(1873–1903). Despite the Dutch arrival in Indonesia in the seventeenth century, expansion into Aceh did not occur until the end of the nineteenth century. The people of Aceh fiercely resisted Dutch encroachment on their territory in northern Sumatra. While Aceh's independence was guaranteed by the 1824 Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London, in 1858 the Dutch gained access to east coast ports in an agreement with the sultan of Siak. The sultan of Aceh saw this as a threat and sought to forge alliances with external powers, particularly Turkey. In turn the Dutch and the British forged an alliance under a treaty in 1871, which allowed the Netherlands to launch their 1873 invasion. After a disastrous initial foray in 1873, the Dutch eventually captured the sultan's palace in Banda Aceh in 1874, but this failed to end resistance. Traditional village rulers organized a sustained rebellion in which a purist strain of Islam, notable among Acehnese, was used as a rallying point to oppose the Dutch kafir ("nonbelievers"). The destruction of the Aceh sultanate saw Islamic leaders assume control of the resistance, the most prominent of whom was Teungku Cik di Tiro (1836–1891). The Dutch were able to break the resistance through the use of local sympathizers, and troops from cooperative Indonesian ethnic groups. The fighting, which lasted until around 1903, proved costly to the Netherlands. But resistance continued throughout Dutch rule in what was the most troublesome part of Indonesia, even after the official end of the conflict. This resistance continued into the establishment of the Republic of Indonesia, when guerrilla elements continued to push their demands for independence.
An Indonesian woman protests the government repression of the Aceh rebellion outside the United Nations office in Jakarata on 7 August 2001. (REUTERS NEWMEDIA INC./CORBIS)
Further Reading
Ricklefs, M. C. (1993) A History of Modern Indonesia Since c.1300. London: The MacMillan Press Ltd.
Tarling, Nicholas. (1966) A Concise History of Southeast Asia. Singapore: Donald Moore Press Ltd.
Tate, D. J. M. (1971) The Making of Modern South-East Asia:The European Conquest. London: Oxford University Press.
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