PIETER STUYVESANT - Mastermind of America's Slave Trade

By Dirk Jan Barreveld

The United States has 46 million inhabitants descending from African slaves, some 14% of its total population. This number has greatly affected not only the history of the United States, but also the country’s situation today. It all started in 1654 when Pieter Stuyvesant, the Dutch Director General of New Netherlands (later the US State of New York) at that time, realized that his colony was fast heading for bankruptcy. He needed a business that would generate extra income. His boss, the Dutch West India Company, owned and exploited some 60 slave stations in West Africa for slaves for Brazil.

All archives concerning the early days of the slave trade in America is written in the Old Dutch language as was used in the 17th century. There are very few, if any, American researchers who are familiar enough with this Old Dutch language to do proper research in archives containing original slave-related sources. Another problem is that archives containing these sources are spread all over the world. Only a tiny part of the material in American archives was ever translated into English. The result of this situation is that a substantial part of what is written in the United States about the origin of slavery is incorrect or insufficient. This book is based on these original sources.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781471610301

Book preview

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

We all agree that the slave trade, or the trade in human beings, is a despicable thing to do. We, the Dutch, were masters in this business. Our famous Golden Century is for an important part build on it. Not everybody did agree. Often the Bible was used as evidence whether those in favour or those against it were right or wrong. In the end business went on as usually. The Dutch West India Company (WIC) was in charge of the slave business. Until 1792 they went on and as such, they were the longest surviving European slave trader.

A lot has recently been written over the slave trade. But not much has been written about the root cause of the business, especially the enormous size it attained in just a few decades. It all happened after the Dutch lost control over Brazil. In 1654, the Dutch West India Company was left with only one single colony: Nieu Nederlant, located on the Hudson River, the spot where today New York is situated. Apart from the American property the company owned a few trading posts and castles in West Africa. Geographically two locations about 8.000 km away from each other. There was no telegraphy in those times, neither fax machines nor telephones. How do you create a profitable trade under those circumstances? That is extremely difficult, but it happened and it would last more than 200 years. Someone must have taken the initiative to connect these two continents.

The Dutch Economic Miracle

The slave trade was an essential part of the Dutch Economic Miracle, the enormous success of the Dutch after the difficult years following the separation from Spain. This economic miracle is unique in world history.

For a proper understanding of the slave trade, and the role it played in the economic development of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, we have to look at what this economic miracle in reality was. It was all about the spice trade. Crucial is the loss of Antwerp in 1584. The Spanish commander, general Parma, was a gentleman. He gave the residents of Antwerp a clear choice: go back to Catholicism or leave the city. Those who choose to leave were allowed to take bring along their money. The Spanish soldiers were not allowed to plunder. Tens of thousands choose to leave and went to the Northern Netherlands. Apart from their money they brought along their knowledge of international trade and their international contacts. Once settled down in the Netherlands they tried to rebuild their trade business. The Northern Dutch supplied the ships and the crews. This unique combination was a private affair. The Dutch government had no active part in it, they only supplied law and order and, if necessary a naval squadron for protection against pirates. The establishment of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was an enormous step forward. The company operated only in the Far East. Twenty years later followed the Dutch West India Company (WIC), a company that focused its attention on the Western Hemisphere. The Dutch economic miracle was based on free trade. Demand and supply on the world market was the Dutch trade-blood., everything in the country was sacrificed for that. The farmer produced food for the ships, the fishing industry supplied fish for the ships, the sail maker supplied the sails for the ships, the rope-yard made the ropes, and the cannon manufacturer supplied the cannons. In the 17th century, the Dutch were the first to have naval colleges. We lacked sufficient labour that is why we imported labour from surrounding countries. To let it work properly the Dutch government adapted a policy of laissez faire, they let the traders decide what the best was for them. In short, Dutch society was dedicated to trade with the world. A special trading spot for stocks and financial trade documents, the Amsterdamse Beurs (Amsterdam Stock exchange) was created, soon followed by a special bank, the Amsterdamse Wisselbank (Exchange Bank of Amsterdam), for international financial transactions.

