The Netherlands became the world’s financial and commercial leader in the 17th century due, in part, to their profitable use of public/private corporations. They established the Dutch East India Company in 1602 to challenge the Portugal trade monopoly in Asia; founded an exchange bank in 1609 to manage the monetary transactions resulting from European colonization; and created the Dutch West India Company in 1621 to colonize and trade in the Western Atlantic region. The pragmatic and profit-centered financial approached practiced by the Dutch resulted in Amsterdam becoming the commercial center of the world and The Netherlands becoming the richest country on earth for a time. The ability to build and operate merchant vessels and willingness to carry goods, including slaves, for any country with the ability to pay – even their enemies – gave The Netherlands a power and influence unparalleled by any other country in the 17th and well into the 18th centuries.
One could not call the Dutch explorers. They sailed for profit. They managed their colonies to maximize the highest return in the production of raw material and goods. And the whole country was encouraged to take part in the adventure. In 1614 the States General of the United Netherlands (the governing legislature) issued a grant for:
“… seeking out and discovering passages, havens, countries, and places that have not before now been discovered nor frequented; … and wishing that the experiment be free and open to all and every of the inhabitants of this country, have invited and do hereby invite all and every of the inhabitants of the United Netherlands to the aforesaid search, …”
A prevalent theory during this period was the speculation of a sea passage across the northern borders of both the Euro/Asia and American continents. While the passages were thought to be ice free only during the summer months, the benefits that would be gained from the speed in reaching the riches of the Far East, for even a short time each year, far outweighed the long and tedious routes available with other land and sea options.
The Dutch East Indies Corporation contracted with the English navigator and ship captain Henry Hudson in 1609 to concentrate on exploring the Euro/Asia – Northeast passage. Hudson had already made two earlier attempts in 1607 and in 1608 to find the passage for a private English/Russian firm. Both those trips were blocked by ice forcing Hudson to return to England. His 1609 trip for The Netherland’s turned out to be no different. However, Hudson had learned that a well regarded colonist in the English Virginia Colony – Capt. John Smith – had found a large river near that settlement which Smith was sure led to a Northwest passage above the American continent. Hudson convinced his crew to investigate that option rather than returning to The Netherlands. Using the coordinates Smith had recorded, Hudson found the mouth of the river that would subsequently be named after him, and followed it upstream to the vicinity where present day Albany, NY is now located. At that point it became clear to him he had not discovered the Northwest passage, but he did claim the land for The Netherlands. It is an interesting historical note that Samual deChamplain from France was at the same time exploring an area about a hundred miles north of where Hudson stopped his upstream trip.
As a result of Hudson’s claim, the Dutch established New Netherlands, the only colony they established in North America. Several trading posts were situated inland near the Indigenous hunters and trappers the Dutch engaged to supply them with native furs, mostly beaver. The administrative center of the colony was at the mouth of the river, on what is now Manhattan Island. The colony was administered by the Dutch West Indies Corporation and operated as a trade enterprise rather than as a land manager. By all accounts, the Dutch and the their Indigenous partners had good relations and developed fair trade agreements. There were a few land disputes, but for the most part those were settled without any disruption to the trade agreements, which was the primary focus for the Dutch, much like the French in New France. No African or Indigenous slaves were used in any capacity in the colony. At the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1667, The Netherlands transferred all its claims in North America to England. And concurrently, England relinquished its colonies in the Far East Spice Islands and Suriname in South America to the Dutch.
The Netherlands did seize Indigenous Peoples’ land without compensation to establish their large plantations in Suriname. While the Dutch displaced the native inhabitants, there isn’t any firm evidence the Indigenous Peoples were captured and treated as slaves. However, beginning shortly after they acquired the colony from the English, the Dutch began importing Africans to work as slaves on their cocoa, sugar and coffee plantations. By the time slavery was outlawed in 1863, it is estimated that 220,000 West Africans had been captured and transported to Suriname. As with many other colonies, slavery was the normal manner to farm the land, gather the harvest, transport the product and maximize the profits.
Living and working conditions for the slaves in Suriname were as harsh and brutal as in other slave-using colonies. Many slaves resisted by escaping into the Surinamian rain forests which comprises the major portion of the country and is just a short distance inland from the coastal plains. The escaped slaves joined with the Indigenous Peoples in the country’s interior regions and formed independent tribes that became known a Maroons. Because they were isolated from the colonizers, the Maroons maintained more of their African culture than did the plantation slaves. And they eventually became a political force that impacted the plantation economy and hastened the eventual demise of slavery in Suriname.
Primary Sources: 2008 Lillian Goldman Law Library, THE AVALON PROJECT Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy; Encyclopedia.com, P. Andres Karam