Sugar And tobacco To The Baltic - kitlv

Sugar and tobacco to the Baltic
The Amsterdam trade in West Indian products through the Sound in the eighteenth century
Henk den Heijer (Leiden University)
Views on the economic development of the Dutch Republic are subject to change. Until the
1960s it was generally assumed that the economy of the Netherlands deteriorated, or at least
stagnated, during the second half of the eighteenth century. In his in 1970 posthumously
published magnum opus, Van Rijkdom en Regenten, J.G. van Dillen argued that the Dutch
Golden Age transformed into a less resplendent Silver Age in the mid-seventeenth century.
Van Dillen postulated that around 1740, after almost a century of consolidation and relative
economic decline, a period of contraction which persisted until the collapse of the Republic at
the end of the eighteenth century set in. 1 However, since the 1980s Van Dillen’s vision has
been modified by several historians. In Dutch Primacy in World Trade, for example, Jonathan
Israel has demonstrated that there was still economic growth in many sectors of the Dutch
economy in the first half of the eighteenth century. Only after 1740, a century later, was there
a radical change in the situation. On the other hand, Jan Luiten van Zanden and Arthur van
Riel do not see any economic decline at all in the second half of the eighteenth century, but an
economy in what they call stationary condition, in which there was no change until the end of
the Dutch Republic. 2 Unquestionably Dutch industry was in decline, but this downturn was
compensated by the growth of other economic sectors. In relative terms, the once robust
international position of Dutch industry and trade was weakened by the vigorous emergence
of Britain, France and some North German towns like Hamburg, Bremen and Emden. In
absolute terms, however, there were no signs of deterioration at all. The province of Holland
even experienced modest economic growth. 3 Certainly, a remarkable shift occurred in the
kind of products which were exported in the international trade of the Republic. The export of
Dutch industrial products declined, the transit trade of European commodities remained fairly
stable, but the re-export of colonial products boomed in the second half of the eighteenth
century. The tropical products from the plantation colonies in the Americas especially proved
highly commercial in foreign markets. In the second half of the eighteenth century,
1 Van Dillen, Van rijkdom en regenten, 649-657.
2 Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 399-400; Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780-1914, 31-39. See
for the discussion about the Dutch economy in the eighteenth century also Van Zanden, ‘De economie van
Holland’.
3 Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland 1780-1914, 31 tabel 1.1.
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Amsterdam was still the driving force in the Dutch economy, therefore it would be feasible to
expect that the re-export of Atlantic products was principally driven by Amsterdam
merchants but is this expectation justified?
In Early-Modern history, the Dutch trade on the Baltic was hailed as ‘the mother of all
trades’ because it was the cornerstone of the Dutch economy. Every year, hundreds of Dutch
ships passed through the Sound on their way to the Baltic and on their return voyage to the
Republic. Grain, wood, hemp, flax, iron and tar were the chief products shipped from the
Baltic Sea to Amsterdam and other Dutch port cities. Generally speaking, the volume and the
value of these products increased slightly during the eighteenth century. 4 Dutch merchants
who were involved in the trade through the Sound were primarily interested in products from
the Baltic which they could ship to other parts of Europe. On their way to the Baltic, many
ships were ballasted with sand, although they also carried commodities in demand in the
region like salt, building materials, herring, wine and last but not least colonial products on
board. It is assumed that the re-export of colonial products to the Baltic from the Republic
grew substantially in the eighteenth century. W.S. Unger states that the volume of these
commodities increased from almost 2 million pounds in the first decade of the eighteenth
century to more than 5 million pounds in the 1780s. 5 However, caution is advised as his
estimate is not more than an overall sketch of the combined re-export of Asian and Atlantic
products to the Baltic region. Thanks to the recent digitization of the data of the Sound Toll
Registers (STR), nowadays it is possible to analyse the shipping and trade through the Sound
in more detail. Making grateful use of this data, the aim of this contribution is to explore the
re-export of Atlantic products from Amsterdam through the Sound in the second half of the
eighteenth century. Although a variety of Atlantic products were shipped to the Baltic, this
paper will focus on the re-export of sugar and tobacco. Did, for example, the re-export of
these two important colonial products follow the pattern sketched by Unger or not? What was
the position of Dutch merchants? Were they, as in the seventeenth century and in the first
decades of the eighteenth century, still the most important suppliers of these product, or were
they being outstripped by the British and the French who produced much more sugar and
tobacco in their plantation colonies than the Dutch did? Before I focus on this question, I shall
begin with an examination of the position of the Dutch in the sugar and tobacco business
before the mid-eighteenth century.
4 De Buck and Lindblad, ‘De scheepvaart en handel uit de Oostzee’, 536-562.
5 Unger, ‘De publicatie der Sonttabellen voltooid’, 165-167 en 194-195.
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The rise of the sugar and tobacco trade
Since the mid-sixteenth century, the North Netherlands had been importing sugar, tobacco
and other tropical products from various regions in the Atlantic. Initially, sugar and tobacco
were luxury products which were shipped from Spanish and Portuguese ports to the South
Netherlands in small quantities and from there travelled to the northern provinces. Sugar and
tobacco arrived in Europe from the colonies as raw or semi-processed products and they were
refined in Antwerp and other Flemish cities before they were transported to the North
Netherlands. This was to change during the final decades of the sixteenth century when the
economy of the South Netherlands was heavily disrupted by the revolt against Spain. Seizing
their opportunity, merchants in port cities in Holland and Zeeland launched a direct trade with
Atlantic regions from which these colonial products originated. As this trade flourished, the
sugar and tobacco processing industries shifted from Flanders to the northern provinces.
Within a few decades the Republic became a major importer and processor of sugar and
tobacco, which were exported to various destinations in Europe. But where exactly did Dutch
merchants buy these product and to which countries in Europe were they exported?