In 1630 the West India Company managed to capture a large part of Brazil. The reason for the capture was to assure sufficient supply of sugar for the Amsterdam sugar industry. Again a question of safeguarding supply and demand. Soon the Dutch realized that there were not enough labourers for the sugar plantations. Portuguese-Brazilian farmers suggested importing African workers. The WIC owned several trading posts and castles along the African coast for their ivory, gold, and African pepper trade which made it easy to obtain Africans. In other words, the slave trade was not a matter of trading slaves for money. It was a matter of obtaining workers for their plantations in Brazil.

Nieu Nederlant, the WIC’s colony along the Hudson River, was established for the trade in beaver fur. Excessive hunting drove the beaver more and more to the hinterlands. Around 1654 the WIC was confronted with two rising problems: the beaver in Nieu Netherlant faced extinction and Brazil was lost. It left the WIC without proper income from beaver fur and there was no market for the African slaves anymore. Suddenly the WIC was facing bankruptcy. As excellent traders the company managed to find a solution. They could not resurrect the beaver, but they found another market for the African slaves. How they managed to solve this problem is the central theme of this book.

The slave trade was not something that stood on its own so to speak. It was not the idea of a handful of Amsterdam financiers who were looking for a new challenge. The slave trade was an integral part of the Dutch miracle. As such it played also a crucial role in the 17th-century Anglo-Dutch wars. In 1688 the frustration of the Dutch with the British ran so high that the Dutch decided to conquer England. It was a personal initiative of the Dutch stadhouder Willem III. The Dutch government, the Staten Generaal, gave its consent. The operation became known as Glorious Revolution, and became a big success. The Dutch stadhouder Willem III was crowned as British King William III, his wife became Queen Mary II. The result of the operation was that the Dutch obtained more or less a monopoly for the African slave trade until the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. With the Glorious Revolution the Dutch Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden reached its zenith. In the Far East, the Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie (VOC) reigned unopposed, in the West, it was the West India Compagnie (WIC) that controlled the Western Hemisphere. From every angle it seems that the Dutch part in the slave trade far greater must have been than the 5% scientists normally assume.

In this book we follow more or less the line as drawn above. First, with an eye on the spice trade, we will take a look at the Dutch Economic Miracle. This is the root on which everything is build. This leads inevitably to the creation of Nieu Nederlant, the Dutch colony on the Hudson River. In 1654 the problems became so large that the end of the colony’s existence was very close. When Brazil was lost in 1654 Pieter Stuyvesant, the director of Nieu Nederlant and the Caribbean Island of Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire, became suddenly the highest executive of the WIC in the Western Hemisphere. To solve the rising problems he was, knowing or unknowingly, the man in charge. Stuyvesant had worked before in Brazil and on the Caribbean Island, but he never visited Africa. He had to rely on his old friends, he chooses Matthias Beck, an old hand, as his point man for the slave trade. Within a few years, the WIC became the driving force behind the slave trade. The Dutch Economic Miracle was like a rolling train, the slave trade was an integral part of this train. Without slave trade, the Dutch history would have been different.

THE SEARCH FOR SPICES

CHAPTER 2: The Dutch economic miracle

In his famous book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers the British author Paul Kennedy¹ pays little attention to the rise and fall of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces. In my view this is unfortunate. The explosive growth of the Netherlands from a bunch of rebels, fighting for independence from Spain in 1568, into the wealthiest country of the world in just a few decennia is simply unique. This development is far more than winning a war against Spain that lasted also 80 years. To achieve this, lots of 16th and 17th-century fundamentals had to change and new fundamentals had to be created. To win a war from a much larger enemy is not easy; you have to find ways to overcome the difference in size and power. You have to be adaptable, inventive and extremely clever. To achieve this you have to put great emphasis on science and technology on all possible levels, and that is precisely what the Dutch did do.

