C. Wessels

Properties2
tagsperson, scholar, dutch, jesuit, catholic, mission, atjeh, 16th-century, 17th-century, 1939, historisch-tijdschrift
aliasesWessels, C. Wessels, C. Wessels S.J., Wessels Jesuit, C. Wessels Atjeh mission historian

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C. Wessels, S.J. — a Dutch Jesuit historian — was the principal Dutch Catholic historian of the early Jesuit missions to the East Indies, and the author of the 1939 article Uit de missiegebieden van Sumatra: Atjeh in de 16e en 17e eeuw (“From the mission fields of Sumatra: Atjeh in the 16th and 17th centuries”), published in Historisch Tijdschrift (Historical Journal), vol. XVIII, p. 5 e.v. The article is recorded as No. 652 in Van Meurs’s Literatuur-Overzicht over het jaar 1939 (The Hague, 1940), in the Sumatra chapter.

The 1939 article

Wessels’s 1939 article surveyed the history of the Catholic mission field of Atjeh in the 16th and 17th centuries — the period of the greatest power of the Atjehnese sultanate, of Sultan Iskandar Muda (r. 1607–1636) and the Atjeh bloeitijdperk, and of the principal early Catholic missionary efforts in Atjeh, conducted by Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits and Franciscans working from the Portuguese base at Malaka. The article drew on the records of the religious orders and on the contemporary European accounts of Atjeh, and it was published in Historisch Tijdschrift — a Dutch historical review — rather than in a missionary journal, signalling that Wessels was presenting his survey as a contribution to the historical scholarship on Atjeh, not merely as a contribution to the missionary historiography. The placement of the article at the head of the volume (p. 5 e.v.) indicates its prominence in the issue.

The Jesuit mission historian

Wessels’s identification as a Jesuit (S.J.) is established by his other publications — including his work on the Jesuit missions to the Moluccas and to the Batak lands — and by the venue. His work on the 16th- and 17th-century mission fields of the Netherlands Indies drew on the archives of the Society of Jesus and on the published accounts of the early Jesuit missionaries, and his survey of Atjeh in the 16th and 17th centuries is a contribution to the historiography of the Atjehnese sultanate from the perspective of the Catholic mission. The choice of Historisch Tijdschrift as the venue places the article within the mainstream of Dutch historical scholarship, and it ensures that the survey reached a readership beyond the Catholic missionary community.

The broader 1939 Atjeh martyrology

Wessels’s 1939 article is the broader historical counterpart to the Luc. van der Linden, O. Carm. commemoration of the third centenary of the Atjeh martyrs (Nos. 581, 1059 of the same survey) — where van der Linden’s article commemorates the martyrs, Wessels’s article surveys the mission field from which the martyrdoms are drawn. The two articles together — the Wessels historical survey and the van der Linden martyrological commemoration — mark 1939 as a year in which the Catholic missionary history of Atjeh was, in several registers, being memorialised in Dutch colonial scholarship, and they place the Jesuit and Carmelite traditions of Atjeh mission historiography alongside each other in the same survey year.

Significance

For AcehWiki, C. Wessels is significant as the Dutch Jesuit author of the 1939 survey of the Catholic mission field of Atjeh in the 16th and 17th centuries — an independent source for the Catholic missionary history of Atjeh, and a contribution to the historiography of the Atjehnese sultanate from the perspective of the Catholic mission. His article complements the corpus’s existing entries on the Catholic mission in Aceh, on the Atjeh bloeitijdperk, and on Sultan Iskandar Muda, and it is the broader historical counterpart to the van der Linden commemoration of the Atjeh martyrs.

See Also

Source

Literatuur-Overzicht over het jaar 1939 van de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde en Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch-Indië, door H. van Meurs (‘s-Gravenhage: M. Nijhoff, 1940), Hoofdstuk III (Sumatra en naburig gebied), No. 652. Citing: C. Wessels, “Uit de missiegebieden van Sumatra: Atjeh in de 16e en 17e eeuw,” Historisch Tijdschrift, vol. XVIII (1939), p. 5 e.v.

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