Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

needed to sustain the colony’s economy. 164 But Maurits opposed opening the trade to Angola, on
the grounds that only the company could be trusted to ensure a steady supply of slaves. 165 His
position may well have been influenced by his strong desire to personally assume control over
the administration of Loanda. In a 1641 proposal, he argued that “the trade in blacks, which is
the foremost and the only trade of Angola, can be no better regulated than by us in Brazil, to
which the slaves are brought [and where they are] sold and consumed.” 166 Maurits suggested
many other advantages of this proposal, including the fact that Brazil was closer and company
servants were already acclimatized and could speak Portuguese. To do otherwise, he concluded,
was “to put two heads on one body.” Despite these arguments, the Heren XIX decided to separate
the company's administration in Africa into two parts—northern (based at Elmina) and southern
(based in Loanda)—and to control both directly from the United Provinces. 167 In this case the
political incentives in the center and the periphery did not align: Maurits wanted to assume
control over the slave trade, as a means to enhance and expand his authority in Brazil, while the
Heren XIX wanted to ensure Angola's dependence on themselves and the income promised by
the slave trade. For Maurits political factors counseled free trade in one case, monopoly in the
other.
The arguments of the free traders failed and the trade in slaves from Angola remained a
company monopoly, only growing in importance over time. Indeed, the slave trade was probably
164 Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery, 197.
165 V. W. C., Trou-hertighe onderrichtinge, aen alle hooft participanten, en lief-hebbers vande geoctroyeerde West-
Indische Compagnie. Nopende het open stellen vanden handel op de cust van Africa, namentlijck, St. Thomé,
Guinea, Angola, St. Paulo de Loando, mitsgaders de Marignian, Nieu Nederlant ende West-Indien., C.
166 NA 1.01.04, inv.nr. 5756. Redenen; ende correctie, waeromme de Negotie der Swaerten, De Stadt St. Paulo de
Loanda, ende Regieringe van den Coninkrycke van Angola behoort te dependeren van den Gouverneur en Hoge
Raeden in Brasil, ofte met de regieringe Aldaer werden gecombineert. Signed by Maurice Conte de Nassau and
received by the States General on January 19, 1642. “Eerstelyck, om dat de Negotie der Swarten, welck de
voornaemste jae de eenichste handelinge van Angola is, door niemant bequamer als door de selve can werden
gereguleert ane dien die nergens als in Brasil overgebracht, vercocht en geconsumeert werden.”
167 Van den Boogaart and Emmer, “The Dutch Participation in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1596-1650,” 358.
221