The Dutch Republic (1588-1795) was a leading empire with settlements in America, Africa and Asia, and remained a colonial power as a Kingdom until its decolonization after World War II (1815-1962/1975). State and church closely worked together in sending professional ministers and lay pastors through the East Indian and West Indian Companies to the overseas territories. After the revolutionary era, missionary organizations did the same for more than a century. Thousands of Dutch men from middle and lower class – together with wives and children! – went to one or more world regions and a part of them returned to patria, building a long tradition of cultural exchange of ideas, practices and objects. In spite of a strong Dutch colonial historiography, the religious part of the story is not paid much attention. This VU-project will contribute to a structural development of an urgent research agenda.

As spin-off from a former NWO-Vernieuwingsimpulsproject, the first applicant composed a biographical database of all Dutch Reformed ministers between 1555 and 2004. This database was recently curated, enriched and linked to other data in the public domain with the Netherlands e-Science Center, projecting a Digital Dutch Religion Portal 1500-2000 (NLESC.SSIH.2022a.SSIH009). The main applicant has also made up a database of all religious workers in the Dutch colonies, initially for the early modern period (1602-1795/1811), later extended to the mission era (1797/1815-1961). The ‘colonial’ database deserves to be added to the digital research infrastructure as well, especially given the public interest in colonialism, racism and slavery in Dutch history. Making available the data on lives and careers of circa 7000 ‘missionaries’ in the Dutch colonial world empire will open up many research challenges in the fields of general and religious history in connection to digital analysis of biographical and geographical data, archival and printed texts and sources.

Researchers: