Opium to Java

62
Optum to Java

the farmer's opium might easily augment their supplies from an-
other source, as could local den holders. The patungan trade was a
petty trade. Far more so than at the farm level, prices fluctuated with
competition, varying from place to place and day to day.. Exchange
by barter and selling opium on credit were more common. It was for
the purpose ofexercising surveillance over the patungan trade and,
to the extent possible, controlling it, that fanners employed mata-
.mata. It was theirjob to penetrate the patungan world and to see to
it that the profits therefrom flowed toward the farm.

Opium fann mata-mata were variously policemen and detectives,
thugs and criminals. They were the farmer's men, his operatives. He
employed them to enforce his monopoly and to protect his inter-
ests-both licit and illicit. For this reason, they frequently appeared

working hand-in-hand with local Javanese authorities investigating
suspected smugglers and black marketcers and providing evidence
against them in court; and just as frequently-for the same rea-
sons-they also turned up as extortionists and enforcers, using the
threat of an opium frame-up to neutralize or punish enemies ofthe
fanner or his representatives.'4 In many areas mata-mata routinely
paid visits to farm customers who, having lapsed in their regular
purchases, were suspected of buying on the black market. Although
forbidden by law, it is obvious from the scandal they created that on
such occasions fann mata-mata often searched both the bodies and
the homes ofsuspects and victims with little regard for their privacy
or modesty.75 Opium farmers hired mata-mata for their local
knowledge, cunning, and their abilities at silat, the Javanese art of
bodily self-defense (and aggression). Most ofthem were J avanese. 76

74· Mata·m•ta frequently turn up in transcripts of court ca.es involving opium
violations. See Case ofGouw Asek. Rvj Satavia, Map3, 1866, in/WR no. 156, t866,
and the case of E. A. In 't veld Francis, RvJ Batavia, August 24, o872, and HGvNI,
October •8. t872, in IWR nos. 483 and 496. 1872. The threat of being "framed" for
illegal posses-,ion of opium by farm operdtives is one of the most familiar stories told
of opium farm activities.

75· See Tio Siong Mo's petition to the Dutch Parliament (Tweede Kamer. lower
house), february t, •876, in V·•7/8/ oS,S/74 and OF to GG. May 31, 1876, no. 7364
in V t7l8/t876l74· on the subject of Tin's bold assertion that farm operatives reg-
ularly did, and should, perform investigative functions including house .earching
and frisking in opium~. Also TM to Residentjapara, December go, t88v, no.
•694/ to in TMC H422a and TM to Dt", F~bru.ary 16, t8gt, no. t6g/ t2 in F.xh
9/8/ oSgt/ 76.

76. Liem, Riwaj4t, pp. g8-too, recalls farmer Tan Hong Van hiring toughs-silat
specialists Cjang poenjaken kepandean silat dan brani")- to protect his opium ship-
ments en route, and mmmems on fann use of Javanese mata-mata to combat

6a

Optwn Farms

Like the patungan trade, a network of mata-mata was an institu-
tionalized feature of the opium farm system.77

The farm organization-both the official one and the patungan
system on which it depended-represented, then, a pyramidal net-.
work of commercial and personal relationships harnessed to reap
the profits of selling opium in Java. It was blessed with monopoly
privileges, and it penetrated to the most basic levels ofsociety. How
much money farmers really made from their farms was never re-
vealed. Certainly the sums that farmers paid to the state-repre-
senting who knows what part .of their true gains-often reached
staggering proportions; and the collective memory of the Javan
Chinese attributes most of the fortunes of iL~ nineteenth-century ·
Chinese heroes-men like Ho Yam Lo, Tan Hong Yan, Be Ing .
Tjioe, and Oei Tiong Ham-to opium farm profits.78

As economic institutions of pervasive influence opium farms gen-
erated wealth in many ways. But even when viewed strictly, as
discrete businesses, opium farms were certainly attractive invest-
ments for individuals with capital. The initial investment, especially
if one combined with others in a kongsi, was not so intimidating as
the yearly farm fees might suggest. This is because the fees were
paid on a monthly basis; the opium that farmers bought from the
government was al~o paid for monthly. In good times the initial
expenses for taking over the proce'ssing facilities and in ventot·ies
from the previous farm, and for the first allotment of government
opium, could be t·ecovered reasonably quickly from daily receipL~.
The rest of the farm capital lay in buildings, inventories, goods,
tools, and implements, which could be sold or leased to an incoming
farmer wben the farm 'changed hands again. T he first part of any
farm term was always the most difficult. Outgoing farmers routinely
sold off their left-over opium at low pdces and thus saturated the
market for the first months ofa new farm tenure. When this surplus

