VOC ARCHIVES CREATED
IN THE NETHERLANDS
B.J. Slot, M.C.J.C.
van Hoof and F. Lequin *
Introduction
o
a large extent the structure of the VOC archives follows that
of the organization of the Company itself in the Dutch Republic.
The records of the six chambers of the VOC constitute the
six main archives. From the point of view of content and bulk,
the archives of the Amsterdam and Zeeland Chambers are undeniably
the most important. Most of the internal organization can
be retraced in these two archives. This is much less true
of the archives of the four remaining chambers, only a few
larger or smaller fragments of which have escaped the hand
of destruction.
The archival structure varies
slightly from chamber to chamber. The reason for this lies
in the differences in the internal organization of the chambers
or in divergent methods of archive management during the VOC
period. Besides this, it is impossible to reconstruct the
original order on the basis of the fragmentary remnants -
most notably in the smaller chambers. Naturally the most conspicuous
difference is the presence of the records of the Heren
XVII (the directors of the Company) in the archives
of the Amsterdam Chamber.
Roughly speaking, the principal
components of a Chamber archive follow a line which runs from
the general to the particular, from the planning of policy
to its implementation. This is most clearly observable in
the arrangement of the archives of the Amsterdam and Zeeland
Chambers: in both chambers, following the charters which form
the constitution of the Company, come the resoluties
(proceedings), the outgoing documents, the incoming documents,
documents pertaining to committees and what are termed 'documents
kept separately, originally miscellaneous documents'; all
these are followed by the documents of the executive departments
of the chambers. The position of the committees' archives
forms an important exception to the arrangement according
to the line of policy making. The task of the committees was
pre-eminently one of policy-planning, but in the archives
their records are placed after the resoluties
and the incoming and outgoing documents. The abridged table
of contents of the inventory provides a useful survey of the
contents of the archives. (See the general survey on the webpage
with the
VOC finding aids).
The main surviving categories
of the archives are described in the notes which follow. Only
very extensive categories of documents or those of outstanding
importance are considered here. The descriptions treat the
structure and content of the main series very briefly, provide
instructions for their use and indicate specific finding aids.
The archives of the Amsterdam Chamber are taken as the basis
for the order in which the categories are discussed.
The first category is comprised
of the resoluties of the Heren
XVII and of the chambers. These are especially important
for research into policy as this was formulated in the Dutch
Republic. The next section covers the uitgaande
brievenboeken (letter-books of outgoing documents)
of the Heren XVII and of the
chambers: instructions to the octrooigebied
(the area under charter to the Company) as well as correspondence
within the Dutch Republic about activities and events in the
octrooigebied.
This section is followed by
the most extensive part of the archives: the various groups
of documents sent from the octrooigebied
to the Dutch Republic. These include the kopie-resoluties
(duplicate proceedings) of the Governor-General and Council,
letters with enclosures sent directly to the Dutch Republic
from the main establishments in the octrooigebied,
and the various duplicate letters with enclosures sent to
the Governor-General and Council from the subordinate establishments
with enclosures (the so-called Batavia's
ingekomen brievenboek or the Batavia letter-book of
incoming documents). This section is vital to an understanding
of policy, shipping and trade within the octrooigebied.
It contains valuable data about local conditions and events
in Asia.
Thereafter come, as far as
they have survived, the archives of the committees of the
Heren XVII and the chambers,
which are extremely fragmentary. The description of this set
of documents is followed by a section containing brief remarks
about the files on various subjects which have been kept separately
by the administration. This deal with a number of diverse.
This concludes the central part of the description of the
archives of the Heren XVII
and the Chamber of Amsterdam and of the Zeeland Chamber. Finally
the most important files of the archives of the departments
(offices with specific assignments) and functionaries are
dealt with. These include documents from the pay office which
are very important for prosopographic research, as well as
the accounts of the chambers which contain data about the
economic activities of the Company in the Dutch Republic.
After this survey of the VOC archives some information is
added about VOC documents to be found in various collections
of private papers of VOC officials and functionaries and in
the collection Aanwinsten
(acquisitions) of the National Archives of the Netherlands.
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