the Makassarese to ally against the Portuguese, which I take to be typical of the political construction aspect of treaty making. At the end of the chapter, I shall briefly point to the changes that were made during the countersigning of the August 1660 treaty in Makassar in December.
The concluding paragraph of the August 1660 treaty notes that this is a treaty of sincere “peace and friendship” that should be “observed and honoured.”
The three first paragraphs of the August 1660 treaty were all concerned with delimiting Makassar’s influence and rejecting its claims of sovereignty outside South Sulawesi. First, the king of Makassar was not to interfere with Buton or territories belonging to it.
The political arrangement in the three first articles was aimed at cutting bonds between Makassar and former allies and converting the latter into a “security” ring of independent Company-friendly states around Makassar itself.
The ban on Makassarese sailings to Ambon, made in article 4, was put in absolute terms, and made without any qualification. In contrast to what had been the case in 1655, in 1660 there were to be no exceptions whatsoever. The article stated that “those representing the government of Makassar from now on and in the future, should not interfere in the affairs of Ambon, nor bother themselves with complaints coming from the Ambonese, under whatever pretext it might be whatsoever.”
The barring of Makassarese influence in Ambon was made even more watertight by the demand that Makassar officially recognise the Company and king of Ternate as the “rightful overlords”
The regulation on sailings to the Moluccas in the August 1660 treaty conveyed a “no-nonsense, no-compromise” insistence that was more encompassing and radical than in the 1637 treaty,
Articles 6 to 9 were all dedicated to safeguarding the Company’s monopoly in the Moluccas in general. Article 6 concerned the handling of smugglers who had successfully brought their illicit goods into Makassar. In such cases, the authorities
The uncompromising and insistent tone in the formulation of the goods enumerated in article 8 was supplemented by legitimising the Company’s monopoly as a blessing from God. The formulation went that the Company had now come to possess all the respective spices of the Eastern Archipelago “by the blessings of God.”
Art. 9, was a two-part article, dealing with both the Company’s conflict with Makassar over its monopoly rights in the Moluccas but also with the exclusion of the Portuguese from Makassar. I shall deal with the former first. A complementary protection against Makassarese infringement on the Company’s monopoly in the Moluccas was given by restricting the legitimate legal trading area of the Makassarese. They were not to extend their present trading activities, nor settle further east than Solor and Timor and their surroundings.
Thus, six articles in the August 1660 treaty (articles 4–9) defined and regulated Makassar’s position in relation to the Company’s monopoly rights in the Spice Islands, whereas in 1655 the High Government had trusted in only one. In 1655, the High Government had relied on a general recognition of its rights in the Spice Islands and a similar general recognition of its right to defend them. By acting under pressure, and believing that Hasanuddin’s demands for specific concessions originated from exclusively religious motives, the High Government had accepted a treaty with potential loopholes in its formulation on the monopoly. In the August 1660 treaty, these flaws were excised, but this was not done by reverting to European concepts of international law. It was done by a meticulous hammering out of the concrete specifics of both “monopoly” and “sanctions.” The biggest challenge to the Company’s monopoly, and the thorn in the side of the High Government, the Portuguese presence in Makassar, was dealt with in the same manner.
The Portuguese in Makassar were the most serious threat to the Company’s monopoly in the Moluccas, and the heart of the 1660 treaty was their expulsion. In the August 1660 treaty, this was presented as a two-stage operation, first by neutralising any interference from Portuguese in Solor and Timor (articles 9–11), and then by an obligation laid on Makassar itself to expel its Portuguese population (article 12). Given the importance of the issue, I shall go through these articles in some detail.
Article 9 and 10 laid down Makassar’s neutrality with respect to the Portuguese in Solor and Timor. Whereas, as already noted, the first article defined Timor and Solor as the outer boundary of Makassarese legitimate trade, the next article brought the strategic dimension of the issue to the fore. The Makassarese in Solor were not to “support enemies of the Company wherever they might be,”
Articles 9 and 10 required Hasanuddin to sign and swear that to assist any Portuguese efforts to infringe the Company’s rights would be regarded as a breach of treaty, and therefore considered to be a
When the expulsion of the Portuguese was addressed directly in article 12, it came as a de facto dictate by the Company, formulated in absolute terms: “The Sultan was to ban the Portuguese from all his domains, with all their creatures, and followers from now on and forever.”
If the expulsion itself was formulated unambiguously enough, another less unambiguous feature of the expulsion clause was the manner in which the touchiness of the situation for the Makassarese was counterbalanced by an ideological remodelling of Makassar–Company relations. The essence of this reconfiguration was that the expulsion came as a necessary consequence of Portuguese meddling with a “natural” Makassar–Company bond of friendship.
The expulsion decree itself was ultimately formulated in absolute terms, but the article started off by placing the blame for all the recent problems between Makassar and the Company on the Portuguese: “as the Portuguese alone must be regarded as the only reason for and the sole instigators of all the recent troubles and conflicts that for many years have occurred between Makassar and the Company.”
Article 12 concluded the regulation proper of the political interaction regime between the Company and Makassar. Four of the six succeeding articles (articles 13–15 and 18) were all concerned with restitution claims,
Article 13 concerns Hasanuddin’s restitution claim on the Dutch for arrest of the ship
If we look at the moral equation in the presentation of the issue here, both Hasanuddin and the Portuguese are cast as being in the wrong: Hasanuddin for setting forth unjustified claims, the Portuguese for having deviously misled him. Still, of the two, Hasanuddin comes out better, having been tricked by the Portuguese. In contrast to the Portuguese, the Company reigns morally supreme by virtue of its willingness to meet unjust demands for the sake of reaching an agreement. This implicit moral equation then has a simple lesson for the Makassarese: Switch partners and everything will be all right.
Articles 14 and 15 both concern the Company’s compensation claim for the flight of Adrighem, who had embezzled 8,000 reals of eight, in Makassar.
After a section of articles regulating the bilateral administrative and judicial relations between the Company and Makassar in Makassar, including the grant for a permanent trading lodge (article 19), another group of articles concerning miscellaneous restitution and damage claims were included (articles 23 and 24), and article 26 simply confirming that a settlement had been reached. The respective issues were, in order: The sultan’s role as guarantor for Portuguese payment for damage done to the Company’s lodge (article 23)
In article 23, the sultan should make sure that the Portuguese pay for the repair of damages to some private persons associated with the Company’s lodge.
The same distribution of blame applied to the compensations for the Company’s military expenses in article 24. “The Sultan was to see to it that the Portuguese make good and pay damages to the Company for the considerable costs.”
The expulsion of the Portuguese in article 19 and the damage claims in articles 23 and 24 were all conditioned on the Company’s evacuation of Fort Panakkukang. The governor-general and Council declared themselves committed to evacuating the fort and handing it over to the sultan “as soon as the restitution claimed on the Portuguese had been made good and the Portuguese had been expelled from Makassar.”
The conditions and hostage arrangements attached to the handover of Fort Panakkukang demonstrate that although there was an element of courtship towards Makassar built into the August 1660 treaty, it was one based on conditional trust. That the Company stood for an engagement within reason in 1660 is amply demonstrated by the calling back of the touchy concessions made in the 1655 treaty.
Articles 16 and 17 of the 1660 treaty were dedicated to the issue of runaway Company servants and how to handle the converts among them. These articles thus concerned not only jurisdiction, but the issue of religious co-existence. As such, they were ripe with implications for both political and cultural prestige, not least because these concerned the issue of religion, which had served as Hasanuddin’s grounds of appeal for the concessions gained in 1655. The substance of article 16 was that the sultan was obliged to return all runaway Company personnel.
One qualification was added to the seemingly watertight ruling on the runaways in article 16. The Makassarese envoy, Popoe, had reservations about the inclusion of converts in the sultan’s obligation to return runaways. Popoe noted that as an envoy he was not in position to decide on the matter without further deliberation with the sultan himself.
So even in 1660 a partial concession was granted. But the August 1660 concession was not at all comparable to what had been agreed to in 1655. The Company’s principle, uncompromising position on the issue of converts was made clear in the elaboration of the issue in article 17. Here it was emphasised that henceforth no exception was to be made for converts, who were to be “handed over on par with the other renegades, disregarding any religious conviction or conversion.”
The August 1660 treaty had a dual nature. On the one hand it represented a body of specific rulings that were meticulously worked out to meet the challenges as the High Government saw them at the time, namely that the sultanate would continue to pursue its goals in the Moluccas unless prevented from doing so. A political framework was laid down with the purpose of containing and, if necessary, pacifying Makassar. This contractual framework did not represent a variant of European legal sophistication brought overseas. It represented a pragmatic shift towards a new conception of the overseas context of treaty making
The 1660 treaty showed the whip in the Company’s diplomatic hand. Yet, there was another open, outstretched diplomatic hand, too. The tenor of the comments on moral blame and praise in the articles on restitution claims was that the Company, although the wronged party, was also the party trying to clear up the mess. By holding up the Portuguese as the ultimate wrongdoers, a moral hierarchy was constructed in which the Company reigned at the top, the Portuguese at the bottom, and Makassar in between. It is difficult not to interpret this other than as an invitation for a Makassarese–Company bond that excluded the Portuguese.
Although this was to prove as illusory as it had been in 1655, my point in the above analysis is that both the whip hand and the open hand were part and parcel of an pragmatic diplomatic approach towards Makassar that had come about partly as a reaction to the disillusionment over the results of the 1655 treaty. But above all the August 1660 treaty represented a shift in the overall conceptualisation of treaty in which the latter had come to take on a stronger, politically-instrumental meaning.
Andaya, “Treaty Conceptions and Misconceptions,” 287.
Ibid. 289.
See
See
“dat bij aldien eenige Nederlanders op Maccassar quamen wegh te loopen, desselve aen haer meesters weder ter handt stellen sullen, gelijck ook eenige Maccassaren bij de Nederlanders also overcomende, aen Zijne Maij.t restitueeren moeten.” 1637 treaty,
“dat ijder zijn geloff zall vrij hebben, sonder daer in eenighsints gecontringeerdt te warden.” 1637 treaty,
“gehouden en geobserveerdt worden.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 27,
“In alle bovenstaende poincten des te religieuser magh onderhouden worden.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 27,
“met aenroepinghe van de allderheijlighste name van den eenigen allmaghtigen ende reghtveerdigen Godt.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 27,
“bevesstight en geconfirmeerdt.” August 19, 1660, treaty, art. 27,
The July 26, 1637 treaty placed no emphasis on its binding nature; see
“dat de Coninck van Maccassar moghte szijn volck haer voortaen niet en sullen bemoeijen met Butonoffte landen ende plaetsen daeronder behorende.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 1.1,
“als zijnde de eijgen landen van de Coninck Mandarhahha van Ternaten.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 1,
“ook van outs hefft toegekomen.” August 19, 1660 Treaty, art. 2,
August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 2,
“Tijdor ende Bachan met hare landen ende onderdaenen des begeerende mede in dese vrede begrepen zullen zijn.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 3,
This was what was finally formalised in the 1667 treaty, see below.
“dat die vande regeringe van Makassar van nu voortaan haer niet sullen bemoeijen offte in eenigen delen aenmatigen eenige saecken offte claghten der Amboijnesen onder wat onder pretext het ook zouden mogen wesen.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 4,
“wettige souverainen.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 4,
“daer met sullen laten omspringen ende gewerden.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 4,
August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 4,
“onderdanen offte inwoonderen.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 5,
“doot geslagen off tot lijffeigenen gemaackt.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 5,
“verbeurte van de vaertuijgen en goederen.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 5,
“zonder dat die van Makassar het zellve sullen aentrecken.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 5,
None of the repetitions or linguistic “safeguards” of “none whatsoevers” etc. were for instance, present in the 1637 treaty.
Art. 8, of the 1655 treaty.
“Die van de Regeeringe.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 6,
“Lorrendrayers.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 6,
“gehouden wesen … te straffen off aen de Compagnie te leveren.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 6,
“zonder zeebrieven van de Comp.e varende in Maccassar vermogen, (gene) haven offte negotie te verleenen, maer zullen gehouden wesen aen de Comp.e over te leveren.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 7,
“de contraventariers rigoureuselijck sullen gestrafft worden, van waer dessellve die ook sullen mogen gehaellt offte becomen hebben.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 8, Heeres,
“Dewijl de Compie de nagelen, nooten ende foelie door de zegen Godes nu allen onder haer gewellt heft.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 8,
See
“de Maccasaren hare in de quartieren van Solor ende Tijmor ende de plaatsen daerom her in negotie niet verder en sullen vermogen uijt te breiden.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 9,
Arend De Roever,
“dat de Maccassaren in de gemelte quartieren van Solor, waer het ook zoude mogen wesen, de vijanden van de Comp’e niet zullen vermogen te adsisteren.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 10,
“met volk, schutt, cruijt, londt, vaertuijgen, vivres offte wadt het zoude mogen wesen.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 10,
“de Maccassaren niet sullen vermogen te varen op eenige plaetsen met welker de Comp.e in vijandschap zijn, offte die zij met schepen beset zall hebben.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 11,
“Soo zal de coninck van Macassar desselve (the Portuguese) met haere creaturen ende aenhanck van nu voor althoos zijne landen ende gebiedt ontseggen.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 12,
“dewijle de Portuguese gehouden moeten warden d’eenighste oorsaek ende aenstookers geweest te zijn van alle d’onlusten ende quesstien, die sedert vele jaeren herwaerts tusschen de cronen Macassar ende de gem. Companie zij voorgeveallen.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 12,
To support this: See the the High Government’s concers about Makassarese worries over the economic effects of expulsion of the Portuguese,
Arts. 16 and 17 concern the twin issue of run-aways and converts and will be treated below.
