Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Home
  • Home
Hostname: page-component-5bf98f6d76-xlldj Total loading time: 0.668 Render date: 2021-04-21T07:44:58.458Z Has data issue: true Feature Flags: { "shouldUseShareProductTool": true, "shouldUseHypothesis": true, "isUnsiloEnabled": true, "metricsAbstractViews": false, "figures": false, "newCiteModal": false, "newCitedByModal": true }
EnglishFrançais
European Review European Review

Article contents

Knowledge and Power: Rumphius’ Ambonese Herbal and Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet as Colonial Contact Zones

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2018

Esther Helena Arens  and
Charlotte Kießling
Esther Helena Arens
Affiliation:
Universität zu Köln, Institut für Niederlandistik, Philosophische Fakultät, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Cologne, Germany. Email: esther.arens@uni-koeln.de; charlotte.kiessling@uni-koeln.de
Charlotte Kießling
Affiliation:
Universität zu Köln, Institut für Niederlandistik, Philosophische Fakultät, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Cologne, Germany. Email: esther.arens@uni-koeln.de; charlotte.kiessling@uni-koeln.de
Corresponding
E-mail address:
esther.arens@uni-koeln.de; charlotte.kiessling@uni-koeln.de
Get access
Rights & Permissions[Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The early modern books on Ambonese natural history by G.E. Rumphius have mostly been analysed for their aesthetic form and scientific content. However, with the concept of contact zones as introduced by M.L. Pratt, these texts can also be read as historical sources about colonialism and slavery in the late seventeenth-century Moluccas. This article explores the traces of colonialism and slavery in Rumphius’ Ambonese Herbal (1740ff.) and the Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet (1705).

Type
Focus: Central Europe and Colonialism
Information
European Review , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 2018 , pp. 461 - 470
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below.
If you should have access and can't see this content please contact technical support.

