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Hundreds of Rosetta Stones and Other Patient Papers: The Dutch Records at the Tamil Nadu Archives, Chennai (Madras)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2011

Lennart Bes
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Extract

Plans of eighteenth-century Indian houses, papers concerning the Dutch hospital at Cochin, Tamil texts inscribed on palm leaves, documents of Dutch institutions in India functioning under British rule, and numerous proclamations each drawn up in Dutch, Portuguese as well as Malayalam, reminding one of hundreds of Rosetta Stones, these are just a few examples of the largely unique documents that are referred to as the Dutch Records and are kept at the Tamil Nadu Archives in the South Indian city of Chennai (formerly known as Madras). These materials seem to comprise virtually all that remains of the archives that were left by the Dutch in India to be taken over by the British. (A large part of the original archives must have been lost in the course of time.) They consist of about 1,800 volumes and a couple of bundles (numbered 1 to 1763), stretch 64 metres, and date from the period between 1643 and 1852. The Dutch Records at Chennai in fact encompass the remnants of the archives of four factories set up by the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC, Dutch East India Company), which all functioned as the headquarters of a kantoor (regional establishment): Cochin (headquarters of Malabar, modern-day Kerala), Nagapatnam and later Pulicat (Coromandel, present-day Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh), Surat (Surat, modern-day Gujarat), and Chinsura or Hooghly (Bengal). These four archives have different custodial histories and were apparently put together just because they were all created by VOC institutions and their legal successors.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , March 2003 , pp. 93 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 2003

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References

Notes

1 Tamil Nadu Archives and Historical Research, 28/29, Gandhi-Irwin Road, Egmore, Chennai - 600 008, Tamil Nadu, India. Tel: + 91 (0)44 825 43 38, fax: + 91 (0)44 825 60 47, email:‘tnarchives@vsnl.net’. Visiting hours: Monday-Friday 8.00-20.00 hrs, Saturday-Sunday 10.00-17.00 hrs; application for records and assistance by the staff: Monday-Friday 10.00-17.00 hrs; closed on national holidays (c. 15 days per year). Foreigners wishing to consult records in the Tamil Nadu Archives need a research visa and a letter of recommendation from their embassy. In addition, they have to pay a small sum as enrolment fee as well as a caution deposit in the Postal Savings Bank in their name. The latter is refundable on production of a copy of the research results. For more information, see the web site www.tanap.net.

2 As numbered in the List of Volumes of Dutch and Danish Records Preserved in the Madras Record Office and the Supplementary Catalogue of Dutch Records, see the four regional sections in the text.

3 Under the VOC administration, Malabar included the Kanara and (after 1676) Konkan Coasts. The Fishery Coast, stretching from Cape Comorin to Point Calimere, was managed by the Dutch Government on Ceylon until 1796, and from Sadras in Coromandel between 1818 and 1825. The years of official Dutch presence in the four Indian regions are as follows: Malabar 1647-1795; Coromandel 1605-1781, 1784-1795, 1818-1825; Surat 1617-1781, 1784-1795, 1818-1825; Bengal late 1620s-1781, 1784-1795, 1817-1825. For more information on the administrative organisation and presence of the VOC in India, see the regional introductions in Gommans, Jos, Bes, Lennart, and Kruijtzer, Gijs, Dutch Sources on South Asia, c. 1600-1825. Vol. 1Google Scholar : Bibliography and Archiual Guide to the National Archives at The Hague (The Netherlands) (New Delhi 2001)Google Scholar . For two recent general surveys of the VOC and its presence in India, see Winius, George D. and Vink, Markus P.M., The Merchant-Warrior Pacified. The VOC (The Dutch East India Co.Google Scholar ) and its Changing Political Economy in India (Delhi 1991)Google Scholar , and Prakash, Om, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India, New Cambridge History of India II, 5 (Cambridge 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 The legal successors to the VOC were:

1796-1800: Comité tot de Zaken van de Oost-Indische Handel en Bezittingen (Committee regarding East Indian Trade and Possessions);

1800-1806: Raad der Aziatische Bezittingen en Etablissementen (Council ofAsian Possessions and Establishments);

1806-1810: Ministerie van Koophandel en Koloniën / Marine en Koloniën (Ministry of Commercial and Colonial Affairs/Naval and Colonial Affairs);

1810-1814: Hollandse Divisie bij het Ministerie van Marine en Koloniën te Parijs (Dutch Division at the Ministry of Naval and Colonial Affairs in Paris), during this period the Netherlands was annexed by France;

from 1814 onward: Ministerie van Koloniën (Ministry of Colonial Affairs).

