News from the Dutch archives, August 2009

• We all know by now that in 1609 Hudson stumbled upon Manhattan and claimed it for the Dutch Republic (which eventually led to the foundation of New Netherland and its capital New Amsterdam). But did you also know that in the same year the Japanese Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu signed a trading pass, giving the Dutch East Indies Company permission to trade with Japan? For well over 200 years (from 1639 to 1858), The Netherlands was the only country in the world that was allowed to trade with Japan. The Dutch National Library and the National Archive opened an exhibition, From here to Tokyo - 400 years of trade with Japan, to celebrate, well, 400 years of trade with Japan. One of the documents on display is the famous trading pass (see image).
• Het Geheugen van Nederland (Memory of The Netherlands), in cooperation with the national libraries of The Netherlands and Japan, opened a new collection The Netherlands – Japan to commemorate 400 years of trade with Japan.
• A surprising addition to Genlias: Baptisms (1639-1800) and marriages (1639-1801) from the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam and New York.
• The Dutch National Archive evaluated its flickr pilot and declared it a success (a million page views, 2000 comments, 6800 tags). The flickr activities are promoted from "pilot" to "regular activity".
• The National Archive also announced the website Mapit1418, a collection of photos from the great war, often taken on an unknown location. The public is asked to geo-tag the photos (i.e. put them on a map) and add their own (modern) photos of the same location. Technical information: mapit1418 is a mashup of flickr's open API and OpenStreetMap (OSM). The website is part of the Beelden voor de Toekomst (Images for the Future) project.
• The Gelderland Archive is now on Twitter.

Image: Trading pass. Coll. Nationaal archief (Dutch National Archive). On display at the exhibition From here to Tokyo - 400 years of trade with Japan.