Dutch archival holdings on Asia are known to be remarkably rich in their contents. Yet
they remain relatively underexplored by historians of Early Modern Asia, with the notable
exception of Japanese and Indian scholars.
In the past decade, however, a number of archival aids and source publications have been
published in the Netherlands, which should make the Dutch archival data on Early
Modern Asia accessible to a much wider readership.
By Leonard Blussé
In 1982 Part I of The Guide to The Sources of the History of Asia and Oceania in
The Netherlands was published in the framework of the monumental `Guides to the
Sources for the History of the Nations' Unesco project (Saur Publishers, München-New York). In this book, the author of this guide, Marius Roessingh, managed to amass
all Dutch archival inventories of pre-1800 sources about Asia. Part II, dealing with the
1796-1949 period, was published one year later by Frits Jaquet. These very useful
overviews in English were followed in 1992 by the long-awaited inventory Archives
of the Dutch East India Company. This inventory, originally composed by the late
archivist and historian Professor M.A.P.Meilink - Roelofsz, was seen into print with
extensive introductions in English by Remco Raben, at the time doctoral research student
at IGEER, and several staffmembers of the Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA) at The Hague,
where the archives of the long defunct Dutch East-India Company (1601-1799) are kept
(Sdu Publishers, The Hague). This costly but wonderfully instructive research tool is a
must for any university library with significant holdings on Asia. Students of the history
of the Dutch East India Company will find John Landwehr's even more expensive
bibliography of contemporary printed sources on the VOC, VOC, A bibliography of
publications relating to the Dutch East India Company (1602-1800) an indispensable
companion (Hes Publishers, Utrecht 1991).
Source publications are essential tools for the historian. Yet not for a moment should
it be forgotten that all source publications have their limitations, subject as they are to
modifications as a result of expurgation, compilation, or even deterioration of the original
data. The greatest challenge the editor of a source publication faces is really how to deal
with the embarrassment of choice which the archival holds offer and how to tune the
publication to the wishes of the historian who will use them in the future. The selection
process always leaves room for criticism, and it is in this respect that the editing of a
source often turns out to be an ungrateful job. Selection procedures actually tend to
change over time and some editors have a penchant for leaving out biographical and
economic data that seem to clutter the presentation of the `larger picture' while others
turn a blind eye to the original intent of the source presented and just use them as a mine
for delving up useful data. This issue may be best illustrated by considering a few
examples of useful source publications about Asia which have been published in the
Netherlands in the past.
The Dutch archivists and historians J.K.J. De Jonge and N.L. van Deventer were
interested mainly in providing historical data on the emergence of Dutch rule in the East
when between 1862 and 1909 they published Opkomst van het Nederlandsch gezag
in Oost-Indië (The Rise of Dutch Sovereignty in the East Indies), an
ambitious 13 volume source publication in which they collated data from sources such as
the large-scale annual reports written by Governor-General and Council in Batavia to the
VOC management in Holland (the so called Generale Missiven), letters from company
personnel in the outer stations, and so on. Both authors felt no need to pay much attention
to the economic aspects of the whole venture. Although the text of Opkomst should
always be checked against the original, no serious researcher would ever think of ignoring
this important source for the study of Indonesia in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
Since 1910 the Bureau der Rijkscommissie voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis
(renamed Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis in 1989) has been
active in compiling and publishing important historical data on Dutch history. From the
outset the editing of sources on colonial history has been considered to be an important
component of the Commission's publication task. Of the 220 volumes of the
Rijksgeschiedkundige Publicatieën (RGP) Series that the commission
has published since 1910, about ten percent pertains to the colonial past.
A quite exciting event in this series was the complete edition of the secret Description of the Dutch East India Company, composed by the Company's executive secretary
of fifty years (!), Pieter van Dam in the late 1690's, for the exclusive use of the directors
and his own successors at the office (Beschrijvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, 7
vols. The Hague, 1927-1954). Van Dam's Beschrijvinge gives a detailed survey of the
Company's establishment in the Republic as well as in Asia, and is based entirely on
original documents. This magnificent work, edited with copious footnotes by F.W.
Stapel, was republished by the ING in 1976 and is still available,
In 1960 a very ambitious source-publication on Dutch overseas expansion was begun in
the same RGP series by Professor W.Ph. Coolhaas of Utrecht University, the so-called
Generale Missiven series. Nine volumes have been published so far. Due to
their varied contents the General Missives, which had also been amply quoted
from by de Jonge in his earlier source publication, are an invaluable source on the Dutch
in Asia, but also on coastal and sometimes inland Asia, from Mocha in the West to Edo,
today's Tokyo, in the East. The two hundred year long existence of the VOC provides
added value to this stream of information about facts and events in serial form.
