i
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations ii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: From Europe to Asia 13
1.1. The European Origin 13
1.2. At Sea 18
1.3. In Batavia 20
1.4. Throughout the VOC-empire 25
Chapter 2: From Sources to Writing 30
2.1. The Case Study 30
2.2. The Glocalized Process 39
2.3. The Information Flow 40
2.4. The Local Informants 46
2.5. The Negotiations 50
2.6. From Meeting Minutes and Final Resolutions to Ordinances and Placards 55
Chapter 3: From Strategies to Practice 60
3.1. The Genre Analysis of Police Ordinances 61
3.2. The Translation into Local Languages 73
3.3. The Publication 75
3.4. The Promulgation 77
Conclusion 82
Appendices
1. Map of the Nederlandsch-Indisch 87
2. Van der Chijs/ VOC’s Categorization of Placards 88
3. The Contents of the Old Statutes of Batavia 91
4. The Contents of the New Statutes of Batavia 93
ii
List of Illustrations
Figures:
1.1. An example of the original placard of the French administration 14 3.1. Placaet tegens het paegaeyschieten, gansen trecken, en mey-bomen planten 62 3.2. An original Batavian placard, issued on 26 August 1757 67 3.3. A painting of placards affixed on town boards in Amsterdam 78
Tables:
2.1. The placard against keris, issued on 31 December 1622 32 2.2. The three placards against cockfighting,
issued on 15 January 1664, 18 December 1706, and 18 March 1712
35
2.3. The placard against arson and burglary, issued on 22 September 1769 36 2.4. The placard on public peace and safety regulations, issued on 22 December
1797
38
2.5. Comparison of the language between the placard and the resolution 57
3.1. The formal features of a Dutch ordinance 63
3.2. The formal features of a Batavian ordinance 68
Charts:
2.1. Timeline of the chosen placards 31
2.2. The stages in the ordinance-making process 40
3.1. The stages in the implementation of placards 60
Map:
1
Introduction
The DiscoveryOn 29 May 1880, Jacobus Anne van der Chijs—a lawyer and former Inspector of the Indigenous Education in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia)—received an assignment to assist the Chief of the Statistical Department in inspecting, classifying, cataloging, and preparing the archive of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC or the Dutch East India Company) in Batavia for publication.1 Along with his colleagues,2 Van
der Chijs moved the documents for inspection from the grain and iron warehouses to the office of the General Secretary.3 The assignment was an archivist’s nightmare, as pieces
of old papers “in unimaginable heaps lay on the ground and […] in the large European laundry basket, piled far above the rim of that basket.”4 When they inspected the
basket’s contents, “its head suddenly collapsed, and numerous mice emerged, seeking refuge in all directions.”5 After two years of labor, they managed to rescue 18,387
bundles of archives from rodents, bookworms, insects, and humidity.6 Van der Chijs
published an inventory of their findings in the Inventaris van ‘s Lands Archief te Batavia.7
1 Batavia is the colonial name of Jakarta (Indonesia).
JA van der Chijs, Inventaris van ’s lands archief te Batavia (1602-1816) (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1882), VII. 2 Van der Chijs was assisted by Daniel Koorders, Norbertus Petrus van den Berg, and Leonard Wilhem Gijsbert de Roo. Van der Chijs, Inventaris, VI.
3 The office of General Secretary was responsible for the supervision of the old archives until 1892. The office was initially located in Rijswijk and moved to Waterlooplein in 1827 (present-day Taman Lapangan Banteng, Central Jakarta). See: GL Balk, F van Dijk, and DJ Kortlang, “History of the Archive”, The Archives of the Dutch East India Company and the Local Institutions in Batavia (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 142.
4 Van der Chijs, Inventaris, VI. 5 Ibid.
6 Balk et al., “History of the Archive,” 142. 7 Van der Chijs, Inventaris.
2
Among the rescued archives, there are 161 archive-volumes of the VOC-placards.8 It is
unsure how many placards exist in these volumes as they include multiple copies and multiple language versions of the same placards.9 Van der Chijs extracted 10,893 placards
from these volumes and published them in the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek—the subject of this study.
The Subject
The subject of this study is the seventeen volumes of the Nederlandsch-Indisch
Plakaatboek, published between 1885 and 1900 by the Batavian Society of Science and Arts, with the support of the Dutch East Indies government. The Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek is a container of the placard’s genre, much like an anthology that contains literary works of the same genre. Based on how it was initiated, the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek can be categorized as an archive-initiated plakaatboek.10 The first part of its
title, Nederlandsch-Indisch, refers to the VOC-territories from the east of the Cape of
8 These 161 archive-volumes are now stored at ANRI (Arsip National Republik Indonesia) under inv. nrs. 2248-2419.
9 TANAP, “Plakkaten,” Inventaris van het archief van de gouverneur-generaal en raden van Indië (Hoge Regering) van de Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie en taakopvolgers, 1612-1812,
http://databases.tanap.net/ead/html/Jakarta_HogeRegering/index.html?N1D400.
10 Elsewhere, I have co-written an article on the genre of plakaatboeken. Based on the purpose behind its creation, we divide the book of ordinances into three categories: (1) government-initiated Plakaatboek, (2) archive-initiated Plakaatboek, and (3) scholarly-driven Plakaatboek. First, the government-initiated plakaatboek is compiled to give an overview of the legislations that existed in a specific province. It was initiated by the government to create a sense of citizenship and provincial identity. Second, archive-initiated plakaatboek derives from the state-archives and it was compiled to give a sense of national identity. Third, a scholarly-driven plakaatboek was compiled by legal historians after the 1950s to give a legal history of an area and era. Examples of this last type are the Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, West-Indisch Plakaatboek, Dutch Formosa Collection of Ordinances (in Chinese), and the ongoing project of Henk-Jan M van Dapperen on Guyana, West Africa, and Guinea’s Ordinances. See: Annemieke Romein and Vany
Susanto, “Ordinances in the Early Modern Low Countries and their Trading Posts: a Genre-analysis of Books of Ordinances,” in History 2021 (April): under review.
3
Good Hope to the west of the Straits of Magellan. 11 In this study, the term Asia is used to
replace the archaic Dutch term Indisch or Indië, which indicates the area under the VOC-charter (octrooigebied; see Appendix 1 for a map of the VOC’s octrooigebied).12
The Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek contains the summary of 10,893 placards which were arranged chronologically in sixteen volumes. Almost 60% of these contents were issued in the eighteenth century, 26% were issued in the first eleven years of the nineteenth century, and only 14% came from the seventeenth century. These placards are issued by: (1) the States-General of the Seven United Provinces and/or the VOC Directors (Heeren XVII) for the VOC administrators in Asia; or (2) the High Government of Batavia for the VOC-servants or the inhabitants of VOC-territories.
