POLITICAL REPORTS AND DISPATCHES FROM

THE OUTER ISLANDS OF THE NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES, 1898-1940

National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague

on microfiche

Historical background

As early as the VOC period orders were given by The Hague to the authorities in the Netherlands East Indies to make regular reports on important facts and events. A growing mistrust of the policies pursued by the local Dutch authorities in the Indies underlay this desire for more information, which was first met by sending copies of the correspondence conducted and of accounts and reports received. The Indies government was also required to submit an annual report.

After 1816 an end was made to this manner of gathering information due in part to the greatly increased administrative burden, the impossibility of copying everything and the improvement in the quality of administrative staff. Instead the Governor General was charged to submit an official government (staatkundig) report annually. Moreover, after 1836 he was also required to send copies of all important documents crossing his desk. It was not until the opening of the Suez canal in 1869 had improved communications, however, that this form of reporting achieved a regular basis in the form of the Mailrapporten. Starting in 1872, the so-called Korte Verslagen (short reports) were included in the series. Originally the report was only mentioned in the Mailrapport, but from 1884 a full copy was increasingly included as a supplement to the Mailrapport. The political reports and dispatches concerning Java are only found in the opening years of the series of Mailrapporten. After about 1880 they disappear and the documents only concern the Outer Islands (buitengewesten).

These short reports in which an account was given of the political and economic developments in the province were prescribed in 1853 (Staatblad no. 55). Starting in 1898 these reports were systematically removed from the Mailrapporten at the Ministry and filed together on an annual basis in the Verbalen after they had been consulted for the composition of the Colonial Report (Koloniaal verslag). In a Circular issued on 13 August 1924 (published in the supplement (Bijblad) to Staatsblad no. 10630, the requirement of 1853 was rescinded, because, it was felt, the reports had become bogged down in excessive detail. A preference was expressed for reporting news concerning the political situation by letter or telegram. To keep informed on a regular basis, however, a report giving a complete survey of the political situation in the relevant province in the first six months of the year was henceforth required. Separate reports covering the second half of the year were not required, but rather were included as an annual political overview in a section of the general annual report required of the provincial authorities. The brief monthly reports were thereby discontinued.

Not all provincial authorities observed the rules diligently and at times therefore there are interruptions in the series. Most provincial series, however, run through the first months of 1940.

tekst