Records in a Rival's Repository: Archives of the Dutch East India Company and Related Materials in the India Office Records (British Library), London (and the National Archives of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur)

Abstract

AbstractTwo of the former so-called rival empires of trade in the Orient, the Dutch and the British with their respective East India Companies, are today friendly neighbours, closely co-operating both politically and economically. Their erstwhile mercantile rivalry in the East, however, is still reflected in the fact that part of the records of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) is nowadays kept in—of all places—the department of India Office Records at the British Library in London, the very repository of the archives of the British East India Company (EIC).This article presents an overview of the relatively unknown and unexplored materials derived, copied, or translated from the VOC and stored in that lion's den. Apart from a few miscellaneous papers, three groups of records will be described: the remaining archives of the VOC establishment at Melaka (in Malaysia), VOC documents in the Mackenzie collections, and relevant materials in the archives of the EIC. The bulk of the first group of records and parts of the second and third group are unique. In addition, the few Dutch records from Melaka that still remain in Malaysia will be dealt with in an Appendix.