Abstract
This article zooms in on a memorandum of transfer written by Hendrick Merkus de Kock, a Dutch Governor of Ambon in 1819, and studies how it reveals the importance of the governmental legacies of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the nineteenth century. This type of document was a typical VOC genre and, while its author was rhetorically very critical of the practices of the VOC, the memorandum shows that he used VOC legacies to shape his own rule. He repeated stereotypes about the local population, first written down by former VOC governors, to justify Dutch control in Ambon. Moreover, De Kock used rituals that were negotiated during the period of the VOC to shape his interactions with local Ambonese regents. Finally, his memorandum of transfer shows how his rule was inspired by British practices of knowledge production and governance.
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