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Authors: Russell Shorto
Tags: History
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others, with some the welfare of the Fatherland; but the principal and most powerful inducement will be the profit that each can make for himself. . . .” The new lands, he stressed, were inhabited not by wild-eyed savages, but by intelligent natives among whom the Dutch could plant a colony. There were natural products there to be exploited, maybe gold and silver, as well as raw materials “which are the sinews of war.”
The renewal of war with Spain fit in with this scheme: Dutch frigates of a privately owned company could be equipped with guns and carry out raids on Spanish ships in Caribbean and South American waters while also conducting trade in New World ports. Privateering—government-authorized piracy on enemy ships—was an accepted wartime activity.
Merchants and politicians were suddenly interested. Wealthy businessmen organized themselves into five regional chambers, each of which contributed startup funds. The States General, the governing body of the country, added a modest amount, and by October 1623 the West India Company was as flush as any new company in history, with more than seven million guilders in its coffers. The East India Company had exploited Asia to fabulous result; now its new colleague would encompass the Atlantic Rim—its monopoly extending to West Africa, the Caribbean islands, and the coast of North America. It was to be a creature of war as well as trade, and its network of merchants, skippers, sailors, accountants, carpenters, armourers, and soldiers infiltrated the new sphere of interest with remarkable speed. By 1626 an inventory of the company's property, addressed to the directors, included:
12 ships and yachts destined for the African trade in Guinea, Benin, Angola, Greyn, and Quaqua coasts, with the exported cargoes and expected returns . . .
1 ship of Dordrecht to Cape Verd, with cargo . . .
1 ship destined for the trade of the Amazon and the Coast of Guiana . . .
1 ship of about 130 lasts, 1 yacht well equipped, destined for the trade and colonization of New Netherland . . .
33 ships . . . which the Company hath still lying here in port, provided with metal and iron guns, and all sorts of supplies of ammunition of war, powder, muskets, arms, sabres, and whatever may be necessary for the equipment, which can be fitted for sea . . .
Moneys . . . which being in the Treasury, will be applied to keep the foregoing ships at sea, not only to injure the King of Spain, but also by God's blessing to do your High Mightinesses and the Company much service, and the Partners good profit.
The North American territory would play an economic role in this scheme. The company would exploit it for furs and timber, and also use it as a transportation hub, with ships cycling from Europe to South America and the Caribbean, and then to the North American harbor and so back home. Of course, settlers were required, and raising them proved to be one of the hardest aspects of the whole complex business of creating an Atlantic empire. Times were good in the homeland; the future looked even better. And Amsterdam was probably the best place in the world to be poor (its almshouses, wrote an English consul with some exaggeration, were “more like princes' palaces than lodgings for poor people”). To get people to sign on for a passage to what was now being called New Netherland, they had to find those who were ignorant or desperate or poor enough to leave the deeply civilized bosom of Amsterdam—with its paved streets, its scrubbed floors, its wheels of cheese and tankards of excellent beer, its fluffy pillows and blue-and-white-tiled hearths and cozy peat fires—and venture to the back of beyond, to an absolute and unforgiving wilderness.
But, as always, the country was loaded with refugees, and, by promising land in exchange for six years of service, the company managed to round up a handful of hale young Walloons—French-speaking exiles from what is today Belgium—made sure, like Noah, that
The renewal of war with Spain fit in with this scheme: Dutch frigates of a privately owned company could be equipped with guns and carry out raids on Spanish ships in Caribbean and South American waters while also conducting trade in New World ports. Privateering—government-authorized piracy on enemy ships—was an accepted wartime activity.
Merchants and politicians were suddenly interested. Wealthy businessmen organized themselves into five regional chambers, each of which contributed startup funds. The States General, the governing body of the country, added a modest amount, and by October 1623 the West India Company was as flush as any new company in history, with more than seven million guilders in its coffers. The East India Company had exploited Asia to fabulous result; now its new colleague would encompass the Atlantic Rim—its monopoly extending to West Africa, the Caribbean islands, and the coast of North America. It was to be a creature of war as well as trade, and its network of merchants, skippers, sailors, accountants, carpenters, armourers, and soldiers infiltrated the new sphere of interest with remarkable speed. By 1626 an inventory of the company's property, addressed to the directors, included:
12 ships and yachts destined for the African trade in Guinea, Benin, Angola, Greyn, and Quaqua coasts, with the exported cargoes and expected returns . . .
1 ship of Dordrecht to Cape Verd, with cargo . . .
1 ship destined for the trade of the Amazon and the Coast of Guiana . . .
1 ship of about 130 lasts, 1 yacht well equipped, destined for the trade and colonization of New Netherland . . .
33 ships . . . which the Company hath still lying here in port, provided with metal and iron guns, and all sorts of supplies of ammunition of war, powder, muskets, arms, sabres, and whatever may be necessary for the equipment, which can be fitted for sea . . .
Moneys . . . which being in the Treasury, will be applied to keep the foregoing ships at sea, not only to injure the King of Spain, but also by God's blessing to do your High Mightinesses and the Company much service, and the Partners good profit.
The North American territory would play an economic role in this scheme. The company would exploit it for furs and timber, and also use it as a transportation hub, with ships cycling from Europe to South America and the Caribbean, and then to the North American harbor and so back home. Of course, settlers were required, and raising them proved to be one of the hardest aspects of the whole complex business of creating an Atlantic empire. Times were good in the homeland; the future looked even better. And Amsterdam was probably the best place in the world to be poor (its almshouses, wrote an English consul with some exaggeration, were “more like princes' palaces than lodgings for poor people”). To get people to sign on for a passage to what was now being called New Netherland, they had to find those who were ignorant or desperate or poor enough to leave the deeply civilized bosom of Amsterdam—with its paved streets, its scrubbed floors, its wheels of cheese and tankards of excellent beer, its fluffy pillows and blue-and-white-tiled hearths and cozy peat fires—and venture to the back of beyond, to an absolute and unforgiving wilderness.
But, as always, the country was loaded with refugees, and, by promising land in exchange for six years of service, the company managed to round up a handful of hale young Walloons—French-speaking exiles from what is today Belgium—made sure, like Noah, that
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