They developed new ships (the Fluit), better cannons, better ammunition; they improved siege technology, land reclamation, nautical science, map-making, etc. Christian Huygens, a famous astronomer, physicist and mathematician invented the pendulum clock, which was a major step forward towards exact timekeeping, an extremely important issue in navigating the world seas. Huygens is also known for explaining Saturn’s planetary rings. He also contributed to the field of optics. Anton van Leeuwenhoek was the first to study microscopic life; he was the first to describe bacteria. Jan Leeghwater became famous for his fight against the sea. Leeghwater (his name means empty water) added a considerable amount of land to the republic by converting lakes into arable land.

Cartographers such as Gerard Mercator, Joan Blaeu, Joris Carolus, the Hondius family, Johannes Vingboons, Petrus Plancius, and many others were instrumental in the development of the Dutch merchant marine and long-distance navigation.

But also in the way of thinking the Dutch became frontrunners. First, there was Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, also known as Erasmus of Rotterdam. Erasmus was a humanist, Catholic priest, social critic and theologian. Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation. While he was critical of the abuses within the Church and called for reform, he kept his distance from Luther and other more aggressive reformists. Erasmus emphasized the middle road. René Descartes (Cartesius), although of French origin, spent most of his life in the Republic. He is often considered the father of modern philosophy. Hugo de Groot’s (Grotius) Mare Liberum has been the essence and backbone of the modern law of the sea.

The Dutch reached the top of their power in 1688 when they invaded England with a fleet larger than the Spanish Armada exactly one 100 years earlier. The Dutch ruler Willem III became King William III of England. It was the last time in history that England was successfully invaded and conquered by a foreign country, not even the Germans managed to do so during World War II. For British historians, such as Paul Kennedy, it is always difficult to admit that the 17th century was really not England’s best and most glorious century. In other words, the Dutch Economic Miracle was far more than a simple rebellion against an unwanted ruler. It was a broad based, grassroots inspired movement, heading into a new world. A movement in which personal liberty, religious and political freedom was essential. To understand Stuyvesant’s world it is necessary to have a look at this Dutch Economic Miracle.

Vlaanderen (Flanders)

It all started in Vlaanderen (Flanders). The Dutch Economic Miracle had its roots in the Roman Empire in the early ages of our Common Era. The northern border of the Roman Empire was the River Rhine. Germanic tribes were living north of the river, the Romans often called these tribes Barbarians. These tribes were very tough people, hardened by a harsh climate and used to live on extremely scarce resources. Although the Romans never succeeded in defeating these Barbarians they used them to the extreme. The Barbarians were for hire and by the thousands; the Romans hired them to fight as soldiers in their legions.

The River Rhine (Rijn) ends in the North Sea (Noordzee). It is not the only river in the area. Actually, the Rhine is the centre of a huge river delta that is composed of four major rivers: the Rijn (Rhine), Schelde (Scheldt), Maas (Meuse) and Eems (Ems). See chart 4. These rivers and their branches and tributaries created a huge swamp or wetland that stretched from today’s Southwest Belgium up to Northwest Germany. It was an area, in those times, which was flooded for more than one third by the tide twice a day. The people living in that area were fishermen and hunter-gatherers. After the fall of the Roman Empire (476) the area was forgotten for centuries. Around 800 it became part of the Frankish Empire. By war and marriage, the Holy Roman Empire gradually re-emerged in central Europe as the leading power.

E:\Pieter Stuyvesant maps\Chart 1A. Holland as riverdelta.jpg

Chart 1. The delta of the rivers Rhine, Scheldt, Meuse and Ems.

Most of the Low Countries, the name of what is today Belgium and the Netherlands, became part of it. The exception was Vlaanderen (Flanders), it remained part of France. The County of Vlaanderen originated from the Gau of Pagus Flandrensis led by the Forestiers dynasty. A Gau is a German term for a region within a country, often a former or actual province. The first Count of Vlaanderen was Baldwin I, who became count in 862.² He was appointed by Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, who had united some of the feudal territories in the higher parts of the Flemish Valley.

