Tuesday 31 July 2012

Dutch East India Company (VOC)

INTRODUCTION

I have rewritten this post to include all posts on the Dutch VOC. I am from Malacca. As a descendant of the Dutch Burghers of Ceylon, I collect interesting stories and details about the Dutch VOC.

Students are still doing research on the Dutch VOC even today, 342 years after the capture of Malacca in 1641.

The original Dutch VOC Archives is in Den Haag (The Hague), The Netherlands. This archive is good for everyone who has interest in Malacca's history.

PART 1: Dutch Conquest of Malacca 1641

What do we know about the Dutch conquest of Malacca? What did the Dutch do to the Indonesians? We know from history that there were Malays who opposed the Dutch rule in Indonesia. What happened to those politicians who refused to cooperate with the Dutch authorities in Indonesia? In Malacca? Were there many political refugees? Yes, the Dutch exiled Malay politicians to as far away as South Africa.

http://www.ecu.edu/african/sersas/MasonSERSASF99.htm

PART 2: Dutch VOC Hospitals in Malacca 1641-1796

I am interested in the early hospitals in Malacca 1641-1796. From reading, I know Dutch Malacca had 3 hospitals inside the Portuguese fort - a royal hospital, a civil hospital and one for the poor. There is a map of the grounds of the fort with the 3 hospitals, in Hospital Melaka's history.

PART 3: Dutch VOC Maritime Empire in the East Indies and the Hajj Pilgrimage 1641-1796

How far did the Dutch empire retain its status as a maritime empire in the nineteenth century? How big was Dutch espionage on the Muslim World?

Adventurer's photos capture a bygone Mecca by Barry Neild for CNN, 18 November 2010, updated 1954 GMT (0354 HKT)
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/11/11/mecca.hajj.snouck/index.html

Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - with his rare 1885 photographs and sound recordings of Mecca.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/11/11/mecca.hajj.snouck/index.html

Mecca: A Dangerous Adventure -- Snouck Hurgronje's early photographs 1885 is showing until December 6, 2010 at Dubai's Empty Quarter Gallery.

The earliest Dutch recordings of Makkah was in 1885, by Snouck Hurgronje. He was a pioneer multimedia journalist, and was accused as a Dutch spy. He stayed in Makkah for 5 months and converted to Islam. He fled Makkah when he took something and was accused a thief. he left his camera and recordings to a Syed partner. Syed continued to write to Hurgronje in Netherlands. Hurgronje left his pregnant Ethiopian wife in Makkah but they remarried and lived in Indonesia. He married more wives. What happened to him in the end? Nobody knows.

F. Gaastra, The Dutch East India Company: Expansion and Decline (2003).

J. van Goor, eds. Prelude to colonialism: The Dutch in Asia (2004).

Nigel Worden eds. Contingent Lives: Social Identity and Material Culture in the VOC World (2007).

N. Tarling ed. The Cambridge History of South-East Asia, Vol.2 19th and 20th centuries

K. Ward, Networks of Empire: Forced Migration in the Dutch East India Company (2009).

JH Bentley, R. Bridenthal and K. Wigen eds. Seascapes: Maritime histories, littoral cultures and
trans-oceanic exchanges  Chapters by Gaynor and Ward

Eric Tagliocozzo, ‘Hydrography, technology, coercion: Mapping the sea in South-east Asian imperialism, 1850-1900’ in Rigby, Lincoln, Killingray eds. Maritime empires

Eric Tagliocozzo, ‘Kettle on a slow boil: Batavia’s threat perception in the Indies’ Outer islands, 1870-1910’ in Journal of South-east Asian Studies, 2000.

P. Carey, The Power of Prophecy: Prince Dipanagara and the end of an Old order in Java

L. Blusse, Visible Cities: Canton, Nagasaki and Batavia and the Coming of the Americans

R Betts and R. Ross eds. Colonial Cities: Essays on Urbanism in a Colonial Context essay by Blusse
on Batavia and Ross on Cape Town.

N H Schulte, The Spell of Power: A history of Balinese Politics, 1650-1940 (1996)

A. Schrikker, Dutch and British Colonial Intervention in Sri Lanka, 1780-1815

A Singh, Fort Cochin in Kerala, 1750-1830: The Social Conditions of  a Dutch Community in an
Indian Mileu (2010).

