Journal, Memorials and Letters of Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge: Security, diplomacy and commerce in 17th-century Southeast Asia

摘要

The countries of Southeast Asia which surround the historically important sea route of the Strait of Malacca - like Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore - can learn little about the history of their country until they have a thorough command of the languages of their former overseas rulers. Just as in many other regions of the world that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries came under the control of a European power, today's inhabitants have to master Portuguese, Spanish or Dutch in order to understand the historical record of the colonists' dealings with the indigenous men in power at that moment, such as the sultans of Malacca, Johor and Aceh. Of course, nowadays most students can read secondary historical studies in English telling them about the past of their country, but for unravelling the details of that history one has to go into the archival records, and most of the time these are not open to these students purely for linguistic reasons.