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Rantau Pariaman: The World of Minangkabau Coastal Merchants in the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Tsuyoshi Kato
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Abstract

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, European colonial powers established economic and political control over most of Southeast Asia. The entrenchment of colonialism affected the lives of coastal merchants as well as those of peasants in interior villages. Yet how indigenous coastal merchants responded to the new situation has been a relatively neglected question in studies of this region. Based on the autobiography of Muhammad Saleh, a self-made Minangkabau merchant, this paper details the world and distinctive outlook of Minangkabau coastal merchants, and how Saleh successfully responded to changing political and economic conditions in West Sumatra in the late nineteenth century. Far from being the story of a helpless native merchant at the mercy of the Dutch governing power and Chinese merchants, the life of Muhammad Saleh reveals the adaptability of a certain sector of the indigenous merchant class in the Dutch East Indies. It also reflects the profound changes taking place within the world of Minangkabau merchants.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , August 1980 , pp. 729 - 752
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1980

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References

In spelling Indonesian words, I have generally followed the new spelling (ejaan baru). In the case of bibliographical references from literature published before 1973, however, the old spelling (ejaan lama) has been retained. Following the Indonesian custom, no distinction is made between singular and plural for Indonesian or Minangkabau words.

1 Kaja Besar, Moehammad Saleh Datuk Orang (Muhammad Saleh Datuk Orang Kaya Besar), Riwajat Hidup dan Perasaian Saja [The Story of My Life and Sufferings], trans, and ed. Latif, S. M. (Bandung: Badar, 1965).Google Scholar This material was first brought to my attention by Teeuw, A.. See his Modern Indonesian Literature (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967), p. 226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Saleh, pp. 288, 290, n. 1. In order to avoid cluttering the paper with too many footnotes, the information from Muhammad Saleh's autobiography is indicated hereafter by page numbers in parentheses, e.g. (pp. 288, 290), both in the text and in the footnotes.

3 According to the title page of the 1965 edition, Saleh's life story was first published in 1933in the Minangkabau language. The details of this publication—i.e., the place of publication, the name of publisher, and the number of copies published—are not clear.

4 Two types of rantau existed in the Minangkabau World: Rantau Pasisir (Coastal Rantau) along the west coast and Rantau Hilir (Downstream Rantau) to the east of the darek. The present discussion refers only to the coastal rantau, as the merchant in question lived in Rantau Pasisir. Concerning Rantau Hilir, see Kato, Tsuyoshi, “Social Change in a Centrifugal Society: The Minangkabau of West Sumatra” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell Univ., 1977), ch. 3.Google Scholar

5 Francis, E., “Korte Beschrijving van het Nederlandsch Grondgebied ter Westkust Sumatra 1837,” Tijdschrift voor Neerland's Indie 2, no. 1 (1839): III.Google Scholar

6 St. Pamoentjak, Thaib gelar, Kamoes Bahasa Minangkabau— Bahasa Melajoe-Riau (Batavia:Balai Poestaka, 1935), p. 196.Google Scholar In this entry on“rantau,” St. Pamoentjak explains that “oerang rantau” (rantau people) means people from Paria-man and the surrounding areas. This seems to indicate the importance of Pariaman in the entire Coastal Rantau.

7 For example, the people of Agam (one of the three central areas in the darek) used to come down to the west coast for salt-making. After the Dutch imposed their salt monopoly in the 1660s, local salt-making was systematically suppressed in West Sumatra. See Dobbin, Christine, “Economic Change in Minangkabau as a Factor in the Rise of th Padri Movement, 1784–1830,” Indonesia, no. 23 (April 1977), p. 19.Google Scholar

8 Tambo Alam Minangkabau (Pajakumbuh:Limbago, 1966), pp. 35–36.Google Scholar

9 Cortesāo, Armando, ed. and trans., The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires (London: The Haklyut Society, 1944), pp. 160–61.Google Scholar Tomç Pires (1466? –1524?) worked for the Portuguese crown in Asia in the early sixteenth century. See also Meilink-Roelofsz, M. A. P., Asian Trade and European Influence in the Indonesian Archipelago between 1500 and about 1630 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), pp. 92–93.Google Scholar

10 Kathirithamby-Wells, J., “The Inderapura Sultanate: The Foundations of its Rise and Decline, from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries,” Indonesia, no. 21 (April 1976), p. 66.Google Scholar

11 Schrieke, B., Indonesian Sociological Studies, Part One (The Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1955), p. 51.Google Scholar

