Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

left relatively open. 6 Where monopolies were imposed—including trade to the East and West
Indies—they became the subject of intense criticism. Rather than promoting trade as a whole,
monopolies by their very nature promoted the interests of some merchants and social groups
above those of others; their intent, as Oscar Gelderblom has encouraged us to see, was political
rather than strictly commercial. 7 This was already an important issue during the protracted
negotiations to establish the WIC in the first two decades of the seventeenth century, but it
erupted with particular force in the mid-1630s, when a heated debate broke out over the
company's monopoly over trade to Brazil.
Although the WIC charter strictly forbade private trade, a series of agreements negotiated
during the late 1620s and early 1630s offered important exemptions. In 1628 both New
Netherland and parts of the “Wild Coast” along the northern tip of South America were opened
to private entrepreneurs who wished to establish settlements. 8 Then, in 1630, when the company
seized Recife and Olinda in northeastern Brazil, treaties negotiated with representatives of the
Portuguese community promised that private merchants would enjoy the same freedoms to trade
on their own account that they had enjoyed under the King of Portugal. 9 These treaties were
reinforced by regulations approved by the States General in 1630 that permitted private trade in
all goods but dyewoods, foodstuffs, and ammunition, so long as private merchants registered
their goods, transported them in company ships, and paid a percentage to the company in
recognition and freight fees. 10 In 1634 these regulations were further relaxed and a brisk private
6
D.C. Coleman, "Introduction" to his own edited collection, D. C. Coleman, ed., Revisions in Mercantilism
(London: Methuen & Co., 1969), 12; De Vries and Van der Woude, The First Modern Economy.
7
Oscar Gelderblom, ed., The political economy of the Dutch Republic (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009).
8
Rink, Holland on the Hudson; Jacobs, The colony of New Netherland; Venema, Kiliaen van Rensselaer (1586-
1643): Designing a New World.
9
Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil, 1624-1654, 75–76.
10
Articulum ... over het Open ende Vry Stellen van den Handel en Negotie op de Stadt Olinda de Pernambuco, ende
Custen van Brasil (Amsterdam, 1630).
174