Navigating History: Economy, Society, Knowledge, and Nature : Essays in Honour of Prof. Dr. C. A. Davids [1 ed.] 9789004381568, 9789004381551

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Navigating History: Economy, Society, Knowledge, and Nature

Library of Economic History General Editors Peer Vries (University of Vienna) Jeroen Touwen (Leiden University)

volume 11

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/lehi

Karel Davids in front of the birthplace of Max and Alfred Weber. Photo courtesy of Marjolein ’t Hart

Navigating History: Economy, Society, Knowledge, and Nature Essays in Honour of Prof. Dr C.A. Davids Edited by

Pepijn Brandon Sabine Go Wybren Verstegen

leiden | boston

We received generous financial support for the production of this volume from the Stichting Professor Van Winter Fonds; the Interfaculty Research Institute for Culture, Cognition, History and Heritage CLUE+ (VU Amsterdam); the Department of Art and Culture, History, and Antiquity of the VU Amsterdam; and the School of Business and Economics of the VU Amsterdam. Cover illustration: Whale, watercolor. Credits: iStock, Viktor Kashin. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1877-3206 isbn 978-90-04-38155-1 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-38156-8 (e-book) Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Preface  XI Pepijn Brandon, Sabine Go, and Wybren Verstegen List of Illustrations  XV Notes on Contributors  XVII Davids and Goliath: How Books Helped to Combat Historians’ Adversaries  1 Marjolein ’t Hart and Jan Lucassen

part 1 Resources of Knowledge, Cultures of Learning 1

Religion, Culture, and the Great Enrichment  15 Joel Mokyr

2

Wandering about the Learning Market: Early Modern Apprenticeship in Antwerp Gold- and Silversmith Ateliers  36 Bert De Munck and Raoul De Kerf

3

Educating World Citizens: The Rise of International Education in the Twenty-first Century  64 Pál Nyíri

part 2 Institutions for a Global Economy 4

A Changing Landscape: Institutions and Institutional Change in the Dutch Economy  81 Jeroen Touwen

5

Social Partnership in the Northern Netherlands (1985-?)  102 Marijn Molema

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part 3 Chasing Whales, Crossing Oceans 6

Zaanse Jonas: Zaan Whaling and Shipbuilding in the Seventeenth Century  123 Victor Enthoven

7

Keeping Risk at Bay: Risk Management and Insurance in Eighteenth-century Dutch Whaling  146 Sabine Go and Jaap Bruijn

8

Figuring Out Global and Local Relations: Cantonese Face-makers and their Sitters in the 18th Century  170 Joost C.A. Schokkenbroek

part 4 Chains of Profit, Chains of Labour 9

Chasing the Delfland: Slave Revolts, Enslavement, and (Private) voc Networks in Early Modern Asia  201 Matthias van Rossum

10

“With the Power of Language and the Force of Reason”: An Amsterdam Banker’s Fight for Slave Owners’ Compensation  228 Pepijn Brandon and Karin Lurvink

11

Up and Down the Chain: Sugar Refiners’ Responses to Changing Food Regimes  249 Ulbe Bosma

part 5 Humans and their Natural Environment 12

Enlightened Ideas in Commemoration Books of the 1825 Zuiderzee Flood in the Netherlands  275 Petra J.E.M. van Dam and Harm Pieters

13

Secret and Stillborn: A Dutch Fiscal Bill from 1947 to Protect Both Nature and Monuments on Dutch Estates  298 Wybren Verstegen

Contents

14

Birds in Texel in 1910 and the Shifting Baseline Syndrome  317 Jan Luiten van Zanden

List of Publications of Karel Davids 1973–2017  329 List of Doctoral Theses Supervised by Karel Davids (1997-May 2018)  343 Index  345

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Preface Pepijn Brandon, Sabine Go, and Wybren Verstegen At the end of his inaugural address as Professor of Economic and Social History at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), Karel Davids directly addressed his gratitude to four mentors in the profession, Jaap Bruijn, Dik van Arkel, Wim Blockmans, and Peter Klein. The terms he used characterize Davids as much as they revealed his attitude to his profession. After singling out Jaap Bruijn as the person who taught him the “craft” of the historian, he thanked the other three particularly for: showing how important it is for the historian not only to pay attention to the beautiful and well-composed sentence, or the telling detail; but also to ask big questions, to take on large problems and open up broad perspectives. In short: To construct a wide frame.1 It is no coincidence that Davids drew his analogies straight from the workshop to describe the kind of intellectual labour expected from a newly appointed Full Professor.2 They were connected with his insistence on knowledge-production as a practical enterprise, which he himself developed in his dissertation on the evolution in the Dutch Republic of the science of navigation. Originally trained in maritime history, perhaps Davids was particularly well attuned to the need to combine the vista of the horizon ahead with the down-to-earth realization that it takes a lot of hard – and competent – work to get there. Of course, his choice of craft-related metaphors also bore with it the connotation of Marc Bloch’s description of history writing as a métier. With his democratic temperament Davids must have felt some affinity with this co-founder of the Annales. Bloch had famously offered posterity his thoughts on the profession as “the memorandum of a craftsman who has always liked to reflect over his 1 C.A. Davids, De macht der gewoonte? Economische ontwikkeling en institutionele context in Nederland op de lange termijn (Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit, 1995), 18. That this passage does not signify an aversion from the “beautiful and well-composed sentence”, can be gauged from the interest that Davids had shown even before defending his dissertation in the belles-lettres as a source and inspiration for historians. W.P. Blockmans, C.A. Davids, and E.K. Grootes, “Inleiding: Literatuur als bron voor sociale geschiedenis,” Tijdschrift voor Sociale G ­ eschiedenis 10, no. 3 (1984): 223–227. 2 The word he used in the original Dutch for the frame-construction at the end of the sentence, timmeren (carpenter’s work) emphasized this even more.

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daily task, the notebook of a journeyman who has long handled the ruler and the level, without imagining himself to be a mathematician.”3 The opening essay of this volume, “Davids and Goliath”, written by his close friend and collaborator Jan Lucassen and co-thinker and life-partner Marjolein ’t Hart, lays out how Davids managed to combine the search for large questions and broad perspectives with skilful use of a toolbox derived from the best of the empiricist school. It also shows how his search led him to subjects and comparisons that, although remaining firmly grounded in the study of the early-modern Low Countries, drew ever wider circles in space and time. As the bibliography attached to this essay shows, Davids has remained one of the most prolific social and economic historians of the Netherlands. His work has been instrumental in opening up the field of Dutch economic history to Global History. Branching out widely from his starting point of maritime navigation in the context of early modern European expansion, Davids became an internationally renowned scholar of the history of knowledge, technology and innovation, as well as of economic institutions, labour, religion, and the interactions between human beings and nature. With such eminent scholars in the field of Karel Davids-studies as Marjolein ’t Hart and Jan Lucassen providing the opening shots, our editorial preface may limit itself to some brief remarks as to the contents and background of this book. A Liber Amicorum, it is offered to Davids on the occasion of his retirement in October 2018 by his friends, colleagues, and students in celebration of his manifold contributions to the field. The contributors present new research that touches on the core themes developed in Davids’s own work. The volume is divided into five sections: Section i: Resources of knowledge, cultures of learning Section ii: Institutions for a global economy Section iii: Chasing whales, crossing oceans Section iv: Chains of profit, chains of labour Section v: Humans and their natural environment As can be seen from the titles, the book reflects Davids’s omnivorous character as a scholar. Nevertheless, there are common strands that run throughout the introduction and fourteen chapters gathered here, freely crossing the borders of the different sections. Davids’s over-arching interest in the origins of global inequality and in diverging trajectories of economic development 3 Marc Bloch, Apologie pour l’histoire, ou métier d’historien (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1949), translated as Marc Bloch, The historian’s craft (New York: Vintage Books, 1953), 19.

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is ­particularly strongly reflected in the contributions by Joel Mokyr on “Religion and the Great Enrichment”, the essays on institutional development in the Netherlands and beyond by Jeroen Touwen and Marijn Molema, and Ulbe Bosma’s chapter on global sugar chains. The question of what institutions allow humans to gather knowledge – about their natural environment, their work, and themselves – is present in the chapter by Bert De Munck and Raoul De Kerf on shop-floor-learning in early-modern Antwerp, and is there too in Pál Nyíri’s essay on the development of international education in the last decades. It is just as pertinent to the organizational networks in the whaling industry discussed by Victor Enthoven as it is to the efforts to track and protect bio-diversity among the bird-species on Texel discussed by Jan Luiten van Zanden. The risks of the sea, and human efforts to protect themselves from them, are discussed by Sabine Go and Jaap Bruijn who have turned their gaze outward from the shore, and by Petra van Dam and Harm Pieters who look back landward from the broken dykes. The vastly unequal world created by the Dutch East-India Company (voc) underlay the self-confident representation sought by the ship’s captains immortalized in the Cantonese clay-figures discussed by Joost Schokkenbroek, as well as the angry cries of the slaves who took over the voc-ship the Delfland in an incident explored to great effect by Matthias van Rossum. How knowledge and self-interest can clash or intersect in the process of changing long-standing legal frameworks is traced for the vastly different terrains of the Dutch involvement in trans-Atlantic slavery by Pepijn Brandon and Karin Lurvink, and the management of landed estates in the post-War Netherlands by Wybren Verstegen. Together, these fourteen essays provide a fascinating panorama of social, economic, and environmental history of the past millennium. Within each of the five sections the book seeks to bring back the different levels of geographical scope, fusing the local, the national and the global. Following the approach of De Wereld en Nederland, the handbook for Global History of which Davids was co-editor, and of his work more broadly, the Netherlands are often the starting-point for examinations that bring together transnational or global comparisons and connections. Throughout his career, Davids valued the cooperative and collaborative nature of scientific endeavours. That is true for his research but also determined his attitude to his students at the VU Amsterdam as well as the other institutions in which he taught in the Netherlands and abroad. As a member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie der Wetenschappen (the Dutch Royal Academy of the Sciences, knaw) and of many international committees watching over the quality of higher education, he gave his time generously in the service of the academic community. The example of Davids’s own spirit of

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c­ ollaboration is reflected in the energy with which the authors participated in putting together this Festschrift, in the fact that the number of potential contributors was much greater than can possibly be accommodated in such a volume, and in the enthusiasm with which so a large number of institutions pledged financial support. Special mention should be made of the generous contributions to this volume by the Department of Art and Culture, History, and Antiquity, and the School of Business and Economics of the VU Amsterdam; the Interfaculty Research Institute for Culture, Cognition, History and Heritage CLUE+ of the VU Amsterdam; the International Institute of Social History; and the Stichting Professor Van Winter Fonds. Special thanks must go to Marti Huetink and Wendel Scholma of Brill, and to Jeroen Touwen and Peer Vries as editors of the “Library of Economic History” series in which this volume appears, for their agreement to publish this Liber Amicorum was immediate and enthusiastic and their help in seeing us through a tight publishing schedule was invaluable. We thank Petra van Dam for initiating the process that led to this book and for much valuable support along the way. At the lastminute Aad Blok and Gert-Jan Burgers truly saved the day with their help in arranging language editing, Bert Brouwenstijn jumped in to produce maps at short notice, while Maurits Broersen and Louise Oudshoorn have assisted with much-needed editorial work. Our only regret as editors is that the nature of such a volume precludes the inclusion of a synthesizing contribution by Davids himself. We should have really loved to see his knowledgeable comments on, supportive engagement with, and in some cases stern but friendly polemics against the scholarship presented here in his honour. However, we are sure that Davids’s voice resonates throughout the fourteen chapters and we are looking forward to the new and undoubtedly highly productive post-retirement phase of his work which is about to begin. Bibliography Bloch, M. Apologie pour l’histoire, ou métier d’historien. Paris: Librairie Armand ­Colin, 1949. Blockmans, W.P., C.A. Davids, and E.K. Grootes. “Inleiding: Literatuur als bron voor sociale geschiedenis.” Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 10, no. 3 (1984): 223–227. Davids, C.A. De macht der gewoonte? Economische ontwikkeling en institutionele context in Nederland op de lange termijn. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit, 1995.

Illustrations Tables 2.1

Numbers and shares of the contracts that mention a specialisation on the total number of contracts and per century  43 5.1 Regional institutes of social and economic cooperation  104 6.1 Medium-sized Zaan flyboats sold abroad, 1688–1693  139 7.1 Vessels lost in 1777, with their insured value in the contract  162 10.1 Size, type, and estimated value of several plantations Insinger & Co  234 10.2 Productivity of selected plantations Insinger & Co  235 11.1 The Tate & Lyle Group: turnover and profit, 1968  263

Graphs 2.1 Range of total prices of contracts concluded with master silversmiths from whom more than one contract is preserved  48 2.2 Range of total prices of contracts concluded with master goldsmiths and diamond-setters from whom more than one contract is preserved  49 7.1 Development of Mutual Insurance Contracts in the Zaan-region and the ­number of departing Dutch whaling vessels  160 14.1 Bird index of the Netherlands, 1850–2010, based on 33 breeding species (1999=1)  321

Maps 6.1 The Zaanstreek or Zaan region  125 7.1 Main whaling areas  149 7.2 Locations in and near the Dutch Republic mentioned in chapter 7  152 8.1 China, ca. 1664  172 9.1 The journey of the Delfland  210 12.1 Areas flooded by the storm surge of 3–5 February 1825  277

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Figures 8.1 Figure, ca. 1754. Jacob van Dam (?), captain, first mate for the voc  186 8.2 Clay figure, ca. 1792. During his stay in Canton, voc-commander Jacobus Arieszoon Arkenbout (1766–1834) sat for an unidentified Chinese face-maker  186

Notes on Contributors Ulbe Bosma is Senior Researcher at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam and Professor of International Comparative Social History at VU Amsterdam. He has published widely on colonial and postcolonial history and has a particular interest in the history of sugar, on which he published for example The Sugar Plantation in India and Indonesia. Industrial Production 1770–2010. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Contact: [email protected] Pepijn Brandon is Assistant Professor in Social and Economic History at VU Amsterdam and Senior Researcher at the International Institute of Social History. He obtained his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 2013. His research focuses on connections between capitalist development, war, and slavery. He is author of War, capital, and the Dutch state (1588–1795) (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2015), and a member of the editorial committee of the International Review of Social History. Contact: [email protected] and [email protected] Jaap Bruijn is Emeritus Professor of Maritime History at Leiden University. Together with his late colleague Dik van Arkel he was the supervisor of Karel Davids’s PhD in 1986. His main publications are related to the history of the Dutch East ­India Company, the Dutch navy and seamen. His latest book is Zeegang. Zeeva­ rend Nederland in de achttiende eeuw (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2016). Contact: [email protected] Petra van Dam holds the Endowed Chair for Water, Culture, and Environment (Water­ staatsgeschiedenis) at VU Amsterdam. She focuses on the environmental, social-­economic, and political aspects of the relationships between humans and water, and humans, animals, and landscape. She is active in the ­European Society for Environmental History. She is founding editor of the book series Water, cultuur en geschiedenis (Water, culture, and history) and co-­founder of the ­ Environmental Humanities Center at VU Amsterdam. Contact: [email protected] Victor Enthoven was educated and trained as a maritime historian at Leiden University. He cooperated in several projects with Karel Davids. From 2008 until 2017 he was

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affiliated with the VU Amsterdam. As an independent scholar, he is working on a monograph on the Zaan shipbuilding industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Contact : [email protected] Sabine Go is Assistant Professor of Accounting at the School of Business and E ­ conomics of VU Amsterdam. She is particularly interested in the emergence and development of economic institutions during early modern and modern times in the Low Countries. Her current research focuses on contract enforcement and governance issues. She collaborates as Senior Visiting Fellow in an erc Consolidator Grant Project on General Average, Transaction Costs, and Risk Management during the First Globalization. Contact: [email protected] Marjolein ’t Hart studied history at the University of Groningen. In 1989 she obtained her PhD from Leiden University, which was published as The making of a bourgeois state. War, politics and finance during the Dutch Revolt (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993) She has taught social and economic history at various universities. Since 2013, she has been Head of the History Department at Huygens ing and Professor in the History of State Formation at VU Amsterdam. Her latest publications include De wereld en Nederland. Een sociale en economische geschiedenis van de laatste duizend jaar (Amsterdam: Boom, 2011, with Karel Davids) and The Dutch Wars of Independence. Warfare and commerce in the Netherlands, 1570–1680 (London: Routledge, 2014). Contact: [email protected] Raoul De Kerf studied history at the University of Antwerp, where he received his PhD and is a member and collaborator of the Centre for Urban History. He did research on how a just price was perceived in late medieval towns, on the circulation of technical knowledge among guild-based artisans in Early Modern Antwerp, and on the construction of urban/national citizenship in Europe before and ­after 1789. At the moment, he researches media reports on the current war in Syria and how different actors tried to manipulate public ­discourses in the early twenty-first century. Contact: [email protected] Jan Lucassen studied history at Leiden University. He defended his PhD, on Migrant labour in Europe 1600–1900, at Utrecht University in 1984. In 1988, he joined the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam, where he founded the research

