relevant and important - archives have been overlooked in the discipline. Only
then can archivists and other information professionals realize the importance
and potential in the profession and think about their profession in a way that
acknowledges and respects its role.
Perhaps the most well-known early example of the merging of conquest and
information management in Europe can be found in the Domesday Book
created in 1086/87 after the Norman conquest of England.2 It also provides
an early look at the effects on the national psyche of a foreign power using
information to control a people. The Domesday Book's vast scope, surveying
hundreds of thousands of landowners, peasants, and others, was merely one
aspect of the 11th century conquest of England by the Normans under William
the Conqueror. The Norman elite wrote in Latin, and, finding written English to
be sub-standard, disregarded many pre-conquest government documents.3 The
invasion also led to the evolution of English from Old to Middle English. None
the less, the language would persevere and would eventually become spoken
around the world dispersed by conquests originating from the same shores upon
which William descended. As seen from the Domesday Book, records can be a
means for control. As seen from the evolution of language, conquest can lead to
cultural changes that last for centuries, including in records management.
Forms of Colonies in the British Empire
To fully comprehend the connections between outside forces and records some
understanding of British imperialism must first be established. At the most basic
level there were two distinct classes of colonies.4 Native colonies, where the
British held political power but not a demographic majority, as in the cases of
Singapore, Hong Kong, and India. In these colonies, 'colonialism was taught as a
natural historical succession of events'where the British colonizers-through the
eyes of the British-were more advanced than the native population.5
The other system of colonization was the white, or settler, colonies like Australia,
Canada, or New Zealand where settlers came to forge a new life - whether by
choice or force - and the post-colonial governments viewed themselves as merely
the successors to British control, and held strong to their British cultural ties. The
native colonies were 'an aggregation of territories, constitutionally subordinate
to Westminster, neither Christian, nor white, nor English in culture and
speech,' while the settler colonies were founded on 'the ideals of representative
government and a large measure of freedom for its component nations.'6 Even in
the United States, itself a conglomeration of settler colonies, the New England
Federalists saw the necessity in maintaining diplomacy with Britain after the
COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA -
THE DUTCH ARCHIVES
2 Norman England may not be a colony, as feuding Medieval monarchs fighting for more land was much
different than modern armies and navies conquering poorer and unevenly matched people in the 19th
century, but the comparisons can still be drawn. Hugh Thomas argues that the Normans 'did not have the
institutional structures and technological and economic base to make the kinds of changes European
colonialists so often did in the early modern and modern periods' (Thomas, Norman Conquest, 143),
despite the fact that earlier in his book he claims 'the Norman Conquest brought a deep rupture in the
history of writing in English (Thomas, Norman Conquest, 134).' I would argue that intentional or not -
and it cannot be said that cultural ruptures caused by the British in the 19th century were any more or less
intentional - changing the course of written English does appear to be exactly the kinds of changes made
on a cultural and national level by the British in the modern period. Thinking in terms of structures, tech
nology, and economics overlooks far greater impacts that all conquests have.
3 Thomas, Norman Conquest, 9.
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