A New Guide to an Old Source

Abstract

surely be one of the longest continuously kept diaries in world history, the Daghregister ten Comptoire Nangasacki, known in English as the Deshima Diaries. Begun in 1634, this journal of the Dutch factory in Japan was maintained until 1860. Special circumstances existed, of course, to support such a literary behemoth.1 The Deshima Diaries, in fact, are the legacy of the inter action between two of the early modern world's great bureaucratic organizations. On the one hand, the 938-page tome under review is the proverbial tip of the iceberg of paperwork created by the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The Deshima Diaries were kept by the Chief Factor (opperhoofd), who added to it every evening, often dictating to one or more clerks (scriba). Meant to provide a record of all official business conducted on the island, the diary included such daily data as the weather, visits by Japanese, information provided by the inter preters, and the general outline of most business transactions. Clerks of the fac tory were responsible for making two additional copies of the diary. These were forwarded to Batavia every year, and one was eventually sent on to the directors of the Company (Heeren Zeventien) in Amsterdam. Deshima was just one of the Company's many factories in Asia keeping diaries, account books, letter books, and many other forms of records. Professor Leonard Bluss? of Leiden University has made the study of this larger VOC archive his lifework, and the present vol ume is among the many projects he has initiated to make the VOC archive avail able to scholars all over the world.