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department. He obtained an endowed chair in International and C ­ omparative Social History at VU Amsterdam. His publications include: A miracle mirrored: The Dutch Republic in European perspective (Cambridge: C ­ ambridge University Press, 1995, with Karel Davids); Migration history in world history. Multidisciplinary approaches (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2010, with Leo Lucassen and Patrick Manning), and Globalising migration history. The Eurasian experience (16th-21st Centuries) (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2014, with Leo Lucassen). Contact: [email protected] Karin Lurvink obtained her PhD from VU Amsterdam in 2016. Her PhD thesis was published as Beyond racism and poverty. The truck system on Louisiana plantations and Dutch peateries, 1865–1920 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2018). She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at VU Amsterdam where she works on the nwoproject “Slaves, commodities and logistics” on the long-term impact of slavery on the Dutch economy in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Contact: [email protected] Joel Mokyr is the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics and History at Northwestern University, and Sackler Professor at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at the University of Tel Aviv. A former editor of the Journal of Economic History and president of the Economic History Association, he is or has been a member of the editorial boards of the leading journals of economic history and is the editor in chief of the five-volume ­Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History. Mokyr is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001. He was the winner of the Heineken Prize for History in 2006 and the International Balzan Prize for ­economic ­history in 2015. His most recent book is A culture of growth (Prince­ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016). Contact: [email protected] Marijn Molema obtained his PhD in 2010 from VU Amsterdam for his dissertation on the history of regional economic policy. He is a historian of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries at the Fryske Akademy, a research institute in Leeuwarden which is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (knaw). His research focuses on regional socioeconomic development from the Industrial Revolution onwards, with a special emphasis on vulnerable regions, as well as on agribusiness clusters. Contact: [email protected]

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Bert de Munck is Professor at the History Department of the University of Antwerp, Belgium, teaching “History of the early modern period,” “Theory of historical knowledge,” and “Public history.” He is member of the Centre for Urban History at the same university and director of the Scientific Research Community (wog) “Urban agency. The historical fabrication of the city as an object of study” and of the interdiscplinary “Urban Studies Institute.” While he has worked on ­apprenticeship, craft guilds, labour, and social capital, his current research ­interests include the circulation of technical knowledge, guilds and civil society, and conceptual and theoretical approaches to urban history and urban studies. Contact: [email protected] Pál Nyíri is Professor of Global History from an Anthropological Perspective at VU ­Amsterdam. His main current research focus is on the international mobility of emerging Chinese elites. He is the author, most recently, of Reporting for China: How Chinese correspondents work with the world (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017) and co-editor of Chinese encounters in Southeast Asia: How people, money, and ideas from China are changing a region (Seattle: ­University of Washington Press, 2016). Contact: [email protected] Harm Pieters studied history at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands and worked at VU Amsterdam as junior researcher. He is interested in the history of natural disasters, cultural history, and heritage studies. He currently works for the Dutch National Archive and is a member of the editorial board of the Holland Historisch Tijdschrift (Holland Historical Journal). Contact: [email protected] Matthias van Rossum is Senior Researcher at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. Studying the social and intercultural relations between European and Asian sailors working for the voc, he completed his PhD from the VU Amsterdam (2013) under supervision of Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen. He currently works on global labour history with a special interest in maritime labour history, coercion in labour relations, and the dynamics of labour conflicts and social relations. He was awarded a nwo Veni Grant for research on the history of slavery and slave trade in early modern Dutch Asia (2016–2019). Contact: [email protected]

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Joost Schokkenbroek has served as curator at various museums before becoming Chief Curator at Het Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam (The Dutch National Maritime Museum). Since 2013 Schokkenbroek has held the position of Professor of Maritime History and Maritime Heritage at VU Amsterdam. Since July 2017, Schokkenbroek acts as Executive Director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum. He has published profusely on whaling in the Arctic and the Pacific oceans, on trading companies, on maritime archaeology, on naval warfare, and on maritime material culture, museum practices, and maritime heritage. Contact: [email protected] Jeroen Touwen is Associate Professor in Economic and Social History at Leiden University. He studied history at Leiden University and Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ) and received his PhD in 1997. His dissertation was titled Extremes in the archipelago. Trade and economic development in the Outer Islands of Indonesia, 1900–1942 (Leiden: kitlv Press, 2001). In 2014, he published Coordination in transition. The Netherlands and the world economy, 1950–2010. (Leiden: Brill, 2014). Contact: [email protected] Wybren Verstegen is Assistant Professor in Economic and Social History at VU Amsterdam. He teaches Global History, the History of the United States and the US South. His dissertation about nobility and society in the revolutionary era in Veluwe-­ district (in the east of the Netherlands) was published in 1989. He has written many scientific and newspaper articles concerning environmental ­history and sustainability. Recently he published the book Vrije wandeling. Het parlement, de fiscus en de bescherming van het particuliere Nederlandse natuur­schoon t­ ussen 1924–1995 (Groningen: Historia Agriculturae, 2017) as well as several ­articles about nature protection on estates in the Netherlands in the twentieth century. Contact: [email protected] Jan Luiten van Zanden is Professor in Global Economic History at Utrecht University and has published widely about patterns of long term economic change in the past. He is also interested in the development of biodiversity and the human drivers of its decline. Contact: [email protected]

Davids and Goliath: How Books Helped to Combat Historians’ Adversaries Marjolein ’t Hart and Jan Lucassen For Dik van Arkel, Professor of Social History at Leiden and one of Karel ­ avids’s distinguished lecturers, Goliath really existed. Van Arkel believed that D it was the social scientist’s mission to beat the monster of fascism, national socialism and racialism through systematic research aimed at uncovering historical truth, supported by Popper’s maxims of traceability, repeatability and falsification. He thus drew a link between Popper and the social responsibility of the intellectual.1 These ideals were shared by Peter Klein, who lectured in economic history at Leiden, and had met a similar Goliath in person during WW ii, though he rarely spoke of his experiences.2 The trio was completed by Jaap Bruijn, Leiden’s professor in maritime history, who stressed, above all, the truth-seeking historian’s obligation to undertake careful empirical research.3 The lessons of all three teachers fell on fertile soil in the person of Karel Davids, who combined meticulous research with a profound sense of justice. Leiden did not provide the only ground for Davids’s inspiration; his experiences in Rotterdam and New York also contributed substantially to his scholarly formation. At Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Department of History was in its early years of construction, enabling it to appoint prominent social historians such as Rina Lis, Hugo Soly and Wim Blockmans. Perhaps not accidentally, all three came from Belgium, with its great tradition of social and

1 Netty Bremer and Chris Quispel, “Dik van Arkel. Proeve van een portret,” in Onderscheid & minderheid, Sociaal-historische opstellen over discriminatie & vooroordeel, aangeboden aan Dik van Arkel bij zijn afscheid als hoogleraar in de sociale geschiedenis aan de Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, eds. Herman Diederiks and Chris Quispel (Hilversum: Verloren, 1987). 2 C.A. Davids, W. Fritschy, R. Raben, and L.A. van der Valk, “Inleiding,” in Kapitaal, ondernemerschap en beleid. Studies over economie en politiek in Nederland, Europa en Azië van 1500 tot heden, eds. Karel Davids, Wantje Fritschy and Loes van der Valk (Amsterdam: neha, 1996); Karel Davids, “Levensbericht van Peter Wolfgang Klein,” in Levensberichten en herdenkingen knaw (2015). 3 Leo Akveld, “Jaap R. Bruijn: Een leven vol zeegeschiedenis in een notendop,” in In het kielzog: Maritiem-historische studies aangeboden aan Jaap R. Bruijn bij zijn vertrek als hoogleraar zeegeschiedenis aan de Universiteit Leiden, eds. Leo Akveld et al. (Amsterdam: De Bataafse Leeuw, 2003).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_002

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’t Hart and Lucassen

economic history inspired by the French Annales School and Henri ­Pirenne. They also maintained links to the recent, more Weberian, social history of the Bielefeld School in Germany. In New York, Davids spent a semester at the Center for Historical Studies at the New School for Social Research, led by the prominent historical sociologist Charles Tilly. Like Van Arkel, all of these mentors shared a sense of the social responsibility of the historian, producing publications that often focused on the common people, on poverty and ­exploitation, and on rebellion and representation. They ascertained the advantages of methods and concepts from the social sciences, not least comparative methodologies, as a way to beat Goliath’s attempts to misinform the public with tendentious and selective history. Davids always sought, and thus found, plenty of intellectual inspiration, but his exceptionally rich publication list of the past 45 years reveals how he developed as an independent intellectual, well-anchored in empiricism while also striving to develop theory.4 In doing so, he preferred to avoid the perhaps all-too-ambitious designs of Van Arkel and Tilly, remaining more safely on the meso-level. The themes he studied could be captured in a table of contents ranging from such subjects as maritime history and the history of technology to human beings and their animals, Atlantic history, and so forth. Yet this would not explain how his intellectual focus expanded from the Netherlands to other European countries and then to the Atlantic and beyond, nor how he departed from the early modern period to end up writing books that covered a thousand years or more. It is more helpful to follow Davids’s steps with reference to a selection of core publications that capture his development over the years. We start with his dissertation Zeewezen en Wetenschap [Seafaring and Science] (1986), which combined maritime history with the history of science. We follow with the volume A Miracle Mirrored (1996), which connected different historical approaches in a comparative framework. The third section discusses The Rise and Decline of Dutch Technological Leadership (2008), which studied longer-term developments in an even broader comparative perspective. We end with De wereld en Nederland (2011) and Religion, Technology and the Great and Little Divergences (2013), which charted his successful evolution into a global historian. 1

Doctoral Thesis: Hypotheses and Interdisciplinarity

The topic of Davids’s doctoral thesis initially combined the interests of two of his supervisors: Van Arkel’s predilection for a Popperian approach to history 4 See the list of publications by Karel Davids in this volume.

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and Bruijn’s preoccupation with Dutch maritime history. Davids analysed the development of transoceanic navigation technology in the Netherlands between 1585 and 1815, by way of formal hypotheses that could be falsified. The history of science acted as a framework, or more precisely: “The subject of this book is the consumption of science. Its objective is to establish under what conditions scientific findings are adopted outside of the strictly scientific environment.”5 He examined 444 ships’ logbooks, 286 seafarers’ probate inventories (selected from 20,000 inventories!) containing one or more navigation devices, inventories of ships, travel accounts, the records of the Dutch East India Company (voc) and other companies, all available navigation textbooks and manuals published in the Netherlands between 1550 and 1820, as well as other primary sources including navigation devices preserved in museums or recovered from shipwrecks. His book explored the interaction of the demand for and supply of innovative devices. The seafaring community was willing to adopt an innovation if it was aware of its existence and in a position to do so, financially or otherwise. On the supply side, innovations depended upon “diffusion agencies”; or, in other words, “institutions that are used by government agencies or private organi­ zations as distribution channels for innovation.”6 The exploratory systems and navigational practices that entailed the use of innovative devices developed along two paths. The first involved the imposition of innovations from above, a method that had become generally accepted by the mid-eighteenth century, in particular in the East India Trade and the Navy. The second continued along the path of free decision-making, whereby crews themselves chose whether to use innovative devices. This latter path predominated in the other seafaring branches. Each chapter tackled a different hypothesis emanating from the latest research in the field, tested its validity, and structured the evidence in a highly transparent way. Remarkably, he found that the pace of innovations imposed from above was similar in complex organizations like the voc and the more diffuse bodies of the Navy. Institutional aspects such as these would return time and again in Davids’s later work. Another striking aspect concerned the interaction between practitioners and scientists, a topic that would also remain on his future agenda. In the Dutch case, that interaction occurred at a remarkably early stage. In this way, his doctoral thesis showed how numerous factors interacted in the adoption of innovations in oceanic navigation, a problem that had ­initially 5 Karel Davids, Zeewezen en wetenschap. De wetenschap en de ontwikkeling van de navigatie­ techniek in Nederland tussen 1585 en 1815 (Amsterdam/Dieren: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1986), 378. 6 Ibid., 383.

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seemed so simple and straightforward. Although one might assume that all seafarers had always welcomed possible improvements to their situation, ­Davids elucidated the different roles played by specific actors to bring these innovations about. Scientific advancement formed just one of the considerations involved. The multifaceted and multi-layered character of his analysis would also be evident in his next major project, which would reach a much wider audience, as it was published in English. 2

Overcoming Divisions between Sub-disciplines in A Miracle Mirrored

Davids was aware of the disadvantages of overspecialization from very early on in his academic career. His own doctoral thesis combined economic, social and maritime history with the history of science. The publication of A Miracle Mirrored constituted an ambitious attempt to integrate social and economic history with the history of politics, culture and religion. In order to understand Davids’s role in this major historiographic project, we first need to consider developments in the historical world from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. In the course of the 1960s, the methodology of the French Annales school had gained ground among Dutch historians. The Annales historians’ radical departure from “political event history,” their interdisciplinary approach, and their attention to the material culture of daily life, above all in the countryside, attracted an energetic group of historians under Bernhard Slicher van Bath in Wageningen. With his staff, in particular Ad van der Woude, Joop Faber, and Henk Roessingh, Slicher set out to reconstruct the demographic history of the Netherlands before 1800 and this country’s rich history of agricultural specialization, topics that had received little attention to date. Unlike most Dutch historians of the time, they actively participated in international c­ onferences and also published in French and English, gained an international audience, and inspired foreign historians such as Jan de Vries.7 At the same time, Marxist approaches were gaining ground, above all in Utrecht under Theo van Tijn, who applied the method of base and superstructure in his study of the history of Amsterdam.8 The base constituted demographics and economics, also 7 Ad van der Woude, “Dertig jaar agrarische geschiedenis,” a.a.g. Bijdragen 28 (1986). 8 K. Davids and J. Lucassen, “Sociale geschiedenis: Een momentopname,” in Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 10 (1984); M. van der Linden and J. Lucassen, “Social History in the Netherlands,” Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 23 (1997); Jacques van Gerwen et al., eds., Economic History in the Netherlands 1914–2014. Trends and debates (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014).

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a focus of the Annales and Wageningen schools. The Annales approach gradually gained so much influence that the separate volumes of the authoritative Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden [General History of the ­Netherlands, 1977–1983] started with sections on geography and demography, an entirely new phenomenon in the field of Dutch history. The fifteen volumes of the ­Algemene Geschiedenis were received with approval, but also much criticism. Prominent traditionalist historians disapproved of the relatively limited space devoted to political history; social and economic historians complained that the structuralist approach robbed workers of their agency; and historians of religion and culture felt threatened by the dominant materialistic tendencies. A new generation of social and economic historians was concerned about what they saw as false contradictions with a tendency to drive different branches of history even further apart. Davids stood at the centre of an attempt to escape from this blind alley of mutual mistrust. After a meeting of young historians to discuss the future of social and economic history, held at the International Institute of Social History (1987), he, Jan Luiten van Zanden and Jan Lucassen decided to write a brochure entitled De Nederlandse geschiedenis als afwijking van het algemeen menselijk patroon. Een aanzet tot een programma van samenwerking [The history of the Netherlands as a deviation from the general human pattern: towards a collaborative programme, 1988].9 It set out to invite the various branches of historical scholarship to cooperate and submit a proposal on how to proceed. It argued that the case study should be the long-term history of the Netherlands, which should be tackled from different sub-disciplines and draw on international comparisons. The brochure was discussed at a conference in May 1988 and provoked much debate.10 The event resulted in an invitation from the prestigious Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study at Wassenaar to work on this groundbreaking project. From September 1992 to July 1993, the scheme brought together scholars with an intimate knowledge of the history of different countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany and Great Britain) and of different branches of history: social, political, economic, religious and cultural. Their efforts were reinforced by an impressive number of colleagues who actively participated in their workshops. The result was A Miracle Mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European Perspective, a coherent volume of essays 9 10

Karel Davids, Jan Lucassen and Jan Luiten van Zanden, De Nederlandse geschiedenis als afwijking van het algemeen menselijk patroon. Een aanzet tot een programma van samenwerking (Amsterdam: neha, 1988). Karel Davids, Jan Lucassen and Jan Luiten van Zanden, “Schaduwboksen van Righart. Over samenwerking van Nederlandse historici,” Spiegel Historiael 23 (1988): 492.

