The posthumous works of Mr. Shalihong

“In the 1863s, there were only about 1,000 villagers living in the “Old Wuhan Deli Labuhan Deli” area. Among them, there were nearly 100 Jining and non-indigenous people from India, while there were only 20 or 30 Chinese. “. This is the report described by the envoys dispatched by the British colonial ruler Leifs to the old Wuhan to investigate the local population and trade in local products.

 It now appears that the above report is just “walking through the horses and looking at the flowers”, because according to another data, it is confirmed that three years later (1886), there was already a Chinese, “Lei Zhenlan” (a post appointed by the Dutch colonial government) Zhang Yaoxuan in the old Wuhan serves as Chinese affairs officer. This shows that there are certainly more than 20 or 30 local Chinese residents, otherwise there is no need to appoint Chinese officials.

 Another fact is that the “Shoushan Palace” was established in 1886 in old Wuhan, where the Guanyin Buddha was built, and the stone stele erected when the palace was built was inscribed with the inscription “Tang people went to the children in Japan 30 years earlier (about 1856).” )”, it can be seen that the Chinese footprint in “Deli” was earlier than the development of “Deli Tobacco Garden”.

 The Dutchman Jacobus Nienhuys, who obtained special preferential land lease rights from the old Deli Sultan, did not develop so smoothly in the first year or two of his “Grand Exhibition” plan. Because most of the Malay people living in the local area are employed by small farmers who have plantations everywhere and do not want to leave easily.

 Based on this difficulty, the eager “big boss” turned to a plan to recruit “Kuli” from abroad, and he did not hesitate to spend money to transport batches of young men and women from Java with a “contract.” Kontrak) dragged them into the “tiger pit where you can get in but you can’t get out.” However, the laborers hired by Java did not meet the wishes of the “big heads” (no experience in growing tobacco), so he wanted to find strong and hardworking laborers from foreign countries. So began to recruit Jining people (Indian nationality) and some Chinese laborers from Penang (now Penang). Later, the owner of the park sent people to Hong Kong and Shantou to coax young and strong Chinese laborers into “going over” to the “Golden Cave of Deli” to make money, and allowed the laborers from the south to borrow a “settling-in allowance” “This has caused those illiterate laborers who want to “get rich” to follow the Chinese principles in batches and fall into the trap of leaving their homes to open up wasteland to grow tobacco.

 After several years of hard work and doing everything possible to make cheap labor, the “small kingdom” of the “Tobacco Garden” gradually consolidated. At the beginning, the garden hill was not small in size. It was located about five or six kilometers away from the old Wuhan to “Titipapan” , and the exact location was the area on the opposite bank of the Deli River that passed through the halfway shop. At that time, that area was still a wilderness. The land that was two or three kilometers long and two or three kilometers wide stretched from the half-way shop to the Kota Bangun boundary. This ambitious Dutchman also placed his home in a tobacco garden for this purpose, forming a “big head family in the garden” with unlimited power.

 The older generations of Chinese know that the name “Half Road Shop” originated from its location exactly halfway from Medan to the seaport of Belawan, 11 kilometers away from Medan and Bedao Bay. It is only five or six kilometers from the old Wuhan to Banlu shop, and only two to three kilometers from Banlu shop to Kota Bangun.

 In the days when Deli Tobacco Gardens were prosperous, more and more Chinese residents gathered in the half-way shops. Some of them started small businesses and sold daily necessities on the good days of “distributing large grains” and “small grains” in the garden. Give small profits to the workers in the garden.

However, although this young Dutchman Nienhuys had the assistance of the local head of Moberlambira, known as the “Lato”, and hired a group of local laborers for him, he had no experience in growing tobacco. So he had to go to Penang in person, and through a local Javanese Haji, he recruited dozens of workers to Deli Tobacco Garden. However, these new Javanese workers did not follow his instructions very much, so they had to use the number of tobacco seedlings to be used to calculate their wages to repay the resettlement expenses previously borrowed.

 As a result, only 350 bundles of tobacco leaves were harvested by the garden owner for the first time. They were exported from Wuhan to Penang, and then re-exported to Hantang in the Netherlands. The price was 48 cents per half kilogram.

 Soon after the Java worker contract from Penang expired, Nienhuys went to Penang to look for Chinese “old customers” (people who had experience in growing tobacco). And this “big head” also moved to Madubon on the banks of the River Giri in 1865 and rented a private house to settle down, making it easier to supervise tobacco workers. At that time, he only had 23 Malay laborers, but as many as 88 Chinese laborers contracted with him for “day labor.”

The garden owner’s second harvest of tobacco leaves has reached 389 bundles, and the quality of the tobacco leaves is better, selling for 149 cents per half kilogram.    

The “big head” then expanded the area of ​​the tobacco farm, thinking that he could make a lot of money. In the end, due to lack of manpower, he couldn’t take care of it, and lost six thousand Dutch dongs. this time the encounter also caused Nienhuys to be removed from his post by the owner of his Dutch farm in Surabaya and transferred back to his hometown. (The clip will change with time before and after the time mentioned above)

 After him, he changed the two “big heads” who managed the tobacco plantations in the day. It was not until LA Sanders took office in 1872 that he was lucky. They had good harvests for five consecutive years and earned a total of six. Wanhe Shield.

As for the dismissed Nienhuys, after returning to the Netherlands, he met PW. Janssen and Clemen, and the three of them joined forces to make up a capital of 10,000 dong, and came back to Japan again. This time he still has the support of Sultan, and there is no need to rent it. The large area of ​​land between the Deri River and the Sungai Percut River ranges from Kampung Mabar to Deli Tua (also According to the accent of Fujian dialect, it is translated into Rilida), and the right to use it is 99 years. This time it is really developed! “Nienhuys obtained a large amount of loans from his country’s “Dutch Bank” and raised another 300,000 dong, and established the “Deli Mastschappij” with him as the manager. Then from 1875, the funds continued to expand. The 500,000 Dutch dongs increased to 4 million Dutch dongs in 1889. The doubling of funds is of course inseparable from Rili Tobacco Garden’s large profits.

The last to take over the jurisdiction of the tobacco garden was Cremer from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has been in power since 1871 and systematically recruited large numbers of Chinese indentured laborers from Penang, even as far as Shantou, Hong Kong, and brought them into Deli tobacco farms.    

https://haobaodaily.co.id/news/read/2020/06/25/1117/sejarah_kota_medan/