R Ross, Status and Respectability in the Cape Colony, A Tragedy of Manners (1999)

U Bosma and R. Raben, Being Dutch in the Indies: A history of creolisation and empire (2008).

J G Taylor, The Social World of Batavia

L. Blusse and W. Remmelink, I Smits, eds. Bridging the Divide: 400 years of Netherlands-Japan
(2000).

N Tarling, Anglo-Dutch rivalry in the Malay World 1780-1824  (1962)

J van Lohuizen, The Dutch East India Company and Mysore 1762-1790 (1961)

C. Skott, ‘The VOC and Swedish natural history: The transmission of scientific knowledge in the
eighteenth century’ in The Dutch trading companies as knowledge networks, (2010)

PART 4: Dutch VOC and Slavery in the East Indies 1641-1796

Details of VOC treatment of natives and slaves have not been brought to the fore. The world does not know about slavery as practised by the Dutch VOC. Since slavery has been banned in most civilised and democratic nations, the topic of slavery itself becomes a good historical topic to learn and research. Some of the cases uncovered were frightening and totally unexpected. We have to wait till the VOC researchers today write fully about the Dutch VOC slavery for us to read and see the extent of it.

PART 5: Dutch Burghers of Ceylon 1640-2015

The Dutch Burghers of Ceylon 1640-2015 will be hosting the world exhibition "VOC Heritage in Sri Lanka" in Amsterdam in 2015. The same exhibition is due in Kuala Lumpur in 2018. Please get in touch with the Secretariat. You can contact them in Facebook and also write to Nina van Dort.



PART 6: Dutch Submarines in WWII 1941-1945 

There are many naval details of WWII which we do not know about. Here are a few links for ships and Dutch submarines which were in Malayan waters. There is mention of Singapore, Borneo, and local cities and towns of Malaya and Siam - Kota Bharu, Patani, etc. There is mention of Pantai Timour in Bali, Indonesia. There is mention of Station Soerabaja (Surabaya). The Dutch submarines blog webmaster also seeks help from readers re people ID, event, location and date.

Dec 23 1939: Arrived in the Dutch East Indies. Transferred to the K X after a month of exercise patrols on O 20. The O 20 was sunk later in The Gulf of Siam (19 Dec 1941). Exercised on K X, then K XI, K VIII, K XVIII, and K XII in August 1940.Was off West coast of Borneo when war with Japan started (7 Dec 1941). Sailed on board K XII to Singapore, loaded torpedoes from Submarine tender (probably tender Janssens) and went on patrol off the coast of Malaya.                   http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/men/crew/men_g_tigchelaar.htm 
Dec 12 1941: Under the command of Ltz. I  H.C.J. Coumou we torpedoed a transport ship of about 8000 tons off Kota Bharu (Battle of Patani). http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/men/crew/men_g_tigchelaar.htm
O 20's deck phone, June 2002 off Kota Bharu (Malaysia). The official name of this phone is electro megaphone and it is manufactured by Brown. (Photo: © Roy Leenderts). http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/pictures/pictures_diving_o20.htm
The dive team at the bow of the Mata IkanJune 2002 off Kota Bharu. (Photo: © Collection Roy Leenderts). From left to right: Top row: DaniĆ«l Zuidema, Klaas Brouwer, Guido Granacher, Dick Cohen and Roy Leenderts. Bottom row: Michael Lim, Simon Bok, the captain (name unknown) and Marcel Conradi. http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/pictures/pictures_diving_o20.htm
K XV arriving in Tandjong Priok (Dutch East Indies), 1945. The submarine on the right is probably the Dutch Tijgerhaai (1). (Photo: © Collection Aart Hopman). http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/pictures/pictures_kxv_wwii.htm

PART 7: Dutch VOC vs Malay Courts in Tanah Melayu 

This is an article written by Nazli Aziz on the diplomatic corpus at the time of Dutch occupation in Tanah Melayu.

http://jati-dseas.um.edu.my/filebank/published_article/448/Nazli%20Aziz-Diplomatic%20Corupus-Between%20the%20Dutch%20in%20Tanah%20Melayu%20and%20the%20Northern%20Malay%20Courts-1641-2699.pdf


External links:
http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/boats/boat_kxii.htm
http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/men/crew/men_g_tigchelaar.htm
http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/pictures/pictures_k_boats_1930s.htm
http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/pictures/pictures.htm

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