References

1. Pratt, M.L. (2004) Arts of the contact zone. In: David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky (Eds), Ways of Reading. An Anthology for Writers, 8th edn (Boston: Bedford), pp. 326–348, p. 327.Google Scholar
2. Pratt, M.L. (1992) Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Transculturation (London; New York: Routledge)Google Scholar
3. Huigen, S. (2008) Imperial eyes van de postkoloniale criticus. Selectieve lectuur van achttiende-eeuwse reisbeschrijvingen over Zuid-Afrika. Werkwinkel, 3, pp. 17–29.Google Scholar
4. Guelke, L. and Guelke, J.K. (2004) Imperial eyes on South Africa. Reassessing travel narratives. Journal of Historical Geography, 30, pp. 11–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Zhang, Q. (2015) Making the New World Their Own. Chinese Encounters with Jesuit Science in the Age of Discovery (Leiden: Brill) with chapter 3 ‘Mapping a Contact Zone’.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6.Conference ‘Artisten in der Kontaktzone’. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Ethnographie am 27./28.01.2017. Via http://www.gfe-online.org/cms2/index.php/tagungen.html (accessed 10 February 2016).Google Scholar
7. van Rossum, M. (2015) Kleurrijke tragiek. De geschiedenis van slavernij in Azië onder de VOC (Hilversum: Verloren).Google Scholar
8. Conference Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago Worlds (16th to 19th Century). New Research, Results and Comparisons. Via https://socialhistory.org/en/events/cfpworkshop-slave-trade-asia (accessed 10 February 2016).Google Scholar
9. Emmer, P. (2006) The Dutch Slave Trade, 1500–1850 (New York: Berghahn)Google Scholar
10. Vink, M. (2003) ‘The world’s oldest trade’: Dutch slavery and slave trade in the Indian Ocean in the seventeenth century. Journal of World History, 14, pp. 131–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11. van Dam, P. (1976) Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie (manuscript 1693–1701). Reprint. Boek I, II en III in zes banden ingeleid en geannoteerd door F.W. Stapel; Boek IV uitgegeven door C.W.Th. baron van Boetzelaar van Asperen en Dubbeldam (Den Haag: Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatien 1927–1954). Via http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/retroboeken/vandam/#page=662&accessor=toc&source=2&view=imagePane&size=801 (accessed 26 June 2016). Translation by E.H. Arens.Google Scholar
12. Beekman, E.M. (2011) Introduction. The Ambonese Herbal, G.E. Rumphius (New Haven; London: Yale University Press), pp. 1–169, p. 99ff.Google Scholar
13. Rumphius, G.E. (2011) The Ambonese Herbal. Translated, annotated, and with an introduction by E.M. Beekman (New Haven; London: Yale University Press), Book I, Chapter 3, p. 209.Google Scholar
14. Knaap, G. (2004) Kruidnagelen en christenen. De VOC en de bevolking van Ambon 1656–1696, 2nd edn (Leiden: KITLV Uitgeverij), p. 164.Google Scholar
15. van Rossum, M. (2011) De intra-Aziatische vaart. Schepen, de ‘aziatische zeeman’ en ondergang van de VOC? Tijschrift voor sociale en economische geschiedenis, 8, pp. 32–69, p. 51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16. Behringer, W. (2004) Wissenschaft im Kampf gegen den Aberglauben. Die Debatten über Wunder, Besessenheit und Hexerei. In: R. van Dülmen and S. Rauschenbach (Eds), Macht des Wissens. Die Entstehung der modernen Wissensgesellschaft (Köln; Weimar; Wien: Böhlau), pp. 365–389, p. 388.Google Scholar
17. Nate, R. (2009) Wissenschaft, Rhetorik und Literatur: historische Perspektiven (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann), p. 107.Google Scholar
18. Rumphius, G.E. (1999) The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet, Translated, edited, annotated and with an introduction by E.M. Beekman (New Haven; London: Yale University Press), p. 242.Google Scholar
19. Shapin, S. (1994) A Social History of Truth. Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), p. 86.Google Scholar
20. Beekman, E.M. (1999) Introduction: Rumphius’ life and work. In: G.E. Rumphius, The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet (New Haven: Yale University Press), pp. xxxv–cxii.Google Scholar
21. Knaap, G.J. (1991) A city of migrants: Kota Ambon at the end of the seventeenth century. Indonesia and the Malay World, 51, pp. 105–128, p. 119.Google Scholar
22. Leuker, M.-Th. (2010) Knowledge transfer and cultural appropriation: Georg Everhard Rumphius’s Amboinsche Rariteitkamer (1705). In: S. Huigen, J.L. Jong and E.E.P. Kolfin (Eds), The Dutch Trading Companies as Knowledge Networks (Leiden: Brill), pp. 145–170, p. 158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
23. Bruijn, J.R. and Gaastra, F.S. (2012) The career ladder to the top of the Dutch East India Company: could foreigners also become commanders and junior merchants? In: L. Lucassen and M. van der Linden (Eds), Working on Labor. Essays in Honor of Jan Lucassen (Leiden/Boston: Brill), pp. 215–236, p. 226.Google Scholar
24. Stolte, C. (2015) Encounters erased. Tracing Indo/Dutch connected histories and their textual echoes, c. 1630–1670. In: M. Derks et al. (Ed.), What’s Left Behind. The Lieux de Memoire of Europe beyond Europe (Nijmegen: Vantilt Publishers), pp. 155–163, p. 162.Google Scholar
25. Jeurgens, C. (2015) Networks of information. The Dutch East Indies. In: C. Antunes and J. Gommans (Eds), Exploring the Dutch Empire. Agents, Networks and Institutions, 1600–2000 (London: Bloomsbury), pp. 95–130, p. 99.Google Scholar

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Full text views reflects PDF downloads, PDFs sent to Google Drive, Dropbox and Kindle and HTML full text views.

Total number of HTML views: 37
Total number of PDF views: 107 *
View data table for this chart

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between 11th June 2018 - 21st April 2021. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Send article to Kindle

To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle.

Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Knowledge and Power: Rumphius’ Ambonese Herbal and Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet as Colonial Contact Zones
Available formats
×

Send article to Dropbox

To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox.

Knowledge and Power: Rumphius’ Ambonese Herbal and Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet as Colonial Contact Zones
Available formats
×

Send article to Google Drive

To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive.

Knowledge and Power: Rumphius’ Ambonese Herbal and Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet as Colonial Contact Zones
Available formats
×
×

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

Conflicting interests

Do you have any conflicting interests? *