The name Vlaanderen means flooding, it was a low-lying area mostly consisting of a collection of islands in the delta of the River Schelde (Scheldt). ³ In general, however, the area was slightly higher than the northern part; it meant less flooding and dryer land. The idea to create polders (reclaimed land) came initially from Vlaanderen and started around the cities of Brugge (Bruges) and Gent (Ghent). The land, however, was of a poor quality and only suitable for raising sheep. Weaving wool became an important economic activity centred on the cities of Brugge (Bruges), Gent (Ghent) and Ieper (Ypres). The woven wool became the start of the Flemish Broadcloth (Vlaams Laken). It was first produced in the 11th century.⁴ The Flemish wool industry was highly successful. Soon wool had to be imported from England and Scotland. Later Flemish entrepreneurs were instrumental in setting up the English wool industry simply because Vlaanderen could not cope with increasing demand.⁵,⁶ It was not only broadcloth from Vlaanderen that became world- famous, also Flemish tapestries were in high demand.⁷ The enormous industries and trade developments in the Brugge and Gent area attracted even merchant fleets from Genoa and Venice. Brugge became the main link to the trade with the Mediterranean area. This opened up not only the trade in spices from the Levant, but also from advanced commercial and financial techniques and a flood of capital that soon took over the banking of Brugge. The Bourse in Brugge opened in 1309 was the first stock exchange in the world. In the early 14th century, Vlaanderen was the wealthiest and most urbanized area in the entire Spanish empire. It became also an important source of tax revenue for the Spanish Crown.

Gibbing: a simple invention with great consequences

Around 1000 in the northern and western part of the Low Countries gradually the County of Holland, with Amsterdam as its centre, became the leading power. Until the 14th century, the northern and western part of the Dutch territory, the area of the provinces of Holland and Zeeland, consisted mainly of lakes, swamps and marshlands. It was a difficult terrain with a low population density. An area also often hit by flooding because it was not only low-lying but there were open connections with the North Sea. Until this time the Northern Netherlands concentrated itself economically on trade-cities such as Utrecht, Kampen, Deventer, Zwolle, Nijmegen and Zutphen, small cities, none of them exceeding the 10,000 inhabitant’s mark. Trade and fishing were the main economic activities. There was some land reclaim, but it was primitive and not structured. In the 14th century two things changed the picture completely. In the first, place engineers did not only get a better grip on dyke construction but local rulers managed also to improve land management considerably. From this time onwards, actually until today, the construction of dykes and the reclaim of land has been a continuous activity in The Netherlands. The second change was the invention of gibbing, a process in which part of the intestines (gall bladder) of a herring was removed from the fish, eliminating any bitter taste.⁸ The fish is then cured in a barrel with one part salt to 20 herring.

The process of gibbing and salting was invented around 1380 by Willem Beuckelszoon⁸ (Willem Beuckelsz, William Buckels), a fisherman from the Dutch province of Zeeland. This invention created the foundation for the Dutch to become a seafaring power. Herring and beer became not only Holland’s staple food for a long time to come but also huge export successes. Beer was extremely important for personal health. Beer contains alcohol and alcohol kills bacteria. By replacing contaminated drinking water by beer the population’s health situation improved considerably. Holland’s climate was too cold for wine, but beer proved a valuable replacement for wine. Protein was scarce in those days; cattle and hogs were expensive and only eaten by the well to do. For the simple people fish was the only feasible source of protein. Emperor Charles V (1500 – 1558), emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, was fascinated with Beuckelszoon invention he even erected a statue for him, honouring him as the benefactor of his country. According to rumours one of Charles’ sisters, after finding his tomb set on it and ate a herring.⁹,¹⁰ The success of the salted herring created, what economists call, a multiplier effect.¹¹ To meet fast increasing demand, new ships and lots of salt were necessary.

The Haring Buis (Herring Buss)

The herring buss was a relatively small, extremely sturdy, ship especially adapted for Dutch fishing purposes. The ship was about 20 meters in length and displaced between sixty and one hundred tons. The ratio of length to beam was between 2.5:1 and 4.5:1. It was a round-bilged keel ship with around bow and stern and with a gallery. The ship had two or three masts. It was square-rigged on the mainmast, with a gaff rig on the mizzen. It had a very long bowsprit with jibboom. The busses sailed usually in large fleets of four hundred to five hundred ships to the fishing grounds at the Dogger Bank and the Shetland Isles. ¹².