Javanc:~e black-market at1ivitics. A javan01e sbon story. '"']andoc Petcng To.,win
Panjegahipoen.'' about fann days, tells ofone Djardt'S recruitment as a mata-mata by
the local fann bandar. Djarat, a silat expcn. succcros in foiling a smuggling attempt
by a down-at-the-heels priyayi. Den Dira. In C.W.J. Drewes, Emvoudig Htdendaagsdo
}ttll<lllnJ<h Prout (Lc:idcn, 1946), pp. 61-71 . T ranslated for me by Onghokham.

77. Mata-mata accounted for a large proportion of black-market opium conllsca-
lions. SeeTh. C. Andre-ds vs. Nl, Rvj Semarang. Sept.,ml>er 11 , 1867, in IWR no. 237,
1868: TM: Rappon 1888; DMD toCC, August 16, 1866, no. 3230 in V t6/o/1867/1
a nd Resident Surakana to DF, January 9· t88g, no. 242/zo in MR 136, t88g.

78. Licm,R.U..jal,pp.gS, 100,121,151, 181.

64
Opium to Java

dissipated, however, and the new farmer's organi1.ation (perhaps
incorporating some of the old one) was established and running
smooth ly, an opium farm could be quite profitable.79

Nevertheless, opium farming was not a simple business. As we
have noted, opium sales fluctuated with ·the yearly peasant and
plantation agricultural cycles and with general rises and falls in
economic prosperity over the years. Natural disasters such as floods
and crop failures also affected sales; as did the fortunes of local
plantation enterprises.so Farm profits also depended on other vari-
ables, including the skillful manufacture of candu and tike, the
efficiency of farm management, and the local knowledge and trust-
worthiness of farm employees. Profits rose proportionally with sales
to J avanese, and farm agents actively promoted opium sales among
the peasantry.a•

The most vexing and complex variable affecting opium farm
profits, however-the one that determined the price a farmer could
ask for his products as well as the share of the market he could
command-was the problem ofsupply. Official allotments to farm-
ers were usually insufficient to meet the demands ofthe market, and
they were expensive besides. This is why many opium farmers sup-
plemented theirofficial opium with "unofficial" opium. For his farm

to succeed a farmer had either to suppress competition from clan-

destine dealers in his territory-the work of his mata-mata-or
meet it by introducing cheaper opium himself, in effect becoming a
smuggler, too. Opium farmers customarily tried both. Under the
guise of protecting the state monopoly, opium farmers exploited
both their own organizations and the administrative and legal appa-
ratus of DutchJava to gain control over the distribution ofall opium

in their territories, legal or not. Smuggling was therefore an integral
part of the opium farm system.

79· On the topic generally, see the fifty-page repon TM to OF, May 3'· t88g, no.
640/4 Ceheim in Exh g/8/t8g2/76.

So. Tan Tong Haij, Kediri fa rmer (1875-77). claimed that the t875moddnvloed-
prolonged wet season, nooding-in Kediri placed unreasonable strain on his ability
to mttt his farm commitments. GG 10 MvK. November t. 1876, no. t810/24 in V
2oltl•877/(slt4•>·

8 t. Local farm bandars and low-mlumc patungan operdtors. it appears, engaged
in promotional activities far mm-c than did farmers themselves and their immediate
subordinates. For a committed antiopium Dutchman's characterization of mata·mata
in the role of promoter, sec the story ofSingomengolo i.n Perelaer, ~Jabot Dalima. pp.
8t - g2.

4

Smuggling and the

Black Market

Theopium poppy (papavn- somniferum) was not cultivated in

J ava.' In the nineteenth century virtually all the official opium
consumed there originated in Turkey and Persia or in British Ben-
gal. The Indies government purchased it through private Dutch
merchants in the Levant, at the Calcutta auctions, or from agency
houses in British Singapore,2 and doled it out at regular intervals to
J ava's opium farmers from warehouses in Batavia, Semarang, and
Surabaya.s

1. Suggestiom thai opium might be cuhivatcd in Netherlands India were made
from time to time, almost always with reference to Britain's lucrative Bengal monop-
oly. bu1 the archipelago lacked the necessary combination of climate, altitude, and
terrain for successful large-scale production. See A.J.W. van Delden, "Beschou-
wingen over het denkbeeld om in Ned. lndie van Regeeringswege opium te pro-

d uceeren." 8/iA op hd JndiKio SwiSbtsJuur (Batavia, •875), pp. 274-84.

