Gold-Leaf Flattery, Calcuttan Dust, and a Brand New Flagpole: Five Little-Known VOC Collections in Asia on India and Ceylon

Itinerario ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-106
Author(s):  
Lennart Bes
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Gold Leaf ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Hague

Beside the records of the Dutch East India Company (or VOC) stored at the Netherlands National Archives in The Hague, there are various VOC collections kept in Asia that pertain to India and Ceylon. Some of these are relatively well-known: the “Dutch Records” in the Tamil Nadu Archives (Chennai); the records of the VOC government of Ceylon in the Sri Lanka National Archives (Colombo); the records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Ceylon at the Wolvendaal Church (Colombo); and the records of the Asian VOC headquarters at Batavia in the National Archives of Indonesia (Jakarta).

scholarly journals The Dutch Reformed Church Mission in Swaziland - A dream come true

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnau Van Wyngaard
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Church Mission ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Cape Of Good Hope ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dutch Reformed Church

This article covers the time from 1652 onwards when employees of the Dutch East India Company – most of whom were members of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands – arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in present South Africa. With time, a new church, the Dutch Reformed Church, was established in the Cape. In 1836, a number of pioneers moved from the Cape to the east of South Africa and some of them eventually made Swaziland their new home. Although most members of the white Dutch Reformed Church opposed any integration with Christians from other races, there was nevertheless a desire that they should join a Reformed Church. In 1922, the first Dutch Reformed congregation in Swaziland was established in Goedgegun in the southern region of the country, intended for the exclusive use of white, Afrikaans-speaking church members. In 1944, the first Reformed congregation for Swazi members was formed, which later became known as the Swaziland Reformed Church. This article documents the history of this church and concludes with a description of the Swaziland Reformed Church in 1985, with four missionaries from South Africa ministering in the four regions of Swaziland.

Dutch Theology, Trade, and War: 1590–1610

1970 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 470-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Bangs
Keyword(s):  
East India Company ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Trade Patterns ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
European Trade ◽  
New Nation ◽  
Dutch Reformed Church

In the two decades from 1590 to 1610, there were three major events in the life of the Seven Provinces of the United Netherlands. In theology there was the outbreak of the so-called Arminian controversy over predestination and related issues, culminating in the polarizing of the Dutch Reformed Church into Remonstrant and Contra-remonstrant parties. In economics there was the transition from late-medieval and intra-European trade patterns to the new global and colonial patterns of the Dutch East India Company. In politics there was the signing of a truce with Spain, with the unprecedented granting of independence to a new nation by a great power.

Private Trade and Elite Privilege. The Trial of Nicolaas Schaghen, Director of Bengal

Itinerario ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 69-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela McVay
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Board Of Directors ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
High Court ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Dutch East Indies ◽  
At Home

It is common wisdom among the historians of the Dutch East Indies that everyone in the Dutch East India Company engaged in private trade. That is, ‘everyone’ traded in goods supposedly monopolized by the Company and ‘everyone’ abused his or her position to squeeze graft from the Company's trade. It was, supposedly, to get their hands on the private trade and graft that people joined the Dutch East India Company (VOC: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) in the first place. But back in the Netherlands the VOC's Board of Directors (the Heeren XVII) objected vociferously to private trade, which drained Company profits and shareholder revenue. To appease the Heeren XVII back at home, the various Governors-General and Councillors of the Indies (Raad van Indië), who represented the Heeren XVII in Asia, issued annual placards forbidding private trade while the High Court (Raad van Justitie) carried out infrequent desultory trials for private trade. But these prosecutions were inevitably doomed to failure, so the story goes, because everyone engaged in private trade would ‘cover’ for everyone else.

Religion or Culture? Change among the Papuans in the Upper-Digul Area, 1956–1967

Itinerario ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-90
Author(s):  
Gerrit R. de Graaf
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Dutch Society ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
One Year ◽  
Religious Landscape

In August 1958, Meeuwis Drost (1923-86) was the first missionary for the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland (Vrijgemaakt), or Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated) to start proselytising among the Papuans of the Upper-Digul area in Netherlands New Guinea. He later recalled how that day: “I simply started with Genesis one. And they listened!” Drost finished teaching the entire Old Testament within one year. To start at the beginning seems logical and is in fact the approach used by most missionaries of the Liberated churches. Transfer of religious and cultural knowledge was seen as an important aspect of their work, especially with an illiterate audience. The Protestant religious landscape in the Netherlands had fragmented heavily during the nineteenth century. Two secessions from the Dutch Reformed Church in 1834 and 1886 led to the formation of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands in 1892. Its tendency to depose those who refused to adhere to its theological views resulted in the Vrijmaking (Liberation) in 1944. Although the Liberated churches were one of many Protestant branches, they were very secure in their own theological views. Consisting of exclusive political, religious, educational and even recreational organisations they formed a mini-pillar in Dutch society.