The British author Tobias Gentleman tells us in his England’s Way to Win Wealth and to Employ Ships, a book published in 1614, ¹³ how profitable the Dutch herring fishery was. According to Gentleman the herring fleet in those times counted more than a 1.000 ships with more than 20.000 sailors on board. There would be three to four voyages per season. In the off-season, the busses were used as normal cargo vessels, for instance, to transport salted herring and spices to the Baltic and wood and grain on the way back, or salted herring to Southern France and Portugal and salt on the way back.¹⁴

Salt

The fast-expanding herring industry needed an ever-expanding supply of salt. The climate in the Netherlands, in north-western Europe, was unsuitable for salt panning. The salt had to be imported from Portugal and France, the closest areas where salt panning was possible. Especially Portugal had a large salt industry in the Aveiro District and in the Algarve. For many years the Dutch herring industry depended on Portuguese, and to a far lesser extent, on French salt.The salt was not only necessary for the herring industry, but also for the production of glass and glazing of ceramics. The Dutch herring fleet had grown from one hundred fifty ships in the early 1500s to some four thousand one hundred years later. During the first years of the Portuguese-Spanish personal-union the Dutch could continue to buy salt in Alfaro, Setubal and Cape Verde, but it became increasingly difficult. In 1585 Spanish King Philip II confiscated all Dutch ships in Iberian ports and prohibited the Dutch to use his ports. The Dutch decided to get the salt in the Caribbean and a fleet was dispatched to Punta Araya in what is today Venezuela. It was Spanish territory but not defended. A year later already one hundred Dutch ships sailed to Punta Araya. The Dutch established their salt pans of their own on the Punta Araya peninsula and on the neighbouring Santa Margarita Island. For many years the battles in the Caribbean went on and on. In the end, the Dutch gave up and constructed salt pans on the Caribbean islands of Sint Maarten (Saint Martin) and Bonaire.¹⁵

The Birth of a Republic

In 1549 Charles came up with a new rule that stipulated that the Seventeen Provinces of The Netherlands had to be treated as one country within the Holy Roman Empire.¹⁶,¹⁷ For the Dutch this was another nail in the coffin. Every province had its own ruler, often from century-old dynasties. They were not willing to give this up. Then there was the issue of religious freedom. Martin Luther’s doubts over the legitimacy of indulgences and the plenitude potestatis ¹⁸ of the pope attracted great interest. In a society depending on trade, freedom and tolerance were considered essential. The fiercely independent Dutch insisted that their Biblical theology, sincere piety, and humble lifestyle was morally superior to the luxurious habits and superficial religiosity of the ecclesiastical nobility.¹⁹ During the 16th century, Protestantism rapidly gained ground in Northern Europe.

In 1555 Charles abdicated in favour of his son Philip II. Dutch Protestants, after initial repression, were tolerated by local authorities. Philip II, however, felt it was his duty to defeat Protestantism, which was considered a heresy by the Catholic Church and a threat to the stability of the whole hierarchical political system.

One of the first things Philip did was asking for tax increases.²⁰ Taxes were extremely unpopular, and resistance increased hand over hand. On top of this came an ever-increasing resistance against the Inquisition, a special court to try those suspected of reformist’s sympathies. But it did not stop the reformation in any way. Early August 1566, a monastery church at Steenvoorde in Vlaanderen (Flanders) was sacked by a mob led by preacher Sebastian Matte.²¹ It was the start of the Beeldenstorm, a riotous iconoclastic movement by Calvinists, who stormed churches and other religious buildings to desecrate and destroy church art and all kinds of decorative fittings over most of the country. Over four hundred churches were attacked in Vlaanderen alone²².