For the
“De Compagnie het selve geensints schulldigh is geweest maer alleen betaelt heeft om met Maccassar in goede vrede te continueeren.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 13,
“Door de listige practijken van desselve naderh.t. niet aghtervolght offte nagecomen; en is bedragende [sum not filled in].” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 13,
See Stapel,
August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 15,
August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 15,
August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 23,
August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 24,
August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 25,
“De coninck van Makassar door de Portugesen sall doen vergoeden ende uitkeren de cleijne schade.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 23,
For the general distrust in Hasanuddin at the time, see Stapel,
“de Maij. Van Makassar door den Portugesen aen den Comp.e sall doen opbrengen ende betalen voor de sware onkosten.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 24,
“hier aen de Comp.e ter handt gestalt ende gelaten het goudt offte getellt dat d’Heer gesant Poepoe.” August 19, 1660, treaty art. 24,
“soo haest de bovengeroerde possten gellts door de Portuguesen getellt ende opgebraght. Ende desselve voordt uijt Macasar geset zullen wesen.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 25,
“tot haere verseckeringh gestellt zall hebben eenighe gequaliiceerde ostagiers tot genoegen van de voorschreven Nederlandsche gesanten.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 25,
“de coninck van Macassar aen de Compagnie sall doen wederom geven en restitueeren.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 16,
“alle de gene dat die oijt offte oijt van haer zijn weghgelopen ende in Maccassar offte het gebied gevonden worden offte die nogh nae dese t eenigen tijde in Maccassar van de Comp.e sullen weghgelopen.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 16,
“zoo Nedelanders, als swarte, Zoo lijffeijgenen als vrije.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 16,
August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 16,
“dat de Heer gesant Crain Poepoe daeronder niet en heft geliven te begrijpen den gene die reede de Moorsche religie aengenomen ende hebben laten besnijden, maer dat het sellver voor de Koninck zoude blijven gereserveerdt.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 16,
“Sullen in alle manieren wederom gegeven worden zonder aenschouw van religie offte besnijdenisse.” August 19, 1660 treaty, art. 17,
The treaties that Cornelis Speelman concluded during his 1667–68 campaign in the eastern quarters can be split into three: The treaties concluded in the Moluccas and with Buton before the fall of Makassar in November 1667, which established a “security ring” around Makassar; the November 1667 treaty with Makassar, which laid down and regulated the Company’s hegemony over Makassar; and, finally, the March 1668 treaty with Tello, which secured the latter’s commitment to the November 1667 treaty. Taken together, these secured the Company’s overlordship in South Sulawesi and the Eastern Archipelago. The way this political hegemony was constructed by treaty forms the topic of this section.
Both in the substance of the actual regulations as well as in their textual formulations, these treaties were drafted with a sharp eye to the main challenge of the new hegemonic political order, namely how to keep your friends close and your (former) enemies under even closer control. In this section, I argue that the challenges of establishing a hegemonic political order rejected Eurocentrism and were de facto met with hyperpragmatism.
It is a basic assumption in the analysis that neither the treaties with the outer islands nor those with Sulawesi polities should be considered in isolation, but as integrated parts of the same hegemonic structure. But, one must separate the parts to see the whole. Also, if all the treaties under discussion here formed integrated parts of the Company’s hegemonic structure, variations in their form and content are to be found. These particularities reflected variations in local conditions, and thus represented adaptations made for the preservation of the hegemonic order. My analysis will shift between the general and the specific dimensions of the construction of hegemony.
The treaty complex that secured the Company’s hegemony over South Sulawesi and in the Moluccas, was to a large degree the work of Speelman. As for his doings in Makassar and the Eastern Quarters specifically, I sketch the contents of the separate treaties concluded by or on behalf of Speelman and the Company in Buton and the Moluccas between January 4 and June 25, 1667.
The treaties between the Company and miscellaneous Moluccan islands concluded by or on behalf of Speelman between January and June 1667 comprise, in chronological order, a treaty of surrender to the Company by a Makassarese army in Buton on January 4,
The rationale for all these agreements was to establish a security ring of Company allies around Makassar. As such, they were all contracts of vassalage to the Company. They typically detailed restrictions on and procedures for diplomatic interaction with third parties, stated military alliance obligations towards the Company, and gave the Company a veto or final say in the procedure for leadership succession.
The nature of the political relationship between the Company and the local treating party was implied in the preamble and the concluding confirmation clause, but was usually explicitly stated in a separate articlermally in the middle or at the end of the treaty.
Before commenting on the treaty position of Buton, it must be pointed out that Buton is practically touching Sulawesi and is closer to Macassar than Ternate, although, it was traditionally under Ternatean control. As we shall see below, the latter was a fact that the Company re- incorporated in its treaty relations with the island.
The June 25 treaty with Buton
Article 7 of the treaty with Buton stated that the nobles of Buton were obliged to inform the Company immediately in the case of the death of their king.
The Company’s and Ternate’s rights of interference and control over the government of Buton went further still. Both were accorded veto rights with respect to the sacking of high officials of the realm. Neither the king nor members of the council of the realm were permitted to “sack” any prominent minister without first conferring with the king of Ternate and the Company, who would jointly look into the matter.
So, the Company and Ternate secured an absolute power to intercede for themselves with respect to both the king and the upper echelon of the Butonese government. But the reach of political control according to the treaty went deeper still: fealty to the treaty by new officials in the Butonese government, whether in high or low positions, was secured by the inclusion of a paragraph stating that they had to swear an oath of loyalty to the June 25 treaty on the Koran.
In case these precautions for guaranteeing a pro-Company regime in Buton were insufficient, it was added that the Company and Ternate in cooperation with the council of the realm were accorded the right to depose any Butonese king who contravened the treaty, and replace him with one who would honour it, without any objection whatsoever.
The elaborate checks on the rulers of Buton must be explained in terms of context. Speelman’s “chain of security” around Makassar depended on the endurance of the peace he had negotiated between Ternate and Tidore.
The fact that the article describing the polities’ vassalage to VOC followed rather than preceded those specifying restrictions on foreign trade, diplomatic interaction, and military obligations is illustrative of a practical-overseas contextual mode of thinking about treaties. If we were to subscribe to Andaya’s propositions, the sequence would have been turned around, that is the treaties would have started off with a general description of the relationship between vassal and overlord, and then deductively gone on to describe the obligations that followed from this legalistic relationship. The mode in the outer island contracts was, however, to start with the concrete economic, politico-diplomatic, and military regulations, and work up to the overarching vassalage commitment that in effect provided these regulations their legitimacy. The Company did not “believe” in “treaties” in the abstract at the time; it practised treaty making according to a casuistic, concrete, and specific approach. This is the impression one gets from reading the treaty with Makassar of November 1667, too.
The November 18, 1667 treaty with Makassar numbers 30 articles in all, with article 9 and 11 left blank. Article 1 simply stated that all regulations of the August 1660 treaty were considered incorporated in the 1667 treaty with the standard qualification “in so far as they did not contradict regulations in the latter.”
The regulations in the respective articles of the November 1667 treaty can be subsumed under the following three main headings: “Restitution and debts” (articles 3, 5, 13, 17, and 28), “the commercial regime” (articles 8 and 12), and articles that directly or indirectly concerned Makassar’s position in the post-war
Of special relevance in my context are all the explicitly political articles and the political implications of some of the non-political ones, which helped construct and support the Company’s hegemonic position. That goes not only for Makassar itself, but for the whole of South Sulawesi and the Eastern Archipelago, as all the treaties concluded with the outer islands between January 4 and June 25 were incorporated as an integral part of the political system given in the November 1667 treaty.
The hallmark of the November 1667 treaty thus lay in fitting a lord–vassal relationship between the Company and Makassar into a broader network of Company-dominated alliances. Although there were political implications in, for instance, the regulation of the commercial regime in articles 8 and 12, among others, I shall for reasons of space concentrate on the articles that explicitly regulated the political interaction regime, and those whose implications are so special that they need explicit comments. The March 9–31, 1668 treaty between the Company and Tello mainly confirmed the latter’s commitment to the November 1667 treaty. I shall analyse it with a focus on its paternalistic tone and form.
The first step towards Company hegemony was the expulsion of the Europeans from Makassar. Expulsion of the Portuguese had, as we have seen, been agreed to in 1660.
Still, there was the matter of the English, who also had to be expelled. Because this was a new treaty issue, it needed to be justified. But the legitimation itself was not new. The rationale for the expulsion of the English in 1667 was the same as it was for the Portuguese in 1660.
Article 6 contained two specific expulsion orders for the Portuguese and the English. The wording regarding the expulsion of the Portuguese referred to the signed treaty of 1660, and the juridical aspect needed no elaboration. Still, there can be little doubt that there was a moral aspect involved, implicit blame being put on the Makassarese for not having carried out their contractual obligations in the first place. Regarding the English the moral blame was made explicit, as it had been with the Portuguese in 1660. The English had to pay for their deviousness, which, by implication, had ravaged the “harmony” that would otherwise have been the normal state between the Company and Makassar. This justified the expulsion while putting the Company in a favourable moral light as a more trustworthy partner than the English. These kinds of implicit and explicit moral judgments are in fact more characteristic of the treaty text than are references to law. Why this is so may well be because the former was more relevant to the rearranging of friend and foe relations than the latter.
Merely stating the Makassarese obligation to expel the Portuguese and the English was not regarded as sufficient, however. It was also added that the expulsion of both parties was permanent and incontrovertible. The possibility that any persons of these two nations should ever be allowed to traffic or trade again in the domain of Makassar was expressly denied.
Apart from its moral aspect, the exclusion article demonstrates what might be regarded as an obsessive determination to make the rulings unambiguous and watertight against creative interpretation or claims to have misunderstood them on grounds of ambiguity. The linguistic means to achieve clarity were simplicity of phrasing, repetition, and pre- emptive amplifiers such as “whosoever,” “whatsoever,” and, last, “with no exceptions whatsoever,” as in the above. These features do not necessarily point to a European heritage of treaty making any more than does the moral dimension in the article. More readily at hand seems to be the need to interpret them as originating from the Company’s prior experience of treaty making with Makassar.
Watertight treaty formulations counted for little if one did not hold a military position to block any new Makassarese military build-up and support the threat of sanctions. The “mistake” of prematurely handing over military positions in 1660
In conjunction with the Makassarese evacuation of Fort Ujung Pandang and the Company’s takeover of it as Fort Rotterdam, a “security” zone around the fort was made by miscellaneous regulations.
The first link in the outer chain of security that the Company built was Bima, treated in article 14. The article simply stated that the king and nobles of Makassar were “from now on not to interfere with the land of Bima or its belongings.”
In article 16, Makassar’s claims on Buton were denounced and the island was implicitly made an integral part of the Company’s security ring around Makassar. However, the arrangement was introduced by a damage claim. The sultan was first to give restitution to Buton for manpower taken in a previous raid.
The article respecting Ternate started off, as in the case of Buton, with a restitution claim made on Makassar, which was followed by a renunciation of any Makassarese claims to the lands of Ternate. The restitution claims specified the compensation, in numbers and types, for men raided and weapons.
It is noteworthy that the legitimacy of the claim, as in the August 1660 treaty, was justified by an appeal to historical continuity and tradition. The Company’s recognition of the Ternatese claim was based on that the areas in question had “belonged to the king of Ternate from old.”
The formulaic language regarding the severance of Makassarese claims and bonds of overlordship in the areas covered in articles 14, 16, and 17 is consistently concrete and specific. No technical terms of law or general principles or derivatives of general juridical abstracts like “sovereignty” are involved. This indicates that these articles were drafted within in a mental framework of defining specific, concrete rights more than in terms of deducing them from general principles of law. Symptomatic of the former empirical, casuistic approach is that two of the three articles dealing with Makassar’s renunciation of political ties start off with a damage claim made on Makassar to be paid to the offended parties.
Another aspect of the introduction by damage claims on Makassar is that it likely helped emphasise the shift in alliances and relative positions of Makassar and the Company in the regional hierarchy that was taking place. Any restitution claim, by definition, involved reconfiguring an original asymmetry. In the cases above, Makassar was identified as the original wrongdoer, and the victims were compensated by Makassar thanks to the mediation of the Company as overseer. The restitution claims made on Makassar on the one hand thus signified a break in the old master–servant relationship between Makassar and its former vassals even as it validated the position of the Company as the new overlord. The same kind of logic and arrangements were applied when it came to the rearrangement of political relations and Makassar’s new position in the political regional system in South Sulawesi itself.
The alliance with Arung Palakka and the Bugis was what made the victory over Makassar and the remapping of the political landscape of South Sulawesi possible in 1667. It took eight articles—18 to 25—in all to inscribe the new political order in the treaty. I shall go through them one by one, with the aim of pointing out their case- conditioned, instrumental nature.
The restructuring of the political map of South Sulawesi rested on Makassar’s recognition of full autonomy for the Company’s Bugis allies, Bone and Loeboe. It was inscribed in the 1667 treaty with the following wording: “Furthermore the honourable (Makassarese) Government renounces all claims of overlordship over the lands of Bone and Loeboe, recognising their leaders as autonomous royals and rulers.”
If the reward for the Company’s Bugis allies was secession from Makassarese overlordship and recognition of autonomy, those realms that had sided with Makassar such as Laijo and Bancala paid a price. Both states were required to renounce and hand over parts of their domains that the Company had conquered during the war. These areas were to be “recognised by the Kings of Laijo and Bancala as autonomous parts with autonomous rulers and lords … where they themselves from now on and for ever could make no claims of authority.”
In article 20, the Company and allies stripped Makassar’s authority over “the lands between Boeloe-Boeloe to Turate” and further down to Bonaija” on basis of the “rights of conquest in war.”
The two cases of redistribution of sovereignty above came as result of the Company’s war with Makassar and its allies. Their legitimation by right of conquest can hardly be regarded as uniquely European; it is for instance hard to believe that such transfers of domain and sovereignty would be incomprehensible to the local actors.
There was also the challenge of how to handle the states that had sided with Makassar against the Company, but which had not actually been conquered during the war. This was the case for Wajo, Boeloe-Boeloe, and Mandar, which were treated together in article 21.
The article started off with a dose of blame and shame, branding the states of Wajo, Boeloe-Boeloe, and Mandar as criminals for having sided against the Company and its allies.
Having forged a new system of alliances and distributed rewards to friends and retribution to former foes, it remained to integrate the respective treating parties in Sulawesi and the outer islands into a coherent system, which was done in articles 23–25. Numbers should not deceive however: these three articles made up the jewel in the hegemonic contractual crown. It was through them that a coherent hierarchical system, with the Company at the summit, was constructed.
