Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

Brazil at least a half dozen company ships had participated in the slave trade, carrying
approximately 1,100 slaves to Dutch Brazil. 141
This represented a remarkable—and remarkably rapid—entry into a completely new
trade, with its own dynamics, infrastructure, and technologies. 142 The company's directors were
well aware of the profits that Portuguese merchants made in the slave trade and the company had
at least limited experience transporting and selling slaves captured aboard Portuguese ships. The
company also had considerable experience trading in West Africa: since the early 1590s,
merchants from Holland and Zeeland had established a dominant place in the coastal trade,
steadily eroding the Portuguese monopoly by offering higher quality cloth and manufactured
goods at lower prices. 143 In 1611 the States General had assisted a consortium of merchants
trading on the Gold Coast by building a small fort at Mouree, a few miles east of Elmina. The
company assumed responsibility for this fort in 1623 and two years later tried to seize Elmina
itself, but the Portuguese, who were in a better position to exploit alliances with local authorities,
organized an ambush that killed 441 Dutch soldiers even before they were able to reach the
fort. 144 In 1635, Pompeius de la Sale, Director General at Mouree, sent a report to the Heren XIX
arguing that the Portuguese position had become weaker and encouraging a fresh attack. 145
Maurits organized the expedition from Brazil in June 1637, sending a fleet of 16 ships and 1,200
men, among whom were counted an unknown number of Brazilian Indians. News of the
141
This figure was compiled from records for Dutch-registered ships listed in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Database: http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces. Accessed December 5, 2011.
142
Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: Viking, 2007); Blackburn, The Making of New
World Slavery.
143
For a contemporary account, see Pieter de Marees, Description and Historical Account of the Gold Kingdom of
Guinea (1602), ed. Albert van Dantzig and Adam Jones (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); De Jonge, De
Oorsprong van Neerland’s Bezittingen op de Kust van Guinea; John Vogt, Portuguese Rule on the Gold Coast,
1469-1682 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979); Den Heijer, Goud, Ivoor en Slaven.
144
Jan Dircksz Lam, Expeditie naar de Goudkust: het journaal van Jan Dircksz Lam over de Nederlandse aanval op
Elmina, 1624-1626, ed. Henk den Heijer (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2006).
145
Klaas Ratelband, ed., Vijf Dagregisters van het Kasteel São Jorge da Mina aan de Goudkust, Linschoten
Vereeniging (’s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1953), LXVIII.
213