heading 'bijzondere onderwerpen' (particular subjects) in the new inventory.
Moreover, many archival documents created by the Hoge Regering are kept under
the collections of 'gewestelijke stukken' (regional documents) and 'buitenland'
(foreign) at the Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia.35
To organize their documents the Hoge Regering (as well as the Heeren XVII) used
the resolution system, as most of the early modern (state) institutions did.36
In such a system decisions are at the core of the archive. All other documents
are connected to the (date of the) decisions, like the incoming and outgoing
correspondence. Therefore, the decisions can be seen as the 'backbone' of the
archive. Indeed, next to large series of notulen (minutes of the meetings) and
resoluties (the decisions, in all their administrative forms), series of bijlagen
(annexes) to the resolutions can be found. These annexes consist of the incoming
letters that have led to the resolutions (the dates of the resolutions are written
on the documents). Taken together, the notulen, resoluties and bijlagen form a
large part of the total archive of the Hoge Regering. However, it seems that the
Generale Secretarye did not implement the resolution system on all documents.
For example, separate series of incoming and outgoing correspondence with the
Dutch Republic, the outposts, and 'native princes' can be found. These books
mostly include a table of contents, in which the letters are listed chronologically.
Although decisions were taken on the basis of these letters, it appears that they
were not treated as annexes to the resolutions. Moreover, the above-mentioned
dagregister cannot only be seen as a daily report of everything going on in the port
and town of Batavia, it also serves as another registration system of the Generale
Secretarye. One can, for example, read, "at nine o'clock in the morning a native
vessel arrived, carrying a letter from the director of Bantam". In many cases parts
of the letters are even copied to the dagregister as extracts. In the daily reports all
the incoming and outgoing correspondence are registered in chronological order.
It looks as if the resolution system and the dagregisters were used simultaneously.
Compared to the seventeenth century, however, it is remarkable that the size of
the dagregisters considerably decreases, whereas with the resolution books it is
quite the opposite. In the eighteenth century many days go by when "nothing
happened" in the daily reports.37 A possible explanation might be a more strict
compliance to the resolution system in the eighteenth century. However, further
research on the relationship between the two registration systems is necessary.
In the eighteenth century, to maintain grip on the growing amount of paper,
it became necessary to create indexes through which the archive would be
accessible. Or, to cite Ann Stoler, "paper trails called for an elaborate coding
system by which they could be tracked colonial office buildings were
constructed to make sure they were properly catalogued and stored".38 Using
COLONIAL LEGACY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA -
THE DUTCH ARCHIVES
35 Chijs, Inventaris van's lands archief te Batavia; Balk and Van Dijk, Inventaris van het archief van de Hoge
Regering, 160-168.
36 The archive is comparable with the archive of the Staten-Generaal of the Dutch Republic, on which Theo
Thomassen wrote his dissertation. Thomassen, Instrumenten van de macht. About the resolution system and
indices, see there pages 283-284, and 380-383.
37 The dagregisters are found under inventory numbers 2457-2622 of the archive of the Hoge Regering. ANRI,
Hoge Regering.
38 Stoler, 'Colonial archives and the arts of governance', 90.
39 The realia on the resolutions of the Heeren XVII - further discussed in my master thesis - are probably also
created in the first half of the eighteenth century. However, in his dissertation on the archive of
the Staten-Generaal, Thomassen argues that the first clerk of the Staten-Generaal already decided to
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