Article 23 started with a confirmation of article 6, in which the privileged position of the Company, to the exclusion of all third parties, was laid down.
As for the formal explication of Makassar’s submission to the Company, it was presented as a derivation of Makassar’s obligation to call in defensive assistance from the Company in case of third-party intrusion. When first let out however, it was repeated and reaffirmed as a statement of the general lord–vassal relationship between the two: If the Makassarese were not able to fend off third-party intruders they should call upon the Company for help, by right of its position as Makassar’s overlord.
In article 24, Makassar and the other vassal states and allies were incorporated into a system of overarching regional alliance. The article simply stated that the treaty of “lasting peace, friendship and alliance”
Article 25 cemented the Company’s supreme position in the system of alliance by declaring it the ultimate source of power and authority. In case of conflict between the treating parties, the Company would act as the final institution of peacekeeping and arbitration: “If it be the case that some sort of misunderstanding or conflict between the alliance partners should arise, so must the involved parties not act or go to war against each other, but present the issue to the Captain of the Hollanders for arbitration.”
Sweet words of harmony and collective responsibility should not fool us. The crux of the matter in the political reordering of the November 1667 treaty was that all treaty commitments by all the Company’s treaty allies were based on, and bound together by, the Company’s position as ultimate “protector and defender.” The system was held together by the recognition of the Company as overlord. This hegemonic position acquired its character from the fact that none of the other partners owed any vertical allegiances to each other, aside from being bound together by shared allegiance of loyalty to their overlord, the Company. If this was a brotherhood, it was headed by the Company as Big Brother. Still, it is well worth noticing that this compound was presented as a unity forged by shared interests, although ultimately protected and preserved by the Company.
In the November 1667 treaty, the mode of formulation of the political regulations, even more so than in the 1660 treaty, reveals an almost obsessive pursuit to fill in possible gaps and block loopholes for Makassarese evasion by being as concrete and specific as possible. Prior experience and lingering suspicions that Hasanuddin would try to take advantage of loopholes and bend the treaty to his advantage must have lain behind this. Lack of trust also goes to explain the endless repetitions of pre-emptive formulations such as “any,” “without exception,” “whosoever,” “under what pretext whatsoever,” and so on, at the expense of European legal jargon in the November 1667 treaty, as had been the case in the one of August 1660. That is easy to explain: Both were contracts engineered for low expectations to Makassar as a partner after 1655. But, as we have seen, the High Government also had other means than the rational, down-to-earth treaty text of securing bonds of loyalty. The treaty with Tello of March 1668 was exclusively based on such means.
The March 9–31, 1668 treaty between the Company and Tello was a treaty between the Company and the raja of Tello and Karaeng Linques, who had originally sided with Makassar but were absent from the signing of the November 1667 treaty.
The treaty was presented in the form of a declaration by the raja of Tello in which he explained his decision to declare himself a friend and ally of the Company by reasons of the “loyalty and fatherly care that the Company had always displayed toward its allies.”
The way in which the March 1668 treaty was framed and phrased in paternalistic terms marked it as being distinctively from that of November 1667. But, the March 1668 treaty was after all not a treaty of technical regulations, but a demonstrative act of submission. When the lord–vassal relation was expressed in local idiom by hierarchical family relations, as is the case here, it may well illustrate the Company’s willingness to accept or even prefer the local idiom to specified and numerated articles in the treaty so long as it did not jeopardise more specific agreements formulated elsewhere. If so, this only goes to demonstrate that the Company drew on a variety of modes for multiple needs in the overseas context. Which to choose was determined by an assessment of the local overseas situation.
The November 1667 treaty was titled an amendment
My analysis of the respective treaty texts treated in
The treaty making was not based on a single model. The treaty- record with Makassar between 1637 and 1668 demonstrates that there were a variety of modes in the Company’s toolbox of overseas treaties, too. Which mode to apply was determined by the specific needs it was supposed to serve, and the perceived options and constrictions in a given situation or context.
Above all, treaty making was a dynamic learning process. The logic went as follows: Appreciation of context was formed by experience. As experience was accumulated, so the dynamics of treaty making accelerated. The motor in these dynamics lay in the processing of overseas experience, not in the implementation of or deduction from legal principles brought from overseas.
Evidence from the treaties reveals a lot of “engineering” in terms of working out the constituent parts of the machine as well as the structure of the machine itself. Throughout this analysis, I have demonstrated that the design of the machine as well as the fitting of its parts bore a prominent “overseas stamp.” That was no coincidence. That was the hallmark of how Company diplomacy came to adapt itself functionally to the particularities of the overseas context. One such change is particularly noteworthy. After the 1655 treaty proved counterproductive, the High Government turned to a much more encompassing and detailed mode of treaty. This occurred in two stages; first by a much more detailed and regulated interaction system in the August 1660 treaty, and then as an even more politically integrated system of hegemony in November 1667. Contrary to Andaya’s propositions, I have demonstrated that these changes did not represent a return to European models, but quite the contrary, an even closer orientation towards the overseas context.
As for Speelman’s diplomatic performance during the 1667 campaign, some specific achievements should also be noted. First of all he managed to keep the alliance with Arung Palakka and the Bugis intact, which was vital in bringing about the military victory. Second, with the Bongaya Treaty of 1667, he managed to construct a political order that not only pacified Makassar, but also integrated Makassar and sultanates in the Moluccas into the Company’s hegemonic order. Possibly one of greatest of Speelman’s achievements in this connection was his successful arbitration and reconciliation between the former enemies, the sultans of Ternate and Tidore, manifested in the treaties concluded between them and the Company on March 29 and 30, respectively.
From now on: “The treaties with the outer islands” or “Outer Islands treaties.”
Makassar, January 4, 1667,
Molukken, March 29, 1667,
Makassar, March 29, 1667,
Molukken, March 30, 1667,
Molukken, April 12, 1667,
Boeton, June 25, 1667,
The January 4 treaty with Buton and March 29 treaty with the king of Tibor were treaties of a predominantly military nature, whereas the four others more extensively comprise regulations in the economic-commercial and political fields.
In 7th position out of 17 unnumbered clauses of the March 29 treaty with Tidore (
Wijders verclaren opgenoemde Coningh ende sijne Groote hun zelve, hare landen ende onderdanen te stellen en over te draagen in handen ende onder bescherminge van de generale Compagnie, dezelve mits desen erkennende voor hare schut- en schermheer.” Treaty with Tidore, March 29, 1667,
Treaty with Buton, June 25,
Treaty with Buton, June 25,
“Indien den coning van Bouton aflivigh wierd, dan sullen de rijxraden daarvan ten eersten kennisse aan den coning van Ternata ende de Compagnie moeten doen.” Treaty with Buton, June 25, 1667,
“van beijder sijde gecommitteerde mogen worden gesonden, die met de Rijxraad een ander in des overledens plaatse sullen verkiesen.” Treaty with Buton, June 25,
“alvoren bevestight te worden, tot onderhoudinge van dit contract aan de coning van Ternata en de Compagnie in handen van voorschreven gecommiteerde den eed van getrouwighheijt sullen doen.” Treaty with Buton, June 25,
“en als wanneere oock de Rijxraden aan de nieuwe coningh bij eede getrouwheijt sullen beloven, zonder dat de Rijxraden ooijt vermogen zullen een Coningh of te stellen en weder een ander in plaatse te kiezen als met toestaan van de coning van Ternate en de Compagnie.” Treaty with Buton, June 25,
“Den goegoegoe ofte andre diergelijcke hooghe officialen uijt hare bedieninge sullen vermogen te rucken met instellinge van andre, maar gehouden wesen de clagten, diese tegen een soodanigen hebben, aan de coninck van Ternata ende de Compagnie bekent te doen, om nevens hun daar in en over gedisponeert te werden.” Treaty with Buton, June 25,
“en is te verstaan dat sulcke hooghe officialen, oock andere mindere Rijcxgrooten, nieu in bedieninge komende, althoos de getrouwe onderhoudinge van dit contract op den Alcoran sullen besweeren.” Treaty with Buton, June 25, 1667,
“Maar off het geviele, dat den coning van Bouton tegens dit contract of andersints sich quame te buijten te gaan, dan sal de coning van Tarnata ende de Compagnie met de rijcxgroten van Bouton vermogen soodanige coning aff te stellen en in zijn plaatse een ander te verkiesen, sonder eenigh tegenspreecken.” Treaty with Buton, June 25, 1667,
See Stapel,
See
“in alle haare deelen en poincten sodanigh naar gevolgt warden, voor soo veel die in desen niet en werden wedersproocken.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 1,
As we recall, taken in isolation the August 1660 Treaty won the day by one, the 1637 treaty numbered twelve articles, the December 1655 eight.
See below.
See above.
“Sullen als noch doen vertrecken, in conformiteit van de laatse gemackte contracten, alle Portuguesen met haaren aenhang, gene uitgesondert, waar die onder de regeringe van Macassar worden gevonden.” November 18, 1667 treaty with Makassar, art. 6,
See above.
“dewijle de Engelse gehouden moeten worden voor de groote aanstookers en voroorsaackeren van het breecken van voorschreven contracten.” November 18, 1667 treaty with Makassar, art. 6,
“soo sal de Regeringe die met haaren aenhang met de aldereerste occasie mede van onder haar jurisdictie doen wegh gaan.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 6,
“sonder dat ymant van de voorschreven natien ofte hare creatuuren oijt of noijt naar desen in enighe plaatse onder den Maccassaren gebiet weder tot negotie off anders geadmittert sullen mogen werden.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 6,
“nimmermeer ergens onder haar gebiet nu off naar desen ter negotie off anders mogen inlaaten, admitteren of vergonnen eenige andere Europieanse natie of yimant van harent wegen, ‘t sij wie se oock zijn, off hoese moghte genoemt warden geen uitgesondert.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 6,
See above.
“meest reflecteren om te dienen tot versterckinge tegen de Compagnie.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 10,
“sonder dat daarnaar desen enige nieuwe daar ter plates off elders weder mogen gemaeckt warden, ten ware met gemeen goetvinden van de Compagnie.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 10,
Such as regarding inhabitants and local trade close to the fort, transferring jurisdiction in all inter Company-village affairs to the Company; November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 10,
“niet sullen mogen te bemoijen met ‘t lant van Bima en resort.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 14,
“maar de Compagnie daar met late gewerden naar hun welgevallen, sonder de selve nu of oijt na desen, op d’een of d’ander wijse, directeleijck of indirectelijck met raadt off daadt te comen tegens de Compagnie.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 14,
“Sullen aen den Coninck van Boeton ten eersten vergoeden en restitueren alle soodanige menschen als met laesten in een overval den Maccassaren in dat lant gerooft.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 16,
“sonder nu off oijt nimmermeer naar desen te houden off te hebben eenige de alderminste pretentie op op eenige van de landen van Bouton, daar van bij desen renuncierende.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 16,
“De geroofde menschen van Xulas, en daar beneven 10 stukken ijser canon, 2 metale prince stucken en 3 bassen, etc.” November 18, 166, treaty, art. 17,
“Van alle gepretendeerde eigedommen op de eijlanden Saleijer en Pantsiano, als mede op de gantsche Oostkust van Celebes…, d’eijlanden Bangaij en Gapij, als andere.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 17,
“en de welcke de hooggemelte Regeringe van Makassar opregtelijck afstaat, belovende nimmermeer naar desen de coninck van Ternate te turberen.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 17,
“van outs de croone van Ternate in eijgedom compterende.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 17,
“Voorts renuncieert de hooggemeldte Regeeringe van alle heerschappije over de lande de Bougijs en Loewoe, deselve lantheren erkennende voor vrij geborene coningsprincen ende heeren.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 18,
“geen de alderminste pretensie op is hebbende.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. art. 18,
“De coningen van Laijo en Bancala met het gansch lant van Turata ende Padjingh en al wat daar onder hoort, staande den oorlogh tot de Compagnie overgekomen … te erkennen voor vrije soningen, Heren en landen, daarse niet ter werelt op en hebben noch en houden te pretenderen, de selve ontslaande van alle voorgaande heerschapij en gebied, nu en altoos.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 19,
“van de Compagnie en haare bondgenoten volgens reght van oorloge.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 20,
“Sullen sijn en blijven als eigen vrij gewonnen landen.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 20,
Compare for one Andaya’s account of wars and dominion transfers in South Sulawesi, in Andaya,
“misdadigh aan de Compagnie en hare Bondgenoten.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 21,
“verklaart de hooggemelte regeringe (Makassar) te abandonneren end ons daar met te laaten gewerden.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 21,
“Nu off oijt nae desen.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 21,
“sonder deselve (the Government of Makassar) directelijck off indirectelijck, nu off oijt nae desen te sullen secunderen met volck, wapenenen, krujt, loot, spijse, raad, daet off andersints, hoe het oock genoemt mogte werden.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 21,
“belooft in conformiteit van’t seste artikul hare landen voor alle anderen natien gesloten te houden.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 23,
“en in cas enige van deselve tegens hunnen danck daar in sich begeerden neder te slaan, deselve met alle vermogen en magt te sullen afweren volgens hare gehoudenisse van desen contract.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 23,
“Sullen sij oock gehouden wesen, daartoe geroepen wesende de E. Compagnie te adsisteren met alle vermogen tegen sodanige vijanden als hun hier bij of omtrent Makassar tegen de Compagnie moghten openbaren.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 23,
“dat sij in geen onderhandelinge van vreede off andersints treden sullen met enige natie, daar met de Compagnie is in oorlog.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 23,
“Ingevalle sij (the Makassarese) daartoe niet vermogens waaren … als dan de Compagnie als haaren schut- en schermheer tot adsistentie soude versoecken also wij verclaren, deselve Compagnie in dier qualiteit te erkennen.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 23,
“duurende vreede, vriend- en bontgenootschap.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 24,
“ook werde begrepen.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 24,
“met alle haare landen en onderdanen.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 24,
“soodanige andere landheeren en vorsten als naar desen sullen versoecken mede in dit bontgenootschap te mogen treden.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 24,
“Off het geviele dat tusschen de bontgenoten ende respective coningen het een off ander misverstant eenige differentie quame te ontstaen, so sullen partijen niet stracx malkanderen daarom eenigh ongemack off oorloge aandoen, maar haar questie de capitain der Hollanders bekent maecken, omme soo het mogelijck is, door bemiddelinge van desselve, de oneeigheden uijt de weg te leggen.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 25,
“Maar indien een van de partije naar geen bemiddelinge luijsteren ende hartneckig blijven wilde, sonder sich na de rede te voegen, als dan sullen de gemeene bontgenoten de andere naar vereijsch ende regt van saken te hulpe komen.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 25,
“de oneenigheden uijt de weg te leggen ende goede broederschap te conserveren.” November 18, 1667 treaty, art. 25,
“mij erinnerende de getrouheyjt en vaderlijcke zorge, waar met de de Compagnie doorgaans en altoos is angedaen over hare verbonde vrunden en bondgenooten.” March 9–31, 1668 treaty,
“waare vrunden en verwanten van de Compagnie, die se hout en neemt in haare vaderlijcke bewaringe.” March 9–31, 1668 treaty,
“opdat ons van niemande ter werelt eenigh leet of onreght mogte overcomen.” March 9–31, 1668 treaty,
“naar ingenomen advijs van mijne lantsheer en broeders en onderdanen, te raade te zijn gewerden.” March 9–31, 1668 treaty,
“mij en de mijne, oock nevens dien mijn gantsche rijcke en jurisdictie, noch nader en int bijsonder met deselve Compagnie te verbinden.” March 9–31, 1668 treaty,
“en tevens te versoecken dat ik niet alleen in hare bescherminge particulierlijck aengenomen, neen maar oock mijne kinderen.” March 9–31, 1668 treaty,
“Naarder artijculen ende poincten.” November 18, 1667 treaty, Preamble,
Ibid. 39.
