Abstract
This article considers the dynamics between the ideals of good governance, crisis, introspection, and routine. It centers on the Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie (Description of the [Dutch] East India Company; hereafter, VOC), commissioned in 1693. Compiled by the company’s secretary Pieter van Dam over the course of more than a decade, this work charted the VOC’s organization, areas of operation, and internal processes. The Beschryvinge originated from a perception of crisis among the directors stemming from the company’s decreasing profitability and illicit behavior among those in its service. The directors’ sense of crisis resonated with a growing awareness throughout Europe that good governance required information on administrative actions and procedures. Their concern led to a series of initiatives aimed at providing better means of obtaining such information. Charged with synthesizing the company’s sprawling archive into a more practicable compendium, the VOC’s leading bureaucrat used little and large tools of knowledge to mold the company’s operational practices into a coherent whole, thereby putting the perceived crisis into historical perspective. Ultimately, van Dam’s Beschryvinge contradicted the directors’ fears that the company was inefficient. In doing so, the manuscript reinforced the power and resilience of the VOC’s bureaucracy. This article is part of a special issue entitled “Histories of Bureaucratic Knowledge,” edited by Sebastian Felten and Christine von Oertzen.
Highlights
This article is part of a special issue entitled “Histories of Bureaucratic Knowledge,” edited by Sebastian Felten and Christine von Oertzen
It centers on the Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie (Description of the [Dutch] East India Company; hereafter, VOC), commissioned in 1693
Compiled between 1693 and 1701/06, the fivevolume Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie consisted of a combination of knowledge about the administrative practices the company used to manage its operations and chorographic surveys
Summary
This article considers the dynamics between the ideals of good governance, crisis, introspection, and routine. Van Dam and his assistants assessed the resolutions and letters of the Gentlemen XVII and the Amsterdam chamber, protocols from different committees, orders, decrees, regulations issued by the directors as well as the Governor-General and the Council of the Indies, correspondence with the offices in Batavia, which included the correspondence of the branches They worked through ship logbooks, account books, the daghregister (diary) of Batavia, and the decisions made by the States General and the provinces within the VOC’s concern.[57] Van Dam even used private letters.[58] All of these were excerpted, dated, and tagged with their sources.[59] He sifted through these excerpts, marked passages he considered useful, underlined and highlighted them, added glosses, and marked important sections with an “N” for nota—all standard practices at the time.[60] He placed keywords on the back of dossiers he used to file these texts to indicate their content. His compilation manifested first and foremost the power and resilience of the VOC’s bureaucracy
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