J. J. Meinsma was a Dutch colonial historian, author of the Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsch Oost-Indische bezittingen (History of the Netherlands East Indian Possessions), whose second volume (1873) is cited by Van der Kemp both as a repository of the Anglo-Dutch treaty documents of 1824 and as a conduit for the long-standing misreading of Article 6 of the Raffles–Coombs convention.
Meinsma’s Geschiedenis
Meinsma’s Geschiedenis, of which the second volume appeared in 1873, was, in Van der Kemp’s enumeration, one of the standard nineteenth-century Dutch collections in which the notes exchanged between the British and Dutch plenipotentiaries at the London conference of 1824 — partly with, partly without the treaty text — might be consulted. The collection was printed in the second volume’s appendix (Bijlage X, bl. X). Van der Kemp names it alongside the compilations of Van Hogendorp, Elout, E. de Waal, J. E. de Sturler, Smulders, and Vas Diaz as the principal printed sources for the diplomatic correspondence surrounding the treaty of 17 March 1824.
The Article 6 Misreading
Meinsma’s second appearance in Van der Kemp’s article is critical. Following Professor Lauts (1866) and Smulders, Meinsma had written that, “in consequence” of Article 6 of the Acheh convention, that article “had to lapse” (moest vervallen) upon the conclusion of the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824. The reading was, in Van der Kemp’s judgment, doubly mistaken. First, Article 6 of the Acheh convention contained no exclusion of European or American trade, only a prohibition on the permanent settlement of Europeans in Acheh; secondly, the article had not “lapsed” but had been specifically preserved, since the British plenipotentiaries at London had insisted that the Acheh convention be “modified” only in respect of the hospitality to be shown to British ships and subjects in the port of Acheh, and the Dutch had acceded to that modification.
Meinsma and the Dutch Historical Tradition
Van der Kemp places Meinsma within a chain of Dutch historians who, from the instructions of Minister Elout of 31 August 1824 down to the official Nota of 1873, transmitted the misreading of Article 6 from one standard work to the next. Meinsma’s repetition of the error in a widely consulted Geschiedenis gave it the authority of the textbook tradition; the Tijdschrift voor Ned.-Indië, in its explanatory commentary on the official Nota, repeated the error once more. Van der Kemp’s correction, offered in 1900, was therefore directed not merely at a single historian but at the entire received tradition of Dutch colonial historiography on the Acheh question.
See Also
- G. Lauts
- Smulders
- J. H. P. E. Kniphorst
- Elout
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- E. de Waal
- P. H. van der Kemp
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.
J. J. Meinsma was a Dutch colonial historian, author of the Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsch Oost-Indische bezittingen (History of the Netherlands East Indian Possessions), whose second volume (1873) is cited by Van der Kemp both as a repository of the Anglo-Dutch treaty documents of 1824 and as a conduit for the long-standing misreading of Article 6 of the Raffles–Coombs convention.
Meinsma’s Geschiedenis
Meinsma’s Geschiedenis, of which the second volume appeared in 1873, was, in Van der Kemp’s enumeration, one of the standard nineteenth-century Dutch collections in which the notes exchanged between the British and Dutch plenipotentiaries at the London conference of 1824 — partly with, partly without the treaty text — might be consulted. The collection was printed in the second volume’s appendix (Bijlage X, bl. X). Van der Kemp names it alongside the compilations of Van Hogendorp, Elout, E. de Waal, J. E. de Sturler, Smulders, and Vas Diaz as the principal printed sources for the diplomatic correspondence surrounding the treaty of 17 March 1824.
The Article 6 Misreading
Meinsma’s second appearance in Van der Kemp’s article is critical. Following Professor Lauts (1866) and Smulders, Meinsma had written that, “in consequence” of Article 6 of the Acheh convention, that article “had to lapse” (moest vervallen) upon the conclusion of the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824. The reading was, in Van der Kemp’s judgment, doubly mistaken. First, Article 6 of the Acheh convention contained no exclusion of European or American trade, only a prohibition on the permanent settlement of Europeans in Acheh; secondly, the article had not “lapsed” but had been specifically preserved, since the British plenipotentiaries at London had insisted that the Acheh convention be “modified” only in respect of the hospitality to be shown to British ships and subjects in the port of Acheh, and the Dutch had acceded to that modification.
Meinsma and the Dutch Historical Tradition
Van der Kemp places Meinsma within a chain of Dutch historians who, from the instructions of Minister Elout of 31 August 1824 down to the official Nota of 1873, transmitted the misreading of Article 6 from one standard work to the next. Meinsma’s repetition of the error in a widely consulted Geschiedenis gave it the authority of the textbook tradition; the Tijdschrift voor Ned.-Indië, in its explanatory commentary on the official Nota, repeated the error once more. Van der Kemp’s correction, offered in 1900, was therefore directed not merely at a single historian but at the entire received tradition of Dutch colonial historiography on the Acheh question.
See Also
- G. Lauts
- Smulders
- J. H. P. E. Kniphorst
- Elout
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- E. de Waal
- P. H. van der Kemp
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.