~. Among the agency houses that purchased Levant opium for sale to the Nether-
lands for the Indies market in the t 87os and t88os were Levantsche Vcreeniging
Rotterdam, A. Lavino and C'.o., Dulith and Co., and E. A. Wissing. For more detail on

aspe<.U of this trade, see G. W. Koning, Levantschc Vcreeniging Rotterdam to MvK,
August 21 , 1875 in VKG •1/8/ t87s/L2o: Dulith and C'.o.. A. 1..3vino, E. A. Wissing.

and N. Wissing to Koning, july 29, 1882 in V 6/g/t88216s: and MvK toG.G.April.13,
1887, no. 39/597 in V t3/4/t8871(39/597). For 1ransac1ions in Bengal, see van
Delden, Blilc, p. 276, and Frederic Martin, The Stattsmans Ytarboo4 (London, 1874),
pp. 657-58. On buying in Singapore, see Consui-Generaal (Netherlands) Singapore
to GG,January 30, t886. no. 113 in V 8/3/a886/4 regarding the purchase of goo
piculs by an agent of the Dutch Trading Company (Nederlandsche Handelmaat-
schappij. or N HM).

3· See the chart titled "Hoevcclheden L.evantsche opium [liban) die gedurende
hetjaar t 870 maandelijks aan de pachter> rnoeten worden verstrekt," included in GG
to MvK, March 2, 1870, no. 335 in V t2/4/ t87ol•4·

65

66
Opium to Java

Monopolizing the imponation of raw opium tOj ava was the single
long-term administrdtive measure taken by the Dutch to control the
amount of opium that reached the population. l n theory, using the
monopoly to limit the amount of official opium meant that less
opium would be available for consumption. Moreover, by charging
farmers an inflated price for official opium and encouraging high
fann fees, Dutch authorities argued that opium would be too expen-
sive to spread widely among the masses. Therefore, except for a
brief period from 1855 to 1861 and again from 1870 to 1872,
Batavia placed limitations on the amount of opium that was avail-
able to each farm. Opium fanners received an arbitrary allotment
(based on an uninformed estimate of the market) for which they
paid an inflated price.

It was a weak policy. In supplying too little opium the Dutch
created a demand for an alternative source. And in charging too
much for it, they guaranteed profits for black-market suppliers.
Furthermore, because the essential Dutch interest in opium lay in
farm revenues, opium laws unrelated to prompt fulfillment of farm
financial obligations were enforced weakly, not least because polic-
ing these regulations fell to indigenousJavanese authorities and to
the opium farm itself. The combination ofa flawed policy, a largely
indirect colonial administration, and Java's long, vulnerable coast-
line created conditions ideal for a black market. Clandestine opium
poured into Java.

It came by way of Europe, China, Singapore, and countless
smaller states and entrepots. Like official opium, most of it came
originally from the Middle East and British India; and most of it
reached java after having changed hands in Singapore a nd again in
Bali. From Bali it penetr.1tedjava. Here it both ~upplemented' and
competed with legal farm opium. "One may rest assured," wrote
Christian Castens, the Batavia official responsible for opium affairs
in the mid-186os and one of the first to make a serious on-the-spot
study of opium in J ava, "that scarcely a day passes in which a
significant quantity of [illegal) opium is not imponed, if not here,
then there upon the island of java." Castens calculated that "the
amount ofsuch in a year's time far exceeds the quantity supplied by
the government a.~ legal opium."4 In his estimation, 6o percent of
the opium consumed in central Java was clandestine.5 His assess-

4· DMD to GG, May 3 1, 1866, no. 2093 (Zecr Cehcim) in V 16/2/ 1867/ o.
5· DMD to GG, August 16, 1866, no. 3230 in V 16/2/ 1867/ o.