After the placards were summarized and published in chronological order, Van der Chijs spent another three years to recategorize the placards into a thematical order like some plakaatboeken in Patria—such as Cornelis Cau’s Groot Placaet-Boeck, which arranged the placards in a thematical order, or Eduard van Zurch’s Codex Batavus, which organized the placards in alphabetical order.13 Combining these two methods, Van der
Chijs recategorized the placards into 86 different themes and registered them
11 The term Nederlandsch-Indisch should not be confused with Nederlands Oost-Indië (Dutch East Indies, present-day Indonesia). After the Dutch companies’ assets and possessions were absorbed by the Dutch state, the VOC-assets in Southeast Asia became known as the Nederlands Oost-Indië, while WIC’s
possession in America (present-day Suriname and the Antilles) became known as the Nederlands West-Indië. In the VOC-period, the term Nederlandsch-Indisch refers to all the areas under the VOC-charter. See map in Appendix 1.
12 The use of this term is suggested by: Joyce Pennings and Remco Raben, “Preface,” in The Archives of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (1602-1795), edited by M. A. P. Meilink-Roelofsz, R. Raben, and H. Spijkerman, (‘s-Gravenhage: Algemeen Rijksarchief, Eerste Afdeling, 1992), 7-8.
13 AH Huussen Jr., "Het Plakkaatboek: Bron van Recht en Historie," in De Palimpsest: Geschiedschrijving in de Nederlanden: 1500-2000, (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2002), 69-76.
4
alphabetically from “Aankomst” to “Zijde-Cultuur” (see Appendix 2).14 This systematic
register was published as volume XVII.
Some of these placards had been published in the VOC-period as the Statutes of Batavia. There are two books of Statutes: (1) the Old Statutes, which can be found in the second half of the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek volume I, and (2) the New Statutes, which occupies the whole volume IX.15 The Old Statutes were published in 1642 under
Governor-General Antonio van Diemen (in office: 1636-1645) and approved by the Heeren XVII in 1650.16 In 1715, the Heeren XVII ordered the Batavian Government to revise the Old
Statutes-book, but it took more than 50 years to complete this task due to frequent personnel changes.17 The New Statutes-book was finalized in 1766 under
Governor-General Petrus Albertus van der Parra (in office: 1761-1775), and sent to the Heeren XVII for approval but receiving none.18 As such, the VOC Directors in Patria continued to
regard the Old Statutes as the only lawful book of ordinances for the Indies.19
In Asia, the New Statutes were used as a guideline in some courts for over a century, even after the VOC's dissolution.20 In the Dutch East Indies, the New Statutes of
Batavia remained valid until they were replaced by the Civil Code of the Dutch East Indies in 1848.21 In British Ceylon, the English continued to apply the Statutes of Batavia until
14 JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. XVII (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ‘s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1900).
15 The Old Statutes of Batavia is listed in: JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. I (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ‘s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1885), 472-594. See Appendix 3 for the list of topics. The New Statutes of Batavia occupies the whole volume IX: JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. IX (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ‘s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1891). See Appendix 4 for the list of topics.
16 John Ball, Indonesian Legal History 1602-1848 (Sydney: Oughtershaw Press, 1982), 32. 17 Ibid., 33.
18 Ibid., 34. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., 34-35.
21 AJB Sirks, “An Incident in the history of the Dutch East India Company,” The Journal of Legal History 14, no. 2 (1993): 114.
5
the 1920s.22 In the Cape, the English did not only continue to implement the Statutes but
also issue their own ordinances. In Kaapse Plakkaatboek, the first five volumes are dedicated to Dutch placards, and volume 6 listed the British's placards. These applications show the longevity of the Indies placards.
Joseph van Kan’s review of the Statutes of Batavia’s application in buiten-kantoren (VOC’s subsidiary establishments under Batavia) had found traces of their application in the Maluku islands (Ambon, Banda, and Ternate), Makassar (Sulawesi), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the Cape (Africa), and Coromandel (India).23 The application of Batavia's Statutes in the VOC’s subsidiary establishments had created a Dutch legal web throughout Asia. These spatial and temporal influences show the importance of the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek as a subject of study.
The Case Study
Since it is impossible to review all the placards in the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, I concentrate on the security ordinances of Batavia as my case study in Chapter 2. Security ordinances were chosen because security is an essential topic for any government, past and present. Without security in the headquarter of VOC-Asia, the VOC could not have secured its interest and rule. Besides, security ordinances provide a window into how the VOC-government ruled the inhabitants of its territory. Meanwhile, Batavia was selected because it was the VOC-government's seat in Asia and the city that the Dutch had built and ruled directly since its inception. Many placards in the Nederlandsch-Indisch
22 Joseph van Kan, "De Bataviasche Statuten en de buitencomptoiren." Bijdragen tot de taal-, land-en volkenkunde/Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia 100, no. 1 (1941): 272.
6
Plakkaatboek concerned themselves with the administration of Batavia and its surrounding lands.
The Research Question
What happened to placards when the VOC applied this instrument outside of the Dutch Republic and into Asia? That is the main research question of this study.
Each chapter investigates one sub-question. Chapter 1 investigates the extent to which the placard's function has changed in the VOC's hands as a user. Chapter 2
addresses how the VOC constructed placards in Batavia. Chapter 3 analyzes the form of Batavian ordinances and their promulgation in Dutch Asia.
Primary Sources
This study combines the published placards in the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek with the General Resolutions of Batavia Castle. This unpublished primary source is available from the website of Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia (ANRI or the Indonesian National Archive) and the Nationaal Archief (NA or the Netherlands’ National Archive).24 The
General Resolutions records the discussions and decisions of the High Government of Batavia to issue the placards. The combination of these two primary sources gives us a glimpse of the VOC’s implementation of placards in Batavia and VOC Asia.
24 For ANRI (Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia), visit: https://sejarah-nusantara.anri.go.id/. For NA (Nationaal Archief), visit: https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/.
7
Literature Review
This study lies in the intersection between the study of books of ordinances and the Company’s writing. One scholar has crossed this intersection before, Lodewijk Hovy. When he compiles the placards from Dutch Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) into the Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, Hovy adds five chapters of his investigation to introduce the contents, discuss the Sri Lankan archive, review the administration and judicial institutions, describe the types of applicable laws in Ceylon, and the continuance of Dutch ordinances in the British administration of Ceylon.25 The Ceylonees Plakkaatboek
contains almost 700 placards—begins with the Westenvolt treaty between the VOC and the King of Kandy to establish the Dutch presence in Ceylon and ends with the surrender of Dutch Colombo to the English in 1796.26
In this intersection between the study of plakaatboek and Company’s writing, there is also an ongoing (yet unpublished) project of the WIC placards in Guyana, West Africa, and Guinea by Henk-Jan M van Dapperen.27
Meanwhile, the study of plakaatboek in the Netherlands itself is still scarce. There are only three in-depth studies on the plakaatboek that I know of. The first is Arend Huussen Jr.’s chapter on the history of the plakkaatboek. Here, Huussen Jr. discusses the development of the Low Countries' legislation and compiling legislations into the book of ordinances from the sixteenth century onwards.28 According to Huussen Jr., the oldest
known plakaatboek in Patria was the Ordonnantiën, Statuts, Edicten ende Placcaerten ...