The Company tactics to stabilise their power in Ambon was to cut local bonds, establish equality between the local units and forge new ties with each single local unit to itself as overlord. To establish consensus, the tactic was to play on the elite by giving the village heads a position in the administration, and make them swear an oath to the Company.
The preservation of the Company’s hegemonic regime basically rested on keeping the Makassarese at bay; but it depended particularly on the successful preservation of the alliance with the Bugis. There is no evidence to support the proposition that Cornelis Speelman ever believed that these challenges could be satisfactorily solved by treaty alone. The two extra supporting pillars of the Company’s hegemonic regime were its military presence in Sulawesi, and the pre-emptive use of diplomacy to preserve the loyalty of both original allies and former foes.
For both the original allies and those who had recently become friends, the diplomatic challenge lay in continuing to cultivate good relations while at the same being on the alert for any signs of a slackening of commitment or independent policy-scheming. Thus, in both cases, preserving the Company’s political hegemony depended on diplomacy based on good intelligence on political intrigues locally. The topic of this chapter is Speelman’s reflections on and advice about the challenges of the Company’s hegemony, and the role of diplomacy in maintaining it, as put forth in his report to the High Government on the completion of his mission in 1669,
Cornelis Speelman left the Republic for Batavia in 1645 at the age of 17. Until his death in Batavia on January 11, 1684, he held a variety of positions in the Company’s administration.
Still, whatever the evaluation of Speelman’s performance within the Company hierarchy in Batavia was, of greater relevance here is his diplomatic and military career and performance outside the colonial headquarters. Speelman’s diplomatic experience started with his participation in Councillor of the Indies Joan Cunaeus’ diplomatic mission to Persia, September 15, 1651 to November 12, 1652. In his capacity as secretary, he wrote the whole report on the mission, though he is not reckoned to have had any influence over the actual proceedings due to his age, and inexperience.
Stapel credits him for registering events with an observant eye, often recording local modes of negotiating with humorous comments.
From July 2, 1663 to October 18, 1665, Speelman served as the Company’s governor in Coromandel, one of the more important Company positions outside Batavia. Considering the number of different parties the Company had to deal with there—not just local princes and power holders, but also rival Portuguese, English, French, and Danish merchants—the position demanded particular insight and competence.
Suspicions about Speelman having taken part in private trade had arisen among the Heeren XVII already in 1662 because of letters sent by Speelman in August that year, in which it was clear that he wanted a diamond stone, originally meant as a present for his wife, cut and sold in the Republic.
The private trade allegations are included here for two reasons. First, Speelman’s determination to fight the allegations—as exemplified by his letters written in self-defence (one in January 1664 and two in December 1665)
As Speelman’s exploits during the Makassar and eastern quarters campaign is covered elsewhere, I shall only address it briefly here. When the High Government decided to declare war on Makassar on October 5, 1666, Johan Van Dam, the leader of the 1660 campaign was initially offered the command, but when he declined in favour of returning home, the position was offered to Speelman.
Speelman’s next major campaign as commander was in central and eastern Java. In the middle of the 1670s, a state of unrest and rebellion had arisen there. It started as a rebellion against the
When the High Government received news that the Makassarese pirates had conquered Surabaya and Grisse, and had handed over both to Trunajaya, the decision was made to fight the Makassarese pirates, but not Trunajaya. After a couple of not too successful raids against the Makassarese pirates, and when the High Government received a request by the
During his campaign in central and eastern Java, Speelman concluded five treaties on behalf of the Company with representatives of or with the ruler of Mataram in person. The first was with the
How did Speelman do it? First there was determination and persistence. Already at the initial discussion over the objectives of the Java mission in Batavia, Speelman had put forward the idea that one should not miss the opportunity to see if one could extract monopoly concessions from the
While Speelman was dealt a strong hand by the
After his return to Batavia and his appointment as director- general after the Java campaign, Speelman increasingly came into the foreground in public life, and his esteem among local rulers continued to rise. Tellingly, letters from local power holders to the governor-general were increasingly addressed to Speelman as well, and even to Speelman alone.
Although Speelman in his period as governor-general, as already mentioned, came to be criticised, he still earned one final success regarding the Company’s relations with local Asian powers in this period, namely the pacification of Batavia’s neighbour to its west, the trading sultanate of Banten.
The port-state of Banten was situated on the north-western hook of Java, and comprised also parts of Lampung in southern Sumatra.
After another period of deteriorating relations after 1639, an agreement for a ten-year peace was made in 1645; but as Banten supported Makassar, a cooler climate again set in. Their rapport worsened when the starkly anti-Company Sultan Ageng came to power in 1651, and tensions heightened as the ten-year truce agreed in 1645 neared its term. Open hostilities started again in 1655, and after intermittent negotiations in 1657 and 1658, ended with a new treaty in 1659. This is roughly the same period of war and treaty negotiations with Makassar between 1654 and 1660. A short while after the 1659 treaty, relations deteriorated again until Sultan Ageng declared war on the Company at the end of April 1680.
Inside Banten, there was a conflict at the outset between Sultan Ageng and his younger son, Purbaya, on the one side, and his elder son, prince Haji,
Negotiations between Bantenese envoys and Speelman and Johannes Camphuis, who were chosen for the task, took place with preliminary hearings about the arrangements and procedures from May 10 to the beginning of June. It is clear from the transcripts of the talks that the Company’s aim was to lead Haji’s negotiators into a treaty of alliance that would stand up to any formal criticism from rival Europeans, especially the English. Symptomatic of that purpose is Speelman’s insistence that the two Bantenese envoys, Sadana and Astradjadja, be provided with a valid letter of delegation of powers from Haji. The discussion of that issue took place on the first day of negotiations proper, May 17.
Speelman opened the session by asking whether the Bantenese envoys had written authorisation empowering them to conclude a treaty
Sadana, who was the only one of the two Bantenese ambassadors to speak during the negotiations, replied by saying that the letter from Haji that they had brought on their arrival May 8 was meant to serve this purpose,
Speelman went on to phrase his demand for an explicit and specific letter of delegation as an ultimatum: “with no clear credentials, or assurance of delegated powers on behalf of the sultan, all the negotiations might in the end prove to be of no avail and useless.”
One should not mistake Speelman’s insistence on proper credentials for dogmatic formalism. There was a real issue involved, but it did not primarily concern the Banten–Batavia axis. It primarily concerned the VOC–EIC axis, and more broadly, relations between the Company and its European rivals. The motive for and intent in obtaining a formal watertight letter of authorisation was to ensure that any agreement between Haji and the Company could withstand challenges to the negotiations’ legitimacy from the Company’s rivals. Thus, the agreement had to be made “by the book,” which required that the Bantenese negotiators be properly empowered. Paradoxically, this issue was but another example of how the context of local interactions imprinted on the Company’s mode of approach, although in this case it had the appearance of procedural dogmatism.
In the end, nothing binding came out of the negotiations in Batavia, and the ensuing negotiations in Banten also ended inconclusively because the counterproposals made by the Bantenese were unacceptable to the Company. All the same, relations between Banten and Batavia remained peaceful through 1681.
Inside Banten, however, a civil war erupted in the beginning of 1682, as Sultan Ageng supported by the English and other Europeans residing in Banten sought to regain his power from Haji. As the rebels gained increasing support in the beginning of March, and Haji became isolated in his residence in Banten, he sent a letter to the Company asking for assistance.
Speelman convened the Council on March 1, when a decision was made to assist Haji in order not to miss “this golden opportunity.” At the same time, it was also decided that the Company should initially offer to arbitrate between Ageng and Haji. As Ageng did not even respond to the Company’s offer, the Company engaged itself militarily on Haji’s side.
The April 17–28, 1684, treaty between Banten and the Company
The two amendments to the 1684 treaty laid down a transaction in which the
The main part of the text in Sultan Haji’s
Being narrated in the firstperson plural by the sultan, the prominent theme in the
The loyal dedication of the Dutch must be understood as all the more praiseworthy when contrasted to the devious conduct of the other European nations at Banten, who had allied themselves with and supported the rebels with arms as well as with money from the beginning of the rebellion against Haji.
Given Haji’s bond of gratitude to the Company for its efforts in support of his cause and the services rendered to him, the privileges given to the Company are to be regarded as no more than tokens of his obligations to the Company. The commercial privileges are depicted as an offer of compensation made by Haji and not as demands from the Company. They are, in fact, presented as Haji’s initial offers. The opening paragraph of the
It is further noted that the Company is the generous party. Haji’s offer of compensation is stated to be less than a fair return for the services rendered to him; in fact, the Company could fairly have demanded more in return for its services or benevolence.
The Dutch condition that before they could dedicate themselves militarily to Haji’s cause, they must first establish whether there were any grounds for arbitration with Ageng, fits into this configuration of benevolence and altruism. The offer of arbitration must be understood as an indication that the Company was dragged into the conflict against its will. In this scenario, the fact that Ageng ignored the arbitration offer is used to present a contrast between a moderate, peace-seeking Company and a hardened and uncompromising Ageng abetted by his European supporters. The Council had decided first to see if there was any possibility of Ageng and the rebels agreeing to a peace,
The Company’s accommodationist approach manifested itself even after victory. Although Haji would have liked to see the Europeans who sided with Ageng punished more severely, at the Company’s urging he agreed merely to expel them from the realm.
So, not only were the Dutch content to see their European rivals disappear from Banten, events had played into their hands to present it a consequence of their rivals’ own doing in a course of events that the Dutch themselves had done nothing to instigate. On the contrary, they had acted as go-betweens to “soften” the attitude of the sultan, to “rescue” their fellow Europeans from a more forceful revenge.
For all the explicit and implicit praise of the Company in the sultan’s
Despite their difference in form, the patrimonial altruism in the depiction of Company–Banten relations described in the
As we now move on to the more specific topic of Speelman’s advice on the diplomatic approach towards Makassar, my proposition is that in that case too Speelman reveals a similar broad-spectered pragmatism.
After having secured the Company’s power in Makassar, Speelman left for Batavia in October 1669. Shortly before that, he had begun writing his instructions and advice to assistant merchant Jan van Opijnen, who had been left in charge in Makassar. During the six-week voyage to Batavia and after his arrival Speelman continued working on the manuscript, until it was finally delivered to the High Government on February 17, 1670. The original manuscript is probably no longer in existence, but the oldest surviving copy runs to 646 folio pages in all.
The
In addition to information on local political conditions, he also included observations on topography, flora, fauna, geography, and history. Some of this seems to have been written out of a sheer joy of observation and formulation, but most of it was primarily meant to provide relevant information to the Company’s residents in Makassar with tacit and explicit advice about how to act to preserve the Company’s position.
Beginning with Speelman’s reflections and advice on diplomacy in the
The learning presupposed an ability to make meaningful and relevant interpretations of local conditions and situations. I propose that this was what happened for two reasons: First, the overseas interaction was sufficiently commensurable with European standards to make possible a variety of meaningful understandings and communications. As this was the case, relevant understanding and actions increased over time.
The term “model” may be misleading if it is taken to mean that I suggest that Speelman worked out an explicit, general recipe on the “art of overseas diplomacy” in the
I shall start by briefly introducing Speelman’s conceptualisation of the relative roles of treaties, military force, and diplomatic negotiations, before I turn to some of his considerations on diplomacy’s role in upholding the Company’s hegemony in general. I then point to some of Speelman’s remarks on the importance of acquiring precise information on local conditions. The main body of the discussion constitutes an analysis of Speelman’s case descriptions and assessments of old friends and former foes in South Sulawesi—more specifically, three of the Company’s main enemies in Makassar, and the Company’s principal ally, Arung Palakka. While all these cases have their peculiarities, they all highlight a characteristic feature of Speelman’s “method,” namely his keen eye on the personal character and human nature of the men of power with whom he dealt. Not least was his continuous assessment of how their personal characteristics could be used for the benefit of the Company. These traits go to illustrate that Speelman conceived of and handled overseas diplomacy in more “personalised” than “institutionalised” terms. That is but another characteristic of the empirical pragmatic approach.
I shall round off the survey on Speelman to suggest that even some traits in Speelman’s physical appearance and personality contributed significantly to his diplomatic success, and that these attributes were reinforced by their compatibility with local perceptions.
