Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

Overall, this meant an annual profit of 124,800 guilders, a fraction of the profits from
Brazil or Guinea and considerably less than the company had anticipated. But there may have
been more to this than meets the eye: Specx’s figures assumed that the slave trade remained a
company monopoly, but he used a very low estimate for the sale price of slaves, which Van der
Hagen's report showed had varied between 204 and 357 guilders apiece. 48 Separate sets of
calculations, also in Specx’s possession, used the higher figure of 200 guilders. One, probably
composed in 1644, argued that an open and free trade of 12,000 slaves each year would yield a
much more attractive annual profit to the company of 720,000 guilders in recognitie and fees. 49
Another set of calculations, almost certainly drafted by an opponent of opening the trade,
estimated that 10,000 slaves would yield recognitie and fees worth 540,000 guilders, but that this
income would be offset by expenses on the coast equal to 408,400 guilders, for an overall profit
of only 131,600 guilders. 50 The implication was that the high fixed costs of the slave trade,
including forts and soldiers in Loanda, made it disadvantageous for the company to open the
trade to private merchants. If the company kept the trade to itself, however, this author believed
it could earn 1.8 million guilders against expenses of 910,000 guilders, for a profit of 990,000
guilders. 51
That these numbers diverge so widely—in terms of the number of slaves traded, the sale
price in Recife, and fixed costs in Angola—provides some indication of the fluidity of the market
and the wide margin of error that could be expected from this sort of calculation. Specx was
careful to use a reliable figure for the volume of the trade, but his price estimates, along with his
48
NA 1.10.78, inv.nr. 8, fol. 224. Van den Boogaart and Emmer report that sale prices in Recife for slaves from
Angola varied from a low of 161 guilders in 1636 to a high of 639 guilders in 1638. In 1644 the price was 172
guilders and in 1645 it was 244 guilders. See Van den Boogaart and Emmer, “The Dutch Participation in the
Atlantic Slave Trade, 1596-1650,” 371.
49
NA 1.10.78, inv.nr. 8. Calculatie van de Incomptsten ende Lasten van Brasil, ende Incompsten nu ter tydt Instato,
fol. 121v.
50
NA 1.10.78, inv.nr. 8. Calculatie van de Proffyten die den open handel op Angola soude geven. fol. 142v.
51 Ibid., fol. 144.
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