Most of the sugar imported during the initial phase of the Dutch involvement in the
sugar trade was produced in Brazil. There is some evidence which suggests that Dutch ships
sailed to this colony to obtain raw sugar in the last two decades of the sixteenth century. In
1598, for example, although at least sixteen Dutch ships made a voyage to Brazil, the bulk of
the imported sugar was still bought in Lisbon. 6 It was not until the 1630s, after the West India
Company (WIC) had conquered a large part of northeast Brazil, that the Republic became a
major player on the European sugar market. Between 1635 and 1645, large quantities of raw
sugar were shipped from Dutch Brazil to the Republic. 7 The lion’s share of it arrived in
Amsterdam where a large sugar-processing industry developed very quickly. Ten years before
the loss of northeast Brazil in 1654, Dutch colonists had introduced the cultivation of sugarcane
into the Caribbean. Thereafter Dutch and non-Dutch plantation colonies began to
produce sugar most of which was exported to the Republic. In 1661, approximately sixty
sugar refineries, about half of all refineries in Europe, were operating in Amsterdam. Fifty
years earlier the city had had only three refineries within its walls. 8 However, the growing
production of sugar in the English and French plantation colonies, combined with increasing
mercantilist measures adopted by the mother countries, caused a decline of the Dutch in sugar
6 Sluiter, ‘Dutch-Spanish rivalry in the Caribbean’, 170; Ebert, ‘Dutch trade with Brazil’, 49-75.
7 Wätjen , Das holländische kolonialreich in Brasilien, 322-323.
8 Reesse, De suikerhandel van Amsterdam, 105-107.
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trade within Europe. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of sugar
refineries in Amsterdam had slumped to thirty. 9 But this was only a temporary setback,
relatively speaking at least. The enormous expansion in the sugar production in the Caribbean,
including the Dutch colonies in the Guyana’s, brought the price of sugar down thereby
stimulating its consumption in Europe. The fly in the ointment was that the trans-Atlantic
shipping was then seriously disrupted by military conflicts between Britain, France and Spain.
Despite the warfare which raged almost without a break throughout the century, the Dutch
Republic pursued a policy of neutrality during a large part of the eighteenth century.
Benefiting from this policy Dutch merchants could actually profit from the conflicts between
the major powers in the Caribbean and emerged as important players in the trans-Atlantic
sugar trade once again. Around 1740, approximately 165 sugar refineries were operating in
the Republic. 10
Before the arrival of the first Europeans in the New World, tobacco was already
cultivated and consumed by the Indians on Caribbean islands and on the American continent.
In the second half of the sixteenth century Europeans were buying tobacco from the Indians,
but they had also experimented with cultivating the crop on a small scale in their first
settlements in the New World. The habit of smoking tobacco spread very fast and around
1600 it had become customary in virtually all European countries. As sugar had done before
it, tobacco emerged as an interesting commercial crop for colonist and merchants. 11 The
Spaniards were the first to cultivate tobacco and initiated the commercial production of this
crop, and were soon followed by Portuguese colonists in Brazil. At the beginning of the
seventeenth century, English settlers in Virginia began experimenting with a local tobacco
crop, which turned out to be of much better quality than the Spanish tobacco. From Virginia
the commercial production of tobacco spread to Maryland, Barbados, Nevis, Antigua,
Martinique and other Caribbean islands. 12 Although the Dutch were only marginally involved
in producing tobacco in their colonies in the Caribbean, but within next to no time they did
manage to dominate the tobacco-processing industry and the tobacco trade in Europe. Much
of the tobacco grown in the English, French and Spanish colonies ended up in Amsterdam. At
an early stage, around 1610, tobacco seeds were imported into the Republic and planted in the
province of Zeeland. From there the cultivation of tobacco spread to the provinces of Utrecht
and Gelderland. In the second half of the seventeenth century, large quantities of cheap
9 Le Long, Den koophandel van Amsterdam, 129.
10 De Vries and Van der Woude, Nederland 1500-1815, 386.
11 Roessingh, Inlandse tabak, 60-61.
12 Davies, The North Atlantic World, 145.
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tobacco which was blended with the more expensive quality tobacco from the English
colonies in North America, were grown in these provinces. 13 Hence, a relatively cheap and
good quality tobacco was being produced which could compete with all other sorts of tobacco
on the European markets. Until the beginning of the eighteenth century Amsterdam was the
most important centre in Europe for the spinning and blending of various sorts of tobacco.
Some of the processed tobacco was consumed in the Republic, but the bulk of it was
exported. Although there was a growing market for tobacco throughout the whole of Europe,
the major markets were the northern countries. It is estimated that around 1700 approximately
15 million pounds of ‘Dutch’ tobacco was shipped to the Baltic Sea. 14
The Amsterdam sugar and tobacco trade in the eighteenth century
During the seventeenth century Amsterdam had built up a leading position in the sugar and
tobacco trade in the Republic and in Europe. In the last quarter of the century, however, that
position was put under pressure because of a growing competition of England and France. At
the beginning of the eighteenth century, the number of sugar refineries in Amsterdam had
slumped to thirty, in which fewer than six hundred workers were employed. 15 The Amsterdam
tobacco industry, on the other hand, was still flourishing. In 1700 approximately three
thousand workers were employed in the tobacco spinning and blending industry, about three
per cent of the Amsterdam labour force. 16 It was too good to last, a decade later the tobacco
industry had also begun to stagnate.
It seems as if the previously successful sugar and tobacco trade of Amsterdam ended
in a period of contraction in the first decade of the eighteenth century, but this was not the
case. The Republic still retained its strong position in distribution and was soon able to take
advantage of the growing demands for Atlantic products in Europe. Owing to the large drop
in sugar and tobacco prices, these products had now come within the reach of large consumer
groups. Furthermore, throughout a good part of the century the Republic was able to pluck the
fruits of being able to pursue a policy of neutrality from the end of the War of the Spanish
Succession (1702-1713) until the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784. During military
conflicts between Britain, France and Spain, some of which were fought in the Caribbean,
Curacao and St Eustatius came in very handy as free ports from which large quantities of
13 Roessingh, Inlandse tabak, 186-207, 391-400.
14 Ibidem, 416-418.
15 Le Long, Den koophandel, 129.
16 De Vries and Van der Woude, Nederland 1500-1815, 383.
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colonial products could be shipped to Europe. A major part of these products ended up in
Amsterdam where they were processed and re-exported to other European destinations.
