also applies to the colonial archives which are sometimes described in positive
terms as 'mutual heritage', but can also be characterised as 'contested heritage',
'difficult heritage' or even 'places of pain and shame', depending on the
viewpoint.30
Instrumental approach
The colonial archives form an important part of the material legacy and are
of invaluable significance for the study of the history of European-Asiatic
relations, although the first professor of colonial history in the Netherlands,
H.T. Colenbrander31 already warned against overestimating this significance in
his address Nederlcind's betrekking tot Indië in Verleden en Toekomst (Indonesia's
relations with the Netherlands in the past and the future) in 1918. In his
oration he examined the limitations of history 'gleaned from documents' and
emphasised: '...from Dutch documents, to be sure'. According to Colenbrander
this means that one needs to keep 'an eye open for the truth which we, as Dutch
people here in the Netherlands, can only approach the real history of the Dutch
East Indies from one side and that for the truth to make sense to the native, must
be approached by the indigenous population from the opposite side entirely. Any
gestures of approach between them and us are still a rare thing, but if Indonesia
continues to grow, this will increase'.32 In this latter paragraph Colenbrander
referred to the need for using indigenous archives and other material sources
to achieve a balanced historiography.33 However, this is by a long way not
always possible due to the lack of written documents. A good example of this
is the historiography of Taiwan, where the original population did not use any
writing. The importance of the VOC archives from the period when Taiwan was
a VOC trading post (1624-1662) can therefore hardly be overestimated in the
construction of the early history of the Taiwanese Austronesian population,
categorised these days as Aborigines who now form approximately 2% of the total
population.34
Locations of Dutch colonial archives: the Netherlands
Although this annual is not concerned with the question of where colonial
archives are kept and the manner in which archivists have made these accessible,
it would be of benefit to devote a few words to this topic in this introductory
COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA -
THE DUTCH ARCHIVES
30 For a recent historiographic overview of heritage, refer to: Silverman, 'Contested Cultural Heritage'. For the
approach to heritage as 'painful places of shame" see: Coté, 'Postcolonial shame'. See for a critical essay on
archives and heritage: Lowenthal, 'Archives, heritage and history'.
31 http://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/BWN/lemmata/bwnl/colenbrander
32 Colenbrander, Nederlands' betrekking tot Indië in verleden en toekomst, 27.
33 There is a plethora of literature on this theme. For example, see: Beasley and Hall, Historical Writing;
Soedjatmoko, An introduction to Indonesian Historiography; Meilink-Roelofsz, Van geheim tot openbaar;
Klooster, Indonesiërs schrijven hun geschiedenis, and Florida, Writing the past.
34 In a large scale research project during the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st
century, the VOC archives were closely scrutinised for information on the Formosan population: Blussé,
Everts, and Freeh, The Formosan Encounter.
35 The figures from the VOC archives are reasonably reliable. Approximately 2500 metres of the VOC archives
are kept in Jakarta, 1400 metres in The Hague, 450 metres in South Africa, 310 metres in Sri Lanka,
65 metres in India and 15 metres in London. If the archives of the 19th and 20th century colonial state are
added, it is estimated that an additional 7000 metres is kept at ANRI Jakarta and an additional 5000 metres
in Nationaal Archief at The Hague.
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