The whole thing culminated in a general protest from some two hundred members of the Dutch nobility. The Spanish gave in, but not for long. The result was a complete breakdown of law and order. Philip had lost control in the Netherlands. He saw no other option than to send an army to suppress the rebellion. On August 22, 1567, Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, marched into Brussels at the head of ten thousand soldiers. Alva, already over sixty, and suffering from arthritis, tried the hard way to crush any opposition to Spanish rule. One of the first things Alva did was to convene the Staten Generaal. He presented the provincial delegations with demands for huge new taxes. Alva also revitalized the Inquisition.²³ As a result, more than nine thousand rebels were arrested and about one thousand executed but it did not help at all. Eventually,. it leads to the Eighty Years’ The beheading of Lamoraal, Count of Egmont and Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn, on the main square in Brussels on June 5, 1568, is considered the formal start of hostilities.

A wave of protests followed culminating on April 1, 1572, in the capture of the port city of Den Briel by a group of Geuzen, under Count Lumey de la Marck. ²⁴ From now on one city after the other went over to the rebels, and within a few weeks Willem van Oranje (William of Orange) could set up his office in the centre of the Netherlands. In 1579, most of the seventeen provinces, including Brabant and Antwerpen (Antwerp), joined together in the Unie van Utrecht. A new republic was born.²⁵

Figure 2. Willem van Oranje (1533 – 1584)

by Willem Jacobszoon Delft.

Struggling to survive

Willem van Oranje’s rebels now controlled two-thirds of the Netherlands, the consequence of this was that Philip did not get one penny of taxes from this area anymore. The result was that the Spanish army in the Netherlands was often not paid and this led to mutiny and misbehaviour. It was not an environment to defeat dedicated and motivated Dutch rebels.²⁶ In reality, Philip had to declare several times bankruptcy because he completely ran out of money.²⁷

The king replaced Don Alva in the Netherlands with Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma. The Italian general was luckier. Parma’s army advanced fast and retook city after city. In 1581, he retook Breda, the home-city of Willem van Oranje. For the young Republic, this was a psychological disaster. Oranje had to relocate his office to Delft, in the centre of the country. Parma’s army seemed unstoppable.

In 1584, another disaster hit the republic: a fanatic Catholic murdered Willem van Oranje, the godfather of the Dutch Revolution. Then the Republic had almost shrunk to the size of the province of Holland. Oranje had left behind no real heir. Then suddenly Parma appeared for the gates of Antwerpen (Antwerp). At that time Antwerpen was the commercial capital of the World, and with 85,000 inhabitants also one of the largest cities. The city was immensely rich, built on international trade. Parma’s troops surrounded the city to block any attempt to supply the city. The Dutch tried repeatedly to drive away Parma’s troops but failed. Attempts to involve the French, and the British, also failed. Finally, in August 1585, Antwerpen surrendered to Parma.

The general behaved like a gentleman. There was no looting or plundering and the population was not abused in any way. Parma gave the citizens of Antwerpen the choice to become Catholic again or, for those who refused, to sell their properties, and leave for the northern Netherlands.

The loss of Antwerpen made it doubtful if the young Republic could survive; the economic heart of the new state was gone. The next two years saw a certain stabilization. Parma’s offensive lost its aggressiveness, and the republic managed to contain further damage. Between 1588 and 1590, however, a complete metamorphosis took place. City after city was recaptured from the Spanish, and the Republic’s economy blossomed again. There were four main reasons for this remarkable turnaround of events: First, the fast-improving influence of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the extremely competent Advocate of Holland. Secondly, the emergence of the young Prins Maurits as a military genius who not only modernized the army but also introduced new military techniques. Thirdly, the gentleman–like attitude of Parma allowed tens of thousands of residents from the southern Netherlands to flee to the northern part bringing their money with them. Last, but not least, King Philips made a huge mistake. He put all his money and resources in an enormous fleet, the Armada, in an attempt to conquer England and to prove his European hegemony once and for all. The fleet went on its way but was destroyed by bad weather on the coast of England. All in all, fate was favourable for the Dutch, the tiny new Republic developed into a serious European power.²⁸ But the war was far from over, it would last for 80 years, until 1648, before the peace treaty of Münster was signed. During these years the small Republic developed into a World Power such as the world had not yet seen before. The world looked in envy, and amazement, at The Dutch Golden Age.²⁹ No country in the world ever has developed in such a short period such a collection of famous painters like Rembrandt, Jan Steen, and Jacob van Ruisdael

