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. 14

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Jaarboeken Stichting Archiefpublicaties | 2012 | | pagina 16