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edited by Davids and Lucassen and published by Cambridge University Press in 1995.11 The introduction formulated the two guiding questions: first, “to what extent [was] the course of economic, socio-political and cultural developments in the Northern Netherlands […] actually different from the path taken by other areas in western and central Europe during the later Middle Ages and the early modern period”; and second, to investigate “the interrelationships of developments in the economic, socio-political and cultural domains.” In order to visualize the successive leading European polities since the late Middle Ages, Davids introduced the concept of the “blue banana.” This notion, popularized among economists and urban geographers, printed in blue in one of their first publications, showed the arch of densely-urbanized areas upwards from Northern Italy into the Netherlands, and across the North Sea towards the British West-Midlands. The time dimensions of this spatial pattern referred to “a pattern of cities of Europe which in turn dominated European commerce or manufacturing from the Late Middle Ages onwards” and “the gradual shift of commercial and industrial hegemony from south to NorthWest Europe.”12 The results of this exercise proved rewarding as an alternative to the traditional European history of the early modern period. The joint project, which had started as a wake-up call for the Dutch historical community, ended in an attempt at rewriting not only the history of the Low Countries in the early modern era, but also of European history, sustained thanks to the committed driving-force of Davids. With reference to theoreticians such as Stein Rokkan and Charles Tilly, the book concluded: The “upscaling” in centres of leadership in Europe during the early modern period was partly a matter of what by Chandler’s theory on modern industrial enterprise might be called “organisational capabilities.” Like big firms, combinations of cities and, even more, nation states were able to pool and recruit more human and physical resources and commanded more “management” skills than single towns […]. The Dutch Republic was in this respect better armed for the rivalry in the international statessystem than, for instance, city-states in northern Italy, but worse off than 11

12

Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen, eds., A miracle mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), published in paperback in 2011; the Dutch translation, Een wonder weerspiegeld. De Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden in Europees perspectief (Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers, 2005), sold out. Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen, “Introduction,” in A Miracle Mirrored, 4–5, 12.

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Georgian Britain or other great powers in the eighteenth century, like Prussia and France.13 As such, this enterprise also served as a warning to historians about the danger of overspecialization in sub-disciplines. 3

Dutch Technological Leadership: Extending Comparisons in Time and Space

Davids’s own essay in A Miracle Mirrored had dealt with the concept of “technological leadership.”14 He extended the argument in a longer book on the Technological Leadership of the Netherlands in a much broader comparative way and within a much wider context, namely in a study of the relation between technology and the economy in general.15 The challenge in this book constituted the mystifying tendency of historians to regard technology as a kind of “black box” that could explain the presence or absence of economic growth. The central concept of the book was the “circulation of knowledge,” a term that had become a mainstay in Davids’s publications and lectures since 2006, and that would also form the centre of one of his major research projects, coordinated with Bert de Munck. In his Technological Leadership of the Netherlands, Davids measured leadership using an innovative instrument, the “technological balance of trade,” which recorded international technology transfers and thus the circulation of designs and methods. He showed that up to 1680, the Dutch imported more knowledge from abroad than they exported, but that in the 1680s, this trend was transformed into an export surplus that would remain in place up until 1800. These exports were determined, above all, by the huge demand in other countries for Dutch “useful knowledge,” supported by an advanced environment at home favouring publications on all sorts of technical issues.16 Remarkably, however, the velocity of inventions in the Netherlands was lower in the eighteenth than in the seventeenth century, with the exception of the water management sector, which continued to produce groundbreaking innovative devices. Although technical development did not come to a halt, 13 14 15 16

Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen, “Conclusion,” in A miracle mirrored, 458. Karel Davids, “Shifts of technological leadership in early modern Europe,” in A miracle mirrored, 338–366. Karel Davids, The rise and decline of Dutch technological leadership. Technology, economy and culture in the Netherlands, 1350–1800. Two volumes (Leiden, Brill 2008). Cf. Mokyr’s contribution in this volume.

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the century before 1680 had shown a much higher degree of vitality. This had nothing to do with high wages, guild restrictions or failing institutions, since these factors remained relatively constant throughout the period under study. More important was the absence of a link between “useful knowledge” and the development of “formal knowledge,” in contrast to the British situation, in which these two fields interacted in a fruitful way. As a result, the available resources were exploited to a lower degree than would have been possible. Technology, despite its advanced stage, could not prevent the Dutch economy from stagnating. 4

The Global Turn and the Role of Religion

With the publication of De wereld en Nederland. Een sociale en economische geschiedenis van de laatste duizend jaar [The world and the Netherlands. A social and economic history of the last thousand years, 2011], which he co-edited with Marjolein ’t Hart, Davids achieved a daring and remarkable breakthrough in the new field of global history. The volume was followed a little later by his Religion, Technology and the Great and Little Divergences (2013). The idea of writing the first book emanated from Davids’s complaint, made during a meeting of a reading club that was discussing the latest issues of leading international journals, regarding the lack of a good, up-to-date student textbook in the field of social and economic history. At that time, textbooks took the relatively traditional approach of presenting chapters focused on national units such as the Netherlands, England, France and Germany.17 Davids had already complained about such shortcomings in A Miracle Mirrored: Textbook “European” history of the early modern period has often been written by lumping together bits and pieces of various national histories in a fairly conventional way. Thus a standard history textbook would discuss an Italian Renaissance, a German Reformation, a Dutch Revolt, an English Civil War and a French Enlightenment. Its account of rural life would largely be based upon the French experience, and the section about cities would concentrate on Germany with a dash of Paris and London. The chapter on state formation would jump from Spain in the sixteenth century to France in the seventeenth century to Prussia and

17

Boudien de Vries et al., eds., Van agrarische samenleving naar verzorgingsstaat. De mo­ dernisering van West-Europa sinds de vijftiende eeuw (Groningen: Wolters, 1987).

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Russia in the eighteenth century and back to France, just in time for the storming of the Bastille.18 This was all the more problematic because historians were increasingly calling for a less nationally-oriented, Eurocentric approach, and instead favoured large-scale comparisons with other regions, such as the Far East. At the same time, social and economic historians were engaging in a wide array of global debates, not least the debate on the Great Divergence, the phenomenon whereby economic and technological advances in Western European countries far outstripped those in other continents. The approach of the book was discussed at a meeting in New York during Davids’s sabbatical at Columbia University, with leading social scientists and historians such as Julia Adams, Philip Gorski, Martha Howell, Ira Katznelson, Ann McCants, Steven Pincus and Wayne te Brake, to mention just a few. The team that eventually wrote the chapters was recruited from the journal-reading club mentioned above. In addition to ­Davids and ’t Hart, it included Lex Heerma van Voss, Manon van der Heijden, Leo Lucassen and Jeroen Touwen. This enhanced cooperation and the coherence of the volume, since this group had already discussed numerous debates among themselves. The template of the book started from three basic problems in history: power (chapters on social-political history), income (chapters on social-­economic history) and risks (chapters on the history of groups and mentalities), and their interrelations. The dividing line constituted the time period around 1800, which coincided roughly with the time period of the “Great Divergence,” thereby separating the book into Part 1: pre-modern history and Part 2: modern history. The “Little Divergence” prepared the ground for the Great Divergence in 1600–1800, which would result in North-Western (Atlantic) Europe gradually taking the lead within Europe. Throughout the volume, the history of the Netherlands was situated within a comparative framework of key ­global changes over the last thousand years, attempting to ascertain whether the Netherlands stood at the forefront of certain developments or whether it was actually following others. The book thereby challenged the common parochial claim that the Netherlands had followed a unique historical path shaped by advantageous principles, such as an early tendency towards democracy and a high degree of toleration. The book was extremely successful; in the following years, it became obligatory reading for many Bachelor’s students of history in the Netherlands and on teacher training courses. The book also sold well on the general market, enabling a new edition to be published in 2017. 18

Davids and Lucassen, “Conclusion,” 453–454.

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Davids’s Religion, Technology and the Great and Little Divergences (2013) is discussed in another contribution to this book, so just a few general remarks regarding this publication will suffice.19 The misperception that Davids wished to combat in this volume was the widely-held belief that Protestantism mattered in “the Rise of the West.” The outcome of his study gave an original boost to the debate: not Protestantism per se, but religious institutions in Europe, including numerous Catholic institutions, supported the development of technology in the direction of “useful knowledge.” Whereas on many accounts, ­Europe and the Far East had achieved a similar level of economic development before 1800, the dynamic toward innovation proved much stronger in Europe than in China. In the latter country, everything ultimately emanated from the enormous power of the central authorities. In Europe, market forces, local authorities and religious institutions all shared a role in the dissemination and development of technology and science, partly through competition, often by copying each other, and often by supporting educational institutions in the field of technology and science. The various actors in the field and the widespread use of printing created open access to and an exchange of knowledge, whereas censorship in a vast country such as China, controlled by a strong state, stifled innovation. Students and scholars in search of historical truth must battle numerous adversaries: pernicious misperceptions, persistent mystifications, false assumptions, damaging divides caused by disciplinary boundaries, parochialism and exceptionalism. During the last 45 years, Davids has managed to combat these obstacles by elucidating the advantages of interdisciplinarity, comparative history, the use of concepts from the social sciences, and, last but certainly not least, by his careful distinguishing of the main component parts of and requirements for historical explanations. In doing so, he has often stepped outside the traditional dividing lines of the separate historical sub-disciplines, by exploring the possibilities of the history of science and engineering, of economic history, of environmental history, and recently, of religious history. He has also brought people together from quite different backgrounds and fields and managed to proceed with ambitious plans, creating opportunities for numerous young scholars, as is testified by the impressive number of doctoral theses he has supervised.20 His exemplary approach, supported by Popper’s maxims, has broadened the field of systematic comparative history from the Netherlands to Europe, to the Atlantic world, and finally to East Asia and the globe as a whole, whilst covering increasingly long periods of time, and ultimately

19 20

Cf. Mokyr’s contribution in this volume. See the list of doctoral theses supervised by Karel Davids in this volume.

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the past 1,500 years. Goliath might not have been defeated, but Davids has surely managed to get him cornered. Bibliography Akveld, Leo. “Jaap R. Bruijn: Een leven vol zeegeschiedenis in een notendop.” In In het kielzog: Maritiem-historische studies aangeboden aan Jaap R. Bruijn bij zijn vertrek als hoogleraar zeegeschiedenis aan de Universiteit Leiden, edited by Leo Akveld et al., 11–15. Amsterdam: De Bataafse Leeuw, 2003. Bremer, Netty, and Chris Quispel. “Dik van Arkel. Proeve van een portret.” In Onder­ scheid & minderheid, Sociaal-historische opstellen over discriminatie & vooroordeel, aangeboden aan Dik van Arkel bij zijn afscheid als hoogleraar in de sociale geschiedenis aan de Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, edited by Herman Diederiks and Chris Quispel, 9–24. Hilversum: Verloren, 1987. Davids, C.A. Zeewezen en wetenschap. De wetenschap en de ontwikkeling van de navigatietechniek in Nederland tussen 1585 en 1815. Amsterdam/Dieren: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1986. Davids, C.A. The rise and decline of Dutch technological leadership. Technology, economy and culture in the Netherlands, 1350–1800. Two volumes. Leiden, Brill 2008. Davids, C.A. Religion, technology, and the Great and Little Divergences: China and ­Europe compared, c. 700–1800. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Davids, C.A. “Levensbericht van Peter Wolfgang Klein.” In Levensberichten en herdenkingen knaw (2015): 58–68. Davids, Karel, and Marjolein ’t Hart, eds. De wereld en Nederland. Een sociale en economische geschiedenis van de laatste duizend jaar. Amsterdam: Boom, 2011. Davids, Karel, and Jan Lucassen. “Sociale geschiedenis: een momentopname.” Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 10 (1984): 359–367. Davids, Karel, and Jan Lucassen, eds. A miracle mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Davids, C.A., W. Fritschy, R. Raben, and L.A. van der Valk. “Inleiding.” In Kapitaal, ondernemerschap en beleid. Studies over economie en politiek in Nederland, Europa en Azië van 1500 tot heden, edited by C.A. Davids, W. Fritschy, and L. van der Valk, 11–34. Amsterdam: neha, 1996. Davids, Karel, Jan Lucassen, and Jan Luiten van Zanden. De Nederlandse geschiedenis als afwijking van het algemeen menselijk patroon. Een aanzet tot een programma van samenwerking. Amsterdam: neha, 1988a. Davids, Karel, Jan Lucassen, and Jan Luiten van Zanden. “Schaduwboksen van Righart. Over samenwerking van Nederlandse historici.” Spiegel Historiael 23 (1988b): 492. Gerwen, J. van, et al., eds. Economic History in the Netherlands 1914–2014. Trends and debates. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014.

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Linden, M. van der, and J. Lucassen. “Social History in the Netherlands.” Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 23 (1997): 209–222. Vries, Boudien de, et al., eds. Van agrarische samenleving naar verzorgingsstaat. De modernisering van West-Europa sinds de vijftiende eeuw. Groningen: Wolters, 1987. Woude, Ad van der. “Dertig jaar agrarische geschiedenis.” a.a.g. Bijdragen 28 (1986): 1–42.

part 1 Resources of Knowledge, Cultures of Learning

∵

Chapter 1

Religion, Culture, and the Great Enrichment Joel Mokyr In his magisterial Religion, technology and the Great and Little Divergences, Karel Davids, after having spent much of his life studying the economic history of his native Netherlands, finally took up Global Economic History.1 Like everything he wrote, the book is brimming with learning, keen insights, and a ­highly ­original point of view. The title of the book comes from the term coined by Kenneth Pomeranz which described and analyzed the growing economic gap ­between West and East (better said, between Western Europe and China).2 At the risk sounding churlish, I would propose that the term “Great ­Enrichment” proposed by McCloskey is a better term to describe the hockey stick-like time series of income and living standards after 1800 than the “Great Divergence.”3 The latter is a statement about relative income between the West and the Rest, whereas “enrichment” points to the world-wide increase in every measure of living standards that one can think of. What counts is material improvement, which is what economics is all about. The gap that opened up after 1800 ­between rich and poor countries is of course a major issue in global history, and has had profound implications. But what drove that divergence were the unprecedented events that started in western Europe in the eighteenth century and that started the ball of economic growth rolling – and rolling it still is. The economies that fell behind the West in the nineteenth century have experienced dramatic improvements in absolute terms as well, even if the gap is still far from closed. Yet if poverty is now declining world-wide, the “deep” reason is the growth of what Europeans called “the useful arts” or “useful knowledge” – the combined, and mutually reinforcing growth of propositional and prescriptive knowledge. 1 Karel Davids, Religion, technology and the Great and Little Divergences (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013). Some of the below is adapted from my A culture of growth: Origins of the modern economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017). I am indebted to Deirdre N. ­McCloskey and Pepijn Brandon for helpful comments. The financial assistance of the Balzan Foundation and the Center for Economic history at Northwestern University are acknowledged. 2 Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the making of the modern world economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). 3 Deirdre N. McCloskey, Bourgeois equality: How ideas, not capital or institutions, enriched the world (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 5.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_003

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Davids’s book came out three years before my own Culture of Growth, and I had the benefit of reading it at the last stages of completing my manuscript.4 While I do not entirely agree with his argument (as will become clear below), this splendid book, more than almost any other work I consulted for my book, set me to think long and hard about the role of religion and culture in economic development and specifically in innovation and technological diffusion before the Industrial Revolution. Davids’s take on religion is quite different from that of the scholars who preceded him. Whereas the literature on the role religion in economic growth has by and large focused on what people believed and how these beliefs affected their actions and interactions, Davids sees the role of religion in technological progress as working primarily through institutions or as he prefers to call it, contexts. Religious organizations played a central role in education and in the circulation and dissemination of ideas. In many cases, they were directly involved in innovation, or provided the incentives for innovators. It is fair to say that Davids’s book takes a materialist approach to technological change. Differences in theology, metaphysics, and religious doctrine, he feels, were not wide and powerful enough to explain the two divergences, the great one between Europe and the East, and the little one within Europe. What matters to him are the organizational manifestations, not the content of religion. In taking this position he clearly challenged my own view that “in addition to standard arguments such as geographical factors and the role of markets, politics, and society, the beginnings of modern economic growth depended a great deal on what people knew and believed, and how those ­beliefs affected their economic behavior.”5 At least as far as religion is concerned, D ­ avids will have none of that. He thus dismisses as unsubstantiated the i­nfluential work of Lynn White and like-minded scholars who stressed the importance of the anthropocentrism of Western Christianity in people’s willingness to engage in innovation, and sees no serious evidence that religious beliefs in any way ­affected people’s attitude to nature, their willingness to study and harness it. He is deeply skeptical that differences in such attitudes made any difference as far as technological outcomes were concerned.6 Instead, Davids argues that religion mattered because it was always more than just doctrine: worship needed organizations, churches, monasteries, 4 Mokyr, Culture of growth. 5 Joel Mokyr, The enlightened economy (New York and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 1. 6 Lynn White, Dynamo and Virgin reconsidered (Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 1968), and Lynn White, Medieval religion and technology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).

