esterday appeared at last, after nearly 200 years, the inventory of the archives of the Dutch East India Company in print.A unique historical source.The archives of the Dutch East India Company.The Archives of the Dutch East India Company.(1602-1795). National Archives, First Department.Final Editing R. R.The Hague, SDU publishing house 1992.555 pages.ƒ 195,-.ISBN 90 12 08012 6.
Nearly 1.3 kilometres of archives, consisting of 14.933 numbered documents ranging from loose sheets up to 35 centimeters thick folio volumes.That is what is in the national archives in the Hague remains of the archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the illustrious trade organization which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries laid the Foundation for unprecedented prosperity and a colonial empire.
The VOC archives are among the largest of the State Archives and from historical point of view certainly among the most important.They not only shed light on the economic history of the Dutch Republic, but are also invaluable to the political, military and administrative history of the Asian countries in the VOC-patent area.
Yesterday was in the Hague, in the presence of the ambassadors from ten of these countries, the definitive book on the VOC archives presented.It's going to be a complete inventory, supplemented with historical introductions and a user manual.According to the editor, the 30-year-old aio Remco Raben, is to this publication by historians for decades eagerly looked like.
And that while the inventory already in 1963 was practically ready.The brain behind it was Mrs m.a.p. Meilink-Roelofsz (1905-1988), a remarkable Archivist-scholar that her career at the national archives in 1929 as a volunteer, began, to these 41 years later as National Archivist and head of the first Department (i.e. the Netherlands Department prior to 1795).
R: "" it was arranged that the VOC archives Meilink-Roelofsz and gave them their current form.Historians have been working since 1963 with her typed inventory, but for that they need to come to the Hague to consult.It was always the intention to publish the inventory, so that one can consult him also in, for example, Japan or Indonesia.Mrs Meilink-Roelofsz originally wanted the list itself include in a great book about the VOC, but of that publication is the never materialized.The project was further delayed because several other experts in the meantime died.The impetus for the current release was only in 1988. ''
Gentlemen XVII
How extensive the preserved archives of the Dutch East India Company may be, it is but a fraction of the original total.The history of the VOC archives is a disastrous accumulation of neglect, auction and destruction, only since the middle of the nineteenth century followed by preservation, arrangement and Coddling.
It's not about one archive, but to multiple: the different parts of the collection are submitted by the six rooms from which the VOC existed.Of those six rooms (Amsterdam, Middelburg, Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn and Enkhuizen) Amsterdam and Middelburg were the most important.Amsterdam was responsible for half of all operations of the Dutch East India Company, Middelburg for a quarter.Together they contain the largest part of the archives.
The amount of archival material between its founding in 1602 and winding up accumulated in 1795, was enormous.The Dutch East India Company rested in that period a total of 4700 ships with on board making the Park larger than persons on board.The proceeds of the "India" (read Asia) delivered return goods amounted to more than 2.2 billion guilders.
All important documents related to the business operations were meticulously filed.Not only the policies of the Gentlemen XVII (the central governing body of the Dutch East India Company), but also decisions of the directors of the various rooms, the entire personnel administration and the equipment paper of the ships.And, not to forget, the large amount of come across letters and papers from India, with all kinds of information on the situation in the field of patents.In Amsterdam were the first in the writing-paper or clerks office in the Babykidi House on the Oude Hoogstraat kept, later in a special charter room.
R: "" the VOC was an administrative tangle, there was an excess of reporting.By the complicated federal structure put everyone accountable to everyone.A letter from Ceylon to the gentlemen XVII went for example copies the rooms in Zealand and Amsterdam, and also back to Batavia, from which copies were made for Zealand and Amsterdam. ''
Door catch
After the lifting of the VOC in 1795, the VOC archives over to the State.They were as much as possible together and stored in Amsterdam.For documents that could shed light on the military and political history was only historical interest, but the economic and financial documents were considered as "a party abundant and largely useless books and papers from the last century '.
The Zeeland Chamber offered long resistance to handing over his archives to Amsterdam.A fanatical Deputy-Secretary, Pieter Pous, managed to avoid the tear paper documents as to the French were sold.He also knew that Napoleon, during a tour on the bright idea came to the East India charter room in Middelburg into warding, that to expect this, due to fuel problems and the awkward location on three high, little would be practical.
In Amsterdam meanwhile was broken the VOC archives steadily.In the winter of 1821-22 were for example a small 10,000 tires of the VOC-pay office by auction sold.In the early 1830s the archives were transferred to the Westindisch slaughterhouse on the IJkant.There was far too little, so that once again many thousands of records of the paying agent had to be thrown away (1.851 5.136 tapes and letters books).The discard criteria were totally pragmatic: everything old was could way, only what was still useful for ongoing business operations was basically preserved.In 1851 gave high citizen Pous are moving on and became the slaughterhouse 6,250 km Zeeuws archive material.Of the four small rooms remained only a portion of the personnel administration.
Until around 1840 there was academic interest in the VOC archives and came a public lobby on gang to preserve them for historical research.The State of the archive to the slaughterhouse was deplorabel.So was one of the most important documents, the original shareholders ' register from 1602, found as door stop on the ground.
The public outcry over the State of the archives had effect.In 1856 they went over to the State archives in the Hague.There they were taken care of by Archivist J.K.J. the young, which his successors gave a lot of work by the ties to come across letters and papers apart and "better" downgrade.This method of archiving runs counter to the modern views, which emanate from respect des fonds (the pieces, as much as possible back into the form in which they were originally filed).Mrs Meilink-Roelofsz went into its final planning in the twentieth century also by this principle.
The 1277 ft currently remains is far from complete, but is still very important source material for historians.R: "" the VOC was not just a company, but a company with the sovereignty of a State.The company was entitled to in its patent area in Asia to keep its own army, treaties with foreign Princes and even to administer justice.In the Netherlands was a company, a Government in Asia.
"" The historical importance of the archives reflects this duality.The documents on the conduct of business in Netherlands are important for the economic historiography here, particularly for answering the question how the Dutch "Wirtschaftswunder ' of the seventeenth century was possible.The "sea ' documents are of particular significance for the Asian political, administrative and military history.For some societies there they are even the only source.The VOC Archives provide insight into the place of the European in Asia and in the trade network that there already existed. ''
Furthermore, the VOC archives an important source for the history of Science (ethnography, but also biology and linguistics), engineering (shipbuilding), demographics (including migration; from the pay registers shows that two thirds of the employees in the eighteenth century consisted of Germans) and biographical research (they contain data on almost a million people).
R: "" it was high time that the VOC archives with a good inventory were unlocked.To hope that even more historians will be able to find their way to the Hague than so far.The she will not.The historic thrill of working in these archives is huge. ''