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Decent colonialism? Pure science and colonial ideology in the Netherlands East Indies, 1910–1929

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2009

Abstract

This article examines changes within the Dutch civilising mission ideology after the decline of the Ethical Policy. Support of pure science, scientific knowledge that supposedly transcended ideology and politics, allowed the colonial administration to continue to project their rule as decent and moral, even as conflict and repression dominated colonial politics in the 1920s. The argument starts with the construction of pure science after 1910, under the care of J.C. Koningsberger, out of the research traditions at the Department of Agriculture. It next examines the creation of institutions and agendas of pure science. And finally it analyses the absorption of pure science into the civilising mission of the 1920s. It concludes with a discussion of what this means for historical evaluations of the Dutch colonial project.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2009

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References

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30 Koningsberger confirmed he was Treub's choice in Koningsberger to Went, 29 Sept. 1909, in Boerhave Museum archive, Leiden (hereafter, BM), J. C. Koningsberger correspondence archive.

31 Lovink to Idenburg, 23 Apr. 1910, no. 3623, and Lovink to Idenburg, 31 May 1910, no. 5033, in ANRI, AS 1891–1942, Besluit 22 June 1910, no. 8.

32 Rapport van Departement van Landbouw, 9 Dec. 1910, no. 11352, in ANRI, AS 1891–1942, Besluit 31 Dec. 1910, no. 6.

33 Koningsberger to Went, 14 Dec. 1910, in BM, J.C. Koningsberger correspondence archive.

34 Ibid.

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38 Maat, Science cultivating practice, p. 89.

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45 Koningsberger to Went, 14 Dec. 1910.

46 The herbarium botanists were particularly independent minded, especially after Th. Valeton retired in 1913 (he had been chief of the herbarium since 1904). Thereafter the herbarium staff pursued their own interests under the administratively ineffectual J.J. Smith as the new chief. Valeton to Went, 15 Dec. 1911, in BM, Valeton correspondence archive and Smith to Went, 2 Aug. 1913, in BM, Smith correspondence archive.

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52 Boorsma's printed review was likely a source of some embarrassment to Lovink and other senior colonial officials, who had commissioned and subsidised the publication of the Exkursionsflora. Lovink in 1914 also forbade the publication of Backer's ‘Slotwoord’. Lovink to Idenburg, 17 Sept. 1914, no. 10293; Erdbrink to Lovink, 9 Oct. 1914, no. 400 (secret); Idenburg to Pleijte, 9 Oct. 1914, Mailrapport no. 1192/ 15, in NA, MvK, Verbaal 28 Nov. 1914/42, inv. no. 1285.

53 Koningsberger to Idenburg, 28 Feb. 1916, no. 36 (secret); Kinderman to Koningsberger, 25 Mar. 1916, no. 128 (secret), in NA, MvK, Verbaal 22 June 1916/19, inv. no. 1558.

54 The Utrecht botanist A. Pulle concluded that for pure science to have credibility, the scientists' dirty laundry would have to be kept in house. Refer to J.F. Veldkamp, ‘C.A. Backer, schrijver van een uniek woordenboek’, in Backer, C.A., Verklarend woordenboek van wetenschappelijke plantennamen' (Amsterdam: L.J. Veen, 2000), p. xviGoogle Scholar.

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56 Lovink to Idenburg, 11 Mar. 1913, no. 2661; Hazeu to Idenburg, 29 Mar. 1913, no. 5318; Advies van den Raad van Nederlandsch-Indië, ‘Betreffende de oprichting van een “Centraal Wetenschapelijk Instituut voor Nederl.Oost-Indië” ’, 22 Apr. 1913, in NA, MvK, Verbaal 28 June 1913/14, inv. no. 1055.

57 Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut to de Waal Malefijt, 16 June 1913, no. 137, in NA, MvK, Verbaal 28 June 1913/14, inv. no. 1055; Koningsberger to Lovink, 21 Aug. 1913, no. 747; Hazeu to Idenburg, 25 Nov. 1913, no. 20496; Idenburg to Pleijte, 22 Dec. 1913, no. 1459/19; ‘Oprichting van een Centraal Wetenschappelijk Instituut voor Ned.Indie’, Afdeeling AI, 23 Mar. 1914, in NA, MvK, Verbaal 31 Mar. 1914/60, inv. no. 1155.

58 Pyenson, Empire of reason, p. 14.

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82 Koningsberger to Went, 10 Apr. 1919, in BM, J. C. Koningsberger correspondence archive.

83 E. du Perron, who had known him as headmaster in Bandung, called him ‘an honest man without any true character’. du Perron, E., Het land van herkomst (Amsterdam: van Oorschot, 1996 [1936]), p. 467Google Scholar. This description appears not in the autobiographical novel itself, but in a key that du Perron prepared for a friend explaining who his ‘fictional’ characters were based upon. From the novel it is clear du Perron did not greatly admire Docters van Leeuwen, especially after he had suspended du Perron from school for two weeks over a disagreement with the history teacher.

