March 2020: Handwriting text recognition promising

In recent years automated text recognition has developed impressively, and now it seems to become applicable to digitized archives. A computer can actually be taught to read and also 17th and 18th century Dutch in scanned VOC archival sources. A breakthrough is in reach in the near future. Texts of old manuscripts made digitally searchable can assist historians and other researchers in disclosing archives.

Not all archives are in prefect condition. Because of archival damage text recognition can be difficult.
Marco Roling (advisor of The Corts Foundation) has conducted research recently on the application of text recognition on archives with damage, and has looked at the effects of ink corrosion and discoloration. This article also takes a first step towards measuring archival damage and the possibilities of improving scans digitally.

The research is public and free, and can be downloaded here >>>

December 2019: Publication on residences of Batavia online

Dr. V.I. van de Wall, working for the historical department, was granted his request in 1926 by his superior, the famous historian dr. P.V. van Stein Callenfell, to map the so called ‘thuynen’ (country houses and gardens ) in and around Batavia.This included measuring, drafting floor and garden plans, researching the history of the building and successive inhabitants, and last but not least making photos of (parts of) famous residences when it still was possible to discern them. Most residences were constructed after 1730. The first coffeeplants that were introduced into the Dutch Indies from Ceylon were planted at ‘Residence Struiswijk’. Javanese silk was made at the first breeding place of silkworms at ‘Residence Leenhoff’s Weergade’.

The Corts Foundation digitized this second expanded edition of ‘Oude Hollandse Buitenplaatsen van Batavia’ of 1943, and made it fully text searchable

The digital version (in Dutch) can be viewed and downloaded here:
Van de Wall (1943, 175 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 14mb]

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December 2019: L. de Jong volumes on the Dutch-Indies digital searchable

The Corts Foundation publishes relevant Japanese war sources (the Senshi Sōsho volumes 3 : "The invasion of the Dutch East Indies" (2015), and vol. 26: “The Operations of the Navy in the Dutch East Indies and the Bay of Bengal” (2018), while parts of Senshi Sōsho vol. 34 “Army Air Drive to the Southern Pacific Area” and Senshi Sōsho vol. 5 “Operations in Burma” are due at the end of 2020). These downloads are available by Open Access and as download on this website. As these volumes reflect the Japanese vision of the second world war, it is proper to share on this webste also the official view of the Dutch government (in the Dutch language) as a reference to these texts.

Therefor The Corts Foundation made three volumes which are dedicated to the war in the former Dutch East Indies: 11a (1984), 11b (1985) and 11c (1986), five books, available and searchable on our website. They are part of the ‘Magnus Opus’ of prof. dr. L. De Jong, who was commissioned by the Dutch government (from 1955 till 1991) to research and write about the history of “The Kingdom of the Netherlands in the second World War”.
These complete series encompassed fourteen volumes in 29 books in the Dutch language and are all available on line at the website of “The National Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide studies- NIOD” in Amsterdam. De Jong was the founder and manager of this institute from October 1945 till his retirement in May 1979.

In Holland prof. dr. L. De Jong (1914- 2005) was well known by his presentation on the National Dutch television of a series concerning the occupation of the Netherlands.

The first of volume11a describes Indian society and government. The second part concerns the buildup of Indian defenses till the Japanese invasion. Volume 11b focusses on the Japanese war in Asia, while the second part highlights the sufferings of prisoners of war and Dutch internees, and the developing situation of the Indonesian independence. The last volume 11c concerns the armed forces, merchant navy, intelligence, the return of the Dutch including the revolutionary situation.

The digitale version (in Dutch) can be viewed and downloaded here:
De Jong deel 11a, first part (1984, 572 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 10mb]
De Jong deel 11a, second part (1984, 645 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 11mb]
De Jong deel 11b, first part (1985, 516 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 11mb]
De Jong deel 11b, second part (1985, 614 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 14mb]
De Jong deel 11c (1986, 758 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 18mb]

Additionally it is worth mentioning that volume 13 “Annexes/ register (1988) provides an overview of all amendments. The period of August 145 1945 till the date of devolution of sovereingty on December 27 1949 is included in volume 12, second part “Epilogue” (1988). Comments were collected and edited in volume 14 “Comments” (1991).

Read more (in Dutch):
https://www.niod.nl/nl/het-koninkrijk-der-nederlanden-de-tweede-wereldoorlog/de-boeken
https://www.niod.nl/nl/download
https://www.niod.nl/nl/nieuws/heruitgave-de-bezetting
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loe_de_Jong
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Het_Koninkrijk_der_Nederlanden_in_de_Tweede_Wereldoorlog
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_bezetting 

November 2019: Book presentation Herman Keppy

Journalist Herman Keppy presented his latest book 'Zijn jullie kerels of lafaards? De Indische en Indonesische strijd tegen de nazi's 1940-'45' (Eng: Are you men or cowards? The Indian and Indonesian resistence against the Nazis 1940-'45) on Friday, November 29th, in the 'Verzetsmuseum' (Eng: Museum of the Resistence) in Amsterdam. The Corts Foundation made a financial contribution to realize this important publication.