During the first half of the eighteenth century not only did the sugar trade pick up,
the sugar-processing industry was also re-invigorated, a remarkable achievement because by
then Dutch sugar-processing technology had found its way to other European countries. 17 One
might have expected that a country like France, with the most productive sugar colonies in the
Caribbean, would have taken the initiative to begin refine sugar on a large scale and ruin the
Dutch sugar industry, but this did not happen. In fact the reverse was true. Money was the key
to this. Sugar refineries were large enterprises which required substantial investment. Capital
was available in the Republic, but not in France. For a long time the French refining capacity
could not keep up with the explosive growth of the sugar production in the colonies, so large
quantities of semi-refined and raw sugar were re-exported to other countries. The first stages
of refining semi-refined sugar, the ‘sucre terré’, were carried out in the French colonies, but
the purification had to be left to European refineries. Until 1790 the Republic was the largest
purchaser of French export sugar. 18 Besides refineries, there were companies within the
Republic which were specialized in producing more luxury sorts of sugar like candy. These
companies produced all kinds of white, yellow and brown sugar as well as loaf sugar. 19
Golden syrup, a residual product of the sugar-refining process, was used as a cheap substitute
Table 1: Sugar imports of Amsterdam, 1742-1796 (in pounds 20 )
Year Surinam Ess-Dem-Berb St. Eustatius France Other Total
1742 24,555,000 1,600,000 1,840,000 5,51,000 942,000 34,688,000
1753 12,224,000 1,600,000 2,500,000 15,005,000 6,000 31,335,000
1771 16,251,000 2,405,000 14,179,000 16,972,000 6,608,000 56,415,000
1775 16,204,000 2,725,000 4,802,000 13,301,000 8,469,000 45,501,000
1780 12,560,000 7,992,000 30,434,000 257,000 6,281,000 57,524,000
1785 12,941,000 7,992,000 3,944,000 12,874,000 9,664,000 47,415,000
1790 16,884,000 19,174,000 7,524,000 18,798,000 1,911,000 64,291,000
1796 235,000 6,234,000 6,469,000
Total 111.619.000 43,488,000 65,223,000 83,193,000 40,115,000 343,638,000
Sources: Nassy et al, Essai historique, seconde partie, 88-95; Van der Oest, ‘The forgotten colonies’, 350 table
12.6 (A); Oldewelt, ‘De scheepvaartstatitiek’, 130-149 bijlage II; Klooster, Illicit Riches, 226 appendix 5;
Reesse, De suikerhandel, cxx bijlage G; Van Nierop, ‘Uit de bakermat’, Amstelodamum 15, 143-144 bijlage A;
database Welling.
17 Davids, The Rise and Decline, volume 2, 343-344.
18 Van de Voort, De Westindische plantages van 1720 tot 1795, 144-146.
19 Reesse, De suikerhandel van Amsterdam, 153-157. See for the refining process Reisig, De suikerraffinadeur.
20 The weight is displayed in Amsterdam pounds. An Amsterdam pound weighed 0.49 kilograms.
6

for sugar to be sold to the less fortunate. In 1740, approximately 165 sugar refineries were
operating in the Republic, most of them in Amsterdam. 21 This number remained relatively
stable until the end of the eighteenth century.
The bulk of the sugar which was imported into the Republic from the Dutch colonies
and foreign European port cities ended up in Amsterdam. From 1742 until the end of the
eighteenth century we have fairly reliable import figures for a number of sample years at our
disposal. These figures show that between 1742 and 1790 the import increased from nearly
34.7 million pounds of sugar to nearly 64.3 million pounds, but the growth in the sugar import
was subject to enormous fluctuations (Table 1).
Unsurprisingly most of the Amsterdam sugar was shipped from Surinam as the city
had a one-third share participation in the Society of Surinam which was responsible for the
government of the colony and many Amsterdam business firms had invested capital in
Surinamese plantations. Only a small quantity of the sugar from the colony was shipped to
port cities in Zeeland, and most of this was re-shipped to Amsterdam which had a much larger
sugar-refining capacity than, for example, Middelburg. The reason Amsterdam merchants
imported only a small quantity of sugar from the plantation colonies of Berbice, Demerara
and Essequibo (now Guyana) That was because Zeeland had held a trade monopoly on the
latter two colonies since the seventeenth century. Only after Stadtholder William V abolished
the Zeeland monopoly in 1771, did the contribution of these small colonies to the total sugar
import of Amsterdam begin to increase. The sugar imports via St Eustatius could be fairly
volatile. The island played an important role as a transit port during the eighteenth-century
European wars which were partly fought out in the Caribbean. In times of conflict, friend and
foe alike used St Eustatius as a neutral port from where sugar and other colonial products
could be safely shipped to Europe. During the Seven Years War (1756-1763), for instance, St
Eustatius exported large quantities of sugar to Amsterdam, in the peak year 1761 almost 18
million pounds. When the war was over, the export of sugar dropped back to the pre-war
quantity of 5 to 6 million pounds per year. In 1780, during the American War of
Independence (1775-1783), a record of over 30 million pounds was reached, the greatest
amount of sugar ever imported into Amsterdam from a colony in one year. 22 Almost a third of
Amsterdam sugar was supplied through other European ports. Until the last decade of the
eighteenth century, these were almost exclusively Bordeaux, Nantes and some other French
port cities. After Britain had joined the First Coalition against France in 1793, French
21 De Vries en Van der Woude, Nederland 1500-1815, 386.
22 Klooster, Illicit Riches, 226 Appendix 5.
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overseas trade was severely hampered, and the sugar export to the Republic stagnated. A
partial solution was soon found and part of the raw sugar which was needed to keep the main
refineries working was imported from Britain and the North German port cities of Hamburg
and Bremen, but that amount of sugar was significantly smaller than imported from France in
previous years. 23
Despite the political instability, the volume of the Dutch sugar export in the second
half of the eighteenth century remained high, notwithstanding the increasing competition from
other players on the European sugar market. This stability can in part at least be attributed to
the government which issued various measures to protect the sugar industry in the
Netherlands. Consequently, in 1756 the production of the sugar refinery on St Eustatius was
curbed and in 1771 the excise duty on the transit of raw sugar to the German hinterland was
doubled. 24 On several occasions tax reductions were also allowed for sugar refined in the
Netherlands, in an attempt to make it more competitive on the European market. 25 Only in the
last five years of the eighteenth century did the export of refined sugar decline sharply.
