Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

clamoring for slaves. 136 The problem was especially acute in Brazil, where many slaves had fled
with their masters at the time of the Dutch conquest and the trade in slaves had come to a
standstill. The conquest and relative pacification of Pernambuco, Paraiba, and Itamaricá led to
increasing demand for slaves to work the sugar mills. As Maurits, who initially considered using
free white labor, would put it in 1638, “it is not possible to effect anything in Brazil without
slaves... and they cannot be dispensed with upon any consideration whatsoever: if anyone feels
that this is wrong, it is a futile scruple.” 137 Back home this message was heard loud and clear.
The agenda for the fall 1635 meeting of the Heren XIX noted, “urgent requests for blacks from
Brazil,” and this message was reinforced by the Zeeland directors Pieter Duvelaer and Pieter van
de Velde when they visited the Amsterdam chamber on October 30. Daniel Liebergen and
Edward Man, who were delegated to prepare Amsterdam's response, presented a “concept for the
trade in blacks” on December 11. 138 A year later hoofdparticipanten in the Zeeland chamber
resolved to “urge the XIX with insistence to get the trade in blacks underway.” 139 While Van den
Boogaart and Emmer cite the dispatch of ships from Zeeland and Amsterdam to Guinea to
purchase slaves in the spring of 1635, W.S. Unger writes that the first ship outfitted “for the
purpose of trading in blacks” departed Veere in the autumn of 1637. 140 That January a Dutch
factor and a Portuguese assistant were sent to Angola to organize the slave trade there and in
August of the same year a Dutch fleet that sailed from Brazil succeeded in capturing São Jorge
da Mina (Elmina), the oldest Portuguese fortress on the Gold Coast and an important potential
source of slaves. By the time that agreement had been reached in The Hague to open the trade to
136
Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and on the Wild Coast 1580-1680, 341–342.
137
Cited in Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil, 1624-1654, 83.
138
NA 1.01.04, inv.nr. 5754, fol. 149; NA 1.05.01.01, inv.nr. 14, entries for October 30 and December 11, 1635.
Cited in Unger, “Essay on the History of the Dutch Slave Trade,” 50–51.
139
Ibid., 51.
140
Van den Boogaart and Emmer, “The Dutch Participation in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1596-1650,” 358; Unger,
“Essay on the History of the Dutch Slave Trade,” 51.
212