S. van Deventer was a Dutch colonial historian, the author of Nederlandsch Gezag in den Oost-Indischen Archipel (“Netherlands Authority in the East Indian Archipelago”), whose compilation of the correspondence exchanged between the Dutch minister Van Nagell and the British envoy at The Hague in 1819 is cited twice by Van der Kemp in his 1900 monograph on the Raffles–Coombs convention and the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824.
Nederlandsch Gezag
Van Deventer’s Nederlandsch Gezag in den Oost-Indischen Archipel was a multi-volume documentary history of the extension and consolidation of Dutch colonial authority in the Indonesian archipelago from the Napoleonic period onwards. The work was distinguished by the breadth of its archival base and by its generous reproduction of primary documents, including memoranda, dispatches, and diplomatic correspondence that had not previously appeared in print. It is on this documentary richness that Van der Kemp draws in his 1900 article.
The Van Nagell–British Envoy Correspondence of 1819
The first citation of Nederlandsch Gezag occurs during Van der Kemp’s discussion of the aftermath of Raffles’s Acheh convention of April 1819. The convention, and in particular the British engagement to supply the sultan with arms and money, had not been well received at The Hague. The Netherlands government, on learning of it, had entered a protest with the British envoy, and the memoranda exchanged between the minister Van Nagell and the British envoy in 1819 had been preserved among the Dutch state papers. Van Deventer printed the correspondence in appendices LXV and LXVI of Nederlandsch Gezag. Van der Kemp cites the appendix and notes that “the matter also came up during the negotiations” — that is, during the Anglo-Dutch treaty negotiations of 1824 — “as will be seen further in the text.”
The Van Nagell–British envoy correspondence is significant because it shows that the Netherlands government was aware, as early as October 1819, of the implications of Raffles’s proceedings at Acheh. The protest then entered had been summarised in a dispatch to the King of 1 October 1819, also cited by Van der Kemp from Nederlandsch Gezag p. 288. The documentary trail thus establishes that the Dutch plenipotentiaries at London in 1824 could have been in no doubt as to their government’s view of the Acheh convention; yet they chose, in the final days of the negotiation, to accept a separate declaration acknowledging Achehnese “independence,” and to leave the Raffles treaty to be “modified” by a future convention.
Van Deventer in the Dutch Documentary Tradition
The second citation of Nederlandsch Gezag occurs in connection with Van der Kemp’s discussion of the Sumatra-tractaat of 1871. Together with the compilations of Van Hogendorp, of Elout, of E. de Waal, of Meinsma, of J. E. de Sturler, of Smulders, and of Vas Diaz, Van Deventer’s Nederlandsch Gezag is enumerated by Van der Kemp as one of the principal printed collections in which the notes exchanged at the London conference of 1824 might be consulted. The catalogue is offered as evidence that the Anglo-Dutch treaty documents had been in the public domain for at least a generation before the official Nota of 1873 sought to promulgate a one-sided account of their meaning. Van Deventer’s labours, in other words, had done much to make the documentary record of the Acheh question available to the Dutch reading public; and Van der Kemp’s monograph of 1900 is, in part, a working-out of the implications that Van Deventer’s printed documents had long contained.
See Also
- Hendrik Fagel
- Anton Reinhard Falck
- Elout
- E. de Waal
- J. J. Meinsma
- Smulders
- Sumatra Treaty of 1871
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- 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.
S. van Deventer was a Dutch colonial historian, the author of Nederlandsch Gezag in den Oost-Indischen Archipel (“Netherlands Authority in the East Indian Archipelago”), whose compilation of the correspondence exchanged between the Dutch minister Van Nagell and the British envoy at The Hague in 1819 is cited twice by Van der Kemp in his 1900 monograph on the Raffles–Coombs convention and the Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824.
Nederlandsch Gezag
Van Deventer’s Nederlandsch Gezag in den Oost-Indischen Archipel was a multi-volume documentary history of the extension and consolidation of Dutch colonial authority in the Indonesian archipelago from the Napoleonic period onwards. The work was distinguished by the breadth of its archival base and by its generous reproduction of primary documents, including memoranda, dispatches, and diplomatic correspondence that had not previously appeared in print. It is on this documentary richness that Van der Kemp draws in his 1900 article.
The Van Nagell–British Envoy Correspondence of 1819
The first citation of Nederlandsch Gezag occurs during Van der Kemp’s discussion of the aftermath of Raffles’s Acheh convention of April 1819. The convention, and in particular the British engagement to supply the sultan with arms and money, had not been well received at The Hague. The Netherlands government, on learning of it, had entered a protest with the British envoy, and the memoranda exchanged between the minister Van Nagell and the British envoy in 1819 had been preserved among the Dutch state papers. Van Deventer printed the correspondence in appendices LXV and LXVI of Nederlandsch Gezag. Van der Kemp cites the appendix and notes that “the matter also came up during the negotiations” — that is, during the Anglo-Dutch treaty negotiations of 1824 — “as will be seen further in the text.”
The Van Nagell–British envoy correspondence is significant because it shows that the Netherlands government was aware, as early as October 1819, of the implications of Raffles’s proceedings at Acheh. The protest then entered had been summarised in a dispatch to the King of 1 October 1819, also cited by Van der Kemp from Nederlandsch Gezag p. 288. The documentary trail thus establishes that the Dutch plenipotentiaries at London in 1824 could have been in no doubt as to their government’s view of the Acheh convention; yet they chose, in the final days of the negotiation, to accept a separate declaration acknowledging Achehnese “independence,” and to leave the Raffles treaty to be “modified” by a future convention.
Van Deventer in the Dutch Documentary Tradition
The second citation of Nederlandsch Gezag occurs in connection with Van der Kemp’s discussion of the Sumatra-tractaat of 1871. Together with the compilations of Van Hogendorp, of Elout, of E. de Waal, of Meinsma, of J. E. de Sturler, of Smulders, and of Vas Diaz, Van Deventer’s Nederlandsch Gezag is enumerated by Van der Kemp as one of the principal printed collections in which the notes exchanged at the London conference of 1824 might be consulted. The catalogue is offered as evidence that the Anglo-Dutch treaty documents had been in the public domain for at least a generation before the official Nota of 1873 sought to promulgate a one-sided account of their meaning. Van Deventer’s labours, in other words, had done much to make the documentary record of the Acheh question available to the Dutch reading public; and Van der Kemp’s monograph of 1900 is, in part, a working-out of the implications that Van Deventer’s printed documents had long contained.
See Also
- Hendrik Fagel
- Anton Reinhard Falck
- Elout
- E. de Waal
- J. J. Meinsma
- Smulders
- Sumatra Treaty of 1871
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- 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.