In the Verzetsmuseum copies of the book were given to children of East Indies and Indonesian people who fought against the nazis in the Netherlands. One of them, the well known Dutch singer Ernst Jansz (of the band called Doe Maar), spoke and sang about his father Rudi who had joined the resistence in Amsterdam during the war. Rudi Jansz was a member of the East Indies community that existed long before the war in the Netherlands. He was mobilised and came into action on May 10th, 1940, but later on was captured for his resistence activities. He was not the only one, as it turns out in the book by Keppy.

Read more ...

November 2019: Publication Mijer from 1848 now digital online

Mr. P. Mijer was vice-president of the high court of Justice and the high military court of Justice of the Dutch East Indies, and in 1848 he requested permission by the government in Batavia to publish several historical documents. Because the mentioned documents were of historical importance back at the time, and still are nowadays, the Corts Foundation has scanned this book publication by Mijer and created a full search with text recognition. It does justice to what Mijer himself envisioned and stated in the publication introduction: ‘... with dual objectives to make the exact texts of the oldest and most important documents of the former colonial governmental system sustainable for the future and to spread the knowledge of her main principles to a general audience.’

It concerns a collection of instructions by Dutch authorities dating back to 1609, 1617, 1632, 1650, 1807, 1815, 1818, 1827, 1830 and 1836, addressed from Holland to the Governor Generals and the Council of the Indies and their succeeding government institutions. Mijer searched for original manuscrips in Batavia and especially from the early 17th century, but found only ‘unmarked and unofficial’ copies. He used these for his publication. Possibly the real originals can be found in the Netherlands in the archives of the so called ‘Staten Generaal’. Additionally he used a number of instructions from the early nineteenth century, a period with political changes in the Netherlands and French and British rule over the East Indies.

The digital version of this publication can be viewed here and downloaded for free.
Mijer, Batavia (1848, 560 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 18mb]

November 2019: 17th century shipping from the archives

The Indonesian VOC archives hold thousands of references on the shipping of the 17th and 18th century. It provides insight into a part of the world wide maritime network of trading posts, and can be studied by using large data sets that can be distilled from historical manuscripts.

The daily journals of the Castle of Batavia is part of the VOC archives of the National Archives of Indonesia (ANRI) in Jakarta, Indonesia. These daily journals have been scanned a few years ago and published online by the Corts Foundation and ANRI. The 117.390 marginalia of these manuscripts have been collected by senior archivist Dr. Mona Lohanda and eventually brought together in a digital document, that became the base of the online database providing a secundary entry to the scans.

The marginalia are short sentences, in the margin of the page, that summarize the adjacent text. Some of these marginalia contain names of persons, places or ships. They form separate indexes and thus access entries to the tens of thousands of marginalia (see the website of sejarah-nusantara>>).

It is not only the large ships that sailed between Batavia and Holland with big cargo's of spices, porcelain, textiles and other goods that were mentioned in the marginalia. Also thousands of other ships sailing between Batavia and numerous places in Asia, Arabia, India and many other countries were mentioned. More than 7500 ships of all kind and size and nationality.

Filtering the marginalia on ship names result in a new dataset with 37.434 records. These records clear up the many ship movements, and also cargo lists, correspondence, sales and several shipwrecks and disasters.The new dataset is freely downloadable and available for further scientific research (Excel download here>>).

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November 2019: Four volumes 'Priangan' digital available

Following the rescanning and digital online publication of the three volumes of 'Oud Batavia' by F. de Haan (see earlier news item, october), The Corts Foundation decided to also publish the preceding standard work of 'Priangan'. These four volumes were produced by de Haan between 1910 and 1912 when at the time he was the national archivist in the Dutch East Indies.

His assignment was to conduct 'a historical research to the origin and the development, the working and the consequences of the organization of Preager regents by the Dutch East India Company'. Geografically speaking it concerns the central part of Java, where Batavia (Jakarta) was situated, and that was controlled and managed by the Dutch with regents.

All four original volumes of 'Priangan' were rescanned (including OCR-text recognition) and made fully digital visible and searchable on this website. Each volume is in a separate PDF file format shown online and freely available as download.

VOLUME 1 (1910, 896 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 30mb]
VOLUME 2 (1911, 937 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 35mb]
VOLUME 3 (1912, 993 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 39mb]
VOLUME 4 (1912, 1045 pages) - [Open online viewer] [PDF - 40mb]

Read more ...

Sejarah Nusantara

The Corts Foundation and the Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia proudly present a website, in both English and Indonesian language, that shows thousands of handwritten pages of the Dutch 17th and 18th century archives, inventories and searchable databases. This website focusses on a worldwide audience of people interested in the history of the Indonesian archipelago hidden as treasures in these old documents.

Visit the website of

www.sejarah-nusantara.anri.go.id

and start exploring ...