5 So far, hardly any study has been published that makes substantial use of the Dutch Records at Chennai. A few works that contain references to this material are Gupta, Ashin Das, Malabar in Asian Trade 1740-1800 (Cambridge 1967)Google Scholar , s'Jacob, Hugo K. ed., De Nederlanders in Kerala, 1663-1701: De memories en instructies betreffende het commar.dement Malabar van de VOC, Rijks Geschiedkundige Publication, Kleine Serie 43 (The Hague 1976)Google Scholar , idem , The Rajas of Cochin 1663-1720: Kings, Chiefs and the Dutch East India Company (New Delhi 2000)Google Scholar , Koshy, M.O., The Dutch Power in Kerala, 1729-1758 (Delhi 1989)Google Scholar , Iyer, S. Krishna, Travancore-Dutch Relations 1729-1741 (Trivandrum 1995)Google Scholar , Mukhund, Kanakalatha, The Trading World of the Tamil Merchant: Evolution of Merchant Capitalism in the Coromandel (London and Hyderabad 1999)Google Scholar , and ‘Lennart Bes, The Setupatis, the Dutch, and Other Bandits in Eighteenth-Century Ramnad (South India)’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 44/4 (2001)Google Scholar.

6 One should note that the Tamil Nadu Archives may not keep all inventories mentioned in this article. As far as I have been able to ascertain, either the research hall or the library keeps a copy of Heytigers' Press List of Ancient Dutch Records, the List of Volumes of Dutch and Danish Records, Van Kan's Compagniesbescheiden en aanverwante archiualia, Fruytier's Supplementary Catalogue of Dutch Records, and in all probability the Catalogus van Hollandsche handschriften, brieven, en ofpcieele stukken. In the Netherlands, all inventories are available in the Nationaal Archief at The Hague. The relevant section of the List of Volumes ofDutch and Danish Records and Fruytier's Supplementary Catalogue of Dutch Records can also be consulted on www.tanap.net.

7 Partly based on Kan, J. van, Compagniesbescheiden en aanverwante archivalia in Britsch-Indië en op Ceylon (Batavia 1931) 113–116.Google Scholar

8 See www.tanap.net, which also gives access to the relevant section of the List of Volumes ofDutch and Danish Records Preserved in the Madras Record Office and Fruytier's Supplementary Catalogue of Dutch Records.

9 During the years 1780-1784 and 1795-1818, the Dutch settlements in Coromandel were taken over by the British. Nevertheless, the list published by Van Kan includes Dutch documents dating from both periods.

10 Partly based on Kan, Van, ‘Lijst der oude boeken van de voormalige Nederlandsche Oost-Indische Corripagnie ter kuste Coromandel/List of Records of the Dutch East India Company Settlement on the Coromandel Coast 1702-1795’, Verhandelingen vanhetKoninklijk Bata-viaasch Genootschap voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen 71 (1932)Google Scholar.

11 Partly based on Kan, Van, Compagniesbescheiden, 77–105Google Scholar . Fruytier's catalogue is available at www.tanap.net.

12 Partly based on Kan, Van, Compagniesbescheiden, 27–74Google Scholar . Fruytier's catalogue is available at www.tanap.net.

13 Nationaal Archief, Alexanderhof, Prins Willem20Google Scholar , The Hague / P.O. Box 90520, 2509 LM The Hague, The Netherlands. Tel: + 31 (0)70 331 54 00, fax: + 31 (0)70 331 54 99, email: ‘info@nationaalarchief.nl’. Visiting hours: Monday closed, Tuesday 9.00-21.00 hrs, Wednesday-Friday 9.00-17.00 hrs, Saturday 9.00-13.00 hrs; materials to be consulted on Saturday have to be ordered on the preceding Friday at 13.00 hrs at the latest; closed on national holidays (c. 10 days per year). For more information, see www.nationaalarchief.nl and www.tanap.net.

14 The National Archives of Sri Lanka (Colombo), the Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia (Jakarta), and the Cape Town Archives Repository also keep related materials, albeit to a lesser extent For more information on these repositories and inventories of their relevant archives, see www.tanap.net.

15 For the inventories of these archives (and many other archives deriving from or concerning the VOC), see www.tanap.net For surveys of all materials in the Netherlands concerning the Dutch presence in India and Ceylon during the early-modem period, see Gommans i.a., Dutch Sources on South Asia, c. 1600-1825, Vol. 1, and Lennart Bes, Dutch Sources on South Asia, c. 1600-1825. Vol. 2 : Archival Guide to the Repositories in The Netherlands Other than the National Archives (New Delhi 2003) (forthcoming)Google Scholar.