scholarly journals Ministerial formation policies of the Northern Theological Seminary of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa:

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-216
Author(s):  
ST Kgatla
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Ethnic Churches ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Dutch Reformed Church

This article investigates the theoretical and practical effectiveness of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa’s (URCSA) ministerial formation of the Northern Synod. The URCSA is part of the Reformed Movement (Calvinism) that was established by the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) of South Africa that mainly came from the Netherlands to establish itself in South Africa and later established ethnic churches called daughter churches into existence in terms of a racially designed formula. After many years of the Dutch Reformed Church missionary dominance, the URCSA constituted its first synod in 1994 after the demise of apartheid. It was only after this synod that the URCSA through its ministerial formation tried to shake off the legacy of colonial paternalism and repositioned itself to serve its members; however, it fell victim to new ideological trappings. This article is based on a study that traces some basic Reformed practices and how the URCSA Theological Seminary of the Northern Synod dealt or failed to deal with them in its quest for the ideal theological ministerial formation.

Arminian, Remonstrant, and Early Methodist Theologies

2014 ◽  
pp. 386-401
Author(s):  
Keith D. Stanglin
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
The State ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The Common ◽  
Enlightenment Philosophy ◽  
Dutch Reformed Church

This essay describes the principal and distinctive theological elements of various forms of early modern Arminianism. Beginning with Jacob Arminius, it sketches the historical development and background of Arminianism in the Netherlands, its continuation in Dutch Remonstrant theology, and its manifestation in the Methodism of John and Charles Wesley in England. These contexts were quite different from one another. Arminius forged his theology in the context of the Dutch Reformed Church. Remonstrant theology developed outside the state church and in conjunction with Enlightenment philosophy. Wesleyan Methodism was nurtured by an Anglican Arminianism that found new life in evangelical revival. Despite the differences, the essay also traces elements of the common legacy that unites these divergent forms of Arminianism, such as the abiding concern over antinomianism, the plea for religious toleration, and the doctrine of a God who wants to be in eternal communion with all people.

The Ambivalence of Freedom: Slaves in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (03) ◽  
pp. 497-519
Author(s):  
Nira Wickramasinghe ◽  
Alicia Schrikker
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Local Practice ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Dutch Colonial

This article discusses slavery and the lives of enslaved people in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka, under Dutch and British rule. It argues that by sanctioning and tapping into a perceived local practice of slavery and legally constituting slaves, Dutch colonial rulers further strengthened the power of the dominant caste Vellalar over their subordinates. This was done through processes of registration, legal codification, and litigation. For some enslaved people, however, bureaucratization provided grounds for negotiation and resistance, as well as the potential to take control over their individual lives. British rule that took over areas controlled by the Dutch East India Company or Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie—first in the guise of the East India Company (1796–1802), then under the Crown (1802–1948)—introduced a number of measures, acts, and incentives to dismantle slavery as it was practiced on the island. This article draws from Dutch and early British period petitions, court records, commission reports, and slave registers to interrogate the discourse of freedom that permeated the British abolition of slavery from 1806 to 1844 and suggests that in Jaffna after abolition there remained bondage in freedom.

A Pretender on Gowa' Throne. The War of Batara Gowa I. Singkilang in South West Celebes, 1776–c. 1790

Itinerario ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-177
Author(s):  
M.P.H. Roessingh
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
High Government ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Hague ◽  
State Archives ◽  
State Of Affairs

The subject of this article is the fight for the throne in the kingdom of Gowa at the end of the 18th century, during the decline of the Dutch East India Company, a period which also saw the downfall of Gowa and the supremacy of Bone. The sources for the history of this period are twofold: on one hand the indigenous sources, “lontara-bilang” (diaries) and other records in Buginese and Makassarese; secondly, the European writings, principally the archival materials from the Dutch government at Makassar, supplemented by travel accounts and reports of the English. My primary sources are almost exclusively Dutch, namely the papers of the VOC, as they are preserved in the General State Archives in The Hague. To be more precise, these sources may be in Dutch, but in addition to the letters etc. written by Company officials, they also contain translations from documents drawn up by the rulers of Bone and Gowa or other of Asians. Moreover, the governors of Makassar often made use of indigenous sources, both oral and written, in preparing their lengthy memoirs about the state of affairs in their district. In 1736, the High Government in Batavia decided that two accurate genealogical tables must be prepared of the royal houses of Bone and Gowa.

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