Positive declarations giving the reasons for setting up, arranging and keeping
an archive are very rare. Having an archive was considered to be self-evident.
Everybody had one, so no explanation was necessary. Information about the
raison d'etre of the archive can sometimes be found by reading between the lines.
Regulations, if present, represent the ideal, but the real situation could be quite
different, especially overseas.
For a better understanding of what is to follow, I will start with a very concise
history of Dutch missionary work. After that I attempt to answer the five
questions. The article ends with the main conclusions.
Protestant missions
Dutch Protestant missions restricted themselves chiefly to the Dutch colonies:
the Netherlands East Indies, Dutch Guyana (Suriname) and the Netherlands
Antilles (Curacao c.a.). The main reason for this being that their resources were
too small for them to enter other 'interesting' regions like China or Africa. Dutch
Catholic missions, though, were really global; catholic priests, monks and nuns
were active all over the world.
A new wave of missionary enthusiasm rose up in Europe and the United States
at the end of the eighteenth century. Religious movements that were inspired
by Protestant pietism summoned a religious revival. People felt reborn and were
'converted' to a deeper belief. A favourite way to put the revitalised religious
mood into practice was with missionary work, aiming at conversion of non-
believers in and outside Europe. The 'reborn' Christians were convinced that
masses of people living overseas were craving for the Gospel.
The missionary movement organised itself along lines which differed from the
past. In many European countries state and church were separated around 1800,
so direct support by European states which was often the case before 1800 was
not continued. In order to evade the numerous Christian denominations new
societies were founded which had no formal connection with existing churches.
The new missionary societies collected money, trained male missionaries in
special schools and sent them to countries all over the world. They were self
supporting, and did not receive any funds from the government. Their ideal can
be characterised as maximalistic: all non-Christians had to be converted to the
'true belief', after which according to some fundamentalists the Last Judgment
would take place. The reality proved to be different as the optimistic expectations
often turned into disappointment. Especially among Muslims the results
were meagre and the adagium became popular among missionaries that a real
Muslim could not be converted. In the meantime we know that a Muslim may be
condemned to death if he converts to another religion. Many societies changed
their policy, they switched to countries inhabited by 'pagan' people because these
people were more receptive to another religion.
The first society of this kind in the Netherlands, the Zeister Zendingsgenootschap,
was founded in 1793 by the Hernhutters, a pietistic sect originating in
Saxony and settling in the Netherlands in about 1730. The Nederlandsch
COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA -
THE DUTCH ARCHIVES
11 Engelen, Van kerk naar rijk Gods40.
12 The canon law discerns congregations and 'orders'. Members of an order take solemn vows when entering
definitely, members of a congregation only take simple vows. Another difference is that the 'clausure' of an
order is more severe. Most missionary organisations, founded after 1800, were congregations.
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