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­ ierarchies, seminaries, clocks, schools, and at times courts, social networks, h ­military organizations, and missionaries. In his view, the main effect of religion on technological progress and economic development should be sought there. The evidence he brings to bear on this arguments is impressive, and consistent with what other scholars have proposed.7 In this thinking, Davids anticipates the outstanding recent book by Jared Rubin, who has similarly argued that ­religion played a central role in another “divergence” (one that Davids does not much dwell on), namely the gap between the Muslim Middle East and Western Europe.8 Rubin’s overall approach is quite different from Davids’s, but he shares with him a skepticism regarding the economic effects of the actual doctrinal content of religion. He points out, as many other have, that the ­essence of Islam could not have possibly be as rigid and opposed to commerce and economic change as it may seem, because for the first centuries of its ­existence, the nations that adopted Islam flourished not just commercially but also in terms of technology, architecture, poetry, agriculture, medicine, and engineering, while western Europe was an ignorant, violent and poverty-stricken b­ ackwater. What we are witnessing since 1200 regarding the relative economic positions of Europe and the Middle East is more than a “divergence”: it is a Great Reversal, of momentous importance till the present day. The Latin Church in Medieval Europe laid the foundation of what would be recognized in the sixteenth century as the Republic of Letters, and which played a central role in incentivizing the generation and diffusion of useful knowledge in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution. The Republic of Letters, to be sure, was largely a secular institution, transnational and transre­ligious. While many of its “citizens” were obviously quite devout, religion as such o­ ccupied a comparatively passive role in it. But it is undeniable that it had religious origins. The inspiration for the Republic of Letters was in part the Respublica Christiana that harked back to St. Augustine’s City of God. The Church gave

7 Lynn White has made the point that monasteries were the vanguard of innovative engineering and agriculture in medieval Europe. Cf. White, Medieval religion. Many scholars have pointed to the enormous effect that the Jesuit order has had on education as well as on science, for instance Mordechai Feingold, “Jesuits: Savants.” In Jesuit science and the Republic of Letters, ed. Mordechai Feingold (Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 2003). As we will see below, the full effect of Jesuits on the progress of useful knowledge was more ambiguous than Davids suggested. 8 Jared Rubin, Rulers, religion, and riches: Why the West got rich and the Middle East did not (New York: Cambridge University Press 2017).

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it two gifts that lasted through the early modern p ­ eriod: the p ­ reservation of Latin as the lingua franca of intellectuals, and the pan-­European transnational networks that made the Church work in the first place. The s­ cholastic intellectuals of the late Middle Ages had constituted a loose transnational intellectual community under the aegis of the church. The medieval idea of the Church as a mystical but coherent scholarly community working together for a common good was retained until and beyond the Enlightenment.9 But, as Davids neatly points out, there were also less direct spill overs: the idea of “natural laws” may have come out of medieval canon law.10 Davids and many other scholars have focused on material incentives and ­rewards as crucial causes in explaining both the large and the small d­ ivergence. He is quite right that we have failed to recognize the important effect that religion had on shaping those incentives. Religious organizations and activities played a large role here, and some of the greatest works of art and m ­ usic in Europe were created in this way – just think of the Sistine Chapel and the St. Matthew Passion. Yet there are also times when deeply religious composers expressed their devotion in their music, and this was true for Bach in the early eighteenth century as well as for Bruckner a hundred fifty years later. Beliefs mattered. Non-material motives could be religious or not. Not all non-material motives driving intellectual innovators were “intrinsic.”11 Many scholars desired above all recognition and peer-respect, and while reputation was often correlated with patronage and material rewards, that was not all there was to it. ­Consider the example of Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek, a well-to-do and respected draper and a self-taught and able mathematician and instrument maker, who was hired by the city of Delft in various positions such as surveyor and inspector of  weights and measures. Yet his true interest was the manufacturing and use of microscopes, and he communicated his findings (written originally in Dutch) to the Royal Society in London, which published many of his letters. In 1680 he was elected a Fellow, and clearly this was a source of pride for him. Curiosity, the most powerful of all intrinsic motives, itself was subject  to religious ideology. Toby Huff attributes some of the Great Divergence to  a “­curiosity deficit” between Europe and China and places much of his e­ xplanation 9 Marc Fumaroli, La République des Lettres (Paris: Gallimard, 2015), 123–125. 10 Davids, Religion, 194. 11 Joel Mokyr, “Bottom-up or top-down? The origins of the Industrial Revolution.” Journal of Institutional Economics, forthcoming, 2018.

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for Europe’s leadership on Europeans being more “curious.”12 While interesting, Huff’s theory raises more difficulties than it resolves. Wootton points out that in the Christian West curiositas was traditionally regarded as a vice and so its transformation from vice to virtue was itself endogenous, a consequence rather than a cause.13 St Augustine had still regarded it as a vice, but Aquinas already modified this condemnation and by the early seventeenth century the most distinguished members of the Republic of Letters had abandoned this moral condemnation altogether. Francis Bacon warned his readers in The Great Instauration not to fall into the error of thinking “that the inquisition of nature is in any part interdicted or forbidden” and cited with approval Proverbs 25:2 that stated that “it is the honour of God to conceal a thing and the honour of kings to investigate them” (my translation from the Hebrew).14 Many scholars have seen the rise of secularism as essential to the Enlightenment and the economic growth it entailed. Carl Becker pointed out that the utopianism and millenarianism we observe in enlightenment intellectuals may have been more secular than two hundred years earlier, and “sacred” had to make room for “natural” and “reasonable.”15 Enlightenment philosophes ­replaced the search for salvation with the search for progress. But as ­McCloskey has written, “one cannot understand the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries […] without acknowledging that these are serious Christians we are construing.”16 Would the Enlightenment have had a belief in progress without an earlier belief in salvation? China, it is worth remembering, had neither. Very similar to Davids’s and Rubin’s underlying assumptions is the pathbreaking work by Botticini and Eckstein, which asked why Jews were so l­ikely to engage in non-agricultural occupations in an overwhelmingly agrarian world.17 Here, too, religion matters but actual beliefs do not, at least not directly. What counts in their account is that, much like in Davids’s book, ­religion 12

Toby Huff, Intellectual curiosity and the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 112. 13 David Wootton, The invention of science: A new history of the Scientific Revolution (London: Allen Lane, 2015), 61n. 14 Francis Bacon, The new Organon, eds. Lisa Jardine and Michael Silverthorne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 74–75. 15 Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the eighteenth-century philosophers (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1932), 102–103. 16 McCloskey, Bourgeois equality, 368. 17 Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, The chosen few: How education shaped Jewish history 70–1492 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012).

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and  human capital were closely linked. Because Jewish males needed to be able to read to participate in what became an intellectual book-centred religion, Jewish parents either invested in their sons’ education, or abandoned Judaism altogether; as a consequence, through a combination of investment and selection processes, Jews had very high literacy rates relative to their gentile ­neighbours, and this created a natural source of comparative advantage for them to choose occupations that were literacy-intensive such as trade and finance. An institutional account of the effect of religion on human capital must of course pay attention to the Reformation even if one wishes to avoid getting dragged into the thrice-squeezed orange of the Weber thesis. Modern scholarship has reaffirmed that Lutheranism did have a positive effect on literacy.18 Equally important, it created fierce competition in the market for ideas in the West, in which the Church had been a dominant player for a thousand years. Lawrence Stone has shown how competition for the minds and loyalties of the masses encouraged investment in schools.19 Modern research has shown this effect to hold for nineteenth century America, where higher education flourished in large part due to religious fragmentation.20 In short, the institutions of worship clearly played an important role in economic development. All the same, what people actually believed may have been more important than Davids and other materialist scholars give it credit for. In all fairness, it is hard to quantify “beliefs” in the absence of data such as the large datasets that exist for our modern age in the form of the World Values Survey and similar compilations, used by economists interested in culture. Moreover, almost anything that can be explained by sets of beliefs may be explained in other ways that may be more attractive in part because they can be easier quantified. Using Occam’s razor, perhaps we can dispense with cultural explanations altogether? There is something undeniably mushy about cultural explanations, and they have often been ridiculed by economists.21 When it comes to religion, a lot of nonsense has been written about it, and Davids does a terrific job 18 19 20 21

Sascha O. Becker and Ludger Wößmann. “Was Weber wrong? A human capital theory of Protestant economic history.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 124, no. 2 (2009). Lawrence Stone, “Literacy and education in England 1640–1900.” Past & Present No. 42 (1969): 81–82. Heyu Xiong and Yiling Zhao, “Sectarian competition and the market provision of human capital.” Unpublished working paper, Northwestern University, 2017. The great economist Robert Solow once remarked that all attempts to explain differences in economic performance and growth using culture “end up in a blaze of amateur sociology.” Quoted in Paul Krugman, Geography and trade (Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 1991), 93n.

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d­ ebunking some of it in a controlled but most decisive fashion.22 Yet, I shall make the case that religion may have worked through both mechanisms. 1

Religion and the Attitudes to Nature

Davids takes serious exception to the view that Latin Christendom alone had the willingness and ability to challenge nature because its religion, unlike all others, did not regard the harnessing and manipulation of natural regularities as sinful. Lynn White and his followers argued that if metaphysical beliefs were such that manipulating and controlling nature invoke a sense of fear or guilt, technological creativity will inevitably be limited in scope and extent. In his classic work, White stressed the importance of a belief in a creator who has designed a logical and mechanical universe for the use of humans, who in exploiting nature would illustrate His wisdom and power.23 For White, the anthropocentrism of Medieval Latin Christianity was the decisive factor in the technological advances of the time, and by extension, of the modern age.24 It provided medieval inventors with the moral justification to challenge technological bottlenecks and led to advances in agriculture, metallurgy, optics, and shipbuilding, among others. I tend to respectfully disagree with Davids’s interpretation that White was wrong to argue that the ancient world or East Asia, were hamstrung in making much technological progress by their belief that such actions were sinful (even if at times unavoidable). It is true enough 22

The most egregious examples of such pseudo-scholarship can be found in the writings of the sociologist Rodney Stark. Stark argues that somehow Christianity alone created ­reason and reason led to the Rise of the West. Stark’s central doctrine is that Christianity was somehow more “reasonable” than other religions and that the modern age is an age of reason. I know of no metric of reasonableness of any religion, though the work of m ­ edieval scholasticism obviously tried to place Christian theology on a sound philosophical basis. If Reason means anything, it must mean that hypotheses need to be confronted by facts and rejected if the facts are inconsistent with it. By those tests, Professor Stark’s work – ridden with factual errors and logical leaps of faith – seems as good evidence against his own hypothesis as can be found, since whatever else one can find in it, reason is not it. Cf. Rodney Stark, For the glory of God: How monotheism led to reformations, science, witchhunts and the end of slavery (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003); R ­ odney Stark, The victory of reason: How Christianity led to freedom, capitalism, and Western success (New York: Random House, 2005). 23 White, Medieval religion. 24 White made this argument in a celebrated provocative essay in which he linked the modern ecological crisis to the anthropocentric elements in medieval Christianity Cf. Lynn White, “The historical roots of our ecologic crisis.” Science 155, no. 3767 (1967): 1203–1207. Reprinted in Lynn White, Dynamo and Virgin reconsidered.

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that archaeological findings have to some extent attenuated our views about extreme technological stagnation in the ancient world, and yet it remains true that relative to their achievements in literature, philosophy, and art – to say nothing of political organization and military capability – the technological advances of the ancient world’s artisans remain disappointing. The Middle Ages saw highly useful advances that had been within reach of the ancient world but never realized. What seems to be a fair judgment is that in all societies – including our own – there are conflicting views about what is and what is not ethically right about the exploitation of natural forces.25 The outcome in these struggles may not always be predictable and surely does not have a one-to-one mapping with any religious belief. Yet a lot depends on the outcome, and it would be as rash to say that it is entirely determined by religion as it would be to say that it is wholly orthogonal to religious beliefs. The pre-Industrial Revolution world was a profoundly religious environment in which people’s metaphysical views about what was sinful and what was virtuous conditioned much of their behaviour. The notion that what people believe about the physical world around them matters to their behaviour in a variety of situations – including markets and dealing with natural forces in production – seems obvious enough. Indeed, it has been argued that a belief in an omniscient and just deity who punishes sins enhances trust and thus reduces transactions costs.26 To make progress, it is perhaps worthwhile to clear up one fairly central point. Davids points out, correctly, that White thought that the impact of Christianity on technology and ecology depended on what the “vast ‘orthodox’ majority […] thought [Christianity] was.”27 As is being increasingly recognized, what really mattered for the growth of useful knowledge is what a small minority thought: the skilled and possibly educated people who could read, write, calculate, draw, and think about how to improve techniques and designs. This “upper-tail” knowledge is what is crucial in technological ­advances.28 ­Focusing 25

Some of the ethical objections to new technology are of course a pretext, masking ­naked economic interests of entrenched incumbents. For a detailed analysis see Calestous Juma, Innovations and its enemies: Why people resist new technologies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 26 Dominic D.P. Johnson and Oliver Krüger, “The good of wrath: Supernatural punishment and the evolution of cooperation.” Political Theology 5, no. 2 (2004); Azim F. Shariff, Ara Norenzayan, and Joseph Henrich, “The birth of high gods: How the cultural evolution of supernatural policing agents influenced the emergence of complex, cooperative human societies, paving the way for civilization.” In Evolution, culture and the human mind, eds. M. Schaller et al. (New York: Psychology Press, 2009). 27 Davids, Religion, 38–39. 28 For a survey of recent work on upper tail human capital, see Mokyr, “Bottom-up.”

