The Establishment Of Port Humboldt

IN 1852

ONE of the most interesting events of the very early days of the occupation of Dutch New Guinea was an expedition sent from the Moluccas by the Nether lands Government to annex the north of the island to its possessions in the East and establish a settlement at Port Hum boldt. Port Humboldt is on the north coast of Dutch New Guinea, a few miles to the westward of the border of the Mandated Territory.

The expedition left Ternate in March, 1850, under the command of Mr. Van Den Dungen Gronovious, in the war schooner Circe, with Lieutenant Brutel de la Riviere in charge, and was accompanied by a small flotilla of war praus belonging to the Sultan of Tidore, represented for the occasion by Captain Amir, a prince of Tidore.

Mr. Gronovious stood in high repute as a colonial administrator. For several years he had been Resident of the Dutch possession, in Timor. He was invested with some kind of authority by the Sultan of Tidore, a pensioner of the Dutch Government, who claimed suzerainty over the northern and eastern coast of New Guinea. The Sultan had for many years enforced his claim by sending forth periodically a flotilla of Hongi (or war praus) to collect tribute in slaves and trade; these generally maintained order by dealing out destruction to any tribe who offered any resistance, carrying off hundreds of slaves and burning their principal villages.

The natives acknowledged this domin ance on the whole without ill-feeling, excepting a few remote tribes who had

not yet learned the wisdom of obedience.

They were in favour of placing themselves under the protection of the most power ful chief in the neighbourhood, as a safe guard against the piracy that infested these waters, even though they had to submit to his arbitrary measures.

The Netherlands Government had like wise encouraged the Sultan’s suzerainty, for it gave them a claim to a country which they might some day see fit to occupy. Indeed, this expedition was sent for this purpose. A transfer of the suzerainty from the Sultan was a for mality which could easily be negotiated, and Captain Amir accompanied the ex pedition for the object of formally hand ing over possession.

On these occasions, representatives of the Sultan were invariably present when new settlements were established for the Dutch Government.

The expedition was well fitted out with trade and presents for the native chiefs.

The officials also carried a number of iron plates displaying the Netherlands arms, which they intended to erect wherever they visited along the coast. These, apparently, were erected at each new settlement of the Netherlands Indies.

Giby, or Gebby, was their first port of call (an island well known to ancient mariners on their route to China) and from Gebby they proceeded to Port Dorey, a trading post from time immemorial for Chinese and traders of the East. There they remained from April 1 to 20, waiting for the Sultan’s flotilla, which had been delayed along the coast.

Lieutenant Bruijn Kops, on board the Circe, describes the natives of Geelvink Bay and Port Dorey (northwest New Guinea), in great detail, in a narra tive published in the “Natuurkundige Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie, 1851.”

He writes of the arrival of the flotilla, and the panic it caused.

“On the news of the arrival of the flotilla,” he states, “the women and children took flight with the small canoes, carrying with them everything of value. They went to the opposite shore and into the interior bays, in order to avoid the rapacity of the crews of the flotilla. It is not to be wondered at that the flotilla instils so much fear,” he con tinues, “for wherever it goes the crews pillage and steal, destroying plantations and appropriating everything that takes their fancy.”

The chief of Dorey at once presented himself to Captain Amir on his arrival, taking with him a slave and a great number of birds-of-paradise, as a present, which was apart from the yearly tax of the chief to the Sultan—one slave, three praus, and provisions.

According to the general opinion of travellers in New Guinea, the Dorians were taken to be of very mixed origin, owing to their intercourse with more civilised people for hundreds of years.

To this Lieut. Bruijn Kops could not agree. He considered that people of mixed race were to be found everywhere in the islands of the Moluccan seas, but very rarely in Papua itself; which he explained by the traffic in slaves, hundreds, even thousands, having been exported west ward for ages past, while no brown or yellow people ever settled in New Guinea, or became even temporary residents beyond the limits of trading stations, ex cepting a few Mohammedan priests.

Bruijn Kops went further. He con

sidered that the Papuans he encountered were beyond all comparison superior in mental and physical vigour to those tribes in the East Indies with whom they were brought into contact. He was greatly impressed with these people. He found them friendly and hospitable and he con sidered that they owed their reputation for bloodthirsty truculence to the early explorers who, like Dampier in 1700, asserted with vexation that the natives of New Guinea when fired upon, did not scruple to retaliate.

"Get animal est tres-mechant!

Quand on I’attaque il se defend”

Bruijn Kops deals at length with the customs, habits, arts and agriculture of the Dorians. “The manners and customs, he writes, “of the Dorians are much less barbarous than might be expected from these rude uncivilised races. On the con trary, in general, they gave evidence of a mild disposition, of an inclination to right and justice, and strong moral principles.”

