Dissertation_A Bick_May 25 - DataSpace at Princeton University

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Chapter Seven The Fall of Dutch Brazil The collapse of the empire imagined by the company’s founders and directors was not the end of the WIC. The company continued to trade in gold and other products from Guinea and to provide slaves to Spanish America and to French and English plantation colonies in the Caribbean well into the eighteenth century. But with increasing competition, and protective trade policies enforced by England and France, the company’s debts caught up with it. In 1674 the WIC was reorganized to concentrate on its core business along the coast of Guinea: in line with this more modest mandate its board of directors was reduced from nineteen members to ten, and shareholders were encouraged to pay a percentage of the value of their investment in return for shares in what would become known as the Second WIC. 1 At home, directorships in the new company became, as one historian described it, an “obligatory stop” along the career trajectory of the urban patriciate, especially in Holland and Zeeland. 2 What began with radical Calvinist, anti-Spanish sentiment and ambitious aims to seize all of the New World was now a staid monopoly firm managed by a merchant elite, in effect a sinecure in a “mature” economy based on market access, business organization, and finance. 3 This dissertation set out to tell the story of an earlier, more tumultuous period. As in statistics, trends can be defined by moving the bounding dates. Instead of looking back on the                                                          1 Den Heijer, De Geschiedenis van de WIC. 2 Van Dillen, “De West-Indische Compagnie, het Calvinism en de Politiek.” 3 De Vries and Van der Woude, The First Modern Economy.   261
failure of Dutch imperialism from the perspective of the 1660s and later, the dissertation aimed to confine our view to the narrow window from late August to December of 1645. During this period the company’s empire, though clearly under stress, was formidable, and expectations for the dispatch of a relief fleet in the spring of the following year held out hope, at least for the company's directors and investors, that its fortunes would improve. Quite apart from the role that Dutch merchants played during this period in helping to bring sugar to Barbados, and slaves to the Caribbean, it was the persistence and (temporary) success the WIC displayed in aggressively attacking the Iberian powers in the New World and Africa that so fascinated the Dutch Republic’s European contemporaries. The ultimate failure of this strategy offered a lesson of its own: beginning with Cromwell’s “Western Design” in the mid-1650s, the contest for colonies moved to the fringes of the Iberian world, especially to North America. 4 At a more practical level, the dissertation asked who was involved in the WIC, what models they drew upon, and how they worked together to reach collective decisions on commercial and colonial policy. Looking first at the news from Brazil, and then at the meetings in Middelburg and subsequent discussions in The Hague, the dissertation showed how the WIC managed a crisis in its most important colony and sought to animate the many gears of the Dutch state to organize a relief expedition. This required generating a more precise understanding of the structure of the Heren XIX than was previously available and taking a closer look at the political processes the company used to administer territories and manage trade. It also required excavating the key personalities involved in company politics—including relatively obscure figures like Gerard van Arnhem, David Baute, Jacques Specx, and the brothers Hendrik and Alexander van der Capellen—and providing a new angle on more familiar personalities like                                                          4 David Armitage, “The Cromwellian Protectorate and the Languages of Empire,” The Historical Journal 35, no. 3 (September 1992).   262
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GOVERNING THE FREE SEA: THE DUTCH W
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Abstract This dissertation takes a
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IV. “In the Service of Merchants
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for making the archive such an enjo
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Institute for International and Reg
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List of Tables 1. Delegates to the
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Illustration 1. Het West-Indische H
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eported to have said; any money sen
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nexus of commerce and power for whi
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Europe the Dutch Republic is emblem
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Although the VOC frequently used vi
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Van Dillen argued that over time th
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the Western Hemisphere.” 46 Far f
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anxieties it generated, and what pl
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capital from Zeeland in the south a
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number of document series within th
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character of Dutch political instit
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Illustration 2. Vergaderzaal van he
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ecords must be traced backwards—a
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of note.” 93 But it is clear that
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formative periods in the company’
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enhance the role of central authori
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trade in which the company had only
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5. A Note on Sources This dissertat
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1645. 110 The manuscript is found i
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period 1620-1636. 115 For the remai
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at São Salvador da Bahia de Todos
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the revolt pushed the colony’s fa
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Amsterdam newspapers did publish st
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year by the Hoge ende Secrete Raad
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the Portuguese, had crossed the Rio
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ead aloud, two resolutions were pas
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On Wednesday, the same day the ship
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with subtle differences of fact and
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The group consisted of Henderick Sc
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XIX. Each chamber selected delegate
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Inden naeme den heeren amen Saturn.
