C.G. Brouwer, Rediscovered After More Than Three Centuries. Pieter
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Rediscoueredafter mzre Íhan t/treecenturies: Pieter v^Ít den Broecke'soriginal Reso/utieboeck concerning Dutch trade in North-\WestIndia, Persia and Southern Arabta, t6zo-r6rf @ C. G. Brouuer The time has passedthat only a selectgroup of Dutch tricts'), is Pieter van den Broecke (Antwefp 1585- historianswere using the documentstransmitted in the Malacca 1640).Trained in Amsterdam, he enteredthe archive of the VerenigdeOostindische Compagnie (voc, service of the voc as an opperkoopman(i.e. 'upper- 'United i.e. EastIndia Company')for the sakeof their merchant') in 1613.After having led three voyagesto researchon the history of the remainingDutch colonies Southern Arabia and North-West India in the years in South-EastAsia (present-dayIndonesia). The great l6l4-1617 to explore the trading possibilitiesalong importance of these records for the socio-economic those coasts,he was appointedthe first director of the and. to a lesserdegree, political historiography of the Company's factory in Surat, in 1620.This position he countriesbordering on the Pacific and Indian Ocean occupieduntil 1628.Under his supervisionwere not during the lTth and l8th centuriesis now recognized only the head-officebut also somebranch-offices in the 1. by Westernand Asian scholarsalike As manifold as Indian hinterland,in Ahmadabad and Agra, as well as 'Gamron' they are with respectto their form letters, resolu- the factory at or Bandar Abbás, and the tions,contracts. logs, inventories, bills etc.-, so var- Arabian tradingpostin al-Mukhá3. ious their content proves to be: not only do they What has been said before about the Company's elucidate the Dutch commercial activities in Asian recordsin generalapplies also to the documentsorig- waters but also they contain a fund of valuableinfor- inating from or dealing with these western factories: rnationabout the Asian and Europeancompetitors transmitted in huge masses,they offer a wealth of Chinese,Indians, Arabs. English and Portuguese valuable data about Dutch commercein the Arabian about trade routes,products, markets, ports, shipping Sea as well as Indian. Persianand Arabian trade and movementsetc. That theserecords are remnantsof the navigation,production and consumption,political and historicalprocess itself and not merely historiographic military situation etc. Terpstra was the first historian writings; that they have come down to us in quanti- who, in 1918,extensively made use of thesesources for - ties the biggest collection, the one kept in the his analysisof the establishmentof the Dutch commer- 'General AlgenteenRijksarchief (ene, i.e. State Archi- cial relationswith the regionas a wholea.In the field of ves') in The Hague, takes up almost 1300 running Indian studies he was followed by researcherslike metres of shelves'lengthlt -: that they have been Moreland,Radwan, Gokhale and Van Santens"whilst preservedin their original organic cohesioninstead of historianslike Dunlop, Meilink-Roelofsz,Steensgaard constituting only a heap of dissimilar papers origina- and Floor contributedto Persianhistoriography6. The ting from various instances.dealing with unrelated Dutch records were introduced relatively late in the subjectsand produced at different times and places; study of early l7th-century Yemenite history: in a that they are for the most part in good material seriesof publications since 1918 | drew attention to condition, administeredby capable keepersin freely them and demonstrated their valueT. Indeed. their accessiblepublic buildings: theseare all circumstances value is hardly to be overestimatedin view of the that lend a peculiar value to the Dutch documental presentsituation which is characterizedby the nearly sources.For most of the transmittedAsian sourcescan total lack of availableOttoman and Arabic documents. only partially fulfill theseconditions, if at all. as pointed out by Ozbaran, Blackburn, Sàlim and The Company'sdomain of trade also included,from myselfs. the early 17th until far into the 18th century, north- western India (Gujarat), Persia and the Yemen. The Are theseDutch recordsa real gold mine, then, for man who was responsiblefor establishingthe Dutch the historian who is devoting himself to the study of 'Western trade in these Westerkw,artieren(i.e. Dis- the socio-economicpast of Gujarat, Persia and the Nlanuscriptsol the Middlc Easr I ( 1986) e) Tcr Lugt Prcss.Donkersteeg 19.2312 HA Leiden.Netherlands. 