The Republic Becomes a Great Power (1590 – 1609)³⁰

The emergence of Prins Maurits, the statesmanship of Van Oldenbarnevelt in combination with Philip’s Armada–mistake created the basis for this development. From 1590 onwards, there was a dramatic improvement in the Republic’s economy. At the heart of this process, one of the most crucial shifts in Dutch history, was the rise of the ‘rich trades’ and the processing industries which accompanied them. This rich trade concerned the trade in let the better commodities such as sugar, spices, dyestuffs, silk and Spanish-American silver. The rich trade could only develop because the Dutch controlled and dominated the world’s most important trade routes of those times. For the Dutch only trade counted. They were not interested in colonizing or spreading religion, it was trade only that counted. One of the most important issues was the design of a completely new ship for long-distance navigation: the Fluyt. The Fluit (Fluyt), specially designed as a shallow draft (necessary to avoid the shoals so common in European waters) and a low crew ship. The Fluit needed less than half the crew of any other comparable ship. The entrepreneurial spirit in a world of free enterprise, without any political limitations and an efficient financial system and the roots of the Dutch economic miracle become crystal clear. It created a snowball-effect, economists call this the multiplier effect. It gave rise to an ever-expanding financial industry and was the main reason to create the first stock exchange in Amsterdam, established in 1602 by the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (United East India Company-VOC.), the first publicly owned multinational company. It became a huge success. From Japan, via Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Ceylon to the Middle East, East and South Africa it was all VOC. The company’s influence would last for centuries.

Figuur 3. De Fluyt. (Wenceslaus Hollar)

This economic miracle of the 1590s resulted from the convergence of many factors: the internal stabilization of the Republic after 1588, improvement in the strategic situation, the reopening of the rivers and waterways linking Holland and Germany, influx of capital and skills from Antwerpen, the lifting of Philip II’s embargo on Dutch ships and cargoes in the Iberian peninsula in 1590 (while retaining his embargo on England) and the Republic’s tightening grip on the rivers Scheldt and Ems, as well as the naval blockade of the coast of Vlaanderen (Flanders). The explosive expansion of its commerce, which followed, transformed the Republic into Europe’s chief trade emporium and bestowed a general primacy in world commerce, which was to last for at least a century and a half.³¹ The impact of this on a small country was overwhelming, even unparalleled in history, in terms of pace, and scope, of the socio-economic transformation, the galvanization of an urban civilization which followed in its wake. Dutch dominance of the ‘rich trades’ made not only a rapid increase in prosperity and resources possible but also a massive and sustained expansion of the cities.

Migrants

Another key issue in this development was the enormous influx of migrants, skills and money from the southern Netherlands. This was one of the three great West European migrations of early modern times. All the main cities of the Southern Netherlands suffered a catastrophic haemorrhage of inhabitants in the late 1580s. Antwerpen, where the population stood at eighty-four thousand, in 1583, and fifty-five thousand, after the siege, in 1585, had dwindled to forty-two thousand, by 1589.³² Ghent lost about half its population. Mechelen, a city of around thirty thousand inhabitants, in 1550, was down to only about eleven thousand by 1590. Brugge (Bruges) lost about half its inhabitants.³³,³⁴

Baltic grain and herring, combined with a ban on exports to the south, ensured that, just when the refugees poured in, the United Provinces were awash with cheap provisions. There was no place the refugees could have found cheaper, or more plentiful, food. Housing was a problem, and urban rents rose to exorbitant levels. But, at the same time, the Republic, with its inland waterways, fleets of river vessels, and timber depots, was well equipped to mount a massive construction boom. At Leiden, the city government needed the best monastic buildings for the university and civic institutions, but there was plenty more for use for textile workshops and conversion into habitations for weavers.

The United Provinces, at the end of the 16th century, was a land of two proletariats–the native and the immigrant–which