Speelman certainly had no trust in treaties as a regulating means of interaction by itself. The Makassarese, he believed, would agree to any treaty without necessarily having any intention of honouring it. For instance, on the sultan’s remark that the “Admiral (Speelman) decides everything and that there was nothing he himself could do about it, but to accept it,” Speelman laconically remarks that this was “nicely put, but in reality not so intended.”
However much these examples seem to support Andaya’s view of a collision of conceptions about the nature of treaties, one should first look at the weak institutional structure of diplomacy in Europe, and the European record of broken treaties in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
As it was, the context changed radically with the Company coalition’s victory in 1667 and the establishment of Fort Rotterdam as the Company’s colonial headquarters in Sulawesi. Speelman’s historical account of the Company–Makassar interaction between 1637 and 1666 serves to corroborate his view that treaties not backed by realistic military sanctions were of limited value.
Speelman’s description and analysis of VOC–Makassar interaction from 1637 up to the decision for the campaign on October 25, 1666, proceeds chronologically, using the three cycles of conflict, negotiations, and war, and treaties in 1637, 1655, and 1660, respectively, as the structuring principle of his story.
Speelman depicts the “settled peace” of the 1637 treaty
As for the outbreak of the war in 1660, Speelman simply states that the 1655 treaty was of such a nature that the High Government was displeased with it; he refers to its instructions to Van Dam and Truytman in 1660 as evidence.
Speelman attributes the decision for war in 1666 to continued Makassarese harassment,
Speelman is hardly any more elaborate on the underlying reasons for the outbreak of open conflict here than in his treatment of the background of the 1655 and the 1660 wars. Although he refers to “the real reasons”
In Speelman’s historical survey of Company–Makassar interactions, these are represented as a continuous story of broken treaty terms by the Makassarese. The implicit lesson is that treaties unsupported by political control and a realistic recourse to military sanctions, were worth next to nothing. The functional treaty was one that could be protected and defended within the framework of a hegemonic political and military structure. In the post-1667 order, the alliance structure of the Bongaya treaty and Fort Rotterdam filled that function.
Speelman ends his historical narrative of Company—Makassar interactions with a note of pride in the Company’s achievements. With victory and the Bongaya Treaty, not only was peace restored in the land, it was restored with added glory and an enhanced reputation for the Company.
The approaches towards the Bugis allies, on the one hand, and the erstwhile foe Makassar, on the other, had different ends at the outset. During the campaign and before the conclusion of the 1667 treaty, the challenge was to keep the alliance with the Bugis intact to crush Makassar. In the post-Bongaya order, the challenge regarding the Bugis was essentially to keep its loyalty intact and transfer it into the post- conflict order. For Makassar, the challenge was still to check and eventually pre-empt any ambitions of regaining its former power.
Balancing the power of the formerly dominant Makassar against the rising power of the Bugis proved a challenge. Speelman confided to the High Government that he was well aware that, after the fall of Sombaopu, the Bugis had started to feel uncomfortable about being tied too closely to the Company,
It seems fair to suggest that although not explicitly proposed, what Speelman had in mind was a pre-emptive strategy based on balance-of-power thinking. The alliance with the Bugis should be maintained while keeping their ambitions in check. At the same time, it was important to not weaken the Makassarese too much. If so, a balance of power among the local powers, presided over and regulated by the Company, was to be a governing principle of Speelman’s hegemonic order.
I regard Speelman’s pragmatic reaction to the Bugis breach of contract and his trust in a balance of power to keep both the Bugis and Makassar pacified as illustrative of his pragmatic thinking. Power relations took precedence over insistence on legalisms. One does well to note that this pragmatic approach meant that an observant eye had to be kept on events at the two courts to identify any increase in dissatisfaction and opposition, but at the same time provocative action, which would result in unnecessary aggressive reactions on the part of either the Bugis elite or at the court of Makassar, had to be avoided. If that was true for the main ally and former main enemy, it was also true for the smaller political entities as well. In short, the hegemonic system was built on information and the interpretation of local political activities.
In the introduction to the section headed “Description of the allies,”
In any case, for Speelman, the increase of knowledge based on experience or the accumulation of information on local conditions had to form the basis of the Company’s power in South Sulawesi. And one should add that he was far too modest about his own contribution to it. The
Information about local power is typically presented at two levels of analysis in the
The need for detailed information on local political conditions thus went with the institutional order of hegemony as such, but might have been enhanced by an appreciation of the fluid nature of the overseas context, where personal bonds were stronger than institutional ones. The latter called not only for accurate information on local political conditions, but for intimate knowledge and information about personal character to either bar unwanted persons from power or forge or renew bonds with desirable ones. If information on both context and agency prospects was equally indispensable, it was at the agency, or personal, level that the “art of diplomacy” was practised. The rest of this chapter is dedicated to an analysis of Speelman’s performance and advice in four cases that concerned three of the Company’s main adversaries in Makassar—Karaeng Karunrung, the “young king” of Makassar,
References to Karaeng Karunrung are scattered throughout the
Intelligence and cunning in a cynical quest for power are the characteristic features of Speelman’s depiction of Karunrung’s political manoeuvring. Relating the story of Karunrung’s return to power in the court of Makassar, Speelman holds nothing back in depicting him as having a totally amoral and cynical personality. Karunrung’s re-entry into court opened a Pandora’s box of evil. He was now once again in position to “go on with his daily base deeds and ill-doings of murder, provocative behaviour and various sorts of black magic, just as before.”
Speelman similarly condemns Karunrung’s political machinations and motives as amoral. The recklessness of Karunrung’s exercise of power is generally recognised by the Makassarese, states Speelman, yet no one dare speak out openly against him.
A special case in which Karunrung’s cynical politics and womanizing intertwined was his disgraceful abduction of Karaeng Saderbone’s wife, a plot for which he recruited the king of Tello. Although rumours had it that Karunrung’s intention was to marry his captive, there can be no doubt, states Speelman, that he had no other intention than bringing her into disrepute and mistreating her.
Yet, Speelman presents another perspective of Karunrung, viewing him in terms of his strategic use in maintaining the Company’s power in Sulawesi. In this light, Karunrung comes out very favourably because of his strategic and cultural competence, which in actual fact may be viewed as an alternative, more positive, way of looking at some of the qualities we have seen Speelman condemn above.
“Putting his vices and dubious nature aside,”
Speelman went on to stress that one also had to take into account the cultural competence of Karunrung’s upbringing and education. Karunrung’s father had for instance let his son be taught by the Portuguese.
Significantly, Speelman’s praise of Karunrung is in terms of diplomatic and political strategic capability and not in terms of personal moral assets. Furthermore, Speelman’s profile of political admiration for Karunrung comes close to a self-portrait; at least it is hard not to recognise qualities in Speelman’s praise for Karunrung that he himself would not have taken pride in. But there was a more immediate practical dimension to Speelman’s praise. Despite all his moral flaws, Karunrung was a man of political competence that could become very useful for the Company. In his virtuous aspects, Speelman considered him a “perfect partner,” and so had moved to seek out the possibility of luring Karunrung over to the Company’s side.
Immediately after the conclusion of the peace of Bongaya, Speelman had approached Karunrung to establish bonds of confidence with him.
That Speelman considered recruiting Karunrung to the Company’s side despite his vices is still telling of Speelman’s view of overseas diplomacy. Karunrung’s personal vices were outweighed by his extraordinary political capability. One might even suspect that some of his vices, or at least his cynicism, might have counted as a politico- tactical asset so long as they were used in the service of the Company. In any case, Karunrung’s political talents taken into the balance, the benefits were too tempting not to try to secure his cooperation. As such, the effort well illustrates the pragmatic nature of Speelman’s overseas diplomacy.
In Speelman’s eyes, the “young king” of Makassar matched Karunrung’s base morals. Inclined towards drinking and gambling in his youth,
In addition to his lack of moral standards, training, and intellectual capacity, Speelman also finds weaknesses of character in the sultan. He is a man of “no direction,”
Speelman’s judgment of the young king’s character flaws with political implications extended to a more personal, private level. He declared him extremely petty,
In addition, the sultan had a vengeful nature and was filled with hate for his foes,
This “caricature king,” with all his faults and follies, was one that the Company could live well with. Tellingly, after his character assassination of the sultan, Speelman went on to speculate that the break of the Bongaya Treaty and the war that followed
Although Karunrung stands out as the chief villain in the history of Makassar–Company relations, there can be little doubt that in Speelman’s hierarchy of qualities in a ruler, Karunrung ranked well above the young king. For one thing, whereas Speelman kept a balance sheet between vices and virtues for Karunrung, he recorded no virtues for the young king at all. Some of what he found is detestable, but mostly he found harmless mediocrity. Karunrung’s vices seem to imply a certain “grandeur” when compared to the sultan’s mediocrity, and to reflect a complementary side of a man of great intelligence, strategic insight, and the ability to act wisely.
I suggest this contrast in depiction reflects that Speelman felt he shared more with the cunning politico-military Karunrung than with the ruler who cared more about satisfying his own lusts and greed than to rule. In this configuration, Karunrung represented a “worthy opponent” whom one should try to lure over to the Company’s side. The small- minded, money-seeking sultan, the Company’s “mock king”, represented but a comical figure of nominal power who the Company could manipulate for its own ends.
In the introduction to the characterisation of the King Tello we are, as in the case of the young king of Makassar, presented with the picture of an untrained, incompetent, and spoilt man of power. Only seven months old when recognised as ruler following the sudden death of his father,
Still, Speelman is less critical of his personal vices than he is of either the young king of Makassar or Karunrung. There are no tales of big scandals and excesses told about him,
Besides showing little interest in politics, the king of Tello also seems to have felt uncomfortable with the attendant responsibilities.
The political message from Speelman to the High Government and his successors in Makassar was that although the king of Tello seemed to represent neither a potential threat nor a particularly useful ally to the Company, one would do well to look out for his “political awakening” or if he should start to harbour political ambitions of his own that could be turned to the benefit of the Company. In view of the king’s recent political reorientation, he might be drawn over to the Company’s side. But that would take planning and due caution. The task of pursuing the switch of loyalty had to be put in the hands of a “trustworthy agent,” and one had to take care to isolate the king from “agents with bad influence.”
Working in favour of this scheme was that the king of Tello stood in higher esteem among the population in Makassar than, and was clearly preferred as a ruler to, both the king of Makassar and Karunrung.
There can be no doubt that for Speelman, the major flaw in the king of Tello’s character, as it was in the case of the young king of Makassar, lay in his lack of interest and training in matters of state. Speelman’s harsh judgement of both in this respect represents a complement to his admiration for Karunrung’s political competence and abilities. By implication, Speelman’s condemnation also demonstrated his own political credo, namely that one must know about affairs of state to take part in them successfully. By implication, for the Company to take part in local politics, it had to learn about their workings, not to speak of what it took to protect and defend its hegemon position.
It goes for all three of these character assessments that although some of Speelman’s observations might resemble gossipy journalism, the gossip in the final instance served a political purpose as part of an assessment of how to act towards these men of power to gain maximum Company influence. In the case of Karunrung, Speelman tried to win him over to the Company’s side because of his exceptional abilities; in the case of the young king Makassar, one was better off leaving him be and not provoking him, harmless as he is in his indulgence in private pleasures, and use him as a “mock king.” In the case of the king of Tello, one could well have left him be too, if it were not for the fact that his new interest in politics might open new opportunities. It was better to explore and pursue that possibility. Speelman’s “gossip” was not “gossip” per se; it was an essential part of his political survey for defending the Company’s political hegemony.
A nicer word for “gossip” is “information.” As for Speelman’s information about local affairs, he makes explicitly clear that it was based on his personal experience of the kings on site, both friends and foes.
It is beyond my ambition at present to point out what Speelman might have missed or even gotten wrong. What should be noted, however, is that both the implications of Speelman’s analysis of local power and his own self-proclamation of their inherent shortcomings point towards a critical approach that is diametrically opposed to a dogmatic Eurocentrism.
In the case of Arung Palakka, the situation was inverted compared to Karunrung and the other foes. It was the task of keeping Palakka as the glue that held together the alliance with the Bugis states that constituted Speelman’s overriding challenge and concern. However, his diplomatic approach towards Palakka remained the same as it was in the case with Karunrung; a personalised, pragmatic approach.
Speelman’s point of departure in his analysis of Arung Palakka was that both the Company’s political hegemony and political stability in Sulawesi depended on his position as uncontested leader of the Bugis. It was not merely important, it was
I have selected three cases that illustrate the composite nature of overseas diplomatic challenges as well as Speelman’s pragmatic approach to handling them: his use of Palakka’s claim to Soppeng and Bone on the grounds of dynastic rights and heritage; his handling of the succession issue in the event of Palakka’s premature death; and the issue of Palakka’s speculations on religion as a possible threat to his position should his speculations be known. The first and last were argued in terms of local tradition, the second reflects the institutional difference between the South Sulawesian polities and the Company.
Speelman began his description of Arung Palakka
Speelman also analysed the political implications of not only dynastic heritage but of current marriage alliances as a source of power. In his account of the quality of Bugis leaders under Palakka’s command
Two questions still arise: Was Speelman’s information reliable? And was Speelman capable of interpreting the information he received reliably? A lot of his information must have come from Palakka himself, the rest from local sources, so at least most of it must have been factually correct. And even if such was the case, was Speelman in a position “understand” its deeper implications? According to Andaya, as a European, Speelman was “culturally blocked” from acquiring a deeper understanding. I have two counterpropositions. First, insofar as the interactions between the Company and local powers are concerned, the political cultures of Western Europe and Southeast Asia were sufficiently compatible for a pragmatic transcultural, if still not “perfect,” understanding.
None of the cases of legitimacy claims that Speelman explored in detail needed “cultural translation” to achieve a workable understanding in the first place. All were compatible with seventeenth-century Western European political culture. The dynastic principle was the main source of power legitimation in Western Europe, to the degree that even if one considers the Dutch Republic as something of an exception, it still applied to the power position of the House of Orange.