12 Kathirithamby-Wells, “The InderapuraSultanate,” p. 75; Graves, Elizabeth E., “TheEver-Victorious Buffalo: How the Minangkabauof Indonesia Solved their ‘Colonial Question’”(Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Wisconsin, 1971), p. 123;Schrieke, pp. 51–52.Google Scholar

13 Ibid.; Hesse, Elias, Gold-Bergwerke in Sumatra1680–1683 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), p. 62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Kathirithamby-Wells, J., “Achehnese Control over West Sumatra up to the Treaty of Painan,1663,” Journal of Southeast Asian History 10, no. 3 (1969): 457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Dasgupta, Arun Kumar, “Acheh in Indonesian Trade and Politics: 1600–1641” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell Univ., 1962), p. 91.Google Scholar

16 Kathirithamby-Wells, “Achehnese Control,”pp. 458–60, 472–76; Dobbin, “EconomicChange,” p. 4; Vlekke, Bernard H. M., Nusantara: A History of Indonesia (Bruxelles: A. Manteau S. A., 1942), p. 171.Google Scholar

17 Abdullah, Taufik, “Minangkabau 1900–1927:Preliminary Studies in Social Development” (M. A. thesis, Cornell Univ., 1967), pp. 12, 15;Google Scholar M. D.Mansoer et al., Sedjarah Minangkabau (Djakarta: Bhratara, 1970), p. 99.

18 Graves, p. 125.

19 The Padri wars, which had initially started as an Islamic reformist movement toward the end of the eighteenth century, eventually turned into a war against the intruding Dutch power. For more on the Padri wars, see Dobbin, Christine, “Islamic Revivalism in Minangkabau at the Turn of the Century,”. Modern Asian Studies 8, no. 3 (1974):319–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Saleh himself does not refer at all to the Padri wars in his autobiography.

20 On the custom of village endogamy, see Jong, P. E. de Josselin de, Minangkabau and Negri Senibilan: Socio-Political Structure in Indonesia (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952), pp. 65–66.Google Scholar As we can see from the marriages of Saleh's father and his (half-)sisters, people in and around Pariaman seem not to have been so strict about village endogamy.

21 Overland connections between Pariaman and Padang (about thirty-three miles) remained poor for a long time. Saleh says that when he had to go to Padang on foot in the late 1860s, the path wound through forest and thicket. It was deserted, and he was afraid of traveling alone because of many large monkeys playing along the way (pp. 139–40).

22 Some of Saleh's “school mates” were people from Kumango and its nearby village Rao-Rao in the darek. According to Saleh, merchants from Pariaman seldom dealt in cloth (one exception was his teacher). Apparently trading of cloth and other small daily commodities (barang kelontong) (e.g., handkerchiefs, low-quality penknives, and hand-mirrors) in Pariaman was in the hands of merchants from Kumango and Rao-Rao. These daily commodities were also called barang Kumango(Kumango goods) in Pariaman (pp. 55–57, 265).

23 Fourteen seems very young for a person to be trusted with such a responsible position as that of nakoda. It is not clear whether Saleh was precocious or there was a mistake in noting down dates.

24 Two cases Saleh notes down in his autobiography indicate that this share was about fifty percent of net profits (pp. 70, 105).

25 Sidi Badu was probably one of the most prosperous financial backers Saleh worked for. One of the many ships he owned, the Dalipin, had a cargo capacity of about 100 koyan (one koyan is about 27–40 piculs; one picul is 133 lbs.), and was under the nakoda-ship of his blood-brother (p. 131). Sidi Badu maintained close connection with two Islamic leaders in the darek. These Islamic leadersassembled people who wanted to go to Mecca and sent them to Sidi Badu (p. 100). Since his ship went as far as Pulau Pinang, he probably took haji aspirants to Pulau Pinang to be transferred to another ship bound for Mecca.

26 Personal ties were also important in this case, since no institution of placement service was known.

27 The following is a list of some crew positions and their wages, as given by Saleh: the first helms-man (juru mudi besar) received f. 32, the second helmsman (juru mudi kecil) f. 30, the boatswain (juru batu) f. 28, and the other crew members (anak-anak perahu) f. 24. These were the crew members of the Sasak, which had a cargo capacity of 500 piculs (p. 116). They received these wages for one return trip between Pariaman and Tapa-tuan, on the west coast of northern Sumatra. It is not clear how long this trip usually took, but one trip Saleh made from Pariaman to Sibolga (a little more than halfway from Pariaman to Tapatuan) lasted eight days and nights; another, from Sibolga to Pariaman, took four days and nights (pp. 102, 1 15–16, 138). The length of the journey varied according to wind and sea conditions.