Tobacco was the second economically important Atlantic product in the economy of
the Dutch Republic. As has been said, blending cheap domestic tobacco with small quantities
of expensive but superior North American tobacco produced a very good value-for-money
product, with which the Republic conquered the European tobacco market in the seventeenth
century. Amsterdam was the greatest beneficiary of these developments and became the major
European tobacco processing and trading centre. Around 1700, there were about three
thousand people working in the Amsterdam tobacco industry. 26 In the course of the eighteenth
century, however, the Republic had to cede its advantage to other tobacco-producing and
exporting countries. After a price reduction in the superior American tobacco, the Dutch blend
of domestic and foreign tobacco lost its attraction for European consumers. Furthermore, just
as the technology for refining sugar had been, that for processing tobacco was exported from
the Republic to other European countries. Benefiting from this transfer of knowledge,
Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Denmark were able to set up their own tobacco
industry, making them less dependent of Dutch imports. 27 After the mid-eighteenth century
these countries usually turned to importing unprocessed tobacco leaves instead of different
kinds of finished tobacco. The final hindrance to the Dutch export of processed tobacco was
23 Van Nierop, ‘Uit de bakermat der Amsterdamsche handelsstatistiek’ (1917) bijlage c.
24 Knappert, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche Bovenwindsche eilanden, 256-257; Visser, Verkeersindustrieën
te Rotterdam, 32.
25 Visser, Verkeersindustrieën te Rotterdam, 32-33; De Vries and Van der Woude, Nederland 1500-1815, 387.
26 De Vries and Van der Woude, Nederland 1500-1815, 383.
27 Davids, The rise and decline, volume 2, 344-345.
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the growing import restrictions which various European governments proclaimed. All these
factors combined to cause a shrinkage in the production of domestic tobacco, compensated by
an increasing import of American tobacco in the eighteenth century. In 1710, between 15 and
18 million pounds of tobacco was being grown in the Netherlands, topped up by 7 million
pounds of American tobacco imported via British ports. Forty years later, the domestic
production had fallen to just 11 or 12 million pounds a year and imports had increased to 17
million pounds a year. 28 Large quantities of the American tobacco which arrived in
Amsterdam was re-exported to other European port cities unprocessed. Contrary to what
might have been expected, Britain was not the only or always the most important supplier of
Atlantic tobacco. In certain years the supply of what was known as Varinas tobacco,
cultivated in Venezuela, was just as important. Although a small quantity of this tobacco was
shipped via Curacao, the majority of it was imported from Spain. 29 However, the share of the
Varinas tobacco in the total import of Amsterdam was subject to sharp fluctuations.
Especially during the American War of Independence, when the supply of North American
tobacco through British ports virtually ground to a standstill, the import of Varinas tobacco
rose sharply. In 1742 for instance only 9.4 percent of all Atlantic tobacco imported by
Amsterdam came from Venezuela; by 1776 the share of Varinas tobacco had increased to
64.5 percent. 30 In times of war, the amount imported via St Eustatius grew very quickly. 31
As was the case with sugar, the Amsterdam import and export trade in tobacco grew
almost constantly during the eighteenth century. 32 It is true that the share of Amsterdam in the
European sugar and tobacco trade did decline in the second half of the century, but in absolute
terms it increased significantly. De Vries and Van der Woude have estimated that
approximately one-third of the imported sugar was consumed in the Netherlands, 33 but the
import and export data available show that twice as much Amsterdam sugar was sold in the
Republic than has been assumed. In 1753, approximately 34.2 percent of the 31.3 million
pounds of imported sugar was exported after processing. In 1790, this import amounted 64.3
million pounds of which 34.8 percent was exported as a refined product, in terms of
percentage only a fraction more than the situation forty-seven years earlier. 34 A comparison
28 Roessingh, Inlandse tabak, 340 tabel 6.13.
29 Klooster, Illicit Riches, 230-231 appendix 7.
30 See database George Welling: http://odur.let.rug.nl/welling/appendix.html
31 Klooster, Illicit Riches, 226-227 appendix 5.
32 Due to the lack of sufficient serial data about the volume of imported tobacco it is yet not possible to create a
general overview like for sugar in table 1.
33 De Vries en Van der Woude, Nederland 1500-1815, 387.
34 See for the import of Amsterdam table 1 of this paper and for the export Van Nierop, ‘Uit de bakermat’,
Amstelodamum 13, 143 bijlage A.
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with the Amsterdam tobacco import and export industry shows an entirely different trend,
although we only know the value of the tobacco trade, not its volume. In 1753 tobacco worth
202,208 guilders was imported and to the value of 1,037,266 guilders was exported.
Expressed in terms of value, 513 percent more tobacco was exported than imported. In 1790
the import value was 281,795 guilders against an export value of 1,842,660 guilders, a
difference of no less than 654 percent. 35 On the face of it, in the second half of the eighteenth
century the tobacco trade of Amsterdam was much more successful that the sugar trade, but
this conclusion is too facile. All the sugar refined in Amsterdam was imported, but that was
not the case with tobacco. Despite the decline in the domestic production, there was still
plenty of Dutch-grown tobacco which was blended with imported Atlantic tobacco. During
the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Dutch tobacco cultivation even recovered. 36
However, it is very doubtful if the big difference between the import and the export value can
be fully attributed to the Dutch-grown tobacco. It is more likely that, until the end of the
eighteenth century, a large tobacco industry existed in Amsterdam, which contributed
substantially to the added value of the tobacco exported. How much that was will have to be
settled by further research.