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on this elite at the expense of either those who were too poor and too ill-­ educated to make any advances, or even those who were well-educated but preferred to allocate their human capital in other directions, draws the a­ ttention to the people who pushed the technological envelope. The ensuing advances in natural philosophy and the useful arts eventually led to the Great Enrichment. Once we focus on the creative elite of intellectual innovators, some of the pieces fall into place. We can regard Lynn White’s medieval monks as part of an intellectual and artisanal elite that helped bring about his machina ex deo devices. The notion that somehow Protestant Europe had an edge over Catholic Europe in terms of technological creativity becomes clearly untenable – as Davids fully agrees – when we examine the long list of brilliant Italian experimental scientists that span the centuries between Galileo and Volta. To be sure, a complete dismissal of the rest of the population as “passive” would be mistaken. Inventions have to be launched into a market environment, and religious attitudes regarding the accumulation of wealth, the charging of interest, and operation of a price mechanism in free markets affected the behaviour of a much larger segment of the population than just the creative minority. As Deirdre McCloskey, one of the scholars most clearly associated with “ideational turn” in economic history, has noted, Christianity was not necessarily inconsistent with capitalism even if it looked askance on great wealth that was unshared. “Jesus, the carpenter lived in a thoroughly ­market-oriented economy,” she points out, and what she calls “prudence” – a p ­ ractical selfinterestedness – counts as a virtue in Christianity.29 More generally, I think, ­McCloskey’s magisterial trilogy serves as a warning not only against a quick discounting of religious beliefs as a factor in technological and economic development but also as a demonstration that such relations are both complex and protean. Religious dogmas can be stretched, adapted, and rationalized to fit the needs of the believer. And yet this does not mean that they are ­utterly without any effect. After all, as McCloskey stresses, what really counts is ethics – what people believed is right and just.30 Moreover, ­metaphysics ­mattered in setting

29 30

Deirdre N. McCloskey, The bourgeois virtues: Ethics for an age of commerce (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2006), 253–254, and Chapter 42. In a telling passage, McCloskey, Bourgeois equality, 422 described the “ideational movement in economic history” and cites Roy Porter to the effect that Calvinism was replaced by a “confidence in cosmic benevolism.” Cf. Roy Porter, The creation of the modern world: The untold story of the British Enlightenment (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000), 15. Margaret Jacob, Scientific culture and the making of the industrial West, second ed. (New York: O ­ xford University Press, 1997), 79 adds that a version of Christianity emerged that “­focused on achievements in this world, on a Christianized self-interest.”

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the agenda of inquiry into the secrets of nature. It is perhaps here where the influence of early modern thinking is most marked. Despite the wealth of works by post-Weber writers that Davids cites about the impact of religion, there is no mention in the text of the most influential of all, Robert K. Merton.31 In his classic book, Merton drew a direct causal link between English Puritanism and the progress of science in England in the late seventeenth century. The thesis has been enormously influential and is second only to the Weber thesis (from which it differs considerably).32 To understand the Merton thesis, it is important to realize that its effect was largely limited to an English intellectual elite whom Merton listed as “Puritans.” Such leading intellectuals as John Wilkins, Robert Boyle, the botanists John Ray and Francis Willughby, the mathematician John Wallis, the physician and chemist ­Jonathan Goddard, and the political economist William Petty, were all committed Puritans. It is not easy to associate Puritanism as such directly with any specific scientific advance, but it is generally agreed that Puritan ideology greatly enhanced the social prestige of experimental science in England and thus helped prepare the ground for the Industrial Enlightenment. Merton explained that Puritans embraced science, in part because it simultaneously “manifested the Glory of God and enhanced the Good of Man,” a line of thinking borrowed from Francis Bacon whom the Puritans admired.33 For them, as Webster has remarked, the ideal life was one that efficiently deployed one’s ability for personal advantage and public service and glorified God by maximizing one’s material resources.34 These two objectives were not separable but complemented each other in ways that took until the end of the seventeenth century to be fully worked out. Devout individuals recognized the profound ethical implications of scientific investigation: the systematic and 31

Robert K Merton, Science, technology, and society in seventeenth-century England (New York: Howard Fertig Press, 2001 [1938]). The book appears in the bibliography of Davids’s book but in the text there is no mention of his work. There is a single reference to ­Merton’s most eminent follower, Charles Webster, The Great Instauration: Science, medicine and reform, 1626–1660 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2002 [1965]). Clearly Davids is not persuaded by the Merton thesis, cf. Davids, Religion, 228. 32 For surveys of the impact of the Merton Thesis, some more critical than others, see for instance Gary A Abraham, “Misunderstanding the Merton thesis: A boundary dispute ­between History and Sociology,” Isis 74, no. 3 (1983); George Becker, “Pietism and science: A critique of Robert K. Merton’s hypothesis,” American Journal of Sociology 89 (1984); ­Steven Shapin, “Understanding the Merton Thesis,” Isis 79, no. 4 (1988); Bernard I. Cohen, “Introduction: The Impact of the Merton Thesis,” In Puritanism and the rise of modern science, ed. Bernard I. Cohen (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990). 33 Robert K. Merton, The sociology of science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), 232. 34 Webster, Great Instauration, 505.

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meticulous study of God’s creation was the closest a Calvinist could get to an inscrutable deity that could not be grasped by the cultivated intellect. But Calvinism, in the end, had to make room for a set of beliefs in which the laws of science vindicated God’s existence.35 The Puritan ideology thus built upon the Baconian belief that experimental science was a Christian religious activity; Puritanism and Science found a common ground in empiricism and experimentalism. Robert Boyle placed on the title page of his book The Christian Virtuoso (1690) the statement that the book would show “that by being addicted to Experimental Philosophy, a Man is being assisted rather than indisposed to being a Good Christian.”36 Yet what was true for a Puritan like Boyle was equally true for a deeply religious (closet) Arianist such as Newton. Newton was a deeply religious man, for whom his findings affirmed the ever-presence of a wise deity who had created a world of knowable regularities.37 Where Merton and the Merton thesis are at their most vulnerable is in their Anglocentricity. Puritans were far from unique in their ability to reconcile their religion with their science and experimental philosophy. In preindustrial Europe religious beliefs were driving intellectuals into the kind of research in natural philosophy that became the basis for the growth in useful knowledge that formed an integral part of the Industrial Enlightenment. All over seventeenth-century Europe, science and religion discovered a range of possible symbiotic relations.38 In England, as noted, this was expressed in the deep Anglican beliefs of Robert Boyle and the religious sentiments of Newton and in the latitudinarian doctrines of the “Low Church.” But everywhere similar ­compromises can be discerned: Italian Jesuits, French Catholic friars,

35 Jacob, Scientific, 79. 36 Robert Boyle, The christian virtuoso (London: Printed for Edw. Jones, 1936). 37 While it surely is far-fetched to see in Newton’s Arianist (and thus heretical) convictions a driving force for his science, Newton’s Christian faith affirmed and supported his scientific work. He could do this by developing eclectic and idiosyncratic religious beliefs that were designed to be consistent with his scientific insights. He ignored the problems that his mechanical theory posed for cosmogenesis and adherence to the literal biblical text. See Stephen D. Snobelen, “Isaac Newton, heretic: The strategies of a Nicodemite,” ­British Journal for the History of Science 32 (1999). Newton had to struggle with the relation between God and his concepts of time and space and to show how the timelessness of one implied the timelessness of the other. Cf. Andrew Janiak, “Newton’s philosophy.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (2006), http://plato.stanford .edu/archives/ win2009/entries/Newton-philosophy/. 38 Stephen Gaukroger, The emergence of a scientific culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 505.

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pre-­adamites, ­unitarians, and devout Dutch Calvinists – many of them found a way to reconcile their religious beliefs with their scientific activities. Whether Catholic or Protestant, natural philosophers in the seventeenth century found evidence of God in Nature, and this was an impersonal mechanical God, revealed in his immutable laws to which he himself was subject. The deity was no longer a judgmental entity concerned with enforcing a morality or granting rewards for good behaviour, much less engaged in miracles. As Richard Westfall has put it, the new natural philosophy put forward by such scientists as Kepler, Descartes, and Newton could not avoid the question whether the aspects of Christianity that distinguished it from a more impersonal theism held up in view of their growing knowledge of nature.39 2

Ancients and Moderns

There was something unique and unusual about seventeenth century science that may have been decisive in bringing about the Industrial Enlightenment and the Great Enrichment that it entailed. No matter how devout they were, the citizens of the seventeenth century Republic of Letters were liberating themselves from the Tyranny of the Canon, the almost mindlessly uncritical adulation of past wisdom. True progress could not be embraced until ancestor worship had been abandoned and with it the sense of inferiority relative to earlier generations. A famous dictum from the Jewish Chazal (earlier sages) has it that “if those  who were before us (rishonim) were like angels, we are but men; and if those who were before us were like men, we are but asses.”40 This was not, in its basic outlook, inherently different from the attitudes to the founding intellectuals of Chinese philosophy Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, and that of Moslems for the Quran and the hadith (sayings attributed to the prophet Muhammad compiled in the eighth and ninth centuries). This veneration for ancient knowledge, with its clear religious roots, has had a distinct dampening effect on the ability of many societies to experience knowledge progress, since it imposed constraints on what new knowledge was and was not permissible. It created a semi-rigid box. Within that box, a certain degree of intellectual 39

40

Richard S. Westfall, “The rise of science and the decline of Orthodox Christianity.” In God and nature: Historical essays on the encounter between Christianity and science, eds. ­David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 234–235. Sabbath, 112.

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­innovation was possible, and some debates occurred. However, thinking outside that box could entail accusations of heresy. One of the most dramatic developments in Europe’s cultural life after 1500 was the slow but inexorable melting away of the inferiority complex relative to the ancients. In the late Middle Ages a powerful orthodoxy had been established that merged Christianity with Aristotelian philosophy and classical science, the monumental life work of Thomas Aquinas. Yet after 1450, cracks in this structure started to emerge, and in the next centuries it showed serious signs of weakening. In the middle of the sixteenth century, the French philosopher Pierre de la Ramée (1515–1572) already wrote freely “on the errors of Aristotle,” and by the early seventeenth century Francis Bacon insolently wrote that “[the Greek writers of science] certainly do have a characteristic of the child: the readiness to talk with the inability to produce anything; for their wisdom seems wordy and barren of works.”41 In the seventeenth century, the rebellion against the rule of the ancients was in full swing and led to a climactic war of words still known as the querelle des anciens et des modernes, a battle between the ancients and the moderns.42 But any notion that this battle ended in a draw as Jonathan Swift implied in his priceless parody of the debate is mistaken: by the late seventeenth century Newton and his contemporaries had hammered the last nail in the coffin of ancient physical science and Francesco Redi had done the same for Aristotelian biology.43

41 Bacon, Organon, aphorism 121, 59. Even more impudent was Bacon’s countryman and contemporary, William Gilbert, who, in his De magnete (1600), announced from the onset that he was not going to waste time on “quoting the ancients and the Greeks as our supporters, for neither can paltry Greek argumentation demonstrate the truth more subtly nor Greek terms more effectively, nor can both elucidate it better. Our doctrine of the loadstone is contradictory of most of the principles and axioms of the Greeks.” The multiple errors he found in such classic authors as Pliny and Ptolemy were spread “much as evil and noxious plants ever have the most luxurious growth.” William Gilbert, De magnete, translated by P. Fleury Mottelay (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1893) 1–2, 208, 321–322, 339–340. 42 The classic if perhaps by now somewhat dated statement remains Richard Foster Jones, Ancients and moderns: a study in the rise of the scientific movement in 17th century England (St. Louis, MO: Washington University Press, 1961 [1936]). For more recent treatments see for instance Joseph M. Levine, “Ancients and moderns reconsidered,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 15, no. 1 (1981); Idem, The battle of the books: History and literature in the Augustan age (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991); Anne-Marie Lecoq, ed. La querelle des anciens et des modernes (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2001). 43 Swift, Jonathan. A tale of a tub. Written for the universal improvement of mankind. To which is added, An account of a battle between the antient and modern books in St. James’s Library (Glasgow: Printed by R. Urie, 1753 [1704]), 170.

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For most religious institutions, the irreverence and impudence of the moderns in challenging dogma represented a serious threat. Most famously, of course, the Copernican revolution threatened a view of the universe that had come down from ancient learning and that had been merged into an encompassing synthesis. In this system metaphysics provided a bridge between natural philosophy and theology.44 “The resulting system of the Universe was considered impregnable and final. To attack it was considered blasphemy.”45 As Floris Cohen phrases it, “from Coimbra to Cracow and from Vienna to St. Andrews, Aristotelian doctrine and the quadrivium were taught as foundation courses […] this state of intellectual affairs was without precedent.”46 The orthodoxy was nothing if not tenacious. In 1624, the parlement of Paris still prohibited the teaching of material that contradicted “ancient and approved authors.” The Jesuits, in some ways a dynamic factor in both the generation and diffusion of new technology, fought heliocentrism tooth and nail, and the Catholic Church dropped its prohibition on books teaching Copernican astronomy only in 1758. Religion had a tendency to be conservative, though this was not invariably the case. Copernicanism and other attacks on the Aristotelian world system based on new scientific insights and new observations were only part of the story. ­Galenian medicine came under attack from Paracelsus and the iatrochemical school that he founded. The great chemist Jan-Baptist van Helmont, a follower of Paracelsus, got in trouble with the inquisition.47 But p ­ hilosophical 44 Gaukroger, The Emergence, 130. 45 Andrew Dickson White, The warfare of science with theology (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1896), 120. 46 Floris H. Cohen, How modern science came into the world (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), 81. In the fourteenth century, Oxford University had a rule on the book that every master who deviated from Aristotle’s Organon would be fined 5 shillings for every case of deviation. See Keith Devlin, The language of mathematics: Making the invisible visible (New York: Henry Holt, 2000), 58. This rule was still on the books when Giordano Bruno visited Oxford in ca. 1583. In 1556 A statute at Oxford stipulated the basic texts for the study of fields: Ptolemy for astronomy, Strabo and Pliny for geography and thirty years later students were urged to follow only Aristotle and those who defended him. Paolo Rossi, Francis Bacon: From magic to science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 40. In 1559 an English physician named Dr John Geynes, who had suggested that Galen made serious errors, was threatened with imprisonment and forced by his furious colleagues to recant. Cf. Allen G. Debus, Man and nature in the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 174. 47 In 1625 the General inquisition of Spain condemned 27 of Helmont’s “propositions” for heresy, impudent arrogance, and association with Lutheran and Calvinist doctrine. His treatise, De magnetica vulnerum, was impounded the following year. He was condemned by the Louvain Faculty in 1622, placed in ecclesiastical custody in 1634, and published ­nothing

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objections were raised as well. Michael Gillespie points to what he calls the “nominalist revolution” in the Renaissance as the taproot of modernity.48 The exact philosophical differences between William of Occam, the founder of nominalism, and his scholastic opponents perhaps do not matter much to the economic historian, but Gillespie’s argument that the growing influence of nominalism was critical to a world-view that was more conducive to modernity is rather unusual. In his view, nominalism triumphed over scholasticism in the late Middle Ages, and much in contrast with Lynn White, the nominalism Gillespie sees revealed a fearsome and unknowable God, in which “Man was dethroned from his exalted place in the Universe.” For Gillespie, the key to modernity was to be found in the answers that early modern philosophers gave to the “problem posed by the nominalist God within the framework of modern science.” The most telling answer was provided by Francis Bacon. Bacon’s answer, in Gillespie’s view, was radical: people should strive to discover the hidden powers by which nature moves in order to gain mastery over it.49 Bacon’s thought indeed was pivotal to the emergence of the Industrial Enlightenment, and no less than his medieval predecessors did Bacon place humans in the centre of the creation.50 Regardless of whether one is convinced by the somewhat overblown role of nominalism in the shaping of modernity he sketches, Gillespie provides another and novel view of how metaphysical ideas may have conditioned modernity. The objections raised at the time against other threats to existing knowledge seem, at least from the point of view of today, less plausible. Amir A ­ lexander has pointed to the tenacious resistance that Jesuits and other conservatives displayed against infinitesimal mathematics.51 The teaching of such heretical math was prohibited by the Jesuit’s Board of Revisors led by the very conservative Jesuit General Muzio Vitelleschi. It was felt that infinitesimals and later calculus represented a threat to the neat logic of Euclidian geometry and algebra. Needless to say, such resistance was futile and the progress of mathematics after the late seventeenth-century invention of calculus was dazzling. Italian and Spanish mathematicians, so prominent in earlier ages, had to make between 1624 and 1642. Cf “Project Galileo” http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/ helmont.html, accessed 1 May 2018. 48 Michael Allen Gillespie, The theological origins of modernity (Chicago: University of ­Chicago Press, 2008). 49 Gillespie, Theological, 28, 39. 50 John Channing Briggs, “Bacon’s science and religion.” In The Cambridge Companion to Bacon, ed. Markku Peltonen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 176–177. 51 Amir Alexander, Infinitesimal: How a dangerous mathematical theory shaped the modern world (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014).