16 For the inv. nos that make up each series and the exact years they date from, see the (provisional) inventory at www.tanap.net.

17 For a survey of the resoluties of Cochin at the Nationaal Archief in The Hague, see Gommans i.a., Dutch Sources on South Asia, Vol. 1, 183-189, 204, 206, 209.

18 For a survey of the memories van overgave of the Commandeurs of Malabar at the Nationaal Archief in The Hague, see Gommans i.a., Dutch Sources on South Asia, Vol. 1, 181-182, 204-205, 207, 212-213. For the publications, see Appendix I and s'Jacob, De Nederlanders in Kerala.

19 For a survey of various kinds of Malabar dagregisters at the Nationaal Archief in The Hague, see Gommans i.a., Dutch Sources on South Asia, Vol. 1, 190-192, 203-204, 206.

20 Most of the correspondence with Ceylon also appears to be available at the National Archives of Sri Lanka (Colombo).

21 For a survey of the Malabar shipping lists at the Nationaal Archief in The Hague, see Gommans i.a., Dutch Sources on South Asia, Vol. 1, 192-194, 204, 209.

22 The inv. nos for each language or script are as follows: Malayalam: 19, 28, 48, 100, 114, 420, 472, 534, 663, 845, 861, 889, 954, 1025, 1137, 1163, 1376, 1518, 1543, 1549, 1555; Tamil: 420, 445, 1196, 1233, 1619, 1620; Malayalam or Tamil: 249, 358, 377, 596, 1108, 1181, 1512, 1615, 1617, 1618; palm leaves: 249, 358, 420, 596, 1163, 1181, 1512, 1615, 1617, 1618; Kannada: 404; Modi/Marathi: 270, 450; Devanagari: 19, 85; Bengali: 1674, 1678, 1685, 1687, 1718, 1721, 1722, 1734; Persian or Arabic: 85, 292, 377, 420, 450, 533, 541, 746 (printed), 1664, 1677, 1678, 1721, 1763; Hebrew: 1535; Armenian: 1734, 1754; Portuguese: 11, 16, 37, 48, 58, 61, 75, 82, 85, 152, 234, 404, 663, 1549, 1763; English: 28, 82, 152, 1518, 1672, 1703, 1712, 1714, 1742, 1743, 1753, 1754, 1760, 1761; French: 142, 152, 1196, 1763.

23 A badly damaged Dutch baptismal (and marriage?) register deriving from the church of Cochin, covering the period 1751-1804, is kept in the Oriental and India Office Collections of the British Library (London): India Office Records, Returns of Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, inv. no. N/2/177. It has to be consulted on microfilm (no. Z/N/2/1), where it is preceded by a typescript index to the names in the register. See also C.H. van Wijngaarden i.a. ed., ‘Het doop/trouwboek van Cochin’ , Gens Nostra. Maandbladderliederlandse Genea-logische Vereniging 47/1-3,7, 8 (1992)Google Scholar , which comprises the publication of several baptismal and marriage registers of Cochin. Part of these may be similar to the register kept in London. See also Kan, Van, Compagniesbescheiden, 200Google Scholar.

24 Cf. the inventories of the factory archives of Colombo, Galle, Matara, and Jaffna (National Archives of Sri Lanka, Colombo), Batavia (Arsip Nasional, Jakarta), Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town Archives Repository), Melaka (British Library: Oriental and India Office Collections, London), and Bengal, Coromandel, Surat, Canton, Deshima, and Batavia (Nationaal Archief, The Hague). The published work of which no similar edition seems to exist in the Netherlands is inv. no. 141: Codex Batauus of Hollands, Zeeuws en Generaliteits Recht (Delft 1726)Google Scholar , in all probability written by Eduard van Zurck. I have only been able to find editions from 1711, 1727, and later years of this work in the Netherlands. For books kept at the factory in Cochin, see also p. 25 of the source publication mentioned under no. 9 in Appendix I.

25 The results of a sample survey carried out in 1999 according to the UPAA (Universal Procedure for Archival Assessment) are as follows: binding damage 71 per cent, chemical damage 52 per cent, mechanical damage 71 per cent, pest damage 25 per cent, moisture damage 52 per cent.

26 The following inv. nos were missing during my visits in 2000-2001: 94, 109, 120, 139, 147, 177, 178, 357, 601, 932, 1012, 1026, 1031, 1040, 1041, 1051, 1052, 1075, 1126, 1141, 1305, 1328, 1342, 1345, 1346, 1363, 1387, 1397, 1398, 1481, 1530, 1613, 1635, 1657, 1671, 1683, 1707, 1720, 1736, 1738, 1739.