28 Kapitan was a Dutch-appointed leader of a Chinese community. Cia Khe Tieng proposed this partnership, which was probably formed sometime during the 1880s.

29 This was far more frequent than one might expect. Trade was often run on an elaborate credit system. Also, chief clerks' shares of profit seem usually to have been put back into capital and returned upon request (pp. 202–3, 266).

30 This is the same Kapitan Cia Biauw who participated with Saleh in the auctioning of salt contracts. This incident probably preceded the formation of the partnership, since it is recounted in the autobiography before the formation of the partnership is noted.

31 In addition to the survey of retail prices in Padang Panjang, this involved detailed cost calculations: the price of salt at the warehouse, the fee for renting pedati, the purchase of salt sacks, the wages for putting salt into salt sacks, etc. (p. 218).

32 Graves, ch. 5.

33 Oki, Akira, “Social Change in the West Sumatran Village: 1908–1945”(Ph.D. diss., The Australian National University, 1977), pp. 40–41.Google Scholar

34 In the latter contracts, Saleh was to purchase a large amount of construction materials (e.g., roof tiles and bamboo trees) and load them onto ships bound for Aceh (pp. 266–82). It took place either shortly before or during the Aceh wars, when the Dutch needed construction materials for fortresses and guard posts.

35 Although both Peto Rajo (Saleh's father) and Saleh maintained contact with the Dutch, I think there was a basic difference between the two. Peto Rajo's relationship was with a head merchant of the Dutch factory, while Saleh's was with an Assistant Resident in the Dutch bureaucracy. The latter was a formalized relationship, while the former was not.

36 On the risks of travel (e.g., robbery) in inland West Sumatra before this time, see Dobbin, “Islamic Revivalism,” pp. 328–29.

37 The head clerk of this branch shop was Abdu'lsunur, a classificatory brother of Saleh's wife. After the road network improved, Padang Panjang became an important junction leading to three population centers in the darek, namely the areas around Bukittinggi, Payakumbuh, and Batu Sangkar. It seems that the relation between rantau and dank merchants had changed by this time. Previously, Saleh had gone to Sicinc in, a junction point on the rantau side, to sell resin to darek merchants. It was primarily darek merchants who took the trouble to come down to the rantau side, After communication between the two areas became easier, it was rantau merchants who went up to the darek side, to try to open a new market.

38 He received his lineage title (Datuk Orang Kaya Besar) in October of 1877, at the circumcision ceremony of his first son (p. 195, n. 1). Since Saleh did not have any contact with his matrilineal relatives near Bukittinggi, it is not clear how he acquired this title.

39 Furnivall, J. S., Netherlands India: A Study of Plural Economy (London: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1967), p. 47.Google Scholar

40 The Minangkabau responded more positively than the Javanese to the people's credit system introduced by the Dutch in the early twentieth century. During the post-Depression period, Minangkabau merchants were successful in staving off Chinese competition. See Oki, pp. 47–61,171–72.

41 Graves, pp. 259, 276.

42 As will be explained later, the description here is less applicable to “the later Saleh” who became a Dutch contractor. Saleh became a nakoda and his father a coffee merchant without any previous exposure to their respective fields. Saleh hadan apprenticeship of some sort, however, before becoming a salt contractor. He once worked for his paternal uncle (then a salt contractor) as a clerk, paying daily wages to coolies. Saleh says that he was willing to take this low-paid job (sixty cents a day) because it would give him more knowledge of the operation of the salt contract business; he was already making preparations for a future career (pp. 211, 216).

43 Possibly the family system worked in the direction of restricting the number of people who were allowed to have access to limited land in the more agrarian darek; it worked in the direction of maximizing interpersonal connection in the more commercially oriented rantau. On Minangkabau matriliny in general, see Kato, “Social Change,” chs. 2, 6, 8.

44 Actually these half-sisters were not his matrilineal kin. Nevertheless, we might say that Saleh was more concerned with the social welfare of “pseudomatrilineal” kin (paternal sisters and their offspring) than with that of other kin (e.g., brothers and their offspring).