67
Smuggling and the Black Market

ment was co•·roborated by other experts in later decades, and the
weight of the evidence in retrospect also supports it. At least halfof
the opium consumed in Java during this period was officially ille-
gal.6

Newspaper accounts, administrative records, and court transac-
tions reveal how common opium smuggling was. The ease with
which raw opium could be purchased in Singapore, China, or free
harbors in the Indonesian Archipelago, and the equal case with
which it could be brought past the inefficient and overtaXed customs
facilities of DutchJava, made opium smuggling a reasonable risk for
almost anyone.7 Thus, alongside large shipments arranged by, or in
competition with, opium farm interests and handled by professional
merchant smugglers, came thousands of small parcels carried by
others: small-time professional smugglers, amateurs hoping for a
windfall, Europeans and Eurasians seeking a once-and-for-all solu-
tion to their debts, and many who simply carried clandestine opium
for the private enjoyment of themselves and their friends. It came
inter alia secreted in false-bottomed trunks, packed amid personal
effects, and stuffed inside animal carcasses and fruit.

Most important were the volume shipments ordered by Java's
wealthy Chinese merchants: opium farmers and their adversaries.
Farmers and heavy-volume smugglers, if not one and the same,
came from the same Javan elite. Because farm terms lasted a max-
imum of three years, there were always would-be or former farmers,
some of them disappointed farm candidates backed by kongsis, who
possessed the capital, client organization, and the know-how to
compete with the farm . Several opium kongsis stayed in business
irrespective of whether they held a farm or not. Opium smuggling
was, in·short, a routine part of Chinese commercial competition,
another aspect of the "battle of the kings."

The geography of the Indonesian Archipelago and the variety of
its political forms in the nineteenth century made possibilities for
smuggling almost limilless. Sooner or later someone tried nearly
every variation. Described here is the prevailing pattern of bringing

6. Sec. for example. WU<:Iius, Opium Rappon Scmarang. 1882; and As.si01am

Residentj oana to Residentjapara, December 31, 1882, no. 2694/ 10in TMC H422a.
7· Asla1e as 1903 the chief of the Opium Regie, A. A. deJongh, poinlc:d out in a

letter to the governor gencrJI both the impracti<<~lity (it was both expensive and an
"impedimcn1to trade") and the ultimalc impos.,ibilily (opium was1oo easy 10 hide) of
depending on cuslom>to cunail illegal opium imports. H lOR to GC, Scp1c:mber 18,
1903, no. 2554/ R in V 13/ 1/1!)<>4/34·

68
Opium to Java

clandestine opium into Java during the 188os. It was a successful
pauern because it exploited Dutch Java's geographical and institu-
tional vulnerabilities effectively. and because it was flexible-it
could be altered, simplified, or embellisi)ed as circumstances re-
quired.

Each smuggling venture began with the purchase of raw opium.
The Chinese instigator of the venture in Java may have had direct
connections in Singapore for this purpose, his relatives, for exam-
ple. But most ofthem appear to have used the intermediary services
of locally based trading houses that dealt in wholesale opium.& Ar-
menian firms with offices in Surabaya dominated this trade.9 They
purchased opium via agents in Turkey, India, and Singapore for
their Chinese clients·and delivered it in Bali.IO Chinese buyers set-

tled their accounts wit.h bills of exchange drawn on colonial banks,
such as the Javasche Bank in Semarang, just as they would for any
legitimate impon. 11 Another group of middlemen handled smaller
accounts for smugglers with limited oper.uions or riskier credit,
buying opium in bulk from Armenian or Chinese who.lesalers and
reselling in smaller lots to their clicnts. 12

8. In an earlier period lhe>C firms evidemly look advantage of an ordinance
promulgated in 1854 permining raw opium to be stored in Java's major cntrepots--
officially only for reshipment-to disguise their trdde with local customers. SvNI
1854, no. 94· See Pahud de Montange•. "Nota bc1reffende de g=hiedenis dcr
opiumaangelcgcnhcdcn in Nederlandsch-lndie van 1816 lot 18<.)0.'' in V 29/9/
1891/37• folios 12 and 13.

g. 1\Mistant R.,.ident J oana to ResidemJ apam, D<:cembcr 31. 1882. no. •694/10
in TMC H4ua; Assistant Resident joana 10 Residen1 Japara. April 13, 1883, no.
622/10 in TMC H422b; R.,.idcm Bali and Lombok toTM, Febn1ary 11, 1892, no. 14
(Geheim) in Exh 9/8/18go/,.S. Among the Armenian lrading houses t.hat dealt in
opium were Polack; Joakim ;Johann.,.; Sarkics. Edg'.tr: and 7.orab M.,.rope.

10. The 1879 account books of clandestine opium dealer Njo Tjiauw Cing show,
for example, a f150,(1(>(1 crt.'<!it for what Charles TeMechelen imerprcled to be opium
transactions (such tran.'lactions were recorded in code). TM to Df, August 3• 1889,
no. 199/ t2 in V 27/5/18!)0. no. 111.