Coolhaas initiated the publication of the Generale Missiven at a time when
few people were still interested in the history of the overseas empire which had so
recently been lost. He was convinced that his publication should be addressed to the
future historians of Indonesia and other recently decolonized countries in Asia and be as
inclusive as possible, throwing new light on the history of the Asian societies which they
describe. Faced with the dilemma of remaining within the set limits of the publication
project Coolhaas decided to leave out large chunks of the text that had already been
published elsewhere, like for instance by De Jonge almost a hundred years before. The
lacunae which emerged as a result of this editorial policy sometimes impede the reader's
understanding of the general tenor and make it difficult to form a balanced view of every
Generale Missiven publication. Coolhaas also frequently summarized long
passages of the original which he judged not very important, and here of course there are
those who beg to differ. Dr Jur van Goor of Utrecht University, who became Generale
Missiven editor after Coolhaas' death in 1986, tends to follow his predecessor in
most of his editing policy, and also rigorously shortens down communications whenever it
is clear that these will not lose sense if presented in a condensed form. Any historian who
wants to study a coastal region in Asia or write a supra-regional survey of regions where
the VOC operated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may well start out by
consulting the Generale Missiven.
Almost ten years ago, the Leiden Center for the History of European expansion (IGEER)
decided to make available a number of archival aids and source publications pertaining to
the history of the Far East within the framework of the China, Japan and the
Nanyang in Early Modern Times project (China Sea project), which is carried out in close
cooperation with the Academia Sinica (Taiwan), the Nanyang Research Institute of the
University of Xiamen and the Historiographical Institute of Tokyo University. This
project, which I have the honour to head, has also resulted in the training of a group of
young Chinese and Japanese historians at IGEER. Components of the project have been
funded at different times by the Dutch Foundation of Scientific Research (NWO), the
Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Ailion
Foundation, and Leiden University. The various source publications which are carried out
in the framework of IGEER's China Sea project differ considerably in scope, approach,
and execution, each being tuned to the different needs of the scholars in the various
fields.
Cogently Coolhaas' fairly partial coverage of Taiwan, led to a decision to translate and
annotate into Chinese for the benefit of Chinese historians all reference in the original
Generale Missiven concerning the short-lived Dutch colony of Formosa
(1624-1662). Dutch rule over Formosa coincided with dynastic change in China from
Ming to Ch'ing - which in fact hastened its end - and there is comparatively little Chinese
material left about maritime China in this particular period. In 1991 the task of making a
fully annotated Chinese translation of all entries concerning Taiwan in the Generale
Missiven manuscripts (altogether some six hundred pages in print) was entrusted to
Drs Cheng Shaogang, one of the first Chinese graduates of the Dutch Studies Programme
for foreign students at Leiden University. The Taiwan Generale Missiven project was
initiated jointly by IGEER and the Nanyang Research Institute of Xiamen University, and
was financed by the KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences) and in its final
stage by Research School CNWS of Leiden University. More details about this specific
project, which has recently been completed, can be found in the interview with Dr.
Cheng elsewhere in this newsletter. His thesis, which should appear in print in Taiwan in
1997, was successfully defended in Leiden last December.
The Zeelandia and Deshima Diaries
Having gained a general idea of the region and its position within a larger context through
the Generale Missiven, the historian of regional or local Asian history may
consult more specific and detailed sources in the VOC archives such as the Dagregisters (Journals) of specific trading factories.
At several strategic settlements in Asia a diary was held by the local VOC factory head or
governor. The most famous Dagregisters (diaries) are without doubt those of
Batavia of which those covering most of the seventeenth century have appeared in print
(30 vols. Batavia, The Hague 1887-1928).
Two other important diaries from the VOC archives figure prominently in the source
publication programmes of IGEER: the Daghregisters of Zeelandia Castle on
Taiwan (1629-1662) and those of the Deshima factory at Nagasaki (1641-1854). The two
diaries are made accessible to the historian in very different ways. The Diaries of
Zeelandia Castle, the headquarters of the former Dutch colony of Formosa (Taiwan), are
in the process of being edited in Dutch by IGEER under a joint editorship of Dutch and
Chinese historians. Two volumes (covering the 1630-1650 period) out of a total of four
have appeared so far (1986, 1995). A more detailed description of this project, which is
of particular value because it deals in greater depth with many issues that are covered by
the Generale Missiven entries on Taiwan can be found in the East Asia
section of this Newsletter. Here it is important to note that this publication again is a fully
annotated publication of all remaining diaries. Having lacked sufficient external funding
the project was stalled between 1986 and 1992, but thanks to the financial assistance of
the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and the Academia Sinica, Taiwan, for the past three
years, the train has been fully on the tracks again and the remaining two volumes are
scheduled to appear in 1996 and 1997. Before leaving Taiwan, it should be mentioned
that Professor Chiang Shu-sheng, in close cooperation with the editors of the Zeelandia
Diaries, and Professor Chang Hsiu-jung, at the time chairperson of the History Depart-
ment of National Taiwan University has drawn up a complete archival inventory of all
Dutch archival documents on seventeenth-century Taiwan. This inventory will be publis-
hed separately by NTU within its large Taiwan Historical Material Series in 1996 and in
a different form in the Volume 4 of the Zeelandia Daghregisters in 1997. The closing of
the Zeelandia Project will be marked by an international conference on the history of
seventeenth-century Taiwan which will be organized in 1998 in either Leiden or in
Taipei.