25Lodewijk Hovy, Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, 2 vols. (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 1991). 26Lodewijk Hovy, Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, vol. 1 (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 1991), 1;
Lodewijk Hovy, Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, vol. 2 (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 1991), 961.
27 Van Dapperen’s ongoing project can be viewed at
https://en.huygens.knaw.nl/projecten/plakkaatboek-kust-van-guinea-1597-1872/?noredirect=en_GB. 28 Huussen Jr., "Het Plakkaatboek,” 63-80.
8
van Vlaenderen, published in 1559.29 He argues that private initiatives, instead of the
government, drove the printing of early plakaatboeken.30 Secondly is AMJA Berkvens’
study and compilation of the placards in Gelders Overkwartier (the southern part of the Duchy of Gelders’ four quarters; present-day the Dutch province of Limburg and Lower Rhine).31 The first volume consists of placards published in Spanish Gelre (1665-1702), and
the second volume contains placards from the state-occupied and Austrian Gelre period
(1702-1716; 1716-1794).32
The most recent contribution is Annemieke Romein’s study of the Groot Gelders Placaetboeck. In this article, Romein categorizes the contents of the Groot Gelders Placaetboeck into an instrument developed by Max-Planck-Institut für Europäische Rechtsgeschichte (MPIeR),33 to connect Gelderlands’ ordinances to the rest of Europe.
She argues that in the period 1582-1699, public safety and social order were the main concerns of the Gelderlands’ authorities.34 In addition to this study, Romein has also
categorized Flanders’ and Hollands’ placards using the MPIeR categories and done— what she refers to as—the ‘datafication’ of available plakaatboeken for the KB National Library.35
29 Ibid., 68. 30 Ibid.
31Aloysius Maria Joannes Augustinus Berkvens, Plakkatenlijst Overkwartier 1665-1794, 2 vols. (Nijmegen:
Gerard Noodt Instituut, 1990).
32 Ibid.
33 MPIeR was developed under the supervision of Karl Härter and Michael Stolleis and it has been used to categorize placards from 68 European territories. For a list of MPIeR studies and publication, see Arbeitskreis Policey/ Polizei im Vormodernen Europa, MPIER Studien, https://www.univie.ac.at/policey-ak/?page_id=349.
34 Christel Annemieke Romein, “Blood Sports and Festivities in Normative Provincial Publications Ordinances in Gelderland’s ‘Plakkaatboek’, 1582–1699,” Nieuwe Tijdingen 3 (2019): 121-136.
35 For information regarding this datafication project, visit: https://lab.kb.nl/dataset/entangled-histories-ordinances-low-countries.
9
As reviewed here, there is still a lack of study on the plakaatboek in general. Although the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek has been mentioned or cited as a source in 388 publications, it has never been the subject of a study before.36 This study aims to
fill this lacuna and add volumes to the study of Dutch placards by connecting the application of this European instrument of governance from the metropolis to the colonies.
Since an ordinance is a writing genre that the VOC had transferred to Asia, this thesis also contributes to the study of “company writing”. 37 Previous studies of
company writing have chosen to analyze only the medium or just the message.For example, Miles Ogborn chooses to study various forms of writing, while Adrien Delmas chooses contents over forms. Ogborn focuses on how different forms of the English East India Company’s writing forged the British empire's global connections.38 Meanwhile,
Delmas concentrates on just one form of writing, the daghregister (daily journal) of the VOC. In his study, Delmas follows the journey of the genre on the VOC-ship from Patria to the Cape of Good Hope, where the daghregister was used to record the sea journey and gather hydrographic knowledge to enhance VOC’s navigation skills and sustain its territorial claim.39 Once they arrived on land, the daghregister continued to record the
36 This number comes from the search in Google Scholar and as of December 2020, there are 388 publications that mention or cite the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek as sources.
37 “Company writing” is the term that Guido van Meersbergen used to refer to “a set of institutional writing practices and the total sum of documents produced by agents of the East India companies, including instructions, letters, reports, decrees, ordinances, consultation minutes, journals and factory diaries.” See: Guido van Meersbergen, “Writing East India Company History after Cultural Turn:
Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Seventeenth-Century East India Company and Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie,” The Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, vol. 17, no. 3 (2017): 13.
38Miles Ogborn, Indian Ink: Script and Print in the Making of the English East India Company, (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2008).
39Adrien Delmas, "From Travelling to History: An Outline of the VOC Writing System during the 17th
century," in Written Culture in a Colonial Context, Adrien Delmas and Nigel Penn (eds), (Claremont: UCT Press, 2013), 95-122.
10
ethnography of the land and people.40 Through the history of the daghregister, Delmas
shows how the function of daily journaling evolved from a record of navigation into “a memory of the colony”.41
In his review of studies on company writing, Guido van Meersbergen points out that there is “the nearly complete lack of critical engagement with VOC sources from a literary angle.”42 Although Delmas has touched on discourse analysis in his study of the
daghregister, no one has used a literary theory to analyze the VOC-archive before. Combining Ogborn’s focus on form, Delmas’ attention to content, and Van
Meersbergen’s call for literary analysis, this study contributes to the field of company writing with an innovative genre-based insight into the VOC’s legislation.
Methodology
To analyze the form of police ordinances in Chapter 3, I apply the method of genre analysis described in Anis Bawarshi and Mary Jo Reiff’s handbook of genre studies and Caroline Miller’s theory on genre as social action.43 In her groundbreaking work, Miller
has shifted the discussion away from genre as a classifying tool to genre as an instrument that we use to respond to recurring situations.44 She argues that genre provides its users
40Ibid., 107. 41Ibid.
42 Van Meersbergen, “Writing East India Company History,” 23.
43Anis S. Bawarshi and Mary Jo Reiff, Genre: an Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy
(West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2010); Carolyn R. Miller, "Genre as Social Action," Quarterly Journal of Speech 70, no. 2 (1984): 151-167.
44 As examples on how to view genre as a response to recurring situations, think about the time when we write a grocery list to make sure that we get all the ingredients that we need for cooking; or to honor the death of a family member, we write a eulogy for her funeral. A grocery list and a eulogy are the genres that we used to act in the situations that we find ourselves in.
11
with the guidelines and strategies to function in the social construction of reality.45 To
analyze the VOC’s ordinances with a genre theory requires an investigation behind the user’s motives, identifying the genre’s strategies, understanding why these writing strategies exist the way they do, and what kind of author-audience relationship that this genre maintains.46
Thesis Organization
This thesis consists of five chapters. In addition to this introduction, there are three body chapters—each chapter is dedicated to answering one sub-question that I have asked previously—and a concluding chapter. Chapter 1 begins with the journey of the genre from Europe to Asia. It traces the origin of placards and police ordinances in Europe and the genre application on the VOC ships and overseas establishments. Through the review of the Plakaatboek’s contents, Chapter 1 investigates how the function of placards had changed in the hands of a Dutch trading company.