So far most of the focus has been directed towards the Amsterdam import and export
industries in sugar and tobacco, but other towns in the Republic were also involved in the
processing and trading of these products. Cities like Middelburg, Gouda and ‘s-
Hertogenbosch had one or two sugar refineries within their walls, producing commodities for
local or regional markets. Rotterdam presented a different picture as the bulk of its sugar and
tobacco was processed for export. In the second half of the eighteenth century, significant
changes between Amsterdam and Rotterdam occurred. In 1752 Rotterdam had thirty sugar
refineries, but that number shrank to nineteen in 1767 to twelve in 1771, after which the
number remained stable until the end of the century. Nevertheless, C. Visser argues that the
decrease in the number of sugar refineries did not result in a contraction of the production,
because the number of large refineries did not change. The export of refined sugar from
Rotterdam actually rose from nearly 7 million pounds in 1753 to over 9 million pounds in
1790. 37 Amsterdam, on the other hand, exported more than 10.7 million pounds of sugar in
1753 against over 20.7 million pounds in 1790. 38 These figures show that the competiveness
of Rotterdam with respect to Amsterdam deteriorated significantly in half a century. The
35 See Van Nierop, ‘Uit de bakermat’, Amstelodamum 13 (export) and 14. (export).
36 Roessingh, Inlandse tabak, 350-370.
37 Visser, Verkeersindustrieën, 54-55.
38 Van Nierop, ‘Uit de bakermat’ Amstelodamum 13, 143 bijlage A.
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Amsterdam sugar export had almost doubled, while that of Rotterdam increased by only 30
percent. There were some other notable differences between the two cities. In Amsterdam raw
sugar was largely imported from the Dutch colonies in the West, whereas in Rotterdam almost
all of it came from French port cities. It is also noteworthy that Amsterdam marketed twothirds
of its production domestically but Rotterdam re-exported practically all the sugar
refined in the city. Unfortunately there are no series available recording the volumes or values
of the tobacco import and export of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, but a good indicator is the
excise duty on tobacco which was levied in both cities between 1764 and 1804. This
demonstrates that, until 1775, Rotterdam was more important for the import of tobacco than
Amsterdam. During the American War of Independence the role of Rotterdam was
temporarily taken over by Amsterdam, but when the War was over the roles were reversed
again, until 1795 at least. 39 On the basis of the import tax levied, it seems that Amsterdam was
overtaken by Rotterdam in the processing and trade of tobacco in the course of the eighteenth
century. In a nutshell, both cities experienced a growth in absolute terms, but this growth
occurred much faster in Rotterdam than in Amsterdam. In the second half of the eighteenth
century, the tobacco industry in Rotterdam employed approximately three thousand five
hundred people. 40
Table 2: Sugar export of Amsterdam in 1753 and 1790 (volume)
Destination 1753 1790
pound % pound %
Portugal 3,670 0.3% 7,847 0.04%
Spain 129,811 1.21% 37,687 0.17%
France 6,435 0.06% 63,695 0.28%
Great Britain 38,755 0.36%
German hinterland 6,590,266 61.33% 17,996,118 80.50%
Mediterranean 30,160 0.28% 209,590 0.94%
Hamburg, Bremen etc. 1,149,618 10.70% 1,608,810 7.20%
Norway / Baltic Sea 2,796,577 26.03% 853,913 3.82%
Northern Russia 1,257,973 5.63%
South Netherlands 320,402 1.43%
10,745,292 100.00% 22,356,035 100.00%
Source: Van Nierop, ‘Uit de bakermat’, Amstelodamum 13, bijlage A.
39 Roessingh, Inlandse tabak, 478-479.
40 Visser, Verkeersindustrieën, 155.
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Table 3: Tobacco export of Amsterdam in 1753 and 1790 (value)
Destination 1753 1790
guilders % guilders %
Portugal 510 0.05% 780 0.04%
Spain 9,650 0.93% 16,788 0.91%
France 87,841 8.47% 53,000 2.88%
Great Britain 2,300 0.22% 1,915 0.10%
German hinterland 155,491 14.99% 604,362 32.80%
Mediterranean 103,695 10.00% 338,382 18.36%
Hamburg, Bremen etc. 280,263 27.02% 338,079 18.35%
Norway / Baltic Sea 396,401 38.22% 354,164 19.22%
Northern Russia 37,555 2.04%
South Netherlands 97,635 5.30%
Unknown 1,115 0.11%
1,037,266 100.00% 1,842,660 100.00%
Source: Van Nierop, ‘Uit de bakermat’, Amstelodamum 13, bijlage A.
W.S. Unger has, as is shown in the introduction of this paper, been able to substantiate the
claim that Dutch export of colonial products to the Baltic Sea rose continuously during the
eighteenth century. His evidence is based on the source publication of the Sound Toll
Registers by Bang and Korst. The question is whether this was equally true of sugar and
tobacco. Thanks to the surviving export figures of Amsterdam from the years 1753 and 1790
(Tables 2 and 3), it is possible to investigate the European regions to which the city was
exporting its sugar and tobacco. In the mid-eighteenth century, Amsterdam exported more
than 60 percent of its refined sugar to the German hinterland either via the Rhine or along
country roads. Norway and the Baltic Sea were in second place with over 26 percent of the
export. By 1790 the importance of the sugar export to Norway and the Baltic had fallen
sharply in favour of that to the German hinterland. Table 3 shows that the tobacco export of
Amsterdam experienced a similar but less dramatic shift. Also remarkable is the increase in
the tobacco export to the Mediterranean. The shift in the export from the Baltic to the German
hinterland was part of an overall pattern in the international trade of the Republic, one which
was already emerging before the mid-eighteenth century. 41 Although the volume of the trade
of the Republic had been increasing almost without a break, the flow of commodities exported
showed a steady shift away from the Baltic to the Rhineland. This raises the question of what
the trends in the Amsterdam export of sugar and tobacco to the Baltic were in the second half
of the eighteenth century.
41 De Vries, ‘De problematiek’, 28.
12

Amsterdam sugar and tobacco trade through the Sound 42
Thanks to the painstaking work of the Danish historians Nina Ellinger Bang and Knud Korst,
who have published a seven-volume series of aggregated Sound Toll Registers data,
researchers now have at their disposal an impressive quantitative overview of the trade to and
from the Baltic through the Sound in the Early-Modern period. 43 Earlier in this paper it was
revealed that, using this dataset, Unger has shown that the volume of the Dutch export of
colonial products through the Sound increased considerably during the eighteenth century, but
fell significantly in terms of percentages. In the first decade, approximately 2 million pounds
of colonial products were annually shipped from Amsterdam to the Baltic, accounting for
about 68 percent of the total amount of Atlantic and Asiatic goods passing through the Sound.
