influence and the transformation of existing relationships. C.A. Bayly rightly
pointed out that even before the general spread of the electrical telegraph
and steam vessels between 1850 and 1880, 'the speed of the consignment
and despatch of goods in international trade and government had apparently
increased very substantially. The beginnings of the modern international system
were driven, therefore, not so much by technological change, but by prior
political and cultural change 21Y. Kaukiainen concluded in his research that
'quicker communications did not develop as a spin-off from new technology,
but rather as a response to an active demand'.22 He found out that the greatest
acceleration in the transmission of information took place in the period before
the telegraph came in operation. In 1820 it took on average 154 days to bring a
message from Calcutta to London. In 1860 this had shrunk to 39 days. Ten years
later, when the telegraph was available, it took only two days.23
Of course there is no need to question the important contribution of technology
to the tremendous acceleration in the exchange and moving of objects, but the
patterns that determined how those lines of communication ran were drawn
up a long time before. In this context the metaphor of the network can be used
even long before the tangible cables came into operation to interconnect many
different places in the world.24 Kerry Ward shows how the Verenigde Oost-
Indische Compagnie (VOC - Dutch East India Company) consisted of various
interconnected networks. Within the VOC, Ward distinguishes 'material
networks of bureaucracy, correspondence, trade, transportation and
migration as well as discursive networks of law, administration, information,
diplomacy and culture' along and within which various forms of exchange
took place.25 The networks of trade, shipping, law, diplomacy, migration and
information were the main separate circuits in which, dependent on the type
of network, goods, ships, people, information and the like, circulated about.
These circuits all had their own dynamics and interfaced with each other at
intersections or nodes (for instance factorijen (trading posts) and colonial
centres of trade and administration). At those nodes, goods, people, ideas and
information could change networks. Following Albert-Laszló Barabasi, I prefer to
make a distinction between nodes and connectors. Connectors are nodes with
an anomalously large number of links.26 Like Bombay as the main connector
between South Asia and the United Kingdom, Batavia was the main connector
between various Asian and European networks. Thanks to the information
networks which linked the subordinate offices in the VOC trading area with
Batavia, the governor-general in Batavia afforded a good view of the trading
opportunities in Asia. For a long time, information about almost all Asian affairs
was sent to the board of the VOC, the Heeren XVII in the Dutch Republic, only
via the office of the governor-general in Batavia. It was the sum of these networks
that formed the trading empire and the VOC therefore had the character of an
organisation with a modular structure.27
CHARLES JEURGENS INFORMATION ON THE MOVE. COLONIAL ARCHIVES: PILLARS OF PAST
GLOBAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE
24 The use of the image of networks is not new. See for instance: Braudel, Civilisation Matériell; Gaastra also
used the picture of networks: 'Batavia, the rendez-vous, occupied a unique place in the system. It was
the central point where all the threads of the administrative, commercial and maritime network came
together'. See Gaastra, De geschiedenis van de VOC, 71.
25 Ward, Networks of Empire, 10.
26 Barabasi, Linked, 55-56.
27 Ward, Networks of Empire, 302.
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