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room for those living north of the Alps (with the notable exception of the ­Piedmontese Giuseppe Lodovico Lagrangia, later known as Lagrange, who did his most important work in Berlin and Paris). The relationship between religion and the progress of useful knowledge in this age cannot be summarized simply as either the conflict between progressive scientists and benighted clerics, as Andrew Dickson White would have it, or that Christian beliefs functioned as the taproot and inspiration of seventeenth-century science, as Hooykaas and others argued.52 Religion in this age was a large tent that contained a plethora of attitudes toward science; some aspects of modern science were compatible with some religious beliefs, but on the whole the relation cannot be summarized as either one of conflict or one of harmony. A complex and multivariate interlocking of scientific interests and religious beliefs coexisted within the larger European context, in each community, and often in the same person.53 Perhaps the most striking “smoking gun” for the importance of religion in this regard is the utter absence of Jewish names in the roster of intellectual innovators in the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. As I have noted elsewhere, this is particularly striking in view of the enormous investment in ­human capital that Jews made in the education of their children.54 Yet Jewish religion at this time was unusually backward-looking in its doctrine and the extensive scholarship was in part exegesis of ancient sources and in part mystical and kabbalistic. Even in professions such as medicine where Jews were prominent, we search in vain for a Jewish Paracelsus or a Jewish Vesalius.55 Innovators thinking outside the boxes of traditional Jewish learning were frowned upon and when needed, rejected from Jewish society, as Spinoza found out. Only in the nineteenth century, when Jews became assimilated in a secular 52 White, Warfare; R. Hooykaas, Religion and the rise of modern science (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1972). 53 David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, “Introduction.” In God and nature: H ­ istorical essays on the encounter between Christianity and science, eds. David C. Lindberg and ­Ronald L. Numbers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 10. 54 Joel Mokyr, “The economics of being Jewish.” Critical Review 23, nos. 1–2 (2011). 55 An apparent exception that actually proves the rule is Joseph Solomon Delmedigo ­(1591–1655), a Jewish doctor and a rather sophisticated citizen of the Republic of Letters, who actually studied in Padua with Galileo, to whom he referred as “Rabbi Galileo.” He wrote in his Sefer Elim that only a complete fool (“peti moochlat”) would deny the Copernican cosmology. Cf. Joseph Salomon Delmedigo, Sefer Elim 1629, 304. https://archive. org /stream/seferelim00delmuoft# page/135/mode/2up, accessed 23 November 2014. The leading expert judges however that “whatever views Delmedigo may have harbored he kept to himself and never divulged in public. […] By that time, his travels and experiences must have convinced him at last that the Jewish world was not yet ready for his kind of views and learning.” See Isaac Barzilay, Yoseph Shlomo Delmedigo (Yashar of Candia): His life and works (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974), 4.

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culture, did their contribution become proportional to the massive amount of human capital they had accumulated. Mutatis mutandis, the same is true for China. Confucianism was not so much a religion stricto sensu but a code of ethics and behaviour. After its revival in late Song China, particularly with the enormous influence of the writings of the leading Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi, the culture of the elite became increasingly backward-looking and intolerant of deviancy and apostasy. Much as the Mishna and the Talmud and the study of the halacha were for Jewish children, Chinese youngsters were immersed in the Four Books and Five Classics – the summary of the Chinese canon – in a certain sequence, a hundred times each. Rote learning supported the orthodoxy and the “rote reception of that orthodoxy.”56 The unassailability of these texts remained the most effective bulwark against troublesome innovators. In China, Sivin has remarked, until the nineteenth century we cannot find scientists willing to abandon values and beliefs that had evolved for thousands of years in the view of “proven facts.”57 The more general point to be made here is that religion affected not only one’s relationship with a deity but also conditioned attitudes toward the wisdom of earlier generations. It is on this point that I think Davids’s book needs to be supplemented. The great “divergence” was made possible by the loss of respect with which European intellectuals treated the once-sacred wisdom of Aristotle, Galen, and the rest of the classical canon. Why and how this respect for earlier generations took such a beating is a question I have discussed elsewhere, but both the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution bear testimony to the fact that as Carl Becker wrote, European intellectuals had “analyzed away their inferiority complex toward the past, and realized that their own generation was superior to any yet known.”58 3 Conclusions In Karel Davids’s Religion, Technology and the Great and Little Divergences, global history meets the history of technology. It is a brilliantly erudite treatise 56

Alexander Woodside and Benjamin A. Elman, “Afterword: The expansion of education in Ch’ing China.” In Education and society in Late Imperial China, 1600–1900, eds. ­Alexander Woodside and Benjamin A. Elman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 532–533. 57 Nathan Sivin, “Why the Scientific Revolution did not take place in China – or did it?” In Transformation and tradition in the sciences, ed. Everett Mendelsohn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005 [1984]) Revised version, 2005, http://ccat.sas.upenn. edu/~nsivin/scirev.pdf, accessed 30 November 2013, 13. 58 Becker, Heavenly City, 131.

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based on an astonishing range of reading. His argument that the contexts and the organization of religion were critical to intellectual innovation and technological progress is wholly persuasive. To sum up, Davids’s magnum opus, which has not yet been given the recognition and visibility that it so richly merits, has persuaded me that we cannot write the history of innovation without paying attention to religion, the central pillar of culture of pre-industrial Europe. But his work, cautious and nuanced as it is, underlines that religion could be a stimulant and catalyst for scientific research as much as it could be an obstacle and an impediment. To paraphrase Kranzberg’s famous tongue-in-cheek “Law” for technology, religion was neither good nor bad for technological progress, nor was it neutral. Bibliography Abraham, Gary A. “Misunderstanding the Merton Thesis: A boundary dispute between History and Sociology.” Isis 74, no. 3 (1983): 368–387. Alexander, Amir. Infinitesimal: How a dangerous mathematical theory shaped the modern world. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. Bacon, Francis. The new Organon, edited by Lisa Jardine and Michael Silverthorne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 [1620]. Barzilay, Isaac. Yoseph Shlomo Delmedigo (Yashar of Candia): His life and works. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974. Becker, Carl L. The Heavenly City of the eighteenth-century philosophers. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1932. Becker, George. “Pietism and science: A critique of Robert K. Merton’s hypothesis.” American Journal of Sociology 89 (1984): 1065–1090. Becker, Sascha O., and Ludger Wöeßmann. “Was Weber wrong? A human capital theory of Protestant economic history.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 124, no. 2 (2009): 531–596. Botticini, Maristella, and Zvi Eckstein. The chosen few: How education shaped Jewish history 70–1492. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012. Boyle, Robert. The christian virtuoso. London: Printed for Edw. Jones, 1690. Briggs, John Channing. “Bacon’s science and religion.” In The Cambridge Companion to Bacon, edited by Markku Peltonen, 172–199, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Cohen, Bernard I. “Introduction: The impact of the Merton Thesis.” In Puritanism and the rise of modern science, edited by Bernard I. Cohen, 1–111. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990. Cohen, H. Floris. How modern science came into the world. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012.

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Davids, Karel. Religion, technology and the Great and Little Divergences. Leiden and ­Boston: Brill, 2013. Debus, Allen G. Man and nature in the Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. Devlin, Keith. The language of mathematics: Making the invisible visible. New York: Henry Holt, 2000. Feingold, Mordechai. “Jesuits: Savants.” In Jesuit science and the Republic of Letters, edited by Mordechai Feingold, 1–45. Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 2003. Fumaroli, Marc. La République des Lettres. Paris: Gallimard, 2015. Gaukroger, Stephen. The emergence of a scientific culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Gilbert, William. De magnete, translated by P. Fleury Mottelay. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1893 [1600]. Gillespie, Michael Allen. The theological origins of modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Hooykaas, R. Religion and the rise of modern science. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1972. Huff, Toby. Intellectual curiosity and the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Jacob, Margaret C. Scientific culture and the making of the industrial West. second ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Janiak, Andrew. “Newton’s philosophy.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, 2006. http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/win2009/entries/ Newton-philosophy/. Johnson, Dominic D.P., and Oliver Krüger. “The good of wrath: Supernatural punishment and the evolution of cooperation.” Political Theology 5, no. 2 (2004): 159–176. Jones, Richard Foster. Ancients and moderns: A study in the rise of the scientific movement in 17th century England, second ed., St. Louis, MO: Washington University Press, 1961 [1936]. Juma, Calestous. Innovations and its enemies: Why people resist new technologies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Krugman, Paul. Geography and trade. Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 1991. Lecoq, Anne-Marie, ed. La querelle des anciens et des modernes. Paris: Éditions ­Gallimard, 2001. Levine, Joseph M. “Ancients and moderns reconsidered.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 15, no. 1(1981): 72–89. Levine, Joseph M. The battle of the books: History and literature in the Augustan Age. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991. Lindberg, David C. and Ronald L. Numbers. “Introduction.” In God and nature: Historical essays on the encounter between Christianity and science, edited by David C. ­Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, 1–18. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

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McCloskey, Deirdre N. The bourgeois virtues: Ethics for an age of commerce. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. McCloskey, Deirdre N. Bourgeois dignity: Why economics can’t explain the modern world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. McCloskey, Deirdre N. Bourgeois equality: How ideas, not capital or institutions, enriched the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. Merton, Robert K. Science, technology, and society in seventeenth-century England. New York: Howard Fertig Press, 2001 [1938]. Merton, Robert K. The sociology of science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973. Mokyr, Joel. The enlightened economy. New York and London: Yale University Press, 2009. Mokyr, Joel. “The economics of being Jewish.” Critical Review 23, nos. 1–2 (2011): 195–206. Mokyr, Joel. A culture of growth: The origins of the modern economy. Princeton: ­Princeton University Press, 2016. Mokyr, Joel. “Bottom-up or top-down? The origins of the Industrial Revolution.” Journal of Institutional Economics, forthcoming 2018. Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the making of the m ­ odern world economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Porter, Roy. The creation of the modern world: The untold story of the British Enlightenment. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000. Rossi, Paolo. Francis Bacon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. Rubin, Jared. Rulers, religion, and riches: Why the West got rich and the Middle East did not. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Shapin, Steven. “Understanding the Merton Thesis.” Isis 79, no. 4 (1988): 594–605. Shariff, Azim F., Ara Norenzayan, and Joseph Henrich. “The birth of high gods: How the cultural evolution of supernatural policing agents influenced the emergence of complex, cooperative human societies, paving the way for civilization.” In Evolution, culture and the human mind, edited by M. Schaller et al., 119–136. New York: Psychology Press, 2009. Sivin, Nathan. “Why the Scientific Revolution did not take place in China – or did it?” In Transformation and tradition in the sciences, edited by Everett Mendelsohn, 531–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Revised version, 2005, http:// ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~nsivin/scirev.pdf. Snobelen, Stephen D. “Isaac Newton, Heretic: The strategies of a Nicodemite.” British Journal for the History of Science 32 (1999): 381–419. Stark, Rodney. For the glory of God: How monotheism led to reformations, science, witchhunts and the end of slavery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. Stark, Rodney. The victory of reason: How Christianity led to freedom, capitalism, and western success. New York: Random House, 2005. Stone, Lawrence. “Literacy and education in England 1640–1900.” Past & Present No. 42 (1969): 69–139.

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Swift, Jonathan. A tale of a tub. Written for the universal improvement of mankind. To which is added, An account of a battle between the antient and modern books in St. James’s Library, thirteenth edition. Glasgow: printed by R. Urie, 1753 [1704]. Webster, Charles. The Great Instauration: Science, medicine and reform, 1626–1660, ­second ed. Bern: Peter Lang, 2002 [1975]. Westfall, Richard S. “The rise of science and the decline of orthodox Christianity.” In God and nature: Historical essays on the encounter between Christianity and science, edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, 218–237. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. White, Andrew Dickson. The warfare of science with theology. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1896. White, Lynn. “The historical roots of our ecologic crisis.” Science 155, no. 3767 (1967): 1203–1207. Reprinted in Lynn White, Dynamo and Virgin reconsidered, Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 1968a. White, Lynn. Dynamo and Virgin reconsidered. Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 1968. White, Lynn. Medieval religion and technology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Woodside, Alexander and Benjamin A. Elman. “Afterword: The expansion of education in Ch’ing China.” In Education and society in Late Imperial China, 1600–1900, edited by Alexander Woodside and Benjamin A. Elman, 525–560. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Wootton, David. The invention of science: A new history of the Scientific Revolution. ­London: Allen Lane, 2015. Xiong, Heyu and Yiling Zhao. “Sectarian competition and the market provision of human capital.” Unpublished working paper, Northwestern University, 2017.

Chapter 2

Wandering about the Learning Market: Early Modern Apprenticeship in Antwerp Gold- and Silversmith Ateliers Bert De Munck and Raoul De Kerf A great deal has been written recently about learning on the shop floor and the apprenticeship system in which it was institutionally embedded in the late medieval and the early modern periods. Most of this work has focused on the contractual relationship between masters and apprentices and the potential effect of urban (on the continent) or nation-wide (in England) guild regulations on this relationship.1 The most recent studies qualify the effectiveness of regulation and point to the ever-present gap between rules and reality. For England, it is argued that apprentices did not always serve the seven-year term required by the statutes. Research recently conducted by Patrick Wallis and Chris Minns has revealed a fluid reality, with apprentices leaving their masters early or temporarily depending on their resources and alternative options.2 As to the continent, it has been shown that the terms agreed upon in apprentice contracts often diverged from the rules too – and this is not to mention the potential impact of apprentices absconding and breaking their contract.3 The historical background to all of this is, of course, the fluidity of the labour market and the importance of geographic mobility, but as soon as we try to contextualize the contractual relationship between masters and apprentices, our lack of empirical knowledge becomes apparent immediately. New approaches are informed by new institutional economics and focus on theory- and model-building, with the institutional context taking centre stage.4 The focus on guilds as the dominant framework has to a certain ­extent 1 For a state of the art: Bert De Munck and Hugo Soly, “Introduction: Learning on the shop floor in historical perspective,” in Learning on the shop floor, eds. Bert De Munck, Steven L. Kaplan, and Hugo Soly (New York: Berghahn, 2007). 2 Patrick Wallis, “Apprenticeship and training in England,” The Journal of Economic History 68, no. 3 (2008); Chris Minns and Patrick Wallis, “Rules and reality: quantifying the practice of apprenticeship in early modern England,” The Economic History Review 65, no. 2 (2012). 3 Bert De Munck, “Gilding golden ages. Perspectives from early modern Antwerp on the guilddebate, c. 1450–c. 1650,” European Review of Economic History 15, no. 2 (2011). 4 This was particularly triggered by Stephan R. Epstein, “Craft guilds, apprenticeship, and technological change in pre-industrial Europe,” Journal of Economic History 58, no. 3 (1998) and © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_004

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been unhelpful too, since it tends to lead to underestimating the differences between masters in a given trade and the diversity of practices that had an impact on them, such as specialization and subcontracting.5 The emergence of a clearer view on long-term transformations has also been hindered by the specialization of research between economic, social and cultural historians. In older work, especially by social historians, learning on the shop floor was often connected to the patriarchal context in which apprentices learned from an artisanal master. Apprentices often boarded with their master, who then acted “in loco parentis,” as a surrogate father of sorts.6 This, perhaps idealized, system was seen to have been transformed after the mid-seventeenth century, due to concentration trends and a growing distinction between large and small ateliers, resulting in proletarianization and de-skilling.7 Partly because economic historians working in a neo-institutionalist framework drove the return of apprenticeship to the historical agenda, such long term transformations have been neglected recently. Our chapter will address long-term transformations of learning on the shop floor with a focus on one sector (gold- and silversmithing) and through the lens of one city (Antwerp). Using a micro-historical approach, we will shed light on the changing relationship between socialization, working and training, and on the broader issue of what could be termed the emergence of a “learning market.” Zooming in on the different possible relationships between masters and apprentices, as well as on the differences between ateliers in one trade, we will try to shed new light on the choices made by both apprentices and masters. Our case study enables us to do so because of the existence of a small database of customized apprenticeship contracts found in the Antwerp by Jane Humphries, “English apprenticeship: A neglected factor in the First Industrial Revolution,” in The economic future in historical perspective, eds. Paul A. David and Mark Thomas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). For a critical view, see Karel Davids and Bert De Munck, “Introduction,” in Innovation and creativity in late medieval and early modern European cities, eds. Karel Davids and Bert De Munck (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014). 5 This is, for instance, the case in Bert De Munck, Technologies of learning. Apprenticeship in Antwerp from the 15th century to the end of the ancien régime (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007). 6 Recent views and references in Maarten Prak, “Moral order in the world of work: Social control and the guilds in Europe,” in Social control in Europe. Volume one, 1500–1800, eds. Herman Roodenburg and Pieter Spierenburg (Columbus: Ohio state University Press, 2004); Bert De Munck, “From brotherhood community to civil society? Apprentices between guild, household and the freedom of contract in early modern Antwerp,” Social History 35, no. 1 (2010). 7 See e.g. K.D.M. Snell, Annals of the labouring poor: Social change and agrarian England, 1660–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Steven L. Kaplan, “L’apprentissage au XVIIIe siècle: le cas de Paris,” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 40, no. 3 (1993); Andreas Grießinger and Reinhold Reith, “Lehrlinge im deutschen Handwerk des ausgehenden 18. Jahrhunderts. Arbeitsorganisation, Sozialbeziehungen und alltägliche Konflikte,” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 13 (1986).