The diaries of the VOC factories at Hirado and Nagasaki are in the process of being
edited in Dutch and translated into Japanese in a most meticulous fashion by the staff of
the Historiographical Institute of Tokyo University. In almost twenty years of editing,
however, only fifteen years of diaries have been published in Dutch and in Japanese
translation, which shows that it was apparently easier for the Dutch chief of Deshima to
write a diary than to edit and translate one nowadays.
Because there is a great demand in scholarly circles for the data contained in the Deshima
diaries, over the past eight years IGEER has published eight volumes of the original
marginal notes of the Nagasaki factory diaries in English, in what is really a very detailed
calendar that was used by factory chiefs themselves as an entry into the diary. So far the
1680-1780 period has been covered. For a more detailed description see the contribution
by the project's present co-editor Cynthia Viallé in the East Asia section of this
Newsletter.
Taiwan's Aboriginal Population
Finally, the first volume of yet another source publication series is at present in the
making at IGEER. This collection of VOC materials on Taiwan's aboriginal population is
sponsored by the Shun Ye foundation of Taipei. From the archival data in the VOC
archives concerning Taiwan - more than 3000 entries altogether - a selection is being
made dealing with Taiwan's original population groups. As the original tribal population
of the Western Plains of the island has all but vanished, this material in combination with
Chinese materials from the Ch'ing archives should make it possible to bring these people
without a history back on to the stage. In this source publication the original Dutch text
and the English translation are on facing pages. More details about the project can be
found in the East Asia section of this Newsletter.
The constant reformulation of the questions asked by historians of the sources has
recently raised doubts, even among the personnel of the Instituut voor Nederlandse
Geschiedenis, about the wisdom of bringing out extensive source publication series
at all. It has actually been suggested by a member of the editorial staff, Dr. J. Roelevink,
that source-publications should perhaps be little more than intelligent introductions into
the wealth of data hidden behind the numbers of archival inventories.
The source publication projects of IGEER indeed shows how it is possible to produce
various forms of source publications. Some are published completely and unabbreviated in
Dutch ( Zeelandia Dagregisters), some have a calendarical form and are
published in English translation (Deshima Diaries), some are selections
(Shun-Ye aboriginal data project) and published in two languages, and some are selections
and published in Chinese.
I am personally of the opinion that European historians of Early Modern Asia, apart from
studying Asia's civilisations, also should shoulder the native speaker's responsibility, if
not burden, and make significant sources available to their Asian colleagues. It is a very
encouraging development that at the moment in Great Britain under the able leadership of
Anthony Farrington, Deputy Director of the India Office Library and Records of the
British Library, a new series of important source publications on the Far East is in the
process of being published. The two volume The English Factory in Japan 1613-
1623 (London 1991) and The English Factory in Taiwan, 1670-1685 (Taipei 1995)
are already available. These volumes as well as the forthcoming one on the English trade
with Vietnam in many ways constitute companion volumes to the above-mentioned
publications produced by IGEER in Leiden. Although it is not bon-ton in
academic circles to raise financial issues in presenting project surveys, I shall make an
exception here. It has in most cases been exceedingly difficult to collect the necessary
funds for these source publication projects even if they are carried out on a shoestring,
part-time basis, as is the case in all the afore-mentioned projects. It is to be hoped that in
the future more institutional and financial assistance will be given to Historical Source
Publication Projects provided they fit in well within the current trends of historical
research. At a time when international cooperation is highly acclaimed, it is time to
allocate some funding to source publication projects and invite Clio's stepdaughter to join
the party.
For more information:
Dr L. Blussé
IGEER
Dept. of History
Leiden University
P.O. Box 9515
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-71-5272768
Fax: +31-71-5272652
E-mail: Blusse@let.leidenuniv.nl
Leonard Blussé is the Editor of the IGEER Source Publication Program, Leiden