Once we arrive in Asia, Chapters 2 and 3 discuss the implementation of placards in VOC Asia, mainly Batavia. Chapter 2 begins with the creation process of
VOC-ordinances—from the sources they used and the politics behind the decision-making, to the drafting of the policies. Chapter 3 continues by analyzing the finished product's form and discusses the publication and promulgation of the VOC-placards in Batavia. These two chapters show the glocalization process that happened during the VOC’s
implementation of placards in Batavia. Glocalization is a term that I use in this study to
45 Miller, "Genre as Social Action," 152. 46 Bawarshi and Reiff, Genre, 4.
12
describe the adaptation of a global instrument into the local environment, such as the use of local sources or the translation of ordinances into local languages.
This study's findings are summarized in the concluding chapter and linked to the larger debate on Dutch colonialism. Unlike any history book that is written from an author’s perspective of the past, the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek offers a direct window into the past, to the time when the VOC experimented with the concepts of governance, administration, and social organization. Because the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek records the VOC’s experiment with colonialism, my findings also contribute to the discussion of Dutch colonial experience in Asia.
13
Chapter 1
From Europe to Asia
In this first chapter, we follow the journey of a genre from Europe to Asia. We begin by looking at its origin in Europe to understand why, by whom, and to what purpose it was created. Next, we board the VOC-ship bound for Asia to follow the application of this genre at sea. Once we arrive in VOC-Batavia, we stay to discuss the expansion of this genre in the hands of a Dutch trading company. Through this journey, we review the contents of the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek and see how the Dutch placards' function had evolved as the VOC applied them outside of Europe.
1.1. The European Origin
This section traces the origin of placards and police ordinances to the European
continent. Except for the first placard-entry (the VOC charter) and the last placard-entry (the treaty to handover Java from the Dutch to the English), 1 all other contents of the
Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek belong to the genre of police ordinance. As the terms placard and (police) ordinance refer to the same legislation, it is common to use them interchangeably. Before we do so here, we need to understand that a placard is the medium while an ordinance is the message written on this medium.
As a medium, placards could contain all sorts of announcements from the government to the inhabitants of a territory, including royal announcements, foreign
1 The first placard-entry in the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek falls into the genre of oorkonde (charter); while the last placard-entry falls under the genre of international treaty.
14
treaties, declarations, orders, instructions, and ordinances. The Dutch term plakkaat has long been thought to come from the way a placard was posted, by affixing (aanplakken) the ordinance on public places.2 However, a study by the Belgian historian Paul
Bonenfant has shown that the term actually derived from the French word placcart, which initially referred to a sealed letter of order to French civil servants (figure 1.1).3 The
earliest use of this term came from the Burgundian Netherlands, in 1482, by the chancery of the dukes of Burgundy in the administration of the French kings.4
Figure 1.1. An example of the original placard of the French administration. Source: École des chartes (ELEC), “Lettre patente scellée de cire verte sur lacs de soie rouge et verte, avec trace du sceau du secret du roi plaqué sur le repli. - Philippe IV le Bel,
1299,“ Typologie diplomatique des actes royaux français, XIIIe-XVe siècles, http://elec.enc.sorbonne.fr/cid/cid1991/art_01.
2 AH Huussen Jr., "Het Plakaatboek: Bron van Recht en Historie," De Palimpsest: Geschiedschrijving in de Nederlanden: 1500-2000 (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2002), 63.
3 Paul Bonenfant, "À propos des «Placards» de Charles-Quint," Miscellanea Historica in Honorem Alberti de Meyer: Universitatis Catholicae in Oppido Lovaniensi iam annos XXV Professoris (1946): 781-790.
15
Because most of the placards in the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek contain police ordinance, this section concentrates on the origin of this genre. Police ordinances are administrative laws, issued by the authorities to govern the inhabitants of a territory (people and space). They were the precursor of modern administrative laws, which are intended to organize the home or domestic affairs.5
Police ordinances first appeared in France and German territorial states around 1500. It then spread from the Western and Central Europe to the rest of the European continent and continued to be applied there until the end of the eighteenth century.6
During the Renaissance period, when the European societies transformed from premodern to modern cultures, there was a political consolidation and a shift in governance from the feudal hierarchical tradition (noblemen-tenants relationship) toward a centralized government system (monarchs-subjects relationship).7 Early
modern European rulers began to issue legislation to restructure this new hierarchy and communicate directly with the ruled subjects. They adopted the role as legislators to limit the power of the local lords and the church as well as controlling a large number of subjects.8
Unlike the rest of the European continent, early modern England did not participate in this consolidation of politics.9 As a result, the police ordinance never
developed in England.10 Despite of this, when the British took over Ceylon and the Cape
5 Huussen Jr., “Het Plakkaatboek,” 65.
6 Marc Raeff, The Well-Ordered Police State: Social and Institutional Change through Law in the Germanies and Russia, 1600-1800 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983), 4.
7 Ibid., 11-42. 8 Ibid., 19.
9 Robert von Friedeburg, “Ordnungsgesetzgebung Englands in der Frühen Neuzeit Policey im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit,” in Policey im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1996), 575-603.
16
from the Dutch, they translated and continued to apply Dutch police ordinances in British Ceylon and Cape Town’s administration.11
The term police in police ordinances came from the Greek word politeia, an Aristotelian term for a form of state (e.g. democracy or autocracy).12 This term was first
used in the late fifteenth century in Burgundy (hence the original German spelling: Policey) and referred to regulations that concerned specific areas of administration and public life.13 Only in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the term police underwent
extensive changes and was narrowed down to one executive agency responsible for keeping the public safe and orderly.14
In the early modern European texts, the term police often appear as ‘good police’ (German: gute Policey), a concept that describes the state of affairs that the authorities strive for: a ‘good order’ of a community, society, or state.15 To achieve this state of good
societal order, the early modern governments issued legislations known as Policeyordnung. These legislations were sometimes titled as ordinances, statutes, decrees, regulations, instructions, or edicts. Because they were issued to achieve good societal order, police ordinances became the key-instrument of social control and norm enforcement of early modern European governments.16
11Lodewijk Hovy, Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, vol. 1 (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 1991); Joseph van Kan, “De Bataviasche Statuten en de Buitencomptoiren,” Bijdragen tot de taal-, land-en volkenkunde/Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, vol. 100, no. 1 (1941): 255-282.
12 Toomas Kotkas, Royal Police Ordinances in Early Modern Sweden: the Emergence of Voluntaristic understanding of Law (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 2.
13 Kotkas, Royal Police Ordinance, 9; Raeff, The Well-Ordered Police State, 5.
14 Kotkas, Royal Police Ordinance, 7; Raeff, The Well-Ordered Police State, 5; Karl Härter, “Security and ‘Gute Policey’ in Early Modern Europe: Concepts, Laws, and Instruments,” Historical Social Research (2010): 42.