Second, one should note that Andaya’s argument rests on the assumption that locals had only one model of political communication at their disposal, their own. But why would they apply that without modifications in transactions with outsiders? The evidence both in the Makassarese use of the Portuguese and in their dealings with the Dutch suggests, to the contrary, that they “imported” what they thought useful, and tried to fend off whatever threatened their freedom of action and autonomy from the outsiders. This points towards a quite different and dynamic interaction logic than that allowed for by the proposition of static mutual misunderstanding. Speelman’s cultural competence acquired from his long overseas experience and his fluency in Malay also seems to suggest that he would not have consistently been blocked from understanding local conditions and structures.
After laying out Palakka’s genealogy and its political implications, Speelman went on to comment on Arung Palakka’s four (official) wives. His “first wife,” long a resident in Batavia when Speelman wrote, descended from the kings of Gowa and Saderbone on her father’s side and was thus, remarks Speelman, generally to be regarded as of Makassarese descent.
By right of his first wife’s descent, Arung Palakka had a legitimate claim to the throne of Makassar. In this regard, his first wife represented both a political asset and a liability. Apart from the prestige inherent in her dynastic heritage, she was regarded with high esteem at the court of Makassar.
The Company’s hegemonic position rested on preserving a relative strength compared to its Bugis allies. The possibility of a Bone– Makassar union, which Palakka’s marriage to his first wife made possible and which a return of her to Sulawesi would actualise, could possibly have jeopardised the Company’s hegemony in South Sulawesi. Tellingly, after having related his reply to Palakka on the issue on the repatriation of the first wife, Speelman addressed the High Government directly, revealing that he himself had done nothing further to push the matter.
On the other hand, Speelman made a detailed “tour de force” of personal intimacy when describing Arung Palakka’s three other official wives. On the one hand, this goes to illustrate the fact, often overlooked or understudied in the historiography, that there were personal friendships and emotional bonds between Company commanders and local allies. After all, Speelman and Palakka were brothers in arms who fought together and drank together, and thus knew each other’s personal weaknesses, faults and, not least, emotions. In short, it was human beings, not cultures or legal systems, that were interacting. But if the human factor should not be underestimated in the study of diplomatic practice, Speelman’s basic issue concerning Palakka’s wives was still basically about power.
The political dimension comes fully to the fore when Speelman rounded off his survey of Palakka’s marriage alliances with a brief conclusion on his many by-wives, whom he did not really consider “proper wives.”
As for the by-wives, they could be dismissed or treated more lightly than the four “official” wives because the former could not produce legitimate heirs comparable to the ones produced by the “official” wives.
This situation left the matter of the succession of Arung Palakka with all its implications for the political stability and preservation of the Company’s hegemony hanging in the air. And Speelman could not let it hang there, the issue was too pressing. The alliance with the Bugis with Arung Palakka as king of both Bone and Soppeng formed the cornerstone of Speelman’s plan for Company hegemony in South Sulawesi. An unsolved succession procedure thus represented a potential obstacle for Speelman’s venture and the Company’s cause in Sulawesi as such. It therefore posed an immediate challenge.
During the campaign, writes Speelman, he had often discussed the matter of succession in the case of Palakka’s sudden death with other Bugis leaders.
As can be seen from the effort that Speelman put into it, the issue represented a pressing problem of the highest priority, but it was a difficult challenge that required considerable tact. In a meeting where the most prominent Bugis leaders were present, Speelman relates that he had once again put forward the issue in the most “discrete manner”
Speelman, then, obviously pressing for a more decisive solution, collective suicide would hardly solve the problem, presented a scenario in which Palakka had died of illness, that is a situation in which demonstrative self-sacrifice made no sense. The Bugis leaders’ response to this scenario was that in such a case they would have no alternative but to turn to the Company.
At the same time, the situation might have struck Speelman as ironic, because he was confronted with a situation that would have appeared ideal, given that the Company wanted to establish a kind of direct hegemony over the Bugis. All it would have taken would be to wait for, or even arrange, Palakka’s death in battle or otherwise at a convenient moment when control over Makassar had been secured. After all, a situation of political paralysation or conflict in conjunction with a succession crisis was normally viewed as a “golden opportunity” for political intervention in local affairs.
If Palakka should die on campaign, Speelman could hardly hope for a replacement by a man of comparable status and standing among the Bugis. But he could at least hope for a replacement process in which the Bugis leaders themselves took part, and dedicated themselves unanimously to one and the same candidate. A candidate anointed by the Company alone could hardly expect to be met with the same recognition. So, in this case Speelman was confronted with a situation where he had to take on the role of mediating and arbitrating positions within his local ally camp.
As it was, a plan of action in case of Palakka’s premature death was finally agreed upon between the Bugis leaders and Speelman. The nobles declared that they would have no other choice than to turn to the Company, and would therefore not be in a position to declare who should succeed Palakka. They would, however, comply with whatever the Company recommended. And, as they recognised the king of Soppeng as their legitimate overlord, they would also be loyal to his choice for Palakka’s successor, which he and the Company would come up with together.
So, even if postponing the actual selection of a specific candidate, the agreement at least produced a procedure with a built-in guarantee of legitimacy by involving the Bugis directly. It was probably the best Speelman could get at the time.
Two preliminary lessons can be learnt from Speelman’s tackling of the challenge of securing a succession procedure with the Bugis leaders. Accepting for the sake of argument that Speelman had a deficient understanding of cultural perceptions of power underlying the Bugis unwillingness to name a successor to Palakka, in the end he did reach a solution that both parties could accept. That must have taken at least some cultural competence. Second, the discussion about the succession procedure illustrates an important aspect of what overseas diplomacy was about in general, namely negotiations with local leaders on ad-hoc issues as one went along.
No one even remotely sane would do that without taking into consideration the mode of thinking of the local negotiation partners. The baffled way in which the scenario of Palakka’s sudden death was received and tackled by the Bugis leaders might be taken as an indicator of a political environment with a low degree of institutionalisation. In contrast, Speelman’s insistence on a rational, predetermined solution to the succession issue might be taken as indicative of a political tradition in which the impersonal took primacy over the personal. But such a structural contrast in which Speelman’s positions are taken to have been “dictated” by a pre-imported notion of the institutional holding primacy over the personal misses the mark or is incomplete at best.
As we have seen in other instances, Speelman’s reflections on diplomacy towards his Makassarese foes and his Bugis friends demonstrate a tuned appreciation of the “personality factor.” A better way of explaining Speelman’s pressing for an institutional solution to the succession of Palakka than as an overreliance on familiar institutional Procedures, is that it was conditioned by context. While predictability as in this case was crucial, Speelman reverted to institutional arrangements because it came closest to insuring the Company’s situation. One should also bear in mind that it was partly the charismatic dimension of Palakka’s political power that made it so crucial for Speelman to construct an institutional safeguard for a continued alliance between the Bugis and the Company should he pass away. The established institutional solution then represented a pre-emptive device made particularly pressing because of the lack of, or weak, local alternative, an example of a pragmatic approach, although one with a familiar European outcome.
I shall conclude with a discussion of Speelman’s pragmatic handling of a totally different issue, namely the threat to Palakka’s personal prestige and standing with the Bugis, should he make his personal speculations on religion public.
To a large degree, Palakka’s political capital rested on the popularity he held with his men, which did not go unnoticed by Speelman. Illustrative is the latter’s recording of an instance in which many of Palakka’s men, at a time when they thought him dead, were brought to tears of joy and affection to see him alive and well.
On several occasions, states Speelman, Palakka had confided in him about his animosity towards Islam and announced that he was inclined to renounce his faith, having become more sympathetic towards Christianity.
As we have seen above, Speelman refrains from any moral judgements on the Arung Palakka’s polygamy in the survey of his four wives, and the issue of polygamy does not concern Speelman in this context. But he accords a rather lengthy passage to the political implications of Palakka’s speculations about Islam and Christianity with evident concern.
In addressing the High Government on the issue, Speelman is quick to dismiss any profound religious conviction in Palakka: “However much he [Palakka] professes his sympathies for Christianity, he understands next to nothing of it.”
Speelman makes it clear to the High Government that on several occasions he tried to warn against and lead Palakka away from his “path of folly.”
In the actual communication between Speelman and Palakka, this message must have taken the form of a non-negotiable order rather than as friendly advice. Speelman’s account of his final instructions to Palakka on the matter cannot be understood in any other way: “bordering on the offensive, Palakka has been instructed not to talk to nor discuss such matters with anyone, to pre-empt any conflict.”
The consideration in Palakka’s reflections on religion is that a local Company ally should not reveal thoughts that might be interpreted as contemplating converting to his European ally’s religion. For his part, Speelman, tried to block any conversion out of considerations of political stability and preservation of an invaluable alliance. Speelman’s handling of Arung Palakka’s thoughts about conversion thus demonstrates an example of how secular political concerns took priority over religious missionary ones, which conforms to the Company rule. But the case also demonstrates a point of methodological significance in overseas diplomacy, namely that one should not underestimate the factor of agency.
For, from a counter-factual, hypothetical point of view, a disclosure of Palakka’s toying with the idea of conversion might well have had the disastrous effects that Speelman feared, and broken the alliance with the Bugis. If the alliance had broken, it might have changed the outcome of the campaign. Speelman’s delicate handling of the problem was probably decisive in keeping the Bugis from falling out over this issue, and thus of equal importance to the success of the Company’s venture. The incident at least goes to illustrate how delicate overseas diplomacy was, and how much instinct it took to conduct it successfully. This is not to say that all the Company’s agents possessed Speelman’s abilities. But to suggest that none of them did, or that cultural differences prevented all of them from acquiring such an intimate understanding of indigenous culture in South East Asia is wide off the mark and leaves the Company’s diplomatic successes unexplained.
Speelman’s tackling of the succession procedure and Palakka’s religious speculations form striking illustrations of how “big models” sometimes are inadequate at best when confronted with empirical facts at the level of micro-action. Both issues illustrate the kind of practical challenges that Speelman had to grapple with when dealing with his main ally. Even on a more general level it could be argued that this was what overseas alliance diplomacy was about, keeping an observant eye on seemingly trivial “details” that beneath the surface were of crucial importance.
Palakka stood in danger of losing his standing and prestige among the Bugis if his personal speculations on religious issues were made public, with potentially disastrous consequences. When Speelman managed to find a solution to the potential hazards, of both the succession and the religious conversion issues, and managed to manoeuvre himself into a clandestine personal negotiating position with Karunrung (although the outcome was unsuccessful), these achievements were definitely the result of Speelman’s “cultural competence” and personality. Qualities that he somehow managed to “fit” into the local cultural matrix of politics.
Finally, there is one factor that in my mind probably was one of the most important in explaining Speelman’s diplomatic success, regardless of how he acted towards friend or foe. If we keep in mind Speelman’s admiration for Karunrung’s positive attributes as well as his admiration for Arung Palakka’s courage, we can establish a basic motto of Speelman’s own values which may be summarised as: “Bold action by good sense.” Bold action as an ideal would be compatible with local standards and it seems reasonable to argue that the indigenous elite understood Speelman as a man of extraordinary personal, if not charismatic power. If so he would fall in line with what O. W. Wolters has designated as typical of South East Asian conceptions of power-legitimacy, namely charisma,
If, however, Speelman’s reputation as a “man of prowess,” was one of his greater assets in his diplomatic performance in Sulawesi, which there is reason to propose, such a proposition spoils the schematic simplicity of the Europe–South East Asia dichotomy of charismatic as opposed to “rational” conceptions of power. I have argued consistently in this chapter, and in this thesis in general, that this dichotomy is generally too simplistic. But, returning to the case in point here, if charisma was one of Speelman’s assets, it was also put in force by his recognition of the nature of indigenous conceptions of state power and diplomacy. The two went together in Speelman’s pragmatic, empirical diplomacy.
Negotiations with local power holders on concrete issues formed the foundation of the Company’s diplomatic edifice. The diplomatic treaty formed the top floor, the institutional formal level where specific negotiated agreements could be inscribed in writing and presented to the world as “forever binding.” But a preoccupation with this level may delude us into drawing mistaken conclusions about “legal formalism,” “Eurocentric bias,” and the like as the predominant characteristic of the Company’s overseas negotiations with local power holders, by overlooking that the basis of these respective treaty agreements was always personally conducted negotiations between local rulers and Company representatives. As we have seen, Speelman did not trust the institutional arrangement by treaty to support the Company’s hegemony in South Sulawesi alone. It had to be backed up by a military presence and the threat of sanctions. But still more important was the personal diplomacy that underlay alliance building.
Speelman’s evaluation of his former Makassarese foes and Palakka and the Bugis allies gives us a glimpse into this agency level of overseas diplomacy. It demonstrates that the cornerstone of Speelman’s diplomatic method was the personal bonds that could be established with potential or actual power holders. It also demonstrates that Speelman was working from a realist assumption in which personal ethics and moral standards were viewed as secondary compared with the Company’s politico-diplomatic use-value. Establishing collaborative bonds with Karunrung was deemed “good,” despite his moral deficiencies because the Company considered his political talents useful. Establishing a fixed procedure of succession in the event of Palakka’s premature death, and preventing him from undermining his own legitimacy by going public with his religious thoughts, were “good” in the sense that they were necessary to pre-empt a problematic situation for the Company. Adequate reaction to such challenges had to be based on relatively precise assumptions and assessments of the personal qualities of rulers and members of the local power elite alike, as well as of the local political context and situation. Empirical pragmatism seems to be a relevant term for this kind of approach.
Knaap 2004, 41.
“Notitie dienende voor eenen corten tijt en tot nader last van de Hooge Reeeringe op Batavia, tot naarrigtinge van den Onderkoopman Jan van Oppijnen, bij provisie gestelt tot Opperhooft en Commandant in ‘t Casteel Rotterdam, op Makassar, en van den Capitain Jan Fransz.: als hoofd over de Militie, mitsgaders die van den Raadt.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fols. 684–1007. (Hereafter
Noorduyn, 1955, 6.
