ABSTRACT
The Netherlands and Belgium both had training institutes to prepare civil servants for work in their colonies. For the Netherlands it was the Indische Instelling (Indian Institution) in Delft (1864–1901), for Belgium the Koloniale Hogeschool (Colonial College) in Antwerp (1920–1962), which from 1949 was renamed the University Institute for the Overseas Territories (univog). Both had collections from their colonies. There is little precise information about what happened to the modest collection of objects and books from the Antwerp institute after the independence of Belgium’s colonies. The institute closed down and the collection had to go. According to one expert, books went to the Royal Library in Brussels and objects to the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren. Another said that he had found some of the books at an antiquities dealer in Ghent. He feared that some of the objects ‘also ended up in living rooms or antique shops’. A third person confirmed the latter; according to him, there is no longer any trace of many objects. This probably happened with collections more often in the 1960s than we realise, and not only in Belgium.