Between 1771 and 1780, the volume of this category of products had increased to an average
of 5.3 million pounds per year; 265 percent more than at the beginning of the century, but
only 20 percent of the total export of these products in that period. 44 The present Sound Toll
Registers database makes it possible to study the export of colonial products in greater detail
than was possible with Bang and Korst’s former dataset. Various products from Africa and
the plantation colonies in the Americas were shipped through the Sound via Dutch port cities.
Besides large quantities of plantation products like sugar, tobacco, cotton, indigo, cocoa and
coffee, the ships carried small amounts of ivory, gum and various kinds of dyestuffs. The
export of the first two products through the Sound from Amsterdam in the second half of the
eighteenth century is the central theme of this section. It is possible to deduce from Tables 2
and 3, in which the export of sugar and tobacco from Amsterdam in 1753 and 1790 are
compared, that the volume of the export hardly changed over the years. These tables are based
on data of export taxes levied by the Admiralty of Amsterdam. The data in the Sound Toll
Registers differs slightly from those of the Admiralty, a discrepancy which can be explained
by smuggling activities. It is very unlikely that skippers always gave the authorities the
correct amount of loaded goods. Using the data in the Sound Toll Registers, I shall explore
how the export of sugar and tobacco from Amsterdam through the Sound could surpass that of
other European players. Until what time was Amsterdam capable of maintaining its leading
position in the sugar and tobacco trade on the Baltic? The shifts which occurred in the trade
within the Baltic region will be examined in the search for an answer.
42 This paragraph is based on the Sound Toll Registers online (http://www.soundtoll.nl/index.php/nl/), unless
otherwise stated.
43 Bang and Korst, Tabeller over skibsfart og vaeretransport gennem Oeresund, 7 volumes.
44 Unger, ‘De publicatie der Sonttabellen voltooid’, 165-167 and 194-195; Lesger, ‘Stagnatie en stabiliteit’, 232-
237.
13

As said, Amsterdam was not the sole player, Rotterdam also had substantial interests
in the Dutch sugar and tobacco trade but the latter port did not play a significant role in the
shipping of those products through the Sound. In the second half of the eighteenth century
only twenty-four ships with sugar loaded in Rotterdam passed eastwards through the Sound.
As a whole these ships carried 90,000 pounds of sugar, scarcely 0.2 percent of the amount of
the sugar exported from Amsterdam to the Baltic Sea. Rotterdam merchants were not
insignificant re-exporters of sugar but, as said, they shipped almost all their colonial products
either to the German hinterland via the Rhine and to the South Netherlands. 45 Although
tobacco was much more important to the economy of Rotterdam than sugar, only forty-six
ships loaded with tobacco sailed from Rotterdam to the Baltic Sea in the second half of the
eighteenth century. In the same period 4,821 vessels carrying tobacco from Amsterdam sailed
eastwards through the Sound,, hence the decision to focus on Amsterdam as a principal port
for the shipping of sugar and tobacco through the Sound is obvious. Yet it is not so easy to
chart the volume of exports accurately. This is because the Sound Toll Registers contain more
than twelve hundred spelling variations of the word sugar and of combinations of sugar with
other products. Tobacco has over eight hundred spellings variations in the database. That
makes it practically impossible to trace all the sugar and tobacco shipped from Amsterdam to
the Baltic Sea. Hence, combinations of sugar or tobacco with more than two other products
have not been included in the analysis of the database. 46 What the consequence will be for the
estimated export of sugar and tobacco through the Sound can be only roughly determined,
but based on random samples I suspect that over 90 percent of the quantity of these products
has been tracked. In general, combinations of more than three products, which are only
mentioned once ore twice in the database, contain small quantities of sugar or tobacco. The
combination sugar, anise, orleaan (a dye) and an unspecified number of other products, for
instance, is only mentioned once. Johan David Schwabe from Stralsund was the only skipper
who passed the Sound carrying this combination of goods and a number of separately
specified products. Schwabe had left Amsterdam on a voyage to Stockholm shortly before he
paid toll at Elsinore on 27 April 1750. 47
45 Visser, Verkeersindustrieën te Rotterdam, 45. According to the author, at the end of the eighteenth century
approximately 6 million pounds of sugar was shipped to the German hinterland and 2 million pounds to the
South Netherlands.
46 If combinations of sugar or tobacco with other products are listed in the Sound Toll Registers, the amount is
divided by the number of products. It is in fact impossible to figure out what the amount of sugar or tobacco in
such combinations was. Syrup, a waste product of sugar refining, is not included in the tables in this section.
47 www.soundtoll.nl. ID number 557188.
14

Volume of the export
Now let us examine the export of sugar and tobacco from Amsterdam through the Sound in
the second half of the eighteenth century in nine sample years.
Table 4: Sugar and tobacco export of Amsterdam,1750-1790 (in pounds)
Year Sugar Tobacco
1750 1,106,056 1,070,882
1755 848,529 969,973
1760 978,179 971,917
1766* 945,761 1,655,319
1770 1,020,778 1,153,947
1775 676,004 913,011
1780 949,334 757,803
1785 748,832 1,344,231
1790 914,931 1,150,481
Average 909,823 1,109,729
* The years in the table have an interval of five year. Only 1765 is missing in the
Database, so the data from 1766 are included instead of 1765.
Source: STR.
Comparing Tables 2 and 3, showing the export of sugar and tobacco from Amsterdam in 1753
and 1790 leads to the conclusion that the volume of the export hardly changed over the years.