The chronology to Speelman’s administrative career in Batava is based on P. C. Molhuysen, P. J. Blok, and L. Knappert, eds.,
For points of charges brought against Speelman after his death for his ill conduct in office, see Stapel,
Cornelis Speelman and A. Hotz, “
Stapel,
Ibid. 7.
Ibid. 8.
Ibid. 12.
Ibid. 21.
Ibid. 25–26.
Ibid. 26. For the whole affair about the charges of private trade, see 26, 34.
Ibid. 31.
Ibid. 30, 32.
Andaya,
Stapel,
Ibid. 35.
Ibid. 84–85.
Ibid. 85–86.
Ibid. 88.
Ibid. 115.
Ibid. 90.
Ibid. 106. Amangkurat had succeeded his father in July 1677; M. C. Ricklefs,
Stapel,
Ricklefs,
Stapel,
Stapel,
Ibid. 90.
Ibid. 106, 114.
Ibid. 157, pointing to examples, 72, 102, 115.
In a letter of March 16, 1677; ibid. 92.
Ibid. 115.
Ibid. 120.
Ibid. 121.
The general information on Banten is taken from Guillot, Ambary, and Dumarçay,
The chronology is based on Stapel,
Named so after his pilgrimage to Mekka in 1674, Stapel,
Ibid. 132–33.
The negotiation session is recorded in
“met een credentiebrief waeren voorsien met qualificatie omme met ons in alles te mogen tracteren.”
“Gelyck onder ons en andere volckeren waere.”
“in plaets van dien was dienende.”
“na haer wyse genoegsam goet en valiede.”
“dat sulx soo waere, maer dat het niet quat waere sulcx expresser by geschrift ware verclaert.”
“en oversulcx, toot haar gesantens eygen gerustheyt ontlastinge niet beter soude wesen dat zy sich van den volcomen credentie off volmagt des Conincx en alle de ryxgrooten quamen te voorsien.”
“sonder hun volle credentie off vollmagt de conferentien en onderhandelingen wederseyts maar voor nodeloos en onnut zouyden wesen te agten.”
“Waarop zy repliceerde sulx mede wel te connen begrypen, dat een volcomen credentiebrieff …voor haarzelver beter en geruster waere.”
Stapel,
Ibid. 134–35.
In
“de hulpe, die soo getrouwelijk en soo vrughtbaar bewesen is.”
“niet gespaard haar sorg, onkosten en volk om mijn rebellige onderdanen te dwingen en ons te herstellen.”
“Van den beginne des vyandschap af den vyand geholpen met raad en met daad en met wapenen en oorlogengereetschap en met geld.”
“opdat onse schuldige beleydenis en dankbarheyt openbaar werde voor de gantsge wereld.”
“te versoeken de hulp en bystand der Comp.ie, op conditie, dat wy niet en allen souden voldoen de penningen en oncosten, welcke door de Comp.ie dartoe verspielt soude moeten werden maar daarenboven ook haar te geven octroy van den gatschen handel, met uytsluytinge van alle andre natiën of personen.”
“Alles met conditie, dat wij maaar alleen souden blyven sultan van Bantam, met rust en vrede.”
“reeds merder vereyst werd tot vergeldinge van haer dienst (ofte weldaad).”
“Wanneer den Gouverneur- Generaal en de Raden van India … onse uyterste nood sagen, soo sijn sy door onse beloften, en haar medelyden bewogen geworden.”
“dat sy eerst souden ondersoken of den sultan Agon en zijn wederspannig volk niet in der minne te vreede konde gestelt werden.”
“maar haar rebellie en hertnekkigheyd … was soo vermeerdert en toegenoemen, dat sij weygerden aaan te horen eenige redenen of versoek tot stilstant van wapenen of tot vrede gevoed en ondersteunt door de Frangise residenten.”
For the chronology and general introduction to the Notitie, see J. Noorduyn,
“den Admiraal is meester van alles, Soo als hij ordonneert, moeten wij tevreeden zijn. Gunt van die zijde wel gezegt, maer niet gemeennt is.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 707b.
See for instance Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, 718b–719b.
See for instance, Anderson,
With the qualification of course that in 1637 there was no war between Makassar and the Company.
“vaste vreede” by Speelman consistently dated to 1636, VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 820a.
“alle verschillen, verwijderinghe veroorsaackt hebbende, bijgelecht ende vergeleecken.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 820a.
“sijnde dit soo onder diverse contenties, goede ende quade wederzijtse bejegeninge etc. gecontinueert.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 820a.
“tot een openbaar oorloch quam uijt te breken.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 820a.
“soodanich, dat hun Ed. Daervan haar misnoegen thoonden, connende blijcken, bij d’ instructie voor d’Heer Van Dam en den Ed. Truijtman 1660 verleent.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 820a.
“wat rede Hun Ed.le gemoveert hebben, deselve . aff te breecken, en een aenslach op Pannekoka te maecken.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol.820a.
See
“uijt de bedrugtinge van ongemaecq.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, 820a.
“sonder ijets te verrichten.”, VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 820a. Speelman seemed to have the correct dates confused, Wesenhage left for Makassar February 16, 1666, see Stapel,
“de eigentlijcke oorsaecken.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 820a.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 820a.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 820b.
“in ‘t gantse land nu weder vreede, met veel meerder reputatie als te vooren.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 820b.
“De Bougijs in dees tijdt haer onder Comp’s ontsach wat gevreest en geviert siende.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 821a.
“hebben nu en dan al meer met de Maccassaren genegotieert.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 821a.
“sonder van ons ijmant present te roepen off daer van kennisse te doen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 821a.
Particularly art. 25 of the Bongaya Treaty.
“hoedanich negotiatie U,E. haer niet hoeve aen te trecken.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 821a.
“soo der dispuijt over viele.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 821a.
“maer de bekende poincten dienen naer vermogen en met discretie in vigeur gehoude te werden.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 821b.
“Beschrijvinge der Bontgenooten.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 708a ff.
(ick) “ben niet van sinne daer bij te doende geschlaghtreckeningen, eigelijcx jurisdictie van landen en heerschappijen, nogh sterckte van vermogen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 708a.
“want dat een en andere vereijst wat meer tijdt, als ick nu over hebbe.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 708a.
“meest te staade sal comen voor den geenen, die het zijn wercq sal worden onder de bontgenooten selve de gerequireerde orde stellen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fols. 708a.
“wanneer oocq de perfectheijt best en claerest te ondervinden sal wesen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fols. 708b.
This must be Hasanuddin’s son, I Mappasomba, in favour of whom Hasanuddin abdicated after the fall of Sombaopu, June 1669. See Andaya,
This must be Karaeng Tello. Ibid. 121–22. I shall be using Speelman’s term.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 816b-819a.
Basset 1958, 34-35.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fols. 817bf.
“gaande voort alle sijne vulgaire dagelijcxe misdrijven, en quade comportementen van moord, (ongeschickte vertooningen, bemoeijenisse met tooverijen en anderer dergelijcke, dewelke superstitien, soo wel nogh in den jegenwordigen als in den voorganghe tijdt.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“als sullende de vertellinge daervan voor eerbare ooren onbetamelijcq en met een affgrijselijcq wesen, behalven datter vellen papier met soude gevult worden.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“sijn getroude en weder verlaten vrouwen can hij selve niet mer tellen, ik swijge van sijne bijwijven.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“Noch veel minder can hij opreeckenen de moorden, door hem selve gedaen, en door de sijne ten sijne bijwesen doen, sonder oorsaecke off waerom.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“de Maccassaren groot en cleen, siende en observerende sijne directie tot hiertoe stellen vast, maer derven het niet openlijck uijtseggen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“dat hij geen ander opsigt heeft, also om door een totael bederff van het gantse lant sich te wreecken, en te resenteren tegens de beijde coningen over sijne uijtbanninge.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“Dat hij nu met de novo na ons vertrecq sal ten wijve nemen, ongetwijffelt met intentie om desselve dan daernaer in verachtinge te brengen, en met quaet tractement te beswaeren.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. fol. 818b.
“Sijn boosheeden en quade nature aen een sijde geset.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“men mach hem aenhouden voor een heer van goet verstant, wereldkundich en gauw ervaren, soo wel in politie als oorlogsdirectie.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol.818b.
“Assurant en niet licht verset over onverhoetse toevallen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“Scherpsinnich.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“groote memorie.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“naeuwkerig observantie.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“oock near gelegenheijt door miltheijd ‘t volcq hem aenhangigh te maeken.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“onderwesen in veel fraije exercetien.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“seer wel te tael.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“door de bestel van de vader sijn meeste onderwijs en de instituatie bij de Portuguesen gehadt.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“spreeckt hij perfect haere en versceijde anderer hierlandsche taelen, leest en schrijft se mede.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“Summa boven alle regenten in Maccassar de bequaemste, dies noch in effect meester van sijne meesters.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“waerom icq oocq al ten eerste near de vreede van Bonaeije gepooght hebbe, met denselven in vertrouwe te comen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“maer offschoon geleecq, dat het sich wel soude schicken, soo echter viel het naar mijnen sin niet uijt.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b.
“want gelijck hij was vol alderhande quade machines sulcx beswaert van gemoet, stacq hij oocq vol achterdocht, en dorffte sich darhalven aen mij niet vertrouwen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 818b-819a.
“in sijne jonckhejt is hij genegen geweest tot drinken en speelen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. fol. 819a.
“sedert in emplooij comende, is dat naer gebleven.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“heeft sich weijnig becommert in observatien van wightige saecken.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“clein onderwijs ontfangen in sijn minderjarighheijt.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“van deselve ‘t verstant niet groot sijnde.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“geen man van directie.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol.
“noch van resolutie.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“disponneert van sich selve.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“niet vervaert en verset in tegenspoet.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“gierich boven mate.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“loont gene diensten, sijne domestiquen selve krijgen niet.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“genegen tot vrouwen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“naer ‘t uiterlijcq, fijn in het gelove.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“op sijn getijen, heel overgegeven tot geld conquestie.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“‘t sij op welcke wijse ‘t oocq wesen magh.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“sullende een slave van de straet bij hem ter negotie admitteren, soo der een weinich winst bij is. VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“Wraeksuchtigh en haetdragent.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“evenwel sijn alle misdrijven bij hem voor gelt vergeffeelijcq.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“echter spuls genoch, om een Comp’s coninck te wesen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
See
“Dat de vreede van Bonaeije niet en soude sijn vervallen, soo hij sich selve meester waer geweest, en sijn eijgen sinlicheit opgevolgt ware, hebbende het oocq niet an hem geappert, onse successive aenmaningen van herten te amplecteeren, om een eijnde van ‘t oorloch te maeken. Dan gelijcq hij sijn macht langer onmactig was, soo en dorffde hij sijnen inentie niet te kennen geven, indien se was contrarie de opinie van Cronron.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“maer heel niet geinstrueert, noch in eenige saecken onderricht, volgende onbecommert sijne begeerlijckheijt, ‘t sij dan goet off quat.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“Heele groote uitjspoorigheden ofte quade comportomenten worden van hem niet vertelt.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“veel loff en wert hem oocq niet toegeschreven.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“quaetaertigh is hij niet.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“onbequam om schatten te samelen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“De middelen hem naergelaeten sijn veele, vermindert met begiftinge
“bemoeijt sich nergens met als met slaepen, eten en vermaeck te soecken. VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“onbequaem tot het bestier van saecken.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“maer niet valsch off bedrieghlelijck.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“Sijn couragie wert niet seer gelaudert.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819a.
“Evenwel schijnt hij sedert de laetse vreede wat andachtiger te sijn geworden, beginnende oocq wat achterrugge te sien.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819b.
“Men sal hem genoeghsaem near Comp’s intentie connen leijden … als men door ijmaent, die men vertrouwen magh, quade instrumenten van hem weert.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819b.
“Bij het volcq van Goa en Tello is hij verre veel getrocken en bemint, boven den conincq van Goa ende Cronron.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819b.
“Dit sij geseght van de voors. 3 princen naer de presenten tijdt, soo uitgenoome informatie, als eijge bevindinge, staande mijn aenwesen hier omtrent, dat icq deselve als vriend en vijant gefrequenteert hebbe.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819b.
“connende niet te min wel sijn date er ergens in mijn voorgaende schrifturen wel iets contrarie desen gevonden wierde.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 819b.
For Speelman’s description of Arung Palakka in the Notitie, I build on VOC 1276 OB, Inkomend Briefboek Makassar 1671, fols. 708b ff. and 746a ff.
“vermaghschapt aen de beijde hooge huijsen der Bougjis.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671 fol. 708b.
“en onder die voor eene van de hooghste rangh.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. fol. 708b.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 708b.
“eijgelijck te reeckenen voor en steende en onderhoorigh Koninckrijck van Bone.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 708b.
“de een en ander soo na is dat hij buijten infractie van outheden couthumen en wetten sustineert, soo wel tot conincq van Soppingh als tot coninq van Bone te comen en te mogen gecooren worden.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 746a.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 709a ff.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 709a.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 709a.
See, for instance, Stapel,
“Sulcx in ‘t generael van Maccassarse affcomste.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 747a.
“gelijck oocq Sijn Hoogheijt daer van mij betuijcht heeft.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 747a
Noorduyn, 2000, 113,
Noorduyn, 2000, 116.
Pelras, 1996, 179, 184.
“onder de eersten spraecken de Maccaarse coningen seer met groote genegenheijt van desselve.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 747a.
“off dan de Hooge Regeeringe wel toelaten soude, dat sij met hem ginge.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 747a.
“daer icq doorgaens om lachte, in sulches schijn, als off dat geen vrage waert was.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 747a.
“Tot nogh toe heb ick althoos daer geene geinclineert, van deselve ginder te doen verblijven, dat met fatsoen, staende het oorlogh, conde geschieden.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 747a.
“Wat hun Ed.le nu voorts daerinne disponeren sullen, staat te besien.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 747a.
“benick van gevoele, dat het niet onnoodigh sal wesen soo se hier coomt, op hearer ommegangh met die van Maccassar goede acht te geven, zijnde, near ick hoore, oocq seer ambitious en grootshertigh.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 747a.
