Introduction: creation and re-creation of archives1
The traditional view that written documents are exact copies of transactions
made by people and organisations and that all negotiations end up sooner or later
as a written document is rather simplistic.2 The current view, recently developed
and propagated by Terry Cook, Eric Ketelaar, Theo Thomassen and other archival
scholars, is that an archive is formed and reformed continuously, contrary to
the idea that an archive grows during a given time and then freezes.3 The records
which researchers have on their desks should be seen as a construction formed
by contributions of several or many people, with their own aims and ideas about
what the archive should be. The creator of an archive can be compared to an
author who produces a book and then, when his views change, brings out a new
edition, with adaptations.
With this idea in mind we can conclude that a lot of archives have several
authors, most of them unknown. 'Dead archives' (in other words: static) that are
only waiting for future research do not exist because record keepers, archivists,
historians and other involved people frequently rearrange an archive, make
entries, destroy 'useless' documents or edit a selection of documents as a source
for historical research. The archives of the Staten-Generacil (States General) of
the Republic of the United Provinces are a fine example of an archive that has
been the result of a process of (re)constructions, that even went on after 1796
when the Staten-Generaal made place for the National Assembly of the Batavian
Republic.
Records are given sense every time again, so several senses may have been
attributed to a record consecutively. To quote Ketelaar: 'Records do not speak
for themselves, but as a matter of course they do tell us something, they have
sense'.4 The new approach launched by Ketelaar and other archival scholars is
in line with the way historians are trained for research. Students of history learn
to be critical of the sources they use and to ask questions such as: why was this
document written and to whom was it addressed, which aims did it have, who
put it in the archive, and why was it preserved?
Private archives in a colonial setting
Many studies on the life course of archives deal implicitly with governmental
documents. Most articles in this volume analyse archives of European colonial
governments. But private archives show us another world seen from a quite
different viewpoint. In this article I want to concentrate on a category of private
archives that has received very little attention up until now: the archives of
Protestant and Catholic missionary organisations and missionaries as formed
between 1800 and 1960. Prospects for future research are promising as at the
moment these archives are becoming more accessible. The archive of the Council
COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA -
THE DUTCH ARCHIVES
1 I thank Dr. Pieter Bol and Petrina Reynolds for their valuable comments and suggestions for correction of
the English text.
2 Ketelaar, 'Archivalisering en archivering', 164-181 (inaugural speech held by prof. Ketelaar at the University
of Amsterdam on October 23d 1998); Thomassen, 'Archiefvormers en archivarissen als auteurs', esp.
117-118 (the maker of an archive is the author) and Thomassen Instrumenten van de macht.
3 Thomassen Instrumenten van de macht, 437.
4 Ketelaar, 'Levend archief', 19.
5 Lems and van Vliet, Geroepen tot zending.
6 See: www.huygens.knaw.nl
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