RARE PRINTED SOURCES AND REFERENCE WORKS FOR THE HISTORY OF DUTCH COLONIALISM

New Series, 5 titles available

on microfiche

View of the city and castle of Batavia

MMP114

Grothe, J.A. Archief voor de geschiedenis der oude Hollandsche zending. 6 vols. Utrecht, 1884-1891.

J.A. Grothe scoured church and colonial archives to find sources on Dutch Protestant missionary activity in the eastern and western hemispheres in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He excerpted the acts of provincial synods and other ecclesiastical bodies in two volumes covering the period 1621-1807. While most of these deliberations concerned the missions in Asia, there is also information on activities in the West Indies and Brazil (1636-1649). He further compiled two volumes of documents on Formosa (1628-1661) and two on the Moluccas (1603-1638) drawing on the archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

MMP115

Coen, Jan Pieterszoon [1587-1629], Bescheiden omtrent zijn bedrijf in Indië. 7 vols. in 8.

's Gravenhage, 1919-1953.

Correspondence and other documents by and to the chief initiator of Dutch colonialism in the East Indies and Asia compiled by H.T. Colenbrander from the originals in the archive of the Amsterdam chamber of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the National Archives of the Netherlands and supplemented by W. Ph. Coolhaas. Coen first sailed to the Indies in 1607 as an assistant merchant for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He studied the possibilities for trade and reported on them in detail to the Company when he returned to the Netherlands. The VOC sent him out again in 1612 as chief merchant. He advanced through various positions and was appointed governor general of the Indies in 1617, a post he held until early 1623. During his years in the archipelago, he established a monopoly over the spice trade in the Moluccas and on the Banda islands, suppressing local resistance with a hard hand. He fought to keep English commercial rivals out of the region and against the sultan of Bantam when he challenged Dutch authority by besieging a Dutch fort at their trading post Jacatra on Java. Coen burned down the town and founded Batavia on its ruins in 1619. It was to remain the capital of the Netherlands East Indies colony until Indonesian independence in 1949 when it reassumed its original name as Jakarta. Coen died in Batavia in 1629 during his third (unofficial) stay in the Indies, where he wanted to encourage more Dutch settlement.

MMP116/1

Realia: Register op de generale resolutiën van het kasteel Batavia, 1632-1805. 2 vols. Leiden 1882-1885.    

The “realia” are indexes of the resolutions taken by the Netherlands Indies government represented by the Council of the Indies (Raad van Indië), which met in Batavia Castle during the period of Dutch East India Company rule. The concepts and spelling are contemporary. Under alphabetical subject headings, each entry gives the short content and date of the resolutions concerning that subject arranged chronologically. The various contemporary registers were brought together, integrated and published in the 1880s under the auspices of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences. The original resolutions themselves are kept in the National Archives of Indonesia in Jakarta. Contemporary copies are held by the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague.

MMP116/2

Dagh-register gehouden int Casteel Batavia van passerende daer plaetse als over geheel

Nederlandts-India. 30 vols. 's Gravenhage, 1887-1931.

An important source for the history of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and for the political and economic history of Asia more generally is the “Dagh-register” of Batavia Castle, the VOC headquarters in Asia, a day by day chronical of events that took place in Batavia and of news received from all quarters concerning the greatest variety of subjects. The board of governors of the VOC, the so-called Heren Zeventien (Seventeen gentlemen) had ordered this diary to be kept and sent to them on a regular basis to keep them informed of all matters that might affect the Company. The original volumes were held in the colonial archives in Batavia and The Hague.

Thanks to cooperation between the Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences) and the Ministry of the Colonies they were published for the period 1624-1682 between 1887 and 1931. Each volume contains an index of names and places.

MMP117

Repertorium op de literatuur betreffende de Nederlandse Koloniën in Oost- en West-Indië voor zover zij verspreid is in tijdschriften en mengelwerken. 11 vols.

Published 1877-1934.

Essential bibliography of the literature found in periodicals and compilations going back to 1595 for the East Indies and to 1840 for the West Indies, both taken up to 1932. It appeared between 1877 and 1934. The first two volumes were the work of J.C. Hooykaas , who compiled more than 21,000 entries on the Dutch colonies in Asia up to 1865. The work was continued by A. Hartman, who included references to the West Indies, and subsequently by others. The volumes are organized systematically and are all indexed.