“nu niet veel in aensien als eijge wijven werden gehouden.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 747b.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
“Geene kinderen heeft sijn Hoogheijt van al sijne wijven, nogh bijwijven geprocureert, oocq bij gene van de affgaende en aengecoomende soorte, soodat hij is sonder eenigh wettige eerffgenaem.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
“geconfereert.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748b.
“waeraen men in cas van Radjas verongelucken offte affsterven het gesagh, aen hem over de Bougijse volckeren gedefereert, weder met gerustheijt toevertrouwen ende overgegeven mochte, tot vermijdinge van ‘t oorlogh derselver.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748b.
“daer zij evenwel niet geerne spraecken.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748b.
“en nogh veel minder om verklaeren van ijmant te doen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748b.
“hoewel zij selve oordeelden heel nootsaeckelijcq, dat het diende te geschieden.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748b.
“op een gevoelijcque wijse ten tapijte gebraeght.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748b.
“Ijgelijck woude sterven met sijn Hoogheijt, soo hij stierff van ‘s vijants hant.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748b.
“woorden sijn dogh niet duijr, ‘t contrarie van dit opgeven was ons volck al gebleven.” Ibid. fol. 748a.
“maer van sieckte, daer niets tegen te doene was, zij hadden geen andere toevlught als aan de Comp.e.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
“en conden derhalven niet seggen, wie in sulcken cas van hun des coningx plaetse hoorde te becleeden.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
Banten 1682 is a classic case, also with Speelman as the executor for the establishment of Company hegemony. See De Jonge,
“Sij soude alles doen ‘t gene wij haer deden aenbevelen en erkennende sij hem ook in alles gehoorsamen, insgelijcx dengeene, die hij daer met ons soude goetvinden in plaetse van sijn Hoogheit te laten succederen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748b.
“In desen generale toeloop bleecken actien van lieffde niettemin, die veele Bougijs over vreughde van sijn Hooghheijt in sulcken state te recontreeren, met tranen beteughden.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 710a.
“Bij verscheijdene gelegentheden heft sijn Hooght. In particuliere bijeencomste mij zijne adversiteijt getoont tegen de secte der Mahumetanen, amplecterende onse religie.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
“allenlijcq wat swaermoedigh valt aensiende op het Christen huwelijcq, meenende, dat het voor een conincq te hard was een vrouwe te mogen hebben.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
“Dogh evenwel, en schoon hij (als geseght) ons Christen gevoele wel beaengenaemde, soo noghans en verstaet hij daervan niet.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
“hoewel ick nar vermogen, en voor soo veel ick dat in ‘t Maleijts zeggen ende hem te verstaen conde, nu en dan in generale termen hem wel eenigh onderright hebbe gedaen.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
“Dogh hij is seer niet attentiff ofte opmerkende, niet alleen darin, maer aen voorts alle andere saecken.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
“seer vergeetelijcq, maer genegen tot discoersen van cleen belang.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
“hoe dickmaels ick hem van die vodderij aff getrocken en vermaent hebbe.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
“dat hij best onthielde, ‘t geene tot naedeel van de voorsz: secte tusschen ons beijde werde bijgebraght.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a.
“en off wel ten hooghsten plicht zij, ‘t gelove Christ uijbreijden.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748a-b.
“dat alsnogh sal moeten geschieden, want de saecke veel te teer om niet heel voorsightigh gehandelt werden.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748b.
“Niettemin is hij daerin althoos geconfronteert benevens insinuatie, sich selve in dien deele aen niemant te verclaeren, tot vermijdinge van alle revolutie.” VOC 1276 OB, Inkomen Briefboek Makassar 1671, fol. 748b.
O. W. Wolters,
Ibid. 13.
In the introductory chapter, I pointed to positions that I held to be either misleading or incomplete when characterising the nature of the Company’s diplomatic practice. In particular I disagreed with the proposition that VOC overseas diplomacy was structurally fixed in typical European conceptualisations. The General Instructions, not only those of 1650, but
The tripartite system of the Directors’ manual for the Company’s mode of interaction with Asian rulers built on a similar kind of pragmatism. It set up two general principles, first that the Company’s monopoly in the Moluccas had to be protected at all costs, which in effect excluded symmetrical diplomatic relations with the smaller Moluccan polities. They were either subservient defenders of the Company monopoly, or enemies who had to be brought under control. But looking at the rest of the charter area, we find a second principle in which the choice of diplomatic mode was built on the Company’s relative strength in relation to its respective Asian partners. Where there was parity of strength, or where the Company remained the weaker part, a rule of pragmatism and accommodation reigned as long as this approach did not compromise the Company’s interests to an unacceptable degree.
My analysis of Batavia’s diplomatic interaction with Makassar in its various aspects reveals pragmatism as key to the Company’s diplomatic mode on site. Van Diemen got what he could get into the 1637 treaty not by dictating terms from the European legal canon but by bargaining with the Makassarese with the objective of setting down rules that would protect the Company’s interests. In that respect, the two treating parties shared some basic understanding of what they were doing. The 1637 negotiations represented a bargaining over specific contract clauses, a tug of war over shared issues.
The internal disagreement on whether to continue the war or conclude a peace in 1655 demonstrates that the Company was not a monolithic body as far as decisions over policy was concerned. Opinion was split in Batavia, and opposing political positions were argued, but the opposing positions in the Council of the Indies were both argued in terms of practical cost-benefit calculations that sought to assess the Company’s best interests. The ends and framework of reasoning were shared; what the parties disagreed on was the means to achieve the optimal outcome for the Company. It should also be noted that legal aspects were considered secondary in these discussions.
This points towards principled pragmatism as the core characteristic of the Company’s diplomatic practice. The break away from “soft diplomacy” that occurred with the disillusionment over the 1655 treaty signified a shift to a consistent realist conceptualisation of power politics that came to dominate Batavia’s approach towards Makassar after 1655. All the same, there is an element of continuity involved. Both before and after 1655, the determining factor in policy decisions on Makassar lay in assessments of the Company’s contextual opportunities and constraints. The shift after 1655 was determined by an appreciation of context, not by a pre-ordained structural mode of thinking.
Except for the 1655 treaty, with its particular background the formulations and contents of the respective contracts concluded with Makassar are all symptomatic of the pragmatic empirical approach: The clauses are consistently phrased in concrete and specific terms. The model of the form and contents of the treaties is more akin to a merchant contract than to a formal diplomatic treaty. It is also noteworthy that the treaties became increasingly detailed and specific after 1655. This serves to underline the fact that if the Company’s approach was empirical
With its compendious information on local affairs, political and non-political alike, which supplied the Company with useful information that could help it preserve its dominance, Speelman’s
Another notable characteristic of the
Speelman’s “diplomatic method” centres on his evaluation of the personal qualities of persons in power basically to know whom one should be on guard against or with whom one could form friendly ties. Sometimes, as in the case of Karunrung, both focuses applied. Considerations of context are subsidiary to an appreciation of personality traits, as his treatment of context focuses on which groups and dynamics in local hierarchies of power might be favoured or not. “Structure” understood as “political culture” or analyses of modes of power articulation in more generalised forms are nearly absent in Speelman’s text, which is dominated by concrete and specific descriptions at the local political level. Read as a manual of overseas diplomacy, the
I started out by numbering five approaches to the understanding of the nature of seventeenth-century VOC diplomacy and the nature of the Company’s interactions in Asia: the classical approach of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, characterised by a bias towards the political and military dimension of overseas expansion; Alexandrowicz’s “system compatibility approach,” which focuses on structural similarities between systems of international law in early modern Asia and Europe; and Andaya’s opposing proposition of incompatibility advocated in his structural cultural approach, an idea that also popped up in Arasaratnam’s refutation of Paulusz. I also included Somers as a forth type, a “legalist-pragmatic approach” because of his stress on both legal and pragmatic considerations in the Company’s diplomacy. Finally, I included Van Ittersum because she represents a broadening of the perspective by consistently putting the Company’s diplomacy and treaty making in a wider historical and political context, and her proposition about the cynical nature of the Company’s diplomacy.
I have primarily concentrated on refuting Andaya’s propositions about the nature of VOC diplomacy as Eurocentric, and his propositions of structural misunderstanding in communications between Makassar and the Company. My counter-argument regarding the nature of the Company’s diplomacy rests on a demonstration of the pragmatic orientation found in both the
Having rejected Andaya’s structural approach and propositions, where does that leave me in relation to the other positions in the historiography? First of all, it almost goes without saying that I find the classical approach of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries too narrowly focused on the formal aspects of international law and the legal dimension of treaty making. This is a criticism that to my mind also partly applies to more modern scholars like Somers. In these cases, it is not so much the arguments advanced that I object to, but the restricted perspective of the analysis. I propose that the picture needs to be filled in with more reflection on the Company’s diplomatic practice in its extra- legal dimensions. One line of research that seems to offer itself from such an assumption is a complementary proposition to Alexandrowicz’s thesis about the increasing similarity of Asiatic and Western modes of diplomacy because of a tendency towards “westernisation” in Asia, namely that one should also look for incorporations of “Asian elements” or modes of accommodation to local Asiatic modes in the Company’s diplomatic practice. Within this line of research, one should specifically look for the Company’s mode and criteria of selection for the incorporation of local features.
As for propositions about the cynical nature of the Company’s diplomatic mode as formulated by Van Ittersum, I suggest that she overplays her hand. Her evaluation must be modified because it neither heeds nor covers the complex nature of the Company’s approach as a whole. For one, such elements as the role of emotional factors such as pride and prestige are neglected. Besides, if we claim that the Company acted cynically in the case of Makassar, it did so for a reason. Cynicism sprang from the High Government’s diminishing trust in Hasanuddin’s sincerity in honouring the terms of the treaty and in its observation that the king of Makassar continued to harbour aggressive plans for the Spice Islands. Perhaps “contextual cynicism” might be a more precise term for the High Government’s attitude after 1655. But the cynicism was not there from the beginning. The negotiations for a treaty in 1637 took place within a symmetrical framework, and, judged by the evidence, with serious intentions on both sides. As for Maetsuyker’s rationale for favouring negotiations instead of continuing the war in 1655, his attitude seems to have been more idealistic, understood as having “good faith in,” than cynical, given his sincere belief that the new treaty would guarantee stable relations with Makassar once and for all. Cynicism only increased as this belief waned. And even then, to my mind, it was not cynicism pure and simple.
Batavia’s diminishing trust in Hasanuddin went hand in hand with a change in its appreciation of negotiation and war as instruments of diplomacy. Relative emphasis and preference were reversed and inverted. Negotiations were perceived in increasingly tactical terms, and treaty terms were formulated in increasingly practical detail. Possibly this move could be regarded as a general trend that paralleled the Company’s increased power in the seventeenth century. But there is one factor that should not be overlooked in this context, namely that there might have been an element of idealism, here understood as the “pursuit of higher goals and ideals” involved in this development, as well.
As we have seen, a sense of pride and concerns of prestige were already evident in the General Instructions. If there was a sense of self- confidence and pride in the Company and its achievements, pursuing the Company’s interest with uncompromising faith may also have contained the belief that it should be done by fair means, or be conducted according to certain moral standards. “Sticking to your promises” might well have been part of this “moral package,” and not just a tricky means of extortion. If so, we are close to a moral idealistic perception of diplomacy. In such a perspective, the belief that
Another weakness of Van Ittersum’s work is its limited relevance for generalisations about the Company’s mode of diplomacy. Van Ittersum’s case is the Moluccas, an area in which the Company held a special position and followed a special policy necessitated by its commitment to defend and protect its policy positions. She also focuses on the legal “child prodigy” Hugo Grotius, who was enlisted as a lawyer to defend the Company to the extent of setting even crooked affairs straight. He was the outstanding example of a legal nit-picker. But, as the Makassar case shows, in places where the Company neither could dictate nor manipulate outcomes, diplomatic interaction was a much more complex affair than could be conceived of in legal terms alone.
If this was true for Makassar up to 1667, it was all the more truer for the larger mainland states outside the Indonesian archipelago. In fact, the area outside the Spice Islands proper, an entity that falls outside Van Ittersum’s selection of cases, forms the larger mass of the Company’s contact and interaction points. Here one-sided Company manipulation and legal trickery did not offer itself as a viable option. Diplomacy had to be more complex by virtue of the complexity of context, and the Company’s weaker position in it.
It follows from the above that I believe one does well to steer clear of absolute dichotomous propositions like Andaya’s regarding the Company’s and local modes of diplomacy. One does better in looking for where there seem to have been compatibilities and where there were contrasts at a lower level of analysis. Grand models tend to reify themselves instead of offering historical explanation. On the other hand, analysis at the level of agency might offer more solid ground for constructing analytical models. Have I offered such a model here? If I have, I stand in debt to the historiography. If there hadn’t been Stapel’s thesis on the Company and Makassar, I could never have written this study. Likewise, if Andaya had not formulated his original propositions, I would not have been able to formulate my own angle of approach.
I even probably could not claim full originality to my tentative formulations about how to proceed with further research in the field, because my propositions to a large degree are in line with Speelman’s mode in the
One fundamental question must be addressed at the end. Based as my discussion is on one particular case, Makassar, how can I argue that it also serves to tell us something about the general nature of the Company’s diplomacy? On the one hand, it can be argued that to advance a general proposition I should point to a selection of cases, and not restrict myself to only one. On the other hand, general propositions can be, and are, supported by my one case. I shall demonstrate this by my proposition about principled pragmatism.
Pragmatism as the general key to diplomatic performance outside the Company’s possessions in the Moluccas is laid down in the General Instructions. As I have shown, it is also a common denominator in Batavia’s performance of diplomacy towards Makassar. Why may we assume that this was a general trait in the Company’s diplomatic practice towards Asian princes and rulers in the charter area? Simply because the Company’s pragmatism rested on the overseas context, or more precisely, the realisation by the Company from the Directors to the Council of the Indies that they could not go about as they pleased regarding relations with most of the Asian rulers. It would neither work nor pay, neither politically nor commercially. Practical considerations meant that the Company could not behave like an idiot abroad, as it knew it could not afford to. This logic worked for the Company’s approach towards Makassar until the Company realised that it could no longer afford