|
contents |
 |
Archives created in Asia and South Africa
|
|
5. Archives in Sri Lanka
he
archives of the Dutch administration of Ceylon have been preserved
in a fairly intact state. The bulk of these archives is made
up of the documents of the administrative bodies of the capital
Colombo. Only some smaller or larger fragments of the archives
of the subordinate establishments have survived. The archives
of the chief settlement in Colombo were described in an inventory
compiled in 1943(11).
Although not immediately apparent from the inventory, once
again the archives in Colombo present the picture of typical
establishment archives based on the correspondence with superiors
in the Dutch Republic or in Batavia, with alongside them the
resoluties with annexes and
dagregisters of the local
administration, and archives from the various subordinate
establishments.

17th century filing cabinet
in the Dutch Period Museum in Colombo (click to
enlarge)
|
|
There is a large series of
resoluties with annexes of
the Governor and Council, with the companion series of secret
resoluties, and the resoluties
from special departments. Besides these, there are various
series of incoming and outgoing letters (ordinary, secret
and from the internal and military departments), which are
divided up into the categories patria
(fatherland) and Cape of Good Hope, Batavia, various subordinate
establishments, and other establishments in the octrooigebied.
What is remarkable is the absence of a series of dagregisters
from Colombo. These must have existed, seeing that parts of
them are enclosed in the overgekomen
brieven en papieren in the VOC
archives in the Netherlands. One chapter in the inventory,
'internal affairs', besides including all sorts of series
of documents referring to particular subjects, also contains
protocollen van civiele akten
and legislation. Another chapter, 'external affairs', not
only contains correspondence with other VOC
establishments (it is not clear why these were not put together
with the other correspondence), but also includes treaties
and correspondence with local authorities and representatives
of other European powers. As well as the archives of the Governor
and Council, there are also holdings from the hoofdadministrateur
(head of trade) and from the dessave
(district chief) of Colombo. The archives of the dessave
contains a rich collection of tombos
(sort of cadastral registers). There are also extensive archives
of the Raad van Justitie relating
to both civil and criminal actions, and of lower-ranking legal
bodies such as the landraad
(court of first instance) and the civiele
raad. Among the records of temporary governmental committees
and persons are the archives of the Geheime
Commissie (Secret Committee responsible for the conduct
of the war with Kandy 1762-1766), consisting of resoluties
and correspondence, and those of a few special committees
which were sent from the Netherlands.
Moreover, besides the state
archives there are yet other documents of Dutch origin. The
Wolvendaal Church in Colombo possesses the archives of the
Dutch parish there(12).
Besides the archives of the
chief establishment in Colombo, in the National Archives of
Sri Lanka there are considerable holdings from the subordinate
offices at Galle, Matara, Jaffna and Wanni. These holdings
are particularly important because such subordinate offices
had fewer direct relations with the central authorities in
Batavia and the Dutch Republic, so that there is less about
them to be found in the VOC
archives. There is a recent inventory of these holdings(13).
The Galle archives contain
the usual series of resoluties,
correspondence with the superiors in Colombo, Batavia and
the Dutch Republic, registers of wills, protocollen
van civiele akten of the secretaries, appointments
registers, reports of diplomatic missions, registers containing
instructions to local functionaries, dagregisters,
auction books and land registers. Besides these, there are
the archives of separate offices and committees such as those
of the negotieboekhouder (trade
accountant: which actually contains little about book-keeping
but a lot of administrative documents), of the tombo
committee (the main part of which is comprised of population
lists), and of the school board. There are also large archives
from the Raad van Justitie
in Galle and of the landraad
of the Galle district.
The archives of the district of
Madurai, then subordinate to Galle now in the Indian state
of Tamil Nadu, which have been preserved, mainly date from
the last period of the Company administration. These archives
contain both the holdings of the dessave
as well as that of the landraad.
As far as their composition goes they are similar to the archives
of Galle.
With the exception of a series
of tombos, the Jaffna
archives contain only a few fragments. The same is true for
the archives of the district administration of Wanni, only
a few fragments of which still remain.
|
|
|