Though kidnapping was general, and was followed as a branch of trade, there was no dishonour attached to it. Indeed, the chief trade at that time, besides odiferous bark and birds-of-paradise, was in slaves; the slave being the standard of value throughout the western parts of New Guinea. The captives from New Guinea were held in high esteem, fetching higher prices than even those from Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa.

One of their arts which took his atten tion was the working of iron, by means of a forge, consisting of a bellows com posed of two large bamboos about four feet long, from which the air was expelled by means of two pistons with bunches of feathers at the end, worked in the manner of hand pumps. This instrument was identical with the bellows he had seen in use among the natives of the Malay Archipelago, from whom no doubt the custom was borrowed.

They also made rings, bracelets and ear rings from copper and silver, and from Spanish coins which they had obtained from the French surveying ships Astro labe and Z elee when they visited the dis trict in 1840.

After the formalities over the transfer had been completed, the expedition pro ceeded to Run, an island situated in the “Great Bay” of Geelvink. Here, they found the natives had little or no know ledge of the outside world and therefore did not flee in terror at sight of the flotilla. It had only recently been opened as a trading post, and was rarely visited except by an Englishman named Captain Deighton, who had been for many years a trader in the Moluccas and had traded on the north coast of New Guinea since 1820. He was well known to all inhabi tants and held in high esteem.

“The frankness with which I was re ceived,” wrote Bruijn Kops, “struck me, as it was entirely unexpected.” He attri buted their friendly attitude towards the expedition to the honourable character of Captain Deighton and his honest dealings with the natives. It was in marked con trast with the fear and suspicion they encountered at Dorey.

Captain Deighton, according to Bruijn Kops, appeared to be the one check on the rapacity of the Tidore tribute collectors in these waters. Fearing that he would report them to the authorities, they refrained from committing their worst atrocities.

Kurudu, an important trading station to the extreme N.B. of Geelvink Bay (or Great Bay, as Lieutenant Bruijn Kops named it) was next visited, and probably for the first time by an European vessel.

Here, again, they were received in a cautious, but by no means unfriendly, manner, although only a few years pre

viously their villages had been destroyed and 200 of their members carried away into captivity by a dependant of the Sultan of Tidore, Singaji of Gebby.

On the approach of the Circe the natives gathered on the shore fully armed, but the weapons were soon laid aside on landing, and a friendly intercourse was established, which however was rudely shattered by the firing of the evening gun from the schooner. The natives fled in terror immediately, and the next morning no sign of them was to be seen, “The entire population, from the village to the mainland,” had disappeared into thin air, and only a few dogs remained, whose melancholy bowlings added to the exasperation of the Dutch officers.

Bruijn Kops found the inhabitants of Kurudu altogether different from those at Dorey and Run; he took them to be more of a Polynesian than a Malayan character.

He thought that the Great Bay (Qeel vink) might possibly be the dividing line between the Papuans of the Pacific and those of the Indian Archipelago.

Leaving Kurudu, the expedition passed eastwards for more than a hundred miles past the delta of a large river, named Ambermo by the natives. From its many outlets muddy water poured out to sea, and for thirty miles shoals and sand banks hindered the passage of the Circe as she pushed her way carefully towards Humboldt Bay.

The chief object of the expedition was to examine Port Humboldt (Hollandia), L a t. 2.205, Long. 140.47 E, and to ascertain whether the existing conditions merited the formation of a settlement. But, un fortunately, on arriving, a strong S.E. squall prevented the Circe from making an entrance into the harbour, and they were forced to turn back to Amboina.

However, the information gathered by Mr. Van Den Dungen Gronovious seemed to be sufficiently encouraging for the Netherlands to decide upon an establishment: for one reads that in 1852 a garrison consisting of a party of burghers, or native militia from Ternate were sent to Port Humboldt for that purpose. ‘‘A class of men,” writes a traveller of that time (G. Windsor Earl) “who though capable of holding their own in this inhospitable region, were by no means calculated to

inspire respect in the stalwart and ener getic Papuans.”

It seemed that the Dutch Government hoped that the settlement, apart from its administrative value, might be looked upon as a haven for shipping employed in the commerce of the Far East, and would open up the 1,400 miles of inhospit able coastland of New Guinea for vessels crossing from America. Shipping would attract trade and, perhaps, settlement, which would eventually lead to the estab lishment being placed on a more sub stantial footing.

It is over 80 years since Port Humboldt was established, and the rewards of the enterprise so far have not borne much fruit. The inhospitable nature of the country, and its isolation, offer little inducement for development. It is only to-day that one hears, among the big developments that are taking place in Dutch New Guinea, that colonists have settled near the scene of the old Post of 1852, and are making a living at farming —a peaceful occupation in contrast to the livelier one of slave-raiding which, until 1879, formed one of the principal occupa tions of the Archipelago, and the north coast of New Guinea.—M.L.

Mrs. Frank Hockings, of Thursday Island, returned to T.I. in June from a visit to her parents at Roma, Queensland.