Murder of Smissaert

TITET FAUZI RACHMAWAN UNTUK KOMPAS

The Palembang sultanate charter was researched by a team from the South Sumatra Archaeological Center, Friday (2/10/2020). This charter is given to a depati who leads an autonomous region.

The history of the world is not free from hoaxes, neither is the history of Indonesia. The causes are varied, ranging from an author's ambition to include unverified information or data to the intentional omission, confusion, falsification or amputation of facts for certain motives. One of the historical stories that is plagued by hoaxes is the murder of Smissaert, Resident of Bangka Belitung during the Dutch East Indies era, on 14 November 1819.

Bangka people believe Batin Tikal beheaded Smissaert and brought him by himself to Kuto Besak Fort in Palembang to be handed over to Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II as a sign of alliance among fellow anti-colonial fighters. There were direct witnesses to the incident. There were manuscripts written by the descendants of the witnesses. However, all of that failed to ward off hoaxes.

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Southeast Asian researcher, Mary F Somers Heidhues, even mentioned the names of other perpetrators in her book, Bangka Tin and Mentok Pepper: Chinese Settlement on an Indonesian Island (1992). She quoted Frans Epp's memoir, Schilderungen aus Ostindiens Archipel (1841), which recounts Epp's encounter with Depati Bahrin, the Malay who confessed to killing Smissaert. Epp was a German doctor who worked for the Dutch colonial government on Bangka Island (1836-1838).

The most plausible theory is that Bahrin was not the culprit and was not involved in Smissaert's murder.

Despite citing Epp's memoirs, Somers actually doubted the information. She later wrote that Bahrin “killed Smissaert or ordered him to be killed.” The terms “to kill” and “to order to kill” are two different verbs with different actors. Whoever committed the murder of a high-ranking colonial official somewhere in those days was unlikely to escape severe punishment, while Bahrin was not punished at all. The most plausible theory is that Bahrin was not the culprit and was not involved in Smissaert's murder.

However, Somers did not hesitate to reveal this verified fact: “Finally Bahrin allowed himself to be ‘bribed’ by getting a life pension in 1828. [….] Depati Bahrin spent his days with his family and died in 1848.”

RHAMA PURNA JATI

Kemas Andi Syarifuddin preserves Palembang culture by studying the manuscripts of the Palembang Darussalam Sultanate.

During the last 20 years of his life Bahrin enjoyed the pension from the colonial government. Epp recalled him as “loving to gamble”.

Farida R Wargadalem, a history lecturer at Sriwijaya University, wrote a footnote about the murder of Smissaert in her book, The Sultanate of Palembang in the Whirlpool of Conflict (1804-1825), ignoring the facts, without verifying the incident, and making the fatal mistake of stating that Smissaert was killed by a squad of 150-200 troops led by Batin Bahrin. She did not mention anything about Batin Tikal. This book was her doctoral dissertation at the University of Indonesia in 2012. Farida's contribution was certainly there, namely that she ensured that Bahrin's title was not depati, but batin.

The 1925 manuscript was quite thick. The sheets of paper were folio sized.

A dozen years ago, my younger brother, Tubagus Budi Tikal, who was persistent in collecting the stories of witnesses to the history of Bangka Belitung, met a retired prosecutor in Pangkal Pinang, who gave him access to read his family's legacy. The manuscript was written by Raden Ahmad, his father's biological grandfather, and Abang Abdul Jalal, his grandfather's colleague. The 1925 manuscript was quite thick. The sheets of paper were folio sized.

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The manuscript contained information that Batin Tikal beheaded Smissaert and then handed it over to Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II at Kuto Besak Fort. The fate of Batin Tikal was also listed in the manuscript. He was exiled by the Dutch colonial government to Manado, North Sulawesi, along with his family and a number of followers.

KOMPAS/RHAMA PURNA JATI

Researcher from the Archaeological Center of South Sumatra, Retno Purwanti, looks at the decorations of Muslim tombs who lived during the Palembang Sultanate.

Raden Ahmad was the great-grandson and successor of lineage of Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II, an ally of Batin Tikal in the fight against colonialism. Batin Tikal referred to in the text, whose real name was Ahmad or Syeh Ahmad, was the great-grandson and successor of the lineage of Syeh Yusuf Al Makassari, the grand mufti of the sultanate of Banten.

The explanation of the widow of Tumenggung Kertanegara I, a Chinese woman from the city of Koba, who was aware of Batin Tikal’s resistance on Bangka Island, completes the manuscript.

Why was the manuscript not published as a book? The truth is not necessarily pleasing to all parties, said the heir to the manuscript. He then showed a genealogical plan in another manuscript, which showed the sultans of Banten and the sultans of Palembang to be the descendants of the male line and the successor of the lineage of Sayyid Husein Jamaluddin Al Akbar, a Yemeni who was buried in Tosora, Wajo Kingdom, now known as Wajo regency in the province of South Sulawesi.

Palembang only started the war against Western colonialism in September 1811, when he was already a corpse and was being eaten by worms.

The most fatal hoax was contained in an academic text that was made proposing Sultan Mahmud Riayat Syah (Sultan Mahmud Syah III of the Riau Lingga sultanate) become an Indonesian national hero in 2017. The manuscript told about the sultan sending the assistance of armed forces to the sultanate of Palembang and Bangka Belitung to fight against Western colonialism during his reign (1770-1811). Nonsense. This sultan was born on 24 March 1756 and died on 12 January 1811. Palembang only started the war against Western colonialism in September 1811, when he was already a corpse and was being eaten by worms.

The facts were even more terrifying. Sultan Mahmud Riayat Syah even ordered aggression against the Palembang sultanate during the reign of Sultan Muhammad Bahauddin and continued during the reign of Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II.

The biggest war of Palembang and the people of Bangka against Riau Lingga took place in Kurau, Bangka, in 1805. The pirate troops led by Panglima Raman, the warlord of Riau Lingga, were forced to sail away from Bangka forever while carrying Anggur alias Depati Karim and Bahrin, the son of Anggur who had not yet matured (he was under 12 years of age). Anggur died on the ship in the middle of the pursuit by the troops of the sultanate of Palembang. His crimes included treason against the country, theft of tin, and piracy.

ARSIP PRIBADI

Linda Christanty

LINDA CHRISTANTY,Woman of Letters and Cultural Activist

(This article was translated by Hyginus Hardoyo).