Padri War

Padri War
An episode of the Padri war. Dutch and Padri soldiers fighting over a Dutch standard in 1831.
Date 1803 - 1837 Location West Sumatra Result Dutch-Adat victory
Belligerents
Adats Netherlands	Padris

The Padri War (also called the Minangkabau War) was fought from 1803 until 1837 in West Sumatra between two rival muslim factions. The Dutch intervened from 1821 and helped the Adats defeat the Padri faction.

Background

The Padri War began in 1803, prior to Dutch intervention, and was a conflict that had broken out in Minangkabau state between the so called adat and padri religious factions. But after occupation of the Pagaruyung kingdom by Tuanku Pasaman, one of Padri leaders in 1815, on February 21, 1821, the Adat faction made a deal with Dutch in Padang to help them to fight Padri factions.

The Adats were Minangkabau traditionalists who wanted to continue to include indigenous pre-Islamic religious practices and social traditions in local custom (Islam Abangan). The Padris, like contemporaneous jihadists in the Sokoto Caliphate of West Africa), were Islamist reformers who had made the hajj to Mecca and returned inspired to bring the Qur'an and shariah to a position of greater influence in Sumatra. The Padri movement had formed during the early nineteenth century and sought to purify the culture of traditions and beliefs its partisans viewed as un-Islamic, including syncretic folk beliefs, cockfighting and Minangkabau matrilineal traditions.

In the 1820s, the Dutch had yet to consolidate their possessions in some parts of the Dutch East Indies (later Indonesia) after re-acquiring it from the British. This was especially true on the island of Sumatra, where some areas would not come under Dutch rule until the 20th century.

Skirmishes and the Masang Treaty

Dutch involvement in the war because it "invited" by the Adat fiction, and on April 1821, Dutch troops attack Simawang and Sulit Air by Captain Goffinet and Captain Dienema on the orders of James du Puy the Dutch Resident in Padang. Between 1821-1824, skirmishes broke out throughout the region, ended only by the Masang Treaty. The war cooled down during the next six years, as the Dutch faced larger-scale uprisings in Java.

Dutch advances

The conflict broke out again in the 1830s with the Dutch gaining early victories. Soon after, the war centered on Bonjol, the fortified last stronghold of the Padris. It finally fell in 1837^{[citation needed]} after being besieged for three years, and along with the exile of Padri leader Tuanku Imam Bonjol, the conflict died out.

Impact

With the victory, the Dutch tightened their hold on West Sumatra. Yet there was a positive legacy for the native Minangs: after the war, the tribal and religious leaders increasingly reconciled their visions. This helped promulgating the new view of "adat basandi syara', syara' basandi Kitabullah" ("tradition founded upon Islamic law, Islamic law founded upon the Qur'an").

See also

• Tuanku Imam Bonjol, leader in the Padri movement

Further reading

• Dobbin, Christine (1983). Islamic Revivalism in a Changing Peasant Economy: Central Sumatra, 1784-1847. Curzon Press. ISBN 0700701559. 
• Ricklefs, M. C. (1993) A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1300. 2d ed. (London: Macmillan), 1993.
• Tarling, Nicholas, (ed.) The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia,, vol. II " The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries" (Cambridge University Press) 1992.