The Manuscript Collection
The Manuscript Collection is a collection of miscellaneous material created by the archival staff of the Danish National Archives. Formerly, archivists used to sort out manuscripts and collections for the Manuscript Collection from papers left by private individuals. The material was often of a historical scholarly character, concerning one or more subjects. Much of this material consists of transcripts and copies, often several hundred years old.
The practice of sorting out stopped around 1960, and today all the papers left by a deceased person are usually kept together as one private archive. Only when large specialised collections consist exclusively of material concerning specific subjects is such material placed in the Manuscript Collection.
Since 1992, the Manuscript Collection has been almost completely closed to new accessions. The only exemption is file group XV concerning Danish-Norwegian genealogy, to which material is still accessioned. All the other accessions after 1992, which have been modest, have simply been placed in an unsystematic series.
The total extent of the Manuscript Collection is now approximately 400 running metres.
The Royal Library has a manuscript collection similar to that of the Danish National Archives.
General Remarks
The Manuscript Collection consists of large collections of records and assorted groups of notes, transcripts, accounts, genealogical tables, and many other matters collected by learned and industrious researchers down through the ages. The Manuscript Collection is, to some extent, sorted systematically, into seventeen main groups, the most extensive of which is numbered I and designated Individual Collections of Miscellanea.
The West Indies
Material on the Danish West Indies is to be found in several of the Manuscript Collection groups. Group VII is dedicated to Danish dependencies and colonies, and section D thereof concerns the Danish West Indies. A good idea of the Manuscript Collection’s diversity can be obtained from the contents of section VII.D, which contains the following items, each consisting of one folder: Various transcripts concerning the history of the Danish West Indies in the 18th century (no. VII.D.1); Statement of the planned slave rebellion on St. Croix in the year 1759, written by sheriff Engelbret Hesselberg (VII.D.2); a print taken from the copperplate used for printing bank drafts issued by the Bank of St. Thomas (VII.D.3); tables of money reductions on St. Croix, composed by Andreas Vilhelm Moorberg, senior clerk of the royal treasurer around 1820 (VII.D.4 og 9); printed minutes, etc., of Danish parliamentary negotiations 1852 concerning the sale of the Danish West Indies (VII.D.6); E. V. Lohse’s extensive historical collections on the Lutheran church on St. Thomas and St. John, and fair copies of other notes of his on the islands 1878 (VII.D.7-8); an alphabetical list of plantations and streets on St. Croix, made 1900 based on the property register (VII.D.10); a historical notice about the Danish West Indian trade, written 1784 by Ove Malling (VII.D.11); copies, mainly of more recent maps of St. John and St. Croix (VII.D.12); approximately fifty West Indian letters, partly unidentified, from the 18th and 19th centuries (VII.D.13).
The very extensive group XIII of individual collections of genealogy and group XIV of Danish-Norwegian genealogy contain miscellaneous material on persons with links to the Danish West Indies.
In group V on Denmark’s domestic history, subsection A on languages includes a folder with a small West Indian glossary with translations of Danish terms into what appears to be Creole (no. V.A.8).
Group I mentioned above also contains bits of material concerning Danish West Indian history, e.g. in Frederik Thaarup’s collections and in C. L. Stemann’s collections. But the most rewarding place to search is in group XII.C of Ove Malling’s collections, which comprises 32 folders concerning trade with the West Indies and Guinea, mainly from the second half of the 18th century, including a good deal of statistics.
It should be noted that Military Archives’ collection of Special Files is actually a similar manuscript collection focusing on military subjects.
Finding Aids
A general survey can be found in Wilhelm von Rosen, ed., Rigsarkivet og hjælpemidlerne til dets benyttelse, vol. I:2, Copenhagen 1983, pp. 871-876. See also Historikeren, gehejmestatsminister Ove Malling, 1747-1829. Privatarkiv nr. 5945 og historiske samlinger i Håndskriftsaml. I, Copenhagen 1984, pp. 13-102.
Literature
A comprehensive introduction is to be found in Vello Helk, Rigsarkivets håndskriftsamling, in SPOR. Arkiver og historie. Afhandlinger tilegnet Niels Petersen på 65-årsdagen den 23. august 1987, Copenhagen 1987, pp. 37-48.
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