1986. ISSN 0920-0,101 62 \,IANUSCRIPTS OF THE MIDDLE EAST I (I9E6) Il1.l. PietertandenBroecke.PortraitbyFransHals(Antwerp158l,5-Haarleml666),1633.OiI oncanvas, ll,2x 61cm. London, The IveaghBequest, Kenwood. Cf. sub n.3. - His right hand leaningupon his staff of command,and wearingthe golden chain he was rewardedwith by the Company's Directors. Íhe opperkoopntanproudly posesas the Admiral of the Dutch homeward-boundfleet of sevenEast Indiamen which. loaded with a rich cargo.safely arrived in Holland. mid-1630. On board one of theseships was Eva Ment. the late Governor-GeneralCoen's widow. C. Ci. BROUWL.R: RESOLL'tlf.ItOE( K 63 Yemen? Yes, indeed, but as the digger's avarice ex- sevenin the voc collectionl', two in the archiveof the ceedsthe output of his gold vein, so the historian's States-Generalls(kept in the enl), one in the Univer- desire reachesbeyond the extant documents: thou- sity Library at Leidenre, and one, being a printed sandshave been transmitted in the Company'sarchive, book, in several public libraries2o.The two last- it is true. but thousandstoo have got lost ! Shipping mentionedtexts cannot be consideredreal documents, disasters.acts of war, fires, theft, gluttonous vermin: whilst both reports kept in the States-Generalfiles 'natural' theseare all causesof their getting lost' There constitute an intrinsic part thereof. One may come were other mishapstoo: in the beginningof the l9th acrossexplicit references,however. to at least twelve century a great number of financial documents then (or nine)other documents2t which until now could not to be devoidof any actualimportance were be discoveredin any filesor library. viz.: considered 'those relegatedto the papermills.The archivesof the smaller 1) [Arabic] lettersof recommendationfrom of 'Chambers'. moreover. have almost entirely disap- al-Shihr'[i.e.fromAbd Alláh bin'Umar bin Badr peared.and consequentlythe historian has to content Abi Tuwayrikl in favour of the Dutch. al-Shihr. himself with the records preservedin the files of the [before(?)l4 January 1616]22_ Kanter of Amsterdam and, to n lesserextent, of the 2) Spanish letter from Hasan Aghá to Van den Kanter of Middelburge. The history of the Dutch Broecke.al-Mukhá. 25 January 161623 documents is, therefore, the history of their getting 3) [Spanish]letter of favourfrom HasanÀghá to Van lost... How painful and deplorablethe lossesin fact den Broecke.al-Mukha. 27 January l6l62a are.can be demonstratedin a concreteinstance. 4) letter from Jan E,u'outssenPrins to Van den Broecke. Hudayda. [before(?)] 2 February By order of Governor-GeneralGerard Rerjnstand 16162s 'Fírntan under the specialinstructions of Jan Pietersz.Coen. 5) [Arabic or Turkish] or letter of credence' Van den Broeckemade in 1615- i 616his secondvo.vage [i.e. onrc1n]from Dja'far Báshà to the Ottoman to SouthernArabia and North-West Incla. as com- governors,in favour of Van den Broecke'scom- mander of the iocht Nas.srlrr.The ship left Bantam on pany. San'á,[before 2l April l6l6]'?o "contract 22 September1615 and arrived at al-Mukhá on 25 6) lArabic or Turkish or Spanish] " by January1616. From 21 April to 24 May the captain Dja'far Bàsháin favour of the Dutch. San'á,[16 undertook a journey to the court of Dja'far Bàshá in May l61612r San'á. a mission doomed to failure as the Ottoman 7) [Gujarati] letters of recommendation from the beglerbegiwas not entitled to permit the Dutch to son of Surat'sgovernor to his father. al-Mukhà. establish a permanent factor,v in the port without [before7 July 1616]28 having receiveda special /irnrc1nfrom the Sultan in 8) variousdepositions by Van den Broecke et ctl.as to Istanbul. On 7 July the iut'ltt weighedanchor' shaping Prins's misbehaviour,al-Mukhà. [before 7 July its courseto Surat that was reachedon 2 August. B.v 161612e way of Malabar the ship finally'returned in Bantam's 9) inventory of sold commodities by [Van den roads on l8 November. Elseu'hereI gave a detailed Broeckel,[before l5 December1616]3o descriptionof this important vo\age of erploration. l0) the wages-sheetsof the deceasedmembers of the paying attention to its diplomatic. naval and com- crew,[before 15 Decetnber1616]31 mercial aspects,to which analysis I may refer the I l) their last wills, [beforel5 December1616]32 'the readerherelt'. Regarding the sourceson which I based 12) ship's books of the iucht Nassrza',both the my stuclyand which were transmitted in Dutch archi- originalsand the copies33. vesand librariesrl. one can observethe following. In addition to thesementioned but lost documents Out of a number of 65 textsl2 58 relatedirectly or severalothers can safelybe presumedto haveexisted at indirectlyto the Nassutisexpedition in 1615-1616and that time. viz.: its aftermath, the obtaining of the Sultan's decreein 13) the official log kept by Van den Broecke 1618t 3.Far more documents,however, must have been l4) the samekept by Prins as commanderof the seized in existenceat the time; severaiof them are explicitly Selon mentioned in the recordsthat have come down to us, l5) the resolution-bookof the Ship'sCouncil but are not to be found in the archivesand libraries.To 16) letters from Van