Locations of Dutch colonial archives: Indonesia
In contrast to some of the other colonisers after the colonies gained their
independence, the Dutch left their archives behind.40 This means that most of
the former Dutch colonies are in the possession of a large number of archives
written in the Dutch language. These archives are not only significant symbols
of the colonial past of the countries concerned, they are also a goldmine for
autonomous historiography, although the problem of an intensive and wider use
of the Dutch language should not be underestimated.
In 1985, on the basis of information that had been hard to come by, the historian
Drooglever provided an overview of the situation of the Dutch language archives
in Indonesia. The backbone of the Dutch administrative archives in the colonial
era is made up from the extensive archives of the General Secretariat. By the time
Drooglever produced his overview, the materials from the periods 1816 to 1891
and 1944 to 1950 had been placed in the archival depots of the Reinier de Klerk
Building in Jakarta while the period between these was stored in the premises of
the former archives in Buitenzorg, now Bogor. These archives have in the mean
time been relocated to modern archive depots. Many of the archives up to circa
1890 from the residencies had been transferred to the Landsarchief the central
archive of the Netherlands Indies and predecessor of the Arsip Nasional Republik
Indonesia in the 1930s41; if they have not been destroyed, the 20th century
residence archives could possibly be found somewhere in the former government
buildings. Very little is known about the fate of the various departmental
archives.42
ANRI keeps a reasonable inventory of the Dutch - largely colonial - archives
which had been preserved in Indonesia. Since the publication of the Guide to
the sources of Asian history in Indonesia, the inventorisation of the VOC archives
(approximately 2500 ml) in particular has been given much attention 43 while
this attention is now increasingly being redirected onto the archives from the
colonial period (approx. 6 km) which are being kept in the ANRI.44 The most
significant common characteristic of these colonial archives is that they are for
the most part written in the Dutch language and that the majority was made by
the colonial administrative bodies. With all this emphasis on Jakarta, it would
be wrong to form the impression that there were hardly any archives to be found
anywhere else but at ANRI. There is sufficient indication that a systematic
inventorisation would still unearth a considerable number of archives.45
16
COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA -
THE DUTCH ARCHIVES
40 Not all European countries carried this out in the same way. The British have transferred many colonial
archives to Britain. In her book Owning Memory Jeanette Allis Bastian has given a penetrating account of
how a community (Virgin Islands) lost its archives and what it mean for the local community because the
former coloniser, Denmark, had taken the archives to Denmark.
41 An interesting article which deals in detail with the significance of these archives was written by Carey,
'The residency archive of Jogjakarta'.
42 Drooglever, 'Onaangeboorde bronnen', 121.
43 Balk, Van Dijk and Kortland, The archives of the Dutch East India Company.
44 In 1990, the guide Handleiding voor historisch onderzoek in het archief van de Algemene Secretarie en voor
ganger1816-1942 (Jakarta 1990) written by Rob Kramer and André Tempelaars was published. This guide
was the result of a joint project between Algemeen Rijksarchief in the Netherlands [nowadays National
Archives] and Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia in Jakarta, aiming to make the archives of the general