These tables are based on data about the export tax levied by the Admiralty of Amsterdam. In
1750 over 1.1 million pounds of Amsterdam refined sugar was shipped through the Sound,
Forty years later, the amount of sugar was barely one hundred thousand pounds less. If one
thing is clear from the data in Table 4, it is that the sugar and tobacco export to the Baltic
remained steady in the second half of the eighteenth century. The information in the Sound
Toll Registers database confirms the limited data of the Admiralty of Amsterdam for the years
1753 and 1790 in Tables 2 and 3. With a few exceptions, the volume of the export did not
vary more than 10 percent in the sample years selected. These figures are remarkably stable
since the Amsterdam sugar export had increased very vigorously between 1750 and 1790,
although the export through the Sound showed no growth at all. In the countries and cities
around the Baltic Sea, the consumption of sugar and tobacco also increased, but the
Amsterdam processors and merchants of this products did not benefit from this growth. As
Unger noted, the fast-growing export in colonial products of the Republic through the Sound
did not concern the Atlantic products sugar and tobacco. Not one single but a number of
various factors offer the only explanation. One definitely was the transfer of knowledge of
processing sugar and tobacco from the Republic to Sweden and Denmark, making these
countries were no longer dependent on the import of processed sugar and tobacco from
15

Amsterdam. 48 Another was that the Danes began to import an increasing amount of colonial
products from their colonies in the Caribbean. Likewise Sweden received sugar and tobacco
through its colony Saint Barthélemy, which had been operating as a free port in the Caribbean
since 1785. The import of colonial products directly from the West Indies on Danish and
Swedish ships was exempt the Sound Toll, so it is impossible to trace these ships in the Sound
Toll Registers. 49 A third and last important factor was the growing competition with other
European nations in the sugar and tobacco trade, which brings us to the question of how the
Amsterdam sugar and tobacco trade through the Sound developed in comparison with other
European players.
Growing competition
Of course, not all ships which took on colonial products in Amsterdam were Dutch and the
quantities which were exported by Dutch skippers could fluctuate from year to year.
Nevertheless, leaving these provisos aside, at least three-quarters of all Amsterdam sugar
which passed the Sound was loaded on Dutch vessels. Most of these Dutch ships were
registered in Amsterdam or in port cities in the provinces of Friesland and Groningen.
However, the Dutch share in the Amsterdam tobacco trade was smaller. More than half of the
Amsterdam tobacco shipped through the Sound was exported by non-Dutch ships. Let us now
take a look at the competition in the sugar and tobacco trades Amsterdam had to contend with
from other countries. In the case of a large number of ships of various nationalities, the
current set-up of the Sound Toll Registers database makes it difficult to calculate the
quantities of products which they carried through the Sound. Consequently, I have chosen to
Table 5: Number of ships passing the Sound with sugar and tobacco, 1750-1790
Sugar
Tobacco
Year Amsterdam Total % Amsterdam Amsterdam Total % Amsterdam
1750 137 246 56% 152 243 63%
1755 86 205 42% 115 235 49%
1760 86 202 43% 116 202 57%
1766 95 267 36% 112 195 57%
1770 62 200 31% 82 144 57%
1775 107 238 45% 84 116 72%
1780 86 299 29% 91 190 48%
1785 73 310 24% 105 204 51%
1790 79 324 24% 89 178 50%
Source: STR.
48 Davids, The rise and decline, volume 2, 344-345.
49 Rönnbäck, ‘Who Stood to Gain from Colonialism?’, 72.
16

calculate the number of ships from Amsterdam compared with ships from other European
(non-Dutch) port cities which passed eastwards through the Sound with a cargo of sugar
and/or tobacco.
Obviously the number of ships from Amsterdam which passed the Sound eastwards
with sugar and tobacco, as shown in Table 5, gradually decreased in the second half of the
eighteenth century, while the total number of European ships carrying sugar increased in the
period researched, but the number of ships carrying sugar was dwindling much faster than that
of the ships with tobacco.
In the mid-eighteenth century, 56 percent of all ships with sugar on board were loaded
in Amsterdam. In 1790 this percentage was dropped to 24 percent, but the amount of sugar
exported from the city remained approximately the same as was previously determined (Table
4). The biggest competitors of Amsterdam were French merchants who were sending more
and more ships with sugar to the Baltic. In 1750, forty-one French vessels carried sugar
through the Sound, and in 1790 the number of French ships had increased to ninety-one. In
that year for the first time the number of vessels which were fitted out in French ports was
higher than that from Amsterdam. Only a few dozen ships loaded with sugar from British
ports and the North German towns of Bremen, Emden and Hamburg sailed through the Sound
annually, taken as a whole about one-fifth of all sugar-carrying ships. The limited sugar
export of North German port cities through the Sound is especially remarkable since the
economy of these towns was booming during the last decades of the eighteenth century, when
they were even threatening to surpass the trade of Amsterdam. 50 Measured by the number of
ships with sugar which sailing through the Sound, it can be said that Amsterdam, although it
lost a share of the market to the French, was still the largest exporter in the 1780s.
Amsterdam preformed better in the shipping through the Sound of tobacco than sugar.
In forty years, the percentage of the city in the tobacco trade did fall from 63 percent to 50
percent, but it still remained the most important player in the field until the 1790s. Its main
competitor was Britain which imported large quantities of tobacco from North America. Some
of this was destined for the domestic market, but a large part was re-exported to other
European ports including those around the Baltic Sea. However, despite its stiff competition
Britain still lagged behind the Republic. In 1790, for instance, eighty-nine ships with tobacco
were fitted out in Amsterdam against forty-six in British ports. French port cities exported
little or no tobacco either to the Baltic or to other European destinations. The French produced
50 De Vries and Van der Woude, Nederland 1500-1815, 559-560.
17

large quantities of sugar in their colonies, but the tobacco cultivation was negligible. In fact,
they were net importers of tobacco for their home market. Although the consumption of
tobacco increased significantly all over Europe, this was hardly noticeable in the export of
tobacco through the Sound. One of the chief reasons for this is that several regions in the
Baltic had begun to cultivate their own tobacco which made them less and less dependent on
the tobacco processed in the Republic. A city like St Petersburg even became a major exporter
of domestic tobacco to Amsterdam. 51 Given the emerging tobacco culture in the Baltic region,
it is remarkable that Amsterdam managed to survive so well in the tobacco trade through the
Sound.
Destinations
Table 4 shows how much sugar and tobacco from Amsterdam was shipped through the Sound
in the period 1750-1790. In the Tables 6 and 7 the dozens of port cities around the Baltic Sea
to which these products were exported is given in percentages The cities which were the
recipients of less than 2 percent of the Amsterdam sugar and tobacco export are not listed
separately, but are included in the section ‘other’.