84 J.J. Smith, ‘Reglement voor het Herbarium’, Dec. 1918, in NA, Collection Van Steenis, inv. no. 250.

85 Docters van Leeuwen to Goethart, 28 Aug. 1919, no. 514, in Nationaal Herbarium Nederland, Leiden (hereafter, NHN), Buitenzorg correspondence archive 1871–1932.

86 van Leeuwen, W.M. Docters and van Leeuwen-Reynevaan, J. Docters, The Zoocecidia of the Netherlands East Indies (Batavia: de Unie, 1926)Google Scholar; van Leeuwen, W.M. Docters, ‘The Flora and fauna of the islands of the Krakatau-groep in 1919’, Annales du Jardin Botanique Buitenzorg, 31 (1921): 103–40Google Scholar; van Leeuwen, W.M. Docters, ‘Biology of plants and animals occurring in the higher parts of Mount Pangrango-Gedeh in west Java’, Verhandelingen van Koninklijke Adademie van Wetenschappen, 31 (1933): 1278Google Scholar; van Leeuwen, –W.M. Docters, Krakatau 1883–1933 (Leiden: Brill, 1936)Google Scholar.

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89 In the late 1940s, the botanist C.G.G.J. van Steenis (who started at the Gardens in 1927) argued that the Botanical Gardens were freest from controversy under Docters van Leeuwen. van Steenis to F.C. Went, 19 Jan. 1949, in NA, Collection van Steenis, inv. no. 9.

90 Lam to Went, 16 Jan. 1928, in BM, Lam correspondence archive. See also, Veldkamp, ‘C.A. Backer’, p. xii.

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93 Docters van Leeuwen was not initially invited, but he finagled himself onto the team after permission to take a plane for anthropological study required Dutch government intervention. C.C.F.M. le Roux, ‘Beknopt voorloopig plan voor een Amerikaansch-Nederlandsche Expeditie naar het Nassau-gebergte in Ned. Nieuw-Guinee’, 27 Jan. 1926, in NA, Collection ICWO, inv. no. 124. For a good introduction to this expedition, refer to Paul Michael Taylor, By aeroplane to Pygmyland: Revisiting the 1926 Dutch and American expedition to New Guinea, published online by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, http://www.sil.si.edu/expeditions/1926 (last accessed on 9 July 2008).

94 W.M. Docters van Leeuwen, ‘Voorbereiding van den bioloog van de Expeditie’, Apr. 1926, in NA, Collection ICWO, inv. no. 125 and NA, Collection ICWO, inv. no. 126.

95 Docters van Leeuwen to Went, 6 Mar. 1928, in BM, Docters van Leeuwen correspondence archive.

96 Heyne, K., De nuttige planten van Nederlandsch-Indië, 2nd edn, 3 vols. (Batavia: Ruygrok, 1927)Google Scholar. Heyne was replaced in 1927 by the systematic botanist C.G.G.J. van Steenis who did only the bare minimum of economic botany work thereafter.

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100 Ibid.

101 ANRI, AS 1819–1942, Besluit 6 Jan. 1928, no. 13.

102 ‘Reglement voor den Natuurwetenschappelijke Raad voor Nederlandsch-Indië’, in ANRI, AS 1891–1942, Besluit 28 Feb. 1928, no. 9.

103 Pyenson, Empire of reason, pp. 15–16.

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107 H.J. Lam, ‘Conspectus of institutions of pure and applied science in or concerning the Netherlands East Indies’, in Science in the Netherlands East Indies, ed. L.M.R. Rutten, pp. 383–432.

108 Docters van Leeuwen to Went, 21 Feb. 1928, in BM, Docters van Leeuwen correspondence archive.

109 Jacobs, Lam, p. 32.

110 Proceedings of the Fourth Pacific Science Congress Java, 1929: Volume I, General part and reports on oceanography, ed. H.J. Lam and K.W. Dammerman (Batavia: n.p., 1930), pp. 5–24.

111 Ibid., p. 368.

112 Ibid., p. 73.

113 Ibid., p. 71.

114 Handelingen van de Volksraad 1918, p. 170.

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118 Adas, Machines as the measure of men.

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121 Docters van Leeuwen to Went, 19 Oct. 1931, in BM, Docters van Leeuwen Correspondence Archive.

122 The most famous attack was made, ironically, by Koningsberger's son, J.C., Koningsberger, V.J., ‘Het werk van Melchior Treub na 25 jaren’, Koloniale Studiën, 18, 1 (1934): 249–58Google Scholar.

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