b. How the documents were archived?
The backbone of the protestant missionary archives consists of a series of
documents, the most important being the decisions taken by the board,
dependent committees and missionaries. The central position of decisions
(resoluties) made is related to the archival system of public government that
has been in force in the Low Countries since the later Middle Ages. Committees
and sub-committees convened regularly and negotiated all matters until
a compromise had been reached. A king or a central leader was lacking,
bureaucracy only became stronger after 1900.45 The preference to this way of
governing found its origin in the later Middle Ages and became an archival
tradition in the Netherlands.46 The reverse of this system of archiving is that files
concerning a subject or a case are lacking or have been assembled much later.
Apart from registers with decisions, the researcher finds series of incoming and
outgoing letters, annual financial and general accounts, reports and lists of
members and contributors. The annual general reports usually contain statistics.
These documents were arranged chronologically and the decision registers were
often made accessible by indexes. Indexes were sometimes made later by (ex-)
missionaries who wrote the history of the society or congregation. Outgoing
letters were sometimes copied into special registers, called 'kopieboeken', a
system that prevented letters getting lost. Despite the more hierarchical type
of leadership the archives of Catholic congregations do contain series like acts
of the superior of a 'province' or a congregation and minutes of the Provincial
Council and the General Chapter are the highest organ of many congregations
and orders. We have already mentioned that the archives of congregations and
apostolic vicariates had to be catalogued, if possible by a card system.47 Another
serial group of documents the researcher could expect to find are personal files
of missionaries who were employees of a missionary society or member of a
religious congregation. These files can be very informative but for privacy reasons
mostly closed to the public or they can only be read under strict conditions
only. Some congregations transfer the personal files of deceased members to the
family who may choose to do as they wish with the material. Based on personal
files, religious congregations often made lists, card systems or digital databases
with the names of deceased members and basic data such as the years they
were born, took their vows, were ordained a priest, departed to the mission,
eventually returned and deceased. These lists often contain small photographs
and short biographies written by colleagues. In the Missionshaus of the Rheinische
Missionsgesellschaft (Rhineland Mission Society) at Wuppertal-Barmen a portrait
gallery hangs at a central place in the building, so that every visitor can view this
Ahnengalerie gallery of ancestors],
TON KAPPELHOF ARCHIVES OF DUTCH DHRISTIAN MISSIONARY ORGANISATIONS AND MISSIONARIES
INFORMATION POWER - FROM HAGIOGRAPHY TO HISTORIOGRAPHY
43 Erfgoedcentrum Nederlands Kloosterleven, Sociëteit Afrikaanse Missiën, inv. numbers 582 (Kees Breukel,
covering years 1934-1962), 597 (Harrie Huiskamp, covering years 1948-1949) and 624 (Koos Nadorp,
covering 1927-1971). Nadorp was a lay brother and a printer. He set up en ran the printing office of the
Ghana mission.
44 Camps, Dutch Missionary Activities.
45 IJsselmuiden, Binnenlandse Zaken.
46 Thomassen, Instrumenten, 283. The oldest manual for making inventories made by S. Muller et al. contains
some interesting paragraphs about the central position of resolutieregisters. See: Muller Handleiding, para
graphs 20 and ff.
47 Naz, Dictionnaire, 1033.
161