11. Assutant Resident voorde Policie (Surabaya) to Resident Surabaya, March u,
1865, no.473 in V J6/2/1867h. TM : Rappon 1888: and Wi'lelius. Opium Rappon
Semarang, t882. AssiSiant Resident Wiselius examined records of such transactions
in theJavasche Bank (Semar:mg Branch) for the periodj anuary toJune 1879,during
which time f7oo,ooo changed hands in opium transactiom.

12. The MtAIIisln', arriving in Buleleng, Bali, in May t8g2, brought shipments of
several chests of rdw opium for Edgar, Zorab Mesrope, and one Hing Lee, and
smaller quantities for five other Chin= dealers, most of whose names were ro-
maniud in the English rather than the Dutch manner (e.g., Ek Choon, Hoon
Chiang), suggesting that they were agents of Singapore firms. From notes in Te-
Mcchelen's Illes, most likely an intelligence repon. da1cd 18g2 Buleleng in TMC
H422b.

69
Smuggling and the Black Market

Bali was the ideal site for transshipping opium. In and out of its
numerous natural harbors thousands of indigenous crdft carried on
a lively commerce in local island produce. Tr.1de between Bali and
Javan ports was heavy most of the year; the monsoon made sailing
hospitable from Aptil to December. This active waterborne traffic
served as the perfect cover for shipping illegal goods. In the nine-
teenth century Dutch authority was exercised in only certain of
Bali's kingdoms, and there only lightly. In Buleleng, for example, a
Dutch government territory and seat of an assistant resident from
t86t, the opium farm regulations officially permitted the farmer to
export large quantities of opium. From Bali, opium was trans-
shipped to several outer-island ports as well as to Java.ts Singapore
trade statistics provide some insight into the volume of this trade. In
1885 some 1,092 chest.~ of raw opium were shipped from Singapore
to Bali. The Balinese themselves, presumably. could consume only a
portion oflhis-although they too smoked opium-and allotments
for other opium markets in the archipelago, such as Celebes, Riau,
Sumatra, and Borneo, were listed separately.14 Many. if not most, of
these chests were destined for .Java.

Throughout the years, several Balinese ports transshipped large
amounts ofopium, but Buleleng dominated the trade.• ~ From 1879
to 1882 records compiled by the resident of Banyuwangi, Bali, and
Lombok reveal that an average of723 piculs (44,681 .5 kilograms) of
opium was shipped out of Buleleng to the north Java ports of
Sernarang,Japara, or Rembang every year, an amount equivalent to

1:!' The same McAllister mentioned above carriro twenty-sc:ven additional chesu
for clienu in Mabsar. See "intcUigence report" Bulcleng, t Sgo , in TIIIC H422b. On
Bali and the clandestine opium trade in general, S« TM: Rapport t888; Wisdius.
Opium ~ppon Scmarang. t88t; and A&si>tant Resident Banyuwangi (gekommit·
teenle voor de taken van Balie en Lombok) to DMD: Nota betreiTende den Smok·

kelhandel in opium, tusschen Boeleleng/BalieiJava en Madura, December :p . 1863

in V t6/21t867/1. Also l.auu. lid Eiland Ba/U (Atmterdam, 1848), pp. 97-99.
Among the other transshipment and manufacturing centers for clandestine opium
were Riau, Benkulen, the Zutphen Islands, and the hundreds of small island! to the
nonh of Batavia. Consul·generaal of the Netherlands in Singapore (W. H. Read) to
DMD, J anuary •3· 1866, no. 79; and OMD to GG. J uly 7· t866, no. 2737 (Geheirn),

hoth in v t6/2/ t8671t.

'4· "Celebes en Onderhoorigheden," for instance, rtteived 667 chests; an NHM
shipment of goo chests bound for Bata.ta is abo included in this table, which was
appended to consul-generaal Netherlands (Singaport) to GG.january 30, 1886, no.
113 in V 8/3/ t886/4. On opium smoking in Klungkung, Bali, see Julius Jacobs,
Emigtn Tijd ondn Dt Balim: £ene r~bt.sthrijviflg mtl cumudmingm bttrefftrllk h]~·
LAnd- tn Volkertlcundt von dL tilanden Bali en LomboA (Batavia, t883), p. 114.

15. Assistant Resident Banyuwangi, "Nota"; DMD to CG, January n, t866, no.
318 in V t6/2/t 867/t.