that the Catholic mission received he was confronted with unreliable statistics
published by Catholic writers and dubious statistics published by the Propaganda
Fide. Evidently, he did not get admission to do research in Catholic archives.58The
archive was used as a source for historical publications, but up until 1980 most
of these jubilee books and chronicles were written by board members and retired
or repatriated missionaries. The undertone was often hagiographic. The founder
was portrayed as a hero who wrestled with a lack of money, too few enthusiastic
converts and also governmental obstruction. But finally the Lord helped out in
the form of a rich widow or a wealthy merchant who gave a huge sum of money
and the flow of young men and women asking to be sent out to the mission
increased tremendously. Jubilee books can still be used, however, as they are often
full of facts and figures and were written by people who were involved. A good
example is the chronicle written by the Jesuit Van Aernsbergen. He wrote a survey
of the Catholic mission in the Dutch East Indies starting in 1512 when the
Portuguese arrived in South-East Asia.59
Access to archives of Catholic missionary organisations is still often restricted,
especially regarding personal files and recent board papers. According to the
canon law, documents that may be detrimental to living persons or the church
have to be stored in the secret archive to which almost nobody is admitted.
The Dutch Colonial Office was certainly interested in the doings of the
Protestant and Catholic missions. An extensive documentary system set up
by the Colonial Office and in use between 1815 and 1933 refers frequently
to journals published by Protestant and Catholic missionary organisations.
Articles published in these journals were catalogued in registers and a very short
summary was added. The Colonial Office, however, does not seem to have made
any attempt to get information from the mission archives. I have never found any
trace of questions put by the Colonial Office to missionary boards or superiors of
religious congregations.60
Missionary archives: instruments of power
Catholic and Protestant missions differed from each other. They often saw the
other as dangerous and quite often as a competitor capable of treachery. Orders
and congregations had their own spirituality and, what is more important, felt
they were different. Women in the missions had their own duties and behaved
differently from their male counterparts. Despite all this, missionary archives
have had up until recently an 'instrumental' function. The papers enabled the
missionary organisation to do its work. Information found in the archives was
used as an instrument for making propaganda and formed the basis of mission
policy. It was also used as an instrument to gain and to keep power. Those who
had unrestricted access to the archives were more, better and earlier informed
than others. So it is not surprising that policy makers, that is to say members
of the board, superiors of a province, the prefect of the Propaganda Fide and
COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA -
THE DUTCH ARCHIVES
58 Warneck, Abrisz protestantischen Missionen, 8th edition, 169-172. He ends with the words: 'anyway, a clear
and statistic survey about it i.e. the Catholic mission] does not exist. You never find anything in the
Catholic missionary literature'. The quote on p. 172.
59 A good example: Aernsbergen, Chronologisch overzicht.
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