15 Härter, “Security and ‘Gute Policey’,” 42. 16 Ibid., 43.
17
In the Low Countries, police ordinances appeared from the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth century to govern the inhabitants of a fixed geographical space.17 The
first ordinance issued in the Low Countries is unknown; however, the KB National Library of the Netherlands has listed placards dated as early as 1531.18 In the Dutch Republic, all
kinds of authorities with legislative and judicial powers—from the Council of the States-General and provincial governments to a town’s magistrate and water boards—could issue police ordinances.19 Their ordinances addressed broad and specific issues, from
organizing the judicial system, building infrastructure, regulating commerce, implementing security measures, to granting a specific building permit or special
privilege to a trading company.20 Some ordinances also functioned as a response to the
societal disorder as well as to prevent the same incident from reoccurring.21 They
contained pragmatic orders, instructions, or counsels to reshape the patterns of public behavior and social actions.22
In sum, a placard or a police ordinance is a European instrument for
communicating state authority and governing the subjects of a fixed geographical space. When the Dutch trading companies (VOC and WIC or the West India Company) applied this European instrument on their ships and onto their overseas establishments in Asia, America, and Africa, they had transformed the placard/ police ordinance into a global instrument of governance. Some remnants of Dutch placards worldwide are perpetuated
17 Christel Annemieke Romein, "Blood Sports and Festivities in Normative Provincial Publications Ordinances in Gelderland’s ‘Plakkaatboek’, 1582–1699," Nieuwe Tijdingen 3 (2019): 121-136
18 The list of these digitized books of ordinances is downloadable at
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3611326. The earliest placard in these books is issued in 1531. 19 Romein, “Blood Sports,” 121-136
20 Kotkas, Royal Police Ordinance, 3-8. 21 Romein, “Blood Sports,” 134.
18
in the West Indisch Plakaatboek, the Ceylonese Plakkaatboek, the Kaapse Plakaatboek, The Collection of Ordinances, Marriage, and Baptism Records in Dutch Formosa, and most extensively in the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek.23 What happened to the instrument
during this transformation is our next focus.
1.2. At Sea
Before we discuss the application of placards at sea, it is important to understand how the VOC acquired the right to use a governmental instrument outside of Europe. On 20 March 1602, the States-General of the Dutch Republic issued a placard announcing the establishment of the VOC. This placard is the first entry in the Nederlandsch-Indisch
Plakaatboek.24 In this entry, the compiler Van der Chijs did not include all the 46 articles of
the VOC-charter, but only the ones that justified the creation of a Dutch colony in Asia— most notably article 35, which granted the VOC an unlimited mandate on behalf of the States-General to wage wars and make treaties with the local rulers, to build
fortifications, to appoint governors, and to create institutions that preserved order in their territories.25 This article gave the VOC the authority to issue placards outside of
Europe on behalf of the Dutch rulers in the Republic.
23Jacob Adriaan Schiltkamp and J. Th De Smidt, West Indisch Plakaatboek: Plakaten, Ordonnantiën en andere Wetten uitgevaardigd in Suriname, 1667-1816 (S. Emmering, 1973); Lodewijk Hovy, Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, 2 vols. (Hilversum: Verloren 1991); Mary Kathleen Jeffreys and S. D. Naudé (eds.), Kaapse Plakkaatboek, 6 vols. (Cape Town: Cape Times, 1944); Pol Heyns and Weichung Cheng (trans. and eds.), 荷 蘭時代臺灣告令集婚姻與洗禮登錄簿 (Heland shidai Taiwan gaolingji hunyin yu xili denglubu/ The Collection of Ordinances, Marriage and Baptism Records), 2 vols., (Taipei: Tso Yung-Ho Foundation of Culture and Education, 2008); JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, 17 vols. (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ’s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1885).
24 JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. I (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ’s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1885), 1.
19
Most of the men in the VOC-service came from the European territories where police ordinances had existed. According to Jan Lucassen’s study of the VOC’s labor force, these men came from Holland, Zeeland, Flanders, and Brabant as well as from Germany, France, Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway.26 Due to their familiarity with this
genre, the VOC implemented placards to communicate with its employees and maintain order on the ships and its newfound lands.
During the VOC’s voyage to the East, the fleets applied placards printed in the Dutch Republic—known as artikelbrieven—to regulate the men in the VOC service and maintain order and discipline on board. 27 The artikelbrieven were the regulations under
which a company officer was hired and sworn.28 These placards were handed to the
fleet’s commander in a box called a scheepstrommel.29 Before each ship sailed, a VOC
Director would come on board to inspect the ship and announce some ordinances out loud.30 After the announcement, some copies were nailed to the ship’s mainmast.31
Through the implementation of artikelbrieven on its ships, the VOC had expanded the function of placards from governing people in a fixed geographical space to a space that was both mobile and local at the same time.
When they arrived in Asia, artikelbrieven continued to be applied to regulate the VOC-employees on land. Although artikelbrieven dealt extensively with disciplinary matters, the VOC-administrators in Asia soon found artikelbrieven to be insufficient to
26Jan Lucassen, "A Multinational and its Labor Force: the Dutch East India Company, 1595–
1795," International Labor and Working-Class History 66 (2004): 12-39.
27 An example of artikelbrieven can be found in: Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. I, 309-361.
28Hovy, Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, vol. 1, CXI.
29 Jaap R. Bruijn, Commanders of Dutch East India Ships in the Eighteenth Century (Woodbridge: The Boydel Press, 2011), 225-229.
30 Ibid. 31 Ibid.
20
settle all the disputes that arose in the trading posts.32 To solve this issue, the
States-General and the VOC Directors issued a placard on 14 November 1609 to appoint the first Governor-General and set up the Council of Indies—as their authorities' extension in Dutch Asia. 33 The Governor-General and Council of Indies were given limited legislative
power. They were authorized to issue legislations, but their legislations were subjected to approval by the authorities in the Dutch Republic. 34
After the creation of Batavia as the seat of the VOC-government in Asia, the Governor-General and Council of Indies became known collectively as the High Government of Batavia. This government promulgated placards to create legislative, judiciary, and executive agencies to administer Batavia and all other VOC’s subsidiary establishments. Some of these placards are discussed in the next section.
1.3. In Batavia
The placards issued in Batavia refer to four sources of legal texts: (1) the artikelbrieven that we just met in the previous section; (2) Roman-Dutch law; (3) local customary laws; and (4) ordinances from the Heeren XVII. Roman-Dutch law is an uncodified mixture of Oud-Vaderlands Recht (Dutch indigenous law) and Roman law, developed by the Political Ordinance or Perpetual Edict of the States of Holland on 1 April 1580.35 It was initially
developed to merge the local customs and establish a uniform law, at least in the Province of Holland.36 In Dutch provinces, Roman-Dutch law continued to be applied
throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century and was replaced by the French
32 John Ball, Indonesian Legal History, 1602-1848 (Sidney: Oughtershaw Press, 1982), 28. 33 Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. I, 4.
