Sources for the History of the Dutch Colonies in the Ecclesiastical Archives of Rome (1814–1903)

Abstract

The source material for the history of Catholic missionary activities in the Dutch colonies during the last century is hardly available in much abundance in the mother country. The Dutch archivist and bibliographer, Marius Roessingh, had to make do in his U.N.E.S.C.O. archival guide on Netherlandish Latin American materials with a “memorandum,” in which he signalled utility of the Vatican archives. Another author in the same series, Frits Jaquet, in his second volume on Asia and Oceania, could be more explicit: he pointed to the materials kept in the state archives at Utrecht, in the Catholic Documentation Centre at Nijmegen University, and in various ecclesiastical archives. In nearly all cases, his emphasis falls within the first half of the 20th century. Such is also true with the detailed survey of materials available in the Catholic Documentation Centre that was featured two years ago in Itinerario, with only one important exception: the archive of the apostolic prefecture, later Apostolic Vicarate of Batavia (1807–1949, on microfiche), that obviously forms an essential source for the mission history of the Netherlands Indies.