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­ otarial archives. While registering contracts before a notary was uncommon n in most trades, luxury trades such as diamond cutting and gold- and silversmithing show a different pattern. For the seventeenth and eighteenth century, we found 244 apprenticeship contracts, most (182) from between 1650 and 1750. Importantly, these contracts were not only customized for price and duration but also for learning content. Consequently, they allow us to examine the specific skills learned and to connect this, in turn, to the price and the duration of the contract, the age of the apprentice, etcetera. In addition, these contracts can be supplemented with a range of other sources, such as testaments and probate inventories to investigate the masters and what exactly was produced in their ateliers.8 We will thus be able to chart differences between apprentices as well as between masters within this one trade. This will, in turn, allow us to shed light on the relationship between learning and working and on the extent to which learning was embedded in a patriarchal framework. 1

Models on Apprenticeship

Two conceptual models have been developed to help understand long-term changes in apprenticeship, focused on social and economic relations respectively. In the first, Andreas Grießinger and Reinhold Reith distinguish ­traditional trades from “pre-capitalistic” ones. While in the former, the patriarchal relationship between master and apprentice continued to dominate, Grießinger and Reith believe that sectors such as construction and textiles witnessed the emergence of larger ateliers, in which the relationship between masters and apprentices started to resemble the relationship between an employer and an unskilled employee.9 The second model was developed by Alain Cottereau for the silk industry in Lyons in the first half of the nineteenth century. Some firms became large manufacturers, while others specialized in delivering specific services as subcontractors to the larger firms.10 From the perspective of skill development and apprenticeship contracts, this may have resulted in 8

9 10

Many of these sources were found thanks to Godelieve Van Hemeldonck’s Grootwerk, 17th and 18th century, Antwerp. This is a compilation of sources on gold- and silversmiths compiled during years of research in the Antwerp archives and kindly shared (on cd-rom) by the author. For an overview of the contracts, see the database on apprentices and masters used in Raoul De Kerf, De circulatie van technische kennis in het vroegmoderne Antwerpse ambachtswezen, 1500–1800 (Unpublished Phd Thesis, University of Antwerp, 2013). Grießinger and Reith, “Lehrlinge,” 149–199. Alain Cottereau, “The fate of collective manufactures in the industrial world. The silk industries of Lyon and London, 1800–1850,” in World of possibilities. Flexibilities and mass

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­apprentices and journeymen learning more specific skills in specialized workshops, which could then be applied by large subcontractors. Referring to this model, Giorgio Riello observed a shift from a “classic” to a “market-based” provision of skills from at least the eighteenth century onwards in the shoemaking industry in London. While training in classic firms had been based on a diverse range of internal skills, the market-based approach saw firms using external skills available on the market.11 The different backgrounds of these models notwithstanding, they have a lot in common. The first stresses the increasing exploitation of apprentices as cheap workforce, implying a process of de-skilling. For different reasons (subcontracting rather than concentration trends), the second model also implies a process of de-skilling, at least when looking at the individual apprentices (who each learned a smaller set of skills in the “marked-based” situation) rather than at the aggregate level. Moreover, both imply a causality in which an expanding sector in an expanding city undergoes transformations with regard to learning. However, the case of Antwerp shows that similar transformations took place in a traditional trade in a declining city. We will show that there was actually a concentration of learning in a limited set of large ateliers alongside the dispersion of apprentices in a set of specialized ateliers. Furthermore, the implied connection between concentration and subcontracting on the one hand, and de-skilling on the other seems difficult to sustain. While both concentration and specialization are often considered to have caused de-skilling, especially in the older literature, the example of Antwerp gold- and silversmithing shows that neither did so by necessity. On the one hand, dispersion of learning in specialized ateliers did not exclude the teaching of basic skills in the same ateliers. On the other hand, ateliers that attracted larger numbers of apprentices could offer an extremely wide range of skills, including highly valued ones. In other words, a combination of both models emerges, although without a straightforward connection between either of these models and de-skilling. Antwerp provides an interesting point of contrast to the cities on which the two older models were based. Highlighting the complexity and fluidity of the early modern learning market, our case study shows that even in a traditional sector in a stagnant city, contracts were customized in response to market conditions. From about 1650 on, Antwerp developed from an international “fashion maker” into a “fashion taker” with only regional importance.

11

production in Western industrialization, eds. Charles F. Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 86–87. Giorgio Riello, A foot in the past. Consumers, producers and footwear in the long eighteenth century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 184ff.

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While ­Antwerp had built a reputation as a leading centre of luxury production in the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth century, this position was soon lost afterwards – with Antwerp entrepreneurs increasingly facing the importation of novelties from Brussels and, in particular, Paris.12 The crisis of the second half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century affected such luxury trades as diamond cutting, painting, silk weaving and gold- and silversmithing in particular. In all likelihood, this urged individual artisans to specialize, thereby increasing the differences between masters. Although the state of the art does not allow us to reconstruct the precise evolution of specialization and subcontracting in this trade, prior research has revealed that large merchant-entrepreneurs and wholesalers in other sectors in Antwerp in this period tended to absorb small independent producers in their growing networks.13 Simultaneously, specialization became an important strategy in the local luxury trades.14 It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that different forms of specialization surface in the apprenticeship contracts. In the next section, we will see that specialization was common in this sector, although it cannot be reduced to de-skilling. At least some of the apprentices learning specialized skills appear to have been highly skilled, and they were, in any case, prepared to pay large sums of money for their training. Moreover, we will see that it is reductive to simply distinguish between traditional ateliers and ateliers in which 12

13

14

Alfons K.L. Thijs, “Antwerp’s luxury industries: The pursuit of profit and artistic sensitivity,” in Antwerp. Story of a metropolis, 16th-17th century, ed. Jan Van Der Stock (Antwerp: Snoeck-Ducaju, 1993); Ilja Van Damme, “Het vertrek van Mercurius: historiografische en hypothetische verkenningen van het economisch wedervaren van Antwerpen in de tweede helft van de zeventiende eeuw,” neha-Jaarboek voor economische, bedrijfsen techniekgeschiedenis (2003); Idem, “Changing consumer preferences and evolutions in retailing: Buying and selling consumer durables in Antwerp (c. 1648–c. 1748),” in Buyers and sellers. Retail circuits and practices in medieval and early modern Europe, eds. Bruno Blondé, Peter Stabel, Jon Stobart, and Ilja Van Damme (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006). Alfons K.L. Thijs, De zijdenijverheid te Antwerpen in de zeventiende eeuw (Brussels: Pro ­Civitate, 1969); Idem, Van “werkwinkel” tot “fabriek.” De textielnijverheid te Antwerpen (einde 15de–begin 19de eeuw) (Brussels: Pro Civitate, 1987); Harald Deceulaer, “Entrepreneurs in the guilds: Ready to wear clothing and subcontracting in late 16th and early 17th century ­Antwerp,” Textile History 31 (2000); Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly, “Subcontracting in guild-based export trades, ­Thirteenth–eighteenth centuries,” in Guilds, innovation, and the ­European economy, 1400–1800, eds. Stephan R. Epstein and Maarten Prak (Cambridge: cup, 2008); Bert De Munck, “One counter and your own account: Redefining illicit labour in early modern Antwerp,” Urban History 37, no. 1 (2010). Annelies de Bie, “The paradox of the Antwerp rose: Symbol of decline or token of craftsmanship?” in Innovation and creativity, eds. Karel Davids and Bert De Munck; Also: Thijs, “Antwerp’s Luxury,” 105–113.

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specialized skills were acquired. In order to present a more nuanced view, we will subsequently zoom in on 48 gold- and silversmith masters for whom more than one apprentice contract was found in the notary files between 1600 and 1800 (representing a total of 159 contracts).15 What emerges from this analysis partly resembles the model of Cottereau and Riello. Some masters did indeed offer mostly specialized skills, whether they were a cheaper skill such as gold beating and wire drawing or more expensive ones such as diamond setting, engraving and gilding. Nevertheless, even more ateliers appear to have offered either a rather standardized set of basic skills or a very broad range of different skills, both more general and specialized. In fact, a type of “learning atelier” seems to have emerged, which offered an extremely broad range of skills through customized contracts and, thus, attracted wandering apprentices and journeymen from elsewhere. In all fairness, these trends may be overrepresented in our database. While according to our estimates approximately only one third of the apprentices registered a contract before a notary even in this sector, we are left in the dark about the reason for doing so (or not).16 In our view, the bias is likely to favour the acquisition of specific skills – either because these contracts were more expensive (or shorter) or because the apprentice in question had already acquired basic (more general) skills elsewhere and had moved to Antwerp in order to specialize. The assumption here is that the parties involved turned to notaries for expensive contracts or when they were not acquainted with each other. In theory, specialization (and de-skilling) can be underrepresented too, but one additional factor contradicts this hypothesis. As most contracts were found in a period in which the guilds faced problems of legitimacy, the number of registered contracts would seem to have been conversely related to the power of the guilds, which had, since the sixteenth century, ruled in favour of standardized contracts in terms of duration and learning content. Thus, we assume that the non-registered contracts are more likely to have concerned basic, more general skills. If this assumption holds, a more representative dataset would show less pronounced trends towards specialization and the acquisition of more specific skills.

15 16

Two of these masters were both a gold- and silversmith (J. Bonecroy and J. Goubou) and will, for the sake of clarity, be omitted. A list with apprentices is preserved only for the years between 1726 and 1737, when thirty-­ seven apprentices were registered, while twelve contracts were found in the notary files: see City Archives Antwerp (hereafter: caa), Gilden en Ambachten (ga) 4490. In the diamond sector, 25 per cent of apprentices seem to have concluded a contract before a ­notary: see De Bie, “The Paradox.”

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Specializations versus Basic Knowledge?

In the following pages, we will distinguish “transferable” skills from “specialized” skills. The former term refers to a set of basic skills, which are supposed to be useful within the confines of the trade of gold- and silversmithing (in this region) as a whole. Specialized skills, in our use of the term, are more specific, in that they are of value only to a limited number of firms or masters within the trade.17 33 per cent of the preserved contracts (80 out of 244) make explicit reference to such a specialization. Gold beating, chasing and diamond setting figure most prominently, accounting for respectively 22 per cent, 23 per cent and 38 per cent of all specializations (see Table 2.1). Moreover, in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the ratio of contracts geared towards specialized skills rose, from 27 per cent to 43 percent. However, it would be facile to connect all specializations to a type of deskilling. Instead, a distinction should be made between specializations. One of the more prominent specializations was gold beating, which was a relatively simple task consisting of making thin golden leaves by forging, rolling and eventually beating the gold with a round-faced hammer. This must have been a low-skilled job. While time and muscle were the most important assets in the performance of this job, long-term contracts that did not specify a charge for learning stand out. 13 out of 17 contracts were free of charge, while more than half (nine out of seventeen) were for periods of six years or longer. Given that a trade-off between the duration and the price of apprenticeship-contracts ­often existed to enable masters who hired poorer apprentices to recover their investment, the contracts indicate that these apprentices were, generally speaking, less ­affluent.18 The average price for learning gold beating was 17

18

We deliberately avoid Gary Becker’s model of general versus specific skills, which implies a context of perfect competition at odds with our case study (i.e. a trade with a limited number of masters in the city and with migration bringing about substantial costs in time and effort). Our use of the term “transferable” also differs from Margaret Stevens’s alternative model for on-the-job training with imperfect competition, in which skills are “transferable” as soon as they can be applied in more than one firm. See Margaret Stevens, “A theoretical model of on-the-job training with imperfect competition,” Oxford Economic Papers New Series 46, no. 4 (1994). Also Epstein, “Craft guilds,” 690; Wallis, “Apprenticeship,” n45. See Grießinger and Reith, “Lehrlinge,” 153; Reinhold Reith, “Zur beruflichen Sozialisation im Handwerk vom 18. Jahrhundert bis ins frühe 20. Jahrhundert. Umrisse einer Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Lehrlinge,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 76 (1989); Steve Rappaport, Worlds within worlds: Structures of life in sixteenth-century London (Cambridge: University Press, 1989), 321. In the Southern Netherlands, this inverse relation has been noticed in the confection sector. Harald Deceulaer, Pluriforme patronen

43

Wandering about the Learning Market Table 2.1

Numbers and shares of the contracts that mention a specialisation on the total number of contracts and per century.

specialisation wire drawing chasing engraving & gilding big work Tableware buckles & buttons diamond-setting thimble making gold beating total specialisations on total

N

%

17th c

%

18th c

%

5 18 5 1 1 1 30 2 17 80 244

6% 23% 6% 1% 1% 1% 38% 3% 22% 100% 33%

5 15 0 1 0 0 7 0 14 42 155

12% 36% 0% 2% 0% 0% 17% 0% 33% 100% 27%

0 3 5 0 1 1 23 2 3 38 89

0% 8% 13% 0% 3% 3% 61% 5% 8% 100% 43%

Source: Database De Kerf & De Munck

only 43.5 ­guilders (or 7 guilders a year) in the period between 1650 and 1700, when most of these contracts were concluded, while goldsmithing on average cost 198 guilders (or 44 guilders a year). Other less expensive skills were wire drawing, which cost 78 guilders on average (or 27 guilders a year), and buckle and button making, for which we find somewhat longer and rather cheap contracts.19 (See Annex 2.1 for the figures on prices.) In contrast, two other prominent specializations were diamond setting and chasing, which were more complex and usually more expensive than the

19

en een verschillende snit. Sociaal-economische, institutionele en culturele transformaties in de kledingsector in Antwerpen, Brussel en Gent, 1585–1800 (Amsterdam: Stichting Beheer iisg, 2001), 281–282; with the tinsmiths and plumbers: De Munck, Technologies, 41–48; in lace production: Marguerite Coppens, “Lois et usages réglant les rapports des différents acteurs de l’industrie dentellière dans les Pays-Bas autrichiens au XVIIIe siècle,” Belgisch tijdschrift voor oudheidkunde en kunstgeschiedenis 65 (1996); and Idem, “Réglementation de l’apprentissage du métier de dentellière sous l’Ancien Régime: quelques exemples,” in Revue belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art 67 (1998); and in the textile sector: Thijs, Van werkwinkel tot fabriek, 281. Additional references in De Munck, Technologies, 43–44. All averages were calculated based on all contracts with payments (thus excluding fortyfour free-of-charge contracts plus two contracts which do not explicitly mention apprenticing). This significantly overestimates the average prices paid, but the free-of-charge contracts often concern journeymen who learned some additional skills (see below). Including them would thus also result in a somewhat distorted image.