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Middelburg’s decidedly incestuous
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Illustration 6. Portrait of Johanne
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crucial role that he played in its
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When the meeting resumed on Monday
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and to steer the discussion towards
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were chosen from among the ranks of
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emphasized the considerable sums in
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4. Johannes de Laet as “Informati
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devote myself to my books.” 129 A
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interests were adequately represent
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De Laet's substantive work in the A
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that, even at the beginning, De Lae
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De Laet’s presence at the meeting
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confessions under interrogation and
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Brazil this meant the Heren XIX, wh
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Illustration 7. Portrait of Willem
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peaceful settlement along the fring
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By analyzing the successive changes
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convene in Amsterdam; the following
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This formulation, which must previo
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Amsterdam or Middelburg. 29 In this
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(1566-1626), later burgemeester of
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placed next to his description of t
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That these two provisions remained
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provinces. The creation of the WIC
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The result was that the delegates f
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to the original charter gave the ch
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thus shows the political—as oppos
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1/10 of the equipagie and two direc
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taken place. Once the draft letter
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Table 5. Seating for the delegation
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phase of the company’s Groot Dess
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to be understood the sending over o
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But by far the most important trans
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Illustration 8. Map of Mauritstad a
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geographers whose works remain a tr
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important military, administrative,
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noblemen played in overseas adminis
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good order, police and justice, and
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the council's size and authority, d
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servants. These individuals may not
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At this point the election was comp
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(Receiver General) of the United Pr
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Why did these candidates all refuse
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Alexander's name was almost certain
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None of the remaining records indic
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would be profitable and that their
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Haecxs thanked them for the honor t
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On June 22, 1645—just a week befo
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5. Wolter Schonenborch and the Ritu
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with the WIC presumably did not go
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Haecx recorded in his diary that on
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wavered, for De Laet, who was many
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privately to Brazil, legally or ill
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1. Introduction Chapter Five Free T
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left relatively open. 6 Where monop
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community saw greater profits in pr
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and close trade to private merchant
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trouble paying its bills, especiall
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means to capitalize the company wit
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director than his trade to Brazil,
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With the verhoging stalled, and ani
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e handled without gloves.” 55 In
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“walking the land half-naked” f
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While the resolution as a whole sho
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along with the two powerful Amsterd
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Cornelis Melijn, of a patroonschap
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this measure, he said, “no one in
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maintaining the company's solvency,
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colony, overestimated the number of
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And Maurits offered another argumen
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Stellingwerf, who sat in the States
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Provinces, plus smaller fees of 3%
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Page 235 and 236: had not yet been renewed. 4 As the
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Page 241 and 242: ambitions. 21 Although neither Spec
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Page 249 and 250: notes on these documents, suggest t
Page 251 and 252: It was, of course, a fiction. With
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Page 257 and 258: title page of the revised edition a
Page 259 and 260: It occurred to me that these miracu
Page 261 and 262: third in the Kort Verhael. This rep
Page 263 and 264: This extraordinary conclusion might
Page 265 and 266: enemy” and the positive effects o
Page 267 and 268: appeared in the late 1630s in the c
Page 269 and 270: versus settlement. He was also more
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Page 275 and 276: that focuses on political and imper
Page 277 and 278: support to the WIC, but they also i
Page 279 and 280: Maurits predicted and which was not
Page 281 and 282: British Library Additional Manuscri
Page 283 and 284: Burke, Peter. A Social History of K
Page 285 and 286: Goffman, Erving. Frame Analysis: An
Page 287 and 288: Jonge, J. K. J. De Oorsprong van Ne
Page 289 and 290: Noorlander, Danny L. “Serving God
Page 291 and 292: Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Na
Page 293: 1624-1654, edited by Marianne L. Wi
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