Political scientists define a colony as a territory that fulfils three important
criteria: it is ruled as a unit that is administratively distinctive from the core
territory of a ruling power; there is a lack of consent from the population ruled
and the majority of the population in the colony is culturally different from the
ruling power.13 Colonialism is described here in terms of an unequal relationship.
The German historian Jürgen Osterhammel defines colonialism as 'a relationship
of domination between an indigenous (or forcible imported) majority and a
minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of
the colonised people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit
of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural
compromises with the colonised population, the colonisers are convinced of
their own superiority and of their ordained mandate to rule'.14 However, he also
attempted to define the difference between the terms colonialism and colony.
Although he acknowledges that these terms are usually mingled together, there
are instances of colonies which have not given rise to colonialism. Such colonies
occur in those territories where the indigenous population is numerically not in
the majority. Because of the lack of an indigenous people, a system of domination
- which is in general considered to be the most determinant factor in colonialism
- could not be developed. He called this the New England type of colony.15
This type of colony is characterised by the immigration of settlers: areas where
large numbers of Europeans moved to in order to settle and create an existence
there. Such territories were generally annexed by the European powers while any
native aboriginal population that may have been there was displaced or absorbed
into the new order. These replicated European society or created a 'neo-Europe'
based for the major part on the social relationships and institutions copied
from the country of origin.16 Examples of such colonies are North America,
Australia and New Zealand. At the other end of the colonisation spectrum,
there are the so-called extractive states which were only intent on extracting raw
materials and other economic resources and commodities from the colonies
to enrich the home country. This kind of coloniser barely paid attention to the
social relationships in the colonised dominions while the colonial institutions
provided the infrastructure for the enrichment of the home country. One of
the most extreme examples of this type of colonisation was the Belgian Congo,
which was used as a private domain by Leopold II of Belgium with the only
purpose of acquiring wealth as quickly as possible. The Belgian king was actually
inspired by the successful Dutch colonial policies in the Dutch East Indies. He
was very impressed by the profits from the cultural policies which made Java an
'inexhaustible goldmine'.17
Archiving
As the European powers sailed across the globe, conquering continents and
trading for political as well as economic motives from the early modern
COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA -
THE DUTCH ARCHIVES
13 Hack and Rettig, 'Imperial systems of power', 2.
14 Osterhammel, Colonialism, 16-17.
15 Osterhammel, Colonialism, 17. Osterhammel also describes the opposite variant; colonialism without
a colony as 'situations in which dependencies of the 'colonialist' type appear, not between a 'mother
country' and a geographically remote colony, but between dominant 'centres' and dependent 'peripheries'
within national states or regionally integrated land empires.
16 Crosby, Ecological imperialism.
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