Transportation on the west coast of Sumatra in the nineteenth century

Abstract

A number of travellers to the west coast of Sumatra in the first quarter of the twentieth century were very much impressed by the state of the roads there; they wrote that the west coast of Sumatra was the region with the best and longest roads outside of Java. They also noted that people there were famil iar with many kinds of transportation (Asnan 2001a:4). The infrastructure and means of transportation were West Sumatra's most important assets in the early twentieth century. Not only did the roads connect the various dis tricts and towns within West Sumatra, they also linked West Sumatra with other regions of Sumatra. The means of transport were not owned by a small group of people; they benefited almost all strata of society. From 1900 on, a road connected West Sumatra with Tapanuli and Medan. Since 1916, a road has linked Bukittinggi (West Sumatra) and Pekanbaru (Riau) and in 1921, the road connecting West Sumatra with Jambi and Kerinci was opened (Colombijn 1996:390-4). Pedati (buffalo-drawn carts) and automobiles were the most common means of transportation. West Sumatra was known as one of the few regions outside Java that had a considerable number of automobiles. The total number of automobiles in West Sumatra in the early 1920s was estimated at more than 3,000 and by the late 1920s it had more than doubled to 7,000 (Harahap 1926:114-5; Willink 1931:755; Schrieke 1955:270). The good condition of overland transportation in the twentieth century, in terms of both infrastructure and conveyance, did not come out of the blue. Many historical sources from the early twentieth century such as monthly and annual reports of the local government, memories van overgave (reports written by a resigning civil servant for his successor), reports of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Padang, and local newspapers demonstrate that the sophisticated condition of transportation at the time was the result of earlier developments (Asnan 2001a:5). This article describes the develop ment and condition of road transportation on the west coast of Sumatra in the nineteenth century. The decision to focus on the nineteenth century is based on the fact that the embryo of today's administrative region of West Sumatra