34 Ball, Indonesian Legal History, 28. 35 Ibid., 30.
21
Napoleonic Code in 1809.37 After the establishment of the Council of Justice and the
Court of Alderman, Heeren XVII instructed Governor-General Coen to apply this law in the VOC territories.38 Roman-Dutch law dealt with subjects such as marriage and divorce,
intestate succession, leases, and mortgages.39 When implementing Roman-Dutch Law in
the colonies, however, the VOC administrators were advised to negotiate with the local law and custom in Asia.40
In the administration of Batavia and Ommelanden, the VOC left some matters of administration to the Chief of each ethnic group. Matters such as small disputes, religion, marriage, and inheritance were settled by the appointed Chief according to the group’s adat law.41 If one were unsatisfied with the decision made by his Chief, he could submit
an appeal to a Dutch Mediator (Voordrager) and, after 1754, to the Commissioner for and about Indigenous Affairs (Gecommitterde tot de zaken van den Inlander).42 The adat law
of each ethnic group is not included in the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek. However, some Asian customary laws such as the Muslim Code and the Chinese customary law are included in the New Statutes of Batavia (the contents of the Nederlandsch-Indisch
Plakaatboek volume IX).43
Meanwhile, instructions from the Heeren XVII came with the artikelbrieven on the scheepstrommel. Placards from the Heeren XVII—to borrow Lodewijk Hovy’s words—had
37 Daniel Visser, “Roman-Dutch Law,” inPeter Cane and Joanne Conaghan (eds.) The New Oxford Companion to Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. E-book.
38Hovy, Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, vol. 1, CXII; Ball, Indonesian Legal History, 30. 39 Ball, Indonesian Legal History, 30.
40 Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakkaatboek, vol. I, 593-594. 41 Adat is an Indonesian term for norms and customs.
42 The Commissioner for and about Indigenous Affairs replaced the role of the Dutch mediator with a placard on 1 October 1754. See Ball, Indonesian Legal History, 52-53; Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakkaatboek, vol. VI, 738.
43 Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakkaatboek, vol. IX. See also the list of topics in Appendix 4 of this thesis.
22
“internal rather than external effects” as they were meant to regulate the VOC’s employees and trading activities.44 Some of these placards were reissued by the High
Government of Batavia to be distributed throughout the VOC territories.
Based on the scope of their administration, there are two types of placards in the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek: corporational and colonial. Almost all placards
received from the Dutch Republic had a corporational function, meaning that they were issued to administer the VOC as a business organization. As a company, the VOC issued placards to regulate shipping and trade, create and remove jobs, authorize payrolls and promotions, manage bookkeeping and finances, and administer the branch offices.45 I
find 1903 placards on the VOC’s internal management and 1503 placards on the VOC’s trading activities in the Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek.46 In modern times, these
ordinances have similar functions to a company’s by-laws and intra-organization correspondences.
In addition to the corporational placards, I also find 1777 placards that I deem colonial because they were issued to transplant European institutions into the conquered territories and govern these territories' inhabitants. 47 To review some of these colonial
44Hovy, Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, vol. I, CXVII.
45 These categories are based on the index in: JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. XVII (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ’s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1900). See Appendix 1.
46 VOC’s internal management placards include: 824 placards on employees’ salary, 411 placards on VOC’s administration, 324 placards on jobs creation and removal, 113 placards on ranks and titles of the VOC men, 101 placards on arrival and repatriation, 51 placards on permitted baggage for repatriation, 30
placards on seals for various institution, 28 placards for the administration of assets of VOC-employees who died without wills, 22 placards on the VOC charters, 15 placards on the VOC-cashier, and 11 artikelbrieven. Placards on VOC’s trading activities include: 529 placards on VOC-trade, 205 placards on enslaved people, 149 placards on sugar, 138 placards on rice, 103 placards on coffee, 47 placards on pepper, 85 placards on opium, 20 placards on indigo, 18 placards on cotton, 18 placards on tea, 92 placards on auction of VOC trade goods, 69 placards on goods sold on credits, and 30 placards on goods depreciation due to leakage. Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakkaatboek, vol. XVII.
47 Placards on the management of Asian colonies include: 215 placards on Aldermen, 107 placards on Governor-General, 107 placards on Heemraden, 95 placards on territorial expansion, 48 placards on Landdrost, 41 placards on Bailluw, 39 placards on water-prosecutor (to catch private trade or pirates), 29
23
placards, I choose examples from the beginning and the end of the VOC-rule in Batavia, issued by the founder of Batavia, Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen (in office: 1619-23 and 1627-29) and by the solidifier of Dutch power in Java, Governor-General Herman Willem Daendels (in office: 1808-11).
After the conquest of Jayakarta (pre-colonial name of Jakarta/ Batavia) in May 1619, Coen began the task of building a Dutch town in the tropics. Placards from his first term include the creation of European institutions on Asian soil, such as the College van Schepenen, Raad van Justitie, Bailluw, Advocaat-Fiscaal, and Notaris.48 Coen renamed the
town from Jayakarta to Batavia with a placard on 28 August 1621.49 In early Batavia,
placards were also used to restrict the indigenous’ access to the city, or to fish around its sea, and to govern the inhabitants of Batavia.50 In the hands of the VOC, placards
functioned to transfer the European model of governance, administration, and social organization onto an Asian canvas.
After the VOC went bankrupt in 1799, all VOC assets were absorbed by the Dutch state.51 After the regime change in Patria, the Kingdom of Holland sent Daendels, the
ex-commander of the “Batavian Legion”, to Java in 1808 to do the following: (1) improving
placards on syahbandar (Asian harbor-master), 98 placards on the administration of Chinese assets who died without will, 74 placards on the administration of the citizens who died without wills, 606 placards on foreign orientals, and 318 placards on the Chinese population.
Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakkaatboek, vol. XVII.
48 Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. I, 56-102. 49 Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. I, 89.
50 Since the Dutch distrusted the Javanese, Batavia’s early inhabitants were all foreigners: Europeans, Chinese, Mardijkers, Arabs, and various ethnic groups from the Eastern Indonesia islands.
Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. I, 56-102.
51 VOC was nationalized on 24 December 1795 by the “Decree for annulment of the present
management of the VOC” and VOC directors were replaced by the “Committee for the East Indies trade and possessions”. The committee continued to trade but due to the unbearable debt and continued war with the English, they decided not to renew VOC’s charter when it expired on 31 December 1799. Although VOC was formally dissolved on 1 January 1800, their terms remain in force until May 1804, when a new charter was created. See: Femme Simon Gaastra, The Dutch East India Company: Expansion and Decline (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2003), 170.
24
the defence of Java against the English, (2) reorganizing the army, and (3) abolishing compulsory cultivation to (4) improve the living conditions of the Javanese.52 To
accomplish these, he was given the authority to make decrees as he saw fit. With this authority, he issued 1,444 placards to change Java from the system of indirect rule to direct rule and to transform the Batavian government into a centralized state authority.53
With placards, Daendels divided Java into nine prefects, converted Javanese princes into Dutch government officials, and subordinated them to the prefects. 54 He
molded the VOC-merchants into colonial administrators so that the new colonial state could be supported by the disciplined Dutch and Javanese administrators.55 After the
consolidation of the whole Java as a “government domain”, he sold large terrains to European privateers (private businesses and planters).56 To raise more funds, he
gradually expanded the compulsory cultivation system instead of abolishing it. 57 Next,
the new colonial state needed new rules, so he revised the Indies legal system, established new courts, and expanded their jurisdiction and judicial power.58
Two centuries after Coen founded Batavia, the town was in desperate need for a makeover. Thus, Daendels demolished the Castle, moved the seat of Batavian
government to the suburb, and built the grand palace that now houses the Indonesian
52 Batavian Legion was the name of the army consist of Dutch “Patriots” exiles who fought on the French side against the Dutch Republic.