45 This practice is similar to the present one. See Kato, Tsuyoshi, “Change and Continuity in the Minangkabau Matrilineal System,” Indonesia, no. 25 (April 1978), pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

46 This apparently contradicts the conventional understanding of the difference between the darek and the rantau. It is generally thought that the darek was “democratic,” with the emphasis on musyawarat (deliberation) and mufakat (consensus), while the rantau was “autocratic,” with the institution of raja (minor kings). As far as the political system is concerned, we might say that the darek was more “open” than the rantau. The rantau seems to have been more flexible than the darek, however, in terms of social mobility. Because of communal land-holding, social stratification was less marked in the basically agrarian darek, but there was relatively little chance of social mobility for those whose ancestors were not original settlers. In the more commercially oriented rantau, discrepancy in social stratification was probably pronounced but there was also more room for improving one's status, Also, the nouveau riche could make inroads into the political elite of the rantau. For example, while his father was still prosperous, two of Saleh's elder half-sisters married local political figures, and one of his half-brothers became a village head (pp. 24– 25,27).

47 This was what Saleh did when he went to Sibolga and Tapatuan for the first time (pp. 66, 69, 119). Also, Saleh's father once advised him that if he entered other people's countries, he should go to see prominent merchants or head merchants there before starting his business (p. 88).

48 Beaver, S. H. et al., Netherlands East Indies, Volume I (London: Great Britain Naval Intelligence Division, 1944), p. 102.Google Scholar See also Mars-den, William, The History of Sumatra (1783; rpt. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 34–38.Google Scholar Due to the hazardous nature of its undertaking, the sailing of a ship seems to have entailed the ritual of incense burning on and around the ship to pray for a safe journey, calm sea, and good wind. See Mahkota, Ambas, Anggun nan Tungga Magek Djaban dengan Putt Gondoriah (Bukittinggi: Pustaka Indonesia, ca. 1962), pp. 55–56.Google Scholar

49 By way of contrast, it is interesting to note Saleh's description of an office clerk. During a certain inquest, Saleh was asked to tell what he knew about an Assistant Resident's secretary (Minangkabau). He said: “His habits are like those of true office people. At one o'clock, he goes home, After going home, he eats and sleeps. With us merchants he seldom associates” (p. 54). The description indicates a clear difference in lifestyles between office clerks (pegawai) on one hand and merchants and nakoda on the other.

50 For example, on one trip, Saleh bought a certain type of dried fish in Sibolga and brought it back to Pariaman. It so happened that the dried fish was selling cheaply in Pariaman at that time and Saleh's financial backer was furious at Saleh's blunder (pp. 85–86).

51 In one case where Saleh cites actual figures, the margin of profit vis-à-vis capital investment was about 85 percent (p. 79).

52 See pp. 109–14 for a good description of an extravagant wedding of a rich merchant–s daughter in Sibolga. It featured, among other things, cock-fighting which lasted for fifteen days.

53 Vlekke, pp. 309–10; Hall, D. G. E., A History of South-East Asia (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1970), p. 575.Google Scholar

54 Sumatra (Batavia: Travellers' Official Information Bureau of Netherlands India, n.d.), p. 23.Google Scholar

55 Encyclopaedic van Nederlandsch-Indië, s.v. “Paketvaart Maatschappij.”.

56 His sea trade at this time differed in nature from that of a nakoda. Although he still sent rice to Sibolga in the nakoda fashion (p. 255), the shipping business to Pagai and Padang was part of his enterprise in Pariaman which manufactured “tobacco wrapping leaves” and copra.

57 It seems that they cut or broke the rock salt (there was no refined salt) into smaller pieces in order to adjust the weight of salt in the sacks.

58 We may note that neither Saleh nor his father received any financial assistance from their fathers in their business careers. Saleh's father's wealth (we have no information as to what happened to his grandfather's wealth) was partly spent, and partly invested in a house and gold ornaments which were eventually inherited by Saleh's elder half-sisters (p. 149). Houses and gold ornaments are more or less dead assets in commercial terms, for they are seldom used for capital formation in Minangkabau society. (Gold ornaments are more likely to be sold for financing expensive traditional ceremonies such as weddings and funerals.) Saleh's father did not use his wealth in the perpetuation of his business over generations. On the other hand, Saleh himself did give financial help to some of his sons who were starting in business. I do not know how much this contrast can be generalized as a historical trend. The early twentieth century Minangkabau witnessed many heated discussions over the status of self-earned properties (including shops and cash) —whether to be given to one's children or to one's kemanakan (sororal nieces and nephews). See Kato, “Social Change,” pp. 221–22. Given this observation, it is possible that Saleh's experience was much more than an isolated case. If this is so, we might say that breaking into big-time commercial activities was becoming more and more difficult for people without a strong financial background.