44

De Munck and De Kerf

­average. An apprentice who learned chasing in the period 1650–1700, for example, paid 193 guilders on average (or 54 guilders a year) while someone who received a basic training in silversmithing only paid an average of 156 guilders (or 42 a year). With regard to learning to set diamonds, the difference was even higher. During the first half of the eighteenth century, an apprentice paid an average of 389 guilders (or 97 a year) for that skill, compared to 243 guilders (or 67 a year) to learn goldsmithing.20 From those who concentrated on engraving and gilding for four years, half paid more or less the average and the rest considerably more than the average. Remarkably, moreover, the most expensive of specializations became more prominent over time. While chasing and gold beating represented 36 per cent and 33 per cent of the specialized contracts in the seventeenth century, their respective shares dropped to only 8 per cent in the eighteenth century. The share of diamond-setters in the total number of contracts referring to a specialization, in contrast, rose from 17 per cent in the seventeenth to 61 per cent in the eighteenth century. Given that this specialization attracted 56 per cent of the new apprentices in the goldsmith’s craft in the eighteenth century (compared to 13 per cent in the period between 1650 and 1699), we may assume that specializing in diamond setting was an important strategy to counter the crisis of the late seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century.21 While some of the trends revealed here at first sight conform to the model of Cottereau and Riello, we cannot simply conclude even from the relative rise in the number of diamond setters that a similar market-based model emerged. To start with, contracts with a standard duration of four years were on the rise as well. While the share of the short-term contracts (with a duration of one to three years) fell from 34 per cent in 1650–1700 to an average of 18 per cent in the whole eighteenth century, the share of the “regular” contracts with a duration of four years more than doubled from 29 per cent to 64 per cent in 1700–1750 to

20

21

The price for goldsmithing was strongly reduced at that time because of the presence of a proportionally high number of free-of-charge contracts. When these are excluded, the average price to learn goldsmithing was 312 guilders (or 84 a year), which is still lower than the price to learn diamond settting. According to Dora Schlugleit, Geschiedenis van het Antwerpse diamantslijpersambacht (Antwerp: Guillaume, 1935), 149, the Antwerp diamond sector was thriving at that time and went into an even deeper recession after 1750. H. Denuncé, in contrast, assumed it was very successful. See “James Dorme,” Antwerpsch archievenblad 1929, 227. Another such specialization was thimble making, although here mechanization prevented expansion in numerical terms. During the eighteenth century, the De Meester brothers were able to deliver thimbles in large quantities to clients all over the country. See caa, Notaries’ Archive (N) 3090, fo. 457 (1755) and N. 4545, nr. 6 (1770).

Wandering about the Learning Market

45

level at 55 per cent in 1750–1795 (see annex 2).22 Since four years was the term prescribed by the guild for a full basic training program, we can assume that such contracts aimed mainly at reproducing what we term transferable skills. With generic references such as “learning the craft of” or “learning the art of” (generally adding such qualifications as “and all related aspects” or “without concealing anything”), a great deal of the contracts implicitly referred to a bundle of skills ranging from casting to chasing, planishing, burnishing and embossing, as was the case in Paris.23 Still, while the “dark number” of our contracts may typically consist of oral and unregistered contracts in which a set of basic transferable skills was passed, four-year contracts may have implied very different types of technical knowledge acquisition too. Indeed, while 33 per cent of all contracts c­ oncerned specializations, 31 per cent of all four-year contracts were for specializations too. 57 per cent of the latter concerned diamond setting (seventeen out of thirty). It would thus be reductive to assume that shorter contracts involved specialized skills while longer contracts usually implied the acquisition of transferable skills. Even within the category of four-year contracts that did not ­concern a specialization (thus excluding the impact of duration on price), there are marked differences in the prices paid, which suggests that even in these cases the total package of transferred skills differed. Among the apprentices who learned goldsmithing for four years, Balthasar de Coster for instance only had to pay 36 guilders in 1638 while Philip Bunnens was obliged to pay 600 guilders only eleven years later. During the second half of the century, Christiaen Smidts was charged 200 guilders in 1681, which was remarkably cheaper than the 480 guilders Henrico F. Guillemont was due in 1695. Among those who learned silversmithing, Daniel Lups was charged 192 guilders in 1674 while J­acobus F. van Meurs paid 450 in 1699 and Jean F. Laureyssens was due 158 guilders in 1738. Jacobus I. de Coninck was charged 533 guilders one year later.24 In theory, the factor whether boarding was part of the contract could help explain these differences. Most researchers still consider apprenticeship as being closely intertwined with upbringing and socialization.25 Social historians 22

Among the silversmiths, 43 per cent were four-year contracts. Among the goldsmiths this was 39 per cent. 23 Michele Bimbenet-Privat, “Goldsmiths’ apprenticeship during the first half of the seventeenth century: the situation in Paris,” in Goldsmiths, silversmiths and bankers. Innovation and the transfer of skill, 1500–1800, ed. David Mitchell (London and Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd. and Centre for Metropolitan History, 1995), 27. 24 See N 3843; N 3665, fo. 80; N 200, fo. 53 and fo. 63; N 162, fo. 85; N 3037; N 1602, fo. 86; N 2980 and N 1209, fo. 33. 25 Rappaport, Worlds within worlds, 232–238; Joan Lane, Apprenticeship in England, 1600–1914 (London: Taylor and Francis, 1996); Ilana Krausman Ben-Amos, Adolescence and youth in

46

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tend to stress both the patriarchal authority of the father and the disciplinary aspects of learning on the shop floor.26 Although there are signs that boarding as a practice declined in some sectors during the early modern period, the majority of the apprentices still boarded in the eighteenth century. In our sample of apprenticeship contracts, this was the case for 82 per cent of the arrangements.27 As was to be expected, those who did not lodge with their master paid less. Non-boarders in silversmithing paid an average total sum of only 109 guilders against 225 guilders for boarders. Among apprentices in goldsmithing and diamond setting, this was 115 guilders versus 315 guilders. As a result, the sheer price of food and lodging must have been an important factor in the price of learning. Nevertheless, the five apprentices in our sample who specialized in chasing on four-year contracts between 1671 and 1681 and who, moreover, all boarded with their master, paid very different amounts, ranging from 168 to 360 guilders.28 The same was true for those who learned to set diamonds, with prices for four-year boarding contracts varying between 300 and 533 guilders during the period 1707–1734 and between 300 and 700 guilders during the interval 1770–1776.29 So while both duration and boarding played a significant role, the differences in price remained huge even when excluding these factors. Part of the variation between these contracts was due to the experience and knowledge level of apprentices when entering an apprenticeship contract. A substantial number of the apprentices who concluded shorter and even four-year contracts had already acquired experience with another master or in their fathers’ workshop. This becomes clear when looking at how the contracts describe the learnable skills. While most contracts refer to either transferable skills (mentioning only “learning the craft of” or “learning the art of”) or specialized skills, these contracts often literally stipulate that the apprentice in question would “perfect” or “advance” himself further in the trade.30 Half (thirty-two out of sixty-four) of the shorter contracts concerned apprentices

26 27

28 29 30

early modern England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994); Paul Griffiths, Youth and authority. Formative experiences in England, 1560–1640 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). See e.g. Kaplan, “l‘apprentissage”; Grießinger and Reith, “Lehrlinge”; Reith, “Zur beruflichen Sozialisation”. In the eighteenth century, there may have been an evolution towards non-boarding: in our sample, 16 per cent did not board in 1600–1649, 13 per cent in 1650–1699, 9 per cent in 1700–1749, and 39 per cent in 1750–1795. See also (for additional references): De Munck, “From brotherhood community,” 1–20. N 3145 fo. 19; N 196; N 4323; N 4679 and 4148). N 2733 fo. 20; N 2308 fo. 557; N 2494 and 4580 nr. 1; N 4304 nr. 1 and 2495; N 133; N 959 nr. 45; N 960 nr. 80; N 962 nr. 67; N 1255 nr. 7. Some examples of “advancing”: caa, N 4640, fo. 18; N 4641, fo. 243 and N 1641, fo. 21. Some examples of “perfecting”: caa, N 4102, no. 1; N 4103, no. 76 and N 4104, no. 14.

Wandering about the Learning Market

47

who had previous experience. At least 60 per cent of the one-year and 14 per cent of the two- and three-year contracts were aimed at perfecting the apprentice.31 Unsurprisingly, older apprentices were overrepresented among shorter contracts. The average age of apprentices entering one- and two-year contracts was twenty-two and twenty-one respectively, compared to about sixteen for three- and four-year contracts. A last indication is that these older apprentices entered into cheaper contracts on average, suggesting that they partially paid their master with their (skilled) labour. The average total price for apprentices without previous experience was 163 guilders, while this was only 85 guilders for apprentices with previous experience. The large variation in prices suggests that they closely responded to market conditions, i.e. the resources and opportunities of apprentices on the one hand and the scarcity of and demand for specific sets of skills on the other. The contracts appear to have been customized to an extreme extent, indicating both the skills learned and the skills already acquired before – in addition to other factors known to have affected pricing, such as boarding and duration. This is not to say that a distinction can simply be made between ateliers offering transferable skills and others offering only specialized skills. Nor can a distinction be made between contracts in which a patriarchal relationship was still implied (the longer, or four-to-five-year contracts) and contracts resulting from market incentives (either reducing apprentices to a cheap workforce or a client buying skills). The difference in price within the category of four-year contracts and the variegated profile of the apprentices suggest a more complex picture. Different masters may have offered different types of skills beyond the model of transferable versus specific skills. In order to shed light on this complex issue, it is necessary to look into learning at the level of the different ateliers. In the next section, we will therefore zoom in on 48 ateliers for which we have found more than one apprenticeship contract. 3

A Divergent Learning Market

Graphs 2.1 and 2.2 suggest that masters often had a target price. Most masters demanded a fixed price or prices that differed within a relatively small range.32 Anthony Lepies, for instance, charged two apprentices the sum of 300 guilders and another 310 guilders for a four-year training programme. The same was true for, among others, Nicolaes Baerts (450 and 480 guilders), Jacobus 31 32

This is based on information in the contracts, except in two cases, for which we have found earlier contracts. In order to have a complete view on each master, we include contracts free of charge here.

48

De Munck and De Kerf 160 min-max

140

total prices

120 100 80 60 40 20 (3) (111) 1749-1771 - JB Cassée

1755-1755 - Van Huckelroij (2) (100)

(4) (71)

1739-1743 - T van der Motten (2) (133)

(2) (100)

1735-1743 - L Hannocet

(2) (80) 1724-1726 - J Mertens

1735-1739 - JB Everaerts

(2) (90) 1706-1713 - H Adams

1732-1737 - M van Deuren (2) (63)

(4) (75) 1706-17015 - A Lepies

1724-1739 - L van Gemert (3) (88)

(2) (116) 1699-1703 - N Baerts

(2) (50) 1685-1686 - G Lussie

masters

1685-1715 - D van Beughen (2) (72)

(3) (71)

(2) (48)

1676-1681 - J Hennekin

1674-1681 - W Somers

1677-1678 - JB Hennekin

(5) (18)

(2) (49)

1669-1682 - P Lefever

(5) (31) 1667-1674 - J Smidts III

1661-1661 - J Smit II

1669-1671 - J van Hattem (3) (44)

(2) (60)

1653-1658 - N Willemsen

1664-1682 - G van Offeroy (6) (74)

(2) (50)

(2) (79)

1653-1655 - D Dardenne

(2) (48) 1642-1645 - H Dardenne

1650-1658 - A Van Schoor (3) (25)

(2) (0)

(2) (19)

1628-1634 - P Jacobs

1634-1637 - G de Putter

1615-1639 - D van Hasselt (3) (38)

0

Graph 2.1 Range of total prices of contracts concluded with master silversmiths from whom more than one contract is preserved (Number of contracts and average price indicated in parentheses). Source: Database De Kerf & De Munck

Renders (prices between 450 and 500 guilders), Nicolas Willemsen (between 288 and 340 guilders), Wirick Somers (between 192 and 200 guilders), and Jan Baptist Everaerts (twice 400 guilders).33 Concomitantly, average prices could differ substantially across ateliers. While Thomas Van der Motten, for instance, charged both his apprentices the large sum of 133 guilders a year and Nicolaes Baerts concluded one contract of 113 and one of 120 guilders, other masters such as Peter Jacobs, Jacobus F. Mertens and Jacobus Goubou only concluded contracts without charge.34 Taking into account the period in which each master operated, fourteen masters concluded rather cheap contracts (among whom only four goldsmiths) while another fourteen were markedly more

33 34

Lepies: N 3898 (1706), N 218 (1709), N 667 (1715); Baerts: N 1602 fo. 86 (1699), N 1921 fo. 89 (1703); Willemsen: N 2607 fo. 12 (1653), N 2612 (1658); Somers: N 196 (1681), N 3037 (1674); Everaerts: N 1462 (1735), N 2028 (1739). Like Joris Bonecroy, Jacob Goubou is not included in the graphs because both of these masters hired gold- and as silversmith apprentices. Goubou concluded five contracts free of charge between 1669 and 1679. Bonecroy had four apprentices between 1619 and 1624, of which the one paying least paid 20 and the one paying most paid 50 guilders a year.

49

(2) (560)

(4) (400)

1765-1770 - JB Pladis

1773-1779 - F Ollier

1789-1795 - JF Mertens

(2) (550) 1754-1770 - F Derbij

1749-1767 - M Dumonceau (7) (200)

(3) (350) 1717-1737 - P Renders

(6) (300) 1675-1695 - D Rachell

1713-1723 - L van Lamoen (2) (271)

(17) (192) 1670-1680 - G de Rijck

(6) (425)

(5) (230) 1663-1673 - JB Herck IV

1708-1720 - J Renders

(2) (213) 1660-1670 - J Leys

1698-1706 - P Huybrechts II (3) (42)

(2) (300) 1660-1670 - A Herck I

(3) (300)

(3) (360) 1639-1649 - A Scheipers

1686-1699 - I Geeraerts

(2) (78)

1678-1680 - J de Monniers (2) (175)

masters

(3) (0)

max min

800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0

1638-1639 - C Boghe

total prices

Wandering about the Learning Market

Graph 2.2 Range of total prices of contracts concluded with master goldsmiths and diamond-setters from whom more than one contract is preserved. Source: Database De Kerf & De Munck

e­ xpensive (among whom were also four goldsmiths) than the average price per year as shown in annex 1.35 At first sight, the differences between workshops are to be explained by either the variation in prices of specializations or a distinction between masters providing transferable skills and others providing certain types of specialized skills (which could be either cheap or expensive). In particular, a difference between specializations can be observed. The least expensive masters were largely specialized in gold beating (e.g. Jan Baptist Simons, Guillielmus Jacques Jacobs, Adriaen Jacobs and Job Gillemans) and wire drawing.36 Expensive 35

36

When comparing the prices charged by each individual master with the average prices, the overall increase over time must be taken into account. In what follows, the average prices per master or the price of individual contracts will, therefore, be compared with the average prices of each of the four periods (1600–1650, 1650–1700, 1700–1750, 1750–1790) which can also be found in annex 1. The latter is based on a total of 200 apprenticeship contracts (this is without the free-of-charge contracts). A notable example is the internationally renowned wire drawer Ambrosius van Schoor, who specialized in the production of twisted filigree candlesticks and chandeliers

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a­ teliers typically offered other specializations. The two expensive contracts of Jean Bapt. Cassé mention engraving and gilding.37 Other expensive masters included Michiel J. Dumonceau, Franciscus J. Derbij, Artus Herck, and Francois Ollier, all of whom concluded contracts to teach diamond setting.38 Nevertheless, our data again do not entirely match the model of Cottereau and Riello. Firstly, some masters offered – and continued to offer – transferable skills in rather standardized contracts. In the eighteenth century, masters such as Leopoldus van Lamoen simply trained their apprentices to become goldsmiths.39 Among silversmiths, the dissemination of transferable skills is likely to have been on the rise – perhaps due to a reorientation to “small work.” Although several silversmiths still focused on the production of reliquaries, monstrances and other religious or secular large works, a great many of the silversmiths from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century concentrated on manufacturing small products, such as bracelets, rings, crosses, buckles, buttons, cutlery, salt and pepper shakers, etcetera.40 Moreover, this category is very likely to be underrepresented, given the bias toward atypical contracts in our database. Secondly, other masters in our sample had a more variable profile. Instead of registering only expensive or only cheap contracts, the same master could ask a high price from one apprentice while demanding only a small sum from a second and charging more or less the average from yet another apprentice. Abraham Scheipers, for example, charged Jacques Libaerts a very low total sum of only 125 guilders for a four