What is particularly striking is that Danzig imported decreasing amounts of sugar and
tobacco from Amsterdam in the second half of the eighteenth century. For centuries
Amsterdam has been one of Danzig’s most important trading partners, but this situation
changed quickly because of the competition offered by British merchants. Around 1770, the
British equalled the Dutch in the number of ships which sailed eastwards through the Sound,
but after that the British share rose rapidly. In 1792, for example, the number of British ships
was already twice as large as that of the Dutch. 52 But, if we look at the export to the East
Table 6: Share of Baltic cities in the volume of sugar shipped from Amsterdam 1750-1790
Year Danzig Königsberg St Petersburg Copenhagen Stockholm Other Total
1750 46% 11% 20% 3% 2% 19% 100%
1755 51% 15% 17% 0% 4% 13% 100%
1760 53% 9% 12% 0% 13% 12% 100%
1766 31% 13% 37% 2% 6% 11% 100%
1770 12% 5% 73% 0% 2% 8% 100%
1775 34% 20% 20% 0% 0% 26% 100%
1780 15% 5% 61% 0% 0% 18% 100%
1785 19% 2% 66% 0% 0% 13% 100%
1790 12% 10% 65% 0% 4% 9% 100%
Source: STR.
51 Roessingh, Inlandse tabak, 473-474.
52 J. Litwin, ‘Dantzig, havenstad aan de Oostzee’, 109.
18

Table 7: Share of Baltic cities in the volume of tobacco shipped from Amsterdam 1750-1790
Year Danzig Königsberg St Petersburg Copenhagen Stockholm Other Total
1750 30% 6% 6% 13% 11% 34% 100%
1755 19% 5% 3% 15% 19% 38% 100%
1760 33% 3% 3% 21% 10% 30% 100%
1766 24% 5% 3% 22% 12% 33% 100%
1770 35% 1% 11% 16% 1% 36% 100%
1775 8% 8% 3% 52% 0% 29% 100%
1780 11% 2% 1% 42% 8% 36% 100%
1785 9% 12% 1% 42% 3% 33% 100%
1790 13% 4% 0% 30% 7% 46% 100%
Source: STR.
Prussian port city of Königsberg, we see hardly a downturn in the sugar and tobacco trade.
Another striking development is that the export of tobacco to Copenhagen grew vigorously.
In 1790 the quantity of tobacco imported from Amsterdam was almost two and a half
times as much as in 1750. It has just been said that the Danes had set up their own tobacco
industry, so it is likely that the bulk of the import was unprocessed tobacco leaves. The export
to Stockholm, in the seventeenth century an important trading partner of Amsterdam, had
already collapsed before the mid-eighteenth century. Since the rise of the sugar and tobacco
industries in Stockholm in the 1740s, the export to Sweden had plummeted. 53 The last notable
development was the sharp rise in the sugar export to St Petersburg. At the end of the
eighteenth century, this fast-growing city had approximately 200,000 residents but no industry
to refine sugar. To meet the increasing demand for tobacco, however, the Russians had set up
their own tobacco cultivation in the vicinity of St Petersburg. This proved so successful that,
at the end of the 1770s, the city exported about 4.3 million pounds per year to Amsterdam.
Within a few decades the roles were reversed, at least regarding the export of tobacco. 54
Conclusion
In the seventeenth century the WIC and private merchants in the Republic laid the
foundations for the trade in Atlantic products. In economic terms, sugar and tobacco were the
most important products, followed by coffee, cocoa, cotton and several kinds of dyestuffs. In
this paper, the big two sugar and tobacco have held centre stage. Both products required
processing after import and this stage provided additional employment and added value.
Initially sugar was imported from Portuguese colonies. After the transfer of the sugar
53 Israel, Dutch Primacy, 388.
54 Roessingh, Inlandse tabak, 473.
19

cultivation from Brazil to the Caribbean, Amsterdam imported an increasing amount of sugar
from Surinam and other Dutch plantation colonies in the West Indies. However, it is unlikely
that the city imported more sugar from the Dutch colonies than from the non-Dutch colonies.
Unfortunately few quantitative data have been preserved from the seventeenth and the first
half of the eighteenth century with which this could be affirmed, although in the second half
of the eighteenth century, as shown in Table 1, there was certainly some truth in this assertion.
France was the most important non-Dutch supplier of raw sugar, followed by the import from
non-Dutch colonies via St Eustatius. Tobacco and its import was quite another story. Initially
large quantities of tobacco were grown in the Republic itself, but as the price of the superior
American tobacco dropped it was imported in growing quantities via British ports.
The export of sugar and tobacco from Amsterdam through the Sound remained
remarkably stable during the second half of the eighteenth century. Compared with other
European players in the field, Amsterdam had lost its market share, but in absolute terms there
was no decline at all. As the total amount of sugar and tobacco exported from Amsterdam
doubled over the second half of the eighteenth century, whereas the number of ships sailing
from Amsterdam gradually declined, it seems safe to deduce that the actual quantity of sugar
and tobacco on board each ship increased. Most of it was exported either overland or by water
to the German hinterland, which had become a more important market than the Baltic. And
Amsterdam was not the only Dutch town which set its sights on the Rhineland as an
interesting export market. Rotterdam also imported large quantities of sugar and tobacco
which were re-exported to the German hinterland after processing. Not only was there a shift
in the volume of the trade from the Baltic Sea to the German hinterland, an interesting shift
took place within the Baltic region itself. Danzig and Stockholm, for instance, gradually lost
their importance in the export of sugar and tobacco, while St Petersburg was a growth market
for refined sugar and Copenhagen for tobacco leaves.
If there is one single conclusion which can be drawn, it is that the Atlantic products
sugar and tobacco were very important to the economy of Amsterdam. They provided
employment, added value and export profit, but the export to the Baltic played a minor role in
this process. The Amsterdam merchants had the expertise to keep the business going in a
highly competitive market, but were unable to generate growth in the export to the Baltic. To
expand the export of sugar and tobacco, they concentrated principally on the German
hinterland. The heyday of the trade in Atlantic products to the Baltic was definitely over.
20

Databases
http://odur.let.rug.nl/welling/appendix.html
http://www.soundtoll.nl/index.php/nl/
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22