Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

the States General casting the nineteenth—and thus tie-breaking—vote. If even this failed to
resolve the impasse, the charter authorized the States General to move debate to its own
chambers and resolve the matter as it saw fit. 74 With the Amsterdam chamber in favor of free
trade, and Zeeland, the Maas, and Groningen against, in a strict sense such an impasse could only
have occurred if both North Holland and the representative of the States General abstained. 75
Whatever took place, it seems certain that the States General acted quickly to assume
responsibility for the decision, and thus to imprint its own vision on the company and its colony.
The impetus likely did not come from Gerard van Arnhem. Born in 1598, Van Arnhem
was a member of the Veluwesch Ridderschap (council of noblemen for the Veluwe, a portion of
Gelderland along the United Provinces' eastern border). 76 In 1634 he married Theodora van
Wassenaer Vuer, daughter of Johan van Wassenaer, Heer van Duvenvoorde, a member of
Holland's Ridderschap and, from 1617 until his death in 1645, its representative to the
Gecommitteerde Raden (Delegated Councilors). In 1617 he accompanied Hugo Grotius on a
mission to Dordrecht and Zeeland to try to stop the Synod of Dordrecht, which began the next
year. Theodora's brother, Arend van Wassenaer Veur, served as a sergeant major in the cavalry
and, following his father's death, entered both Holland's Ridderschap and the Gecommitteerde
Raden. Van Arnhem's marriage, in other words, both reflected and reproduced his status within
the military and administrative nobility, and possibly also within the remnants of the
Remonstrant party. From at least as early as 1630, he regularly served as the States General's
senior representative at the meetings of the Heren XIX. According to Artichewski, he was—
74 Charter of the Dutch West India Company, Article 23.
75 Since any other alignment would have yielded a (albeit small) majority. Amsterdam had eight votes, Zeeland four,
the Maas two, Groningen two, North Holland two, and the States General one.
76 The short biography here draws substantially on the entry for Van Arnhem's father in law. See “Johan van
Wassenaer” in Molhuysen, Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, vol. 2, 1530.
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