Following the rescanning and digital online publication of the three volumes of 'Oud Batavia' by F. de Haan (see earlier news item, october), The Corts Foundation decided to also publish the preceding standard work of 'Priangan'. These four volumes were produced by de Haan between 1910 and 1912 when at the time he was the national archivist in the Dutch East Indies.
His assignment was to conduct 'a historical research to the origin and the development, the working and the consequences of the organization of Preager regents by the Dutch East India Company'. Geografically speaking it concerns the central part of Java, where Batavia (Jakarta) was situated, and that was controlled and managed by the Dutch with regents.
All four original volumes of 'Priangan' were rescanned (including OCR-text recognition) and made fully digital visible and searchable on this website. Each volume is in a separate PDF file format shown online and freely available as download.
VOLUME 1 (1910, 896 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 30mb]
VOLUME 2 (1911, 937 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 35mb]
VOLUME 3 (1912, 993 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 39mb]
VOLUME 4 (1912, 1045 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 40mb]
Frederik de Haan (22-7-1863 - 16-8-1938), having his promotion of classical literature in Holland, left for the Dutch East Indies in 1892, where he started to publish articles in the journal of the Bataviaasch Genootschap. He was so frequently present in the national archives doing his research for the articles that eventually he obtained two assignments to work for the archives.
First he worked on the inventory of the archives, and from 1900 onwards he started researching the organisation of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) with the regents in the Preanger area, the hinterland of Batavia. De Haan had published a few history articles and these led to his immediate appointment of national archivist in 1905 succeeding the deceased archivist J.A. van der Chijs. The talented scholar became a colonial historian. He was known as a modest man, a scientist with an enormous work ethics, but also a difficult personality to work with and his archival period ended with several conflicts in 1920, after which he returned to Holland in 1922.
In line with his vision that an archive must be studied and used, otherwise it being of no value, he mostly focused on research and publication during his archival position. And he achieved remarkably much in that area. Between 1910 and 1912 his 'Priangan. De Preanger-Regentschappen onder het Nederlandsch bestuur tot 1811' was published. These four volumes contain a selection of written archival sources from the 17th and 18th century, regarding the Priangan area, and these sources have been provided with extensive introductions and comments.
It is the first large historically correct regional of the VOC, not as a trading company, but as a grographical authority. According to De Haan the trader and the sovereign were constantly debating and conflicting with one another and too many times the trade interests prevailed. He was a critic about the introduction of forced levy and the inferior attention for the local interests. His work is of a very personal nature and signature. Although a convinced colonial, he only wrote about the Dutch and he was a child of his time, but being critical about the glorious VOC he was alone in his opinions.
Sources:
- Vogel J. Haan, Frederik de (1863-1938), Huijgens 1994 [zie online >>]
- Map collection de Haan, online publicatie ANRI/TCF [zie online >>]
- Jacquet, F.G.P. De eigenzinnige F. de Haanlandsarchivaris 1905-1922 , in: Archievenblad 95, maart 1991, p10-22 [zie online >>]
