Indian Antiquary Vol 49

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 84

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ May, 1920
policy may be quoted, and it is no singular instance of their phlegmatic cruelty John Petersen Koen (Jan Pieterszoon Coen), their most illustrious Governor General of the Indies, exterminated the inhabitants of the Banda or Spice Islands57 and replaced them by slaves ....The piratical acts now (1865] committed in the Malay Archipelago are, I firmly believe, the result of the iniquities practised upon the inhabitants in the olden day. and the Dutch, Spaniards and English, even at the present time, are too prone to shoot down indiscriminately any poor devils who, for the first time in their lives, are told, with powder and shot arguments, that war as carried on by them is piracy by our laws."
In Dubois' Vies des Gouverneurs Généraux ... des Etablissemens Hollandois, p. 69, we are told that Governor Coen took the Spice Islands in the year 1621. The greater part of the inhabitants of "Lonthoir" (Lantor), which was the capital, retired into the interior, but after some years, when a large number of them had been killed, the remainder. owing to want of food, were compelled to leave the island.
It is, however, I think, certain, that the Malays indulged in piracy from the time of their arrival in these seas, and it is equally certain that the only argument for the suppression of piracy to which they would listen was the argument of force, but how far that argument should have been carried is another question.
Narrative of Jaddt, a pirate. Long before that action with the English man-of-war, which drove me to Singapore, I sailed in a fine fleet of prahus belonging to the Rajah of Johore [Sultan Mahmud Shah). We were all then very rioh-ah I such numbers of beautiful wives and such feasting 1-but, above all, we had a great many most holy men in our force! When the proper monsoon came, we proceeded to sea to fight the Bugismen [of Celebes) and Chinamen bound from Borneo and the Celebes to Java ; for you must remember our Rajah was at war with them. (Jadee always maintained that the proceedings in which he had been engaged partook of a purely warlike, and not of a piratioal character.)
Our thirteen prabus had all been fitted out in and about Singapore. I wish you could have seen them, Touhan [Tian, Sir]. These prahus we see here are nothing to them, such brass guns, such long pendants, such creeses (Malay kris, dagger]! Allah-il-Allah 158 Our Datoos [datuk, a chief) were indeed great men!
Sailing along the coast as high as Patani, 69 we then crossed over to Borneo, two Dlanoon60 prahus acting as pilota, and reached a place called Sambas (West Borneo] : there we fought the Chinese and Dutohmen, who ill-treat our countrymen, and are trying to drive the Malays out of that country, Gold-dust and slaves in large quantities were here taken most of the latter being our countrymen of Sumatra and Java, who are captured and sold to the planters and miners of the Dutch settlements.
Do you mean to say,' I asked, that the Dutch countenance such traffic ?'
57 The Banda group of islands les south-east of Ceram.-ED.
68 LA 1Aha illallah, part of the Muhammadan Creed: There is no God but God. However, it is probable that what Jaddi really said, with the Malay pronunciation, was, Allahu akbar, God is great.
81 On the onstern side of the Malay peninsula.-E. 60' The name of the Mindanaon and Sulu pirates, from Illana Bay in the Illano District of Mindanao.