Ball, Indonesian Legal History, 78-104; Arnold Dirk Adriaan de Kat Angelino, Colonial Policy, vol. 2 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), 24-26.
53 Daendels placards exemplified here can be found in: JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. XV (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ’s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1896) and JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. XVI (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ’s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1897).
54 Ball, Indonesian Legal History, 78-104; De Kat Angelino, Colonial Policy, 24-26. 55 Ibid.
56 Ball, Indonesian Legal History, 88. 57 Ibid.
25
President.59 He also built military barracks and college, hospitals, arms factories, and
constructed the Great Post Road to connect the whole Java island from the West to the East. 60
On average, Daendels had issued 481 placards per year, the highest among all the Governor-Generals. As the numbers of his placards show, Daendels was arguably the most accomplished Governor-General in the Indies. His accomplishments paved the way for Raffles’ reformation and the foundation of the Dutch East Indies.
In the beginning, Coen had used the placard as an instrument to build a Dutch colony. By the end of the VOC-rule, Daendels utilized the placards to consolidate the Dutch's political power in Java. Through their applications, placards had obtained a colonial function. The next section reviews the Batavian placards’ sphere of influence in other places under VOC dominion.
1.4. Throughout the VOC-empire
As the seat of VOC-government in Asia, placards issued in Batavia had a far-reaching application. The circulating Batavian placards in the VOC-empire were corporational in function as they were meant to administer the branch offices and VOC-employees. These Batavian placards did not regulate the local affairs of the subsidiary settlements.61
59 Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. XV and XVI. 60 Ibid.
61 Each VOC establishment with territorial authority could issue their own placards to manage the local affairs. Hovy, Ceylonees Plakkaatboek, vol. 1, LIII.
26
The spatial function of placards expanded again as they were distributed to
govern the people in many territories, from the Southern tip of Africa to the Far East (see Map 1.1). Placards did not only evolve from managing people in a fixed geographical space to a mobile site but also were used to manage people who moved between
various VOC territories. In the Dutch Republic, when a Dutchman moved from Holland to Groningen, he no longer observed Holland's laws but submitted himself under the legislation that governed the inhabitants of Groningen. However, when a Dutchman in Asia moved from Batavia to Colombo, he continued to observe the same rules and
regulations set in the Statutes of Batavia. When used by the VOC, this legal instrument no longer governed the inhabitants of a fixed territory but people across multiple territories.
The application of the Statutes of Batavia across the VOC-territories had created a Dutch legal web throughout the Indian Ocean (see Map 1.1). These legislations were created not only to govern the Europeans in the VOC-territories, but also the indigenous inhabitants in the Dutch colonies. Alicia Schrikker and Dries Lyna’s study of court cases in Dutch Asia show that Sinhalese men who lost a court case in Colombo could take an advantage of the Dutch legal network and pursue an appeal in Batavia.62 Meanwhile,
Kerry Ward’s study of penal transportation shows that the VOC had exercised its legal and jurisdiction dominion throughout the Indian Ocean by sending convicts and political exiles from Batavia to the Cape of Good Hope.63 Ward’s study does not only show how
the VOC legal network displaced the colonized subjects but also “reinforced the primacy
62 Alicia Schrikker and Dries Lyna, "Threads of the Legal Web: Dutch Law and Everyday Colonialism in eighteenth-century Asia," in Vermeersch, G.; Van den Heijden, M.; Zuijderduijn, J.(ed.), The Uses of Justice in Global Perspective 1600-1900 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018), 42-56.
63Kerry Ward, Networks of Empire: Forced Migration in the Dutch East India Company, (New York: Cambridge
27
of Bataviain imperial law and governance.” 64 Through the application of Batavian
placards in VOC Asia, the VOC had expanded the function of ordinances to administer justice to people across spatial boundaries.
28
29 ***
This chapter has taken us on a journey from Europe to Asia by following the creation of placards and police ordinances in Europe and their application on the VOC ships, in Batavia, and throughout the VOC-Asia. Compare to the placard’s original function in Europe, I argue that the VOC had expanded the function of placards in three ways when they applied this legal instrument outside of Europe.
First, the placards’ spatial function had been extended from governing people in a fixed territory to a mobile site when the VOC applied artikelbrieven on board of their ships. The spatial function was extended the second time when the VOC used the placards to manage the sailors, soldiers, merchants, and officials who moved between the VOC-territories. Lastly, Dutch placards outside the Republic were no longer used to manage the inhabitants of one city or province but people in many territories under the VOC-empire. These expansions of the placard’s spatial use at sea and on land had transformed the placard into a global tool of governance.
Secondly, placards acquired a corporational function as they were used to
regulate the VOC-employees and business activities. Corporational placards were mostly issued by the States-General of the Dutch Republic and the VOC Directors in Patria. Some of these placards were reissued in Batavia to be disseminated throughout the subsidiary establishments.
Thirdly, placards also acquired a colonial function, as they were used to impose European concepts of governance, administration, and social organization into the Asian way of life. This type of placards was mostly issued by the High Government of Batavia to govern the inhabitants of a Dutch colony. While we are in Batavia, let us investigate how the VOC constructed these Batavia ordinances.
30
Chapter 2
From Sources to Writing
The previous chapter has discussed the journey of a genre from Europe to Asia and how its function has expanded on this eastward transfer. The rest of this thesis focuses on the VOC’s implementation of placards in Asia. In this chapter, we review the process of ordinance-making in Batavia and the next chapter discusses the form and promulgation of the finished product.
During the implementation of placards in Asia, I argue that the process has been glocalized, meaning that although the Dutch trading companies had turned the police ordinance into a global legal-instrument, its application in Batavia was adapted to the local environments. This chapter shows the glocalization process through the creation of Batavian ordinances, from the use of local sources to the drafting of the ordinances. We shall begin by introducing the ordinances in our case study.
2.1. The Case Study
As the case study, I choose the security ordinances of Batavia. The security of the VOC-headquarter in Asia was paramount to the Company’s economic pursue and commercial profit. As observed by Hendrik E. Niemeijer, the insecurity of Batavia and Ommelanden was a constant subject of discussion at every Council’s meeting, especially in the
31
seventeenth century.1 Without security in Batavia, the VOC could not secure their
prosperity, rule, and future in Asia.
The case study consists of four examples of security ordinances in Batavia: (1) a ban on keris2, (2) bans on cockfighting, (3) a prohibition against arson and burglary, and
(4) a regulation on public peace and safety. These placards are chosen for their longevity as they had been reissued numerous times throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century (see chart 2.1).3
Chart 2.1. Timeline of the chosen placards.
According to Arthur der Weduwen’s study of state-communication in the Dutch Republic, placards were re-announced to remind the inhabitants of the existing rules of the land.4
As such, the repetition functions as the enforcement of law. Toomas Kotkas’ study of the police ordinances in Sweden adds several more reasons why placards were repeated. First, Kotkas says that ordinances might be reissued because the ruled subjects had failed to obey them.5 This failure was due to the lack of executive agencies to enforce the rules.
1 Batavia’s Ommelanden refers to the territory between Batavia and the mountains in Buitenzorg (now Bogor), and bounded on the west by Banten, and on the east by Karawang.
Hendrik E. Niemeijer, Batavia: Masyarakat Kolonial abad XVII (Jakarta: Masup, 2012), 17. 2 Keris is a Southeast Asian dagger with a wavy blade.
3 The placards on the ‘public peace and safety’ had been repeated six times, five repetitions on ‘arson and burglary’, four repetitions on ‘the ban of keris’, and the three placards on ‘cockfighting’. We know that they were repetition because the later version always refers to the previous versions.
4 Arthur der Weduwen, “Selling the Republican Ideal: State Communication in the Dutch Golden Age,” (PhD diss., University of St Andrews, 2018), 119-120.
5 Toomas Kotkas, Royal Police Ordinances in Early Modern Sweden: the Emergence of Voluntaristic understanding of Law (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 85
32
Secondly, to legitimize the continuity of authority, the new rulers had to give confirmation to the old ordinances by reissuing them.6 Third, old ordinances were
revised and reissued as they adapted to new circumstances.7 Forth, sometimes
ordinances were reissued because the authority added corrections or additional
provisions.8 Lastly, posted legislations might be forgotten as soon as they dropped off,
rubbed off, or were out of sights. To keep their validity and relevance, the same ordinance had to be renewed and reposted. 9 That the placards in our case study had
been repeated up to six times indicate their importance and relevance throughout the entire VOC-rule in Batavia (chart 2.1). Each placard is introduced in the following sub-sections.
2.1.1. Prohibition against the carrying of keris from entering Batavia
Table 2.1. The placard against keris, issued on 31 December 1622.
Source: JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. I (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ‘s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1885), 608-609.
The placard against keris had been repeated at least three more times: in 1628, 1638, 1697, and added as an article in numerous security ordinances. The wording of each version might be revised, but the later placard always refers to its older versions. In this
6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., 85-86. 9 Ibid.
33
1622-version, nachodas10 of great junks, important envoys, and ambassadors were
exempted from the rule, but this exemption was dropped in later versions. The 1638-version specifically targeted the “Inlanders and Chinese” and “Malays and Javanese” inhabitants and visitors.11 The 1697-version added the following ethnic groups to the list:
“our inhabitants, Malays, Balinese, Javanese, Makassarese, Buginese, Ambonese,
Bandanese, Ternater, Papuan, Selayarese, Butoners, Bimanese, Papangers, Mallabarese, Foreign Muslims, Cassers (?) and so also the Chinese or other indigenous nations”—with the exceptions for the Chief of each ethnic group, the oldest indigenous sergeant in the VOC service, and the high-ranking indigenous.12 Compare to the earlier version, the
1697-ordinance shows the growth of Batavia and Ommelanden’s population in the past 60 years. More ethnic groups from other VOC-establishments had migrated to Batavia and its surrounding lands—either voluntarily or by the VOC’s design.
The punishment for disobeying this rule was a fine of 10 rijksdaalders for the free inhabitants and whipping for the enslaved people.13 In the eighteenth century, the ban
on keris were replaced by the ban of firearms. A 1726-placard against firearms noted that
10 A Nachoda or Nakhoda (Indonesian spelling; Persian origin) is the highest-ranking naval officer on a ship, an equivalent to an Admiral in English.
11 The identified target groups are translated from: “Javanen, “van buyten incomende”; Inlandsche en Chinesche ingezetenen van Batavia; Maleijers en Javanen, ingezetenen van Batavia [...]”
Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. I, 418.
12 Translated from: “onze ingesetenen, Maleyers, Baliers, Javanen, Macassaren, Bougies, Amboineesen, Bandaneesen, Ternaten, Papouen, Saleyereesen, Boutonders, Bimaneesen, Papangers, Mallabaren, Mooren, Cassers ende soo mede de Chineesen off andere inlantse natien [...]”
JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. III (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ‘s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1886), 424.
13 Ibid.
Recent scholarships have used the term enslaved people to replace the term slaves. See Karwan Fatah-Black and Matthias van Rossum, “Slavery in a ‘Slave Free Enclave’: Historical Links Between the Dutch Republic, Empire and Slavery, 1580s–1860s,” Werkstattgeschichte (2014): 66-67; Neil Irvin Painter, “How We Think about the term ‘Enslaved’ Matters”, The Guardian, 14 August 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/14/slavery-in-america-1619-first-ships-jamestown.
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“[w]hile the indigenous used to have no weapons other than machetes, keris, and spikes, in 1726, he was ‘always armed’ with a shooting rifle.”14
2.1.2. Prohibition against cockfighting
The next selection comes from the ban on cockfighting. Cockfighting is a popular blood sport in Indonesia, even until today in some parts of Indonesia. Unlike the other
examples in our case study, the placards on cockfighting are not a repetition of the same prohibition but an evolution from prohibition to legalization; therefore all three of them are included in the next page. Although cockfighting was banned by a placard in 1664, the High Government of Batavia decided to reverse the ban and issue cockfighting licenses in 1706.15 This turn might suggest that there was an interactive process of
communication and negotiation in the implementation of Dutch ordinances in Asia between the VOC-government and the local inhabitants (or at least the intermediary power such as the revenue farmers). To negotiate between a local tradition and the government’s intention of imposing social order, Dutch rulers in Batavia had to alter their regulation to achieve their goal. They might have hoped that by legalizing the practice in the government-approved venues, they could impose some regulations on the practice, while maintaining public order and generating income. When legalization did not stop the locals from holding the game outside of the permitted places and therefore continued to cause public disorder, the government reinstated the ban in 1712 and imposed a heavy fine on illegal cockfights.16
14 Translated from: “Terwijl vroeger de inlander geene andere wapenen bezat dan kapmessen, krissen en pieken, was hij in 1726 ‘door gaans’ met schietgeweer gewapend.”
JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. IV (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ‘s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1887), 190.
15 Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. III, 576. 16 Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. IV, 19.
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36 2.1.3. Prohibition against arson and burglary
The next example is a placard against arson and burglary. It was first issued on 7 July 1667 and was repeated five more times: in 1697, 1713, 1739, 1769, and 1798. This placard was also recorded in the New Statutes of Batavia and distributed to all VOC territories in Asia.17 The 1769-version below added a report on how the inhabitants had devised
various mechanisms to set fires—using composed leaves, sulfur, nitrate, or gunpowder.18
This version reissued the permission for property owners to kill any indigenous
trespasser in the name of self-defense.19 As such, this placard was repeated not only to
remind the inhabitants of the existing rule but also to remind people of the severity of the punishment, that they could be killed if caught in the act.
Table 2.3. The placard against arson and burglary, issued on 22 September 1769.
17 JA van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, vol. IX (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij and ‘s Hage: M. Nijhoff, 1887), 193.
18 Ibid.
19 Permission to kill trespassers can be found in the 1713 and 1769 versions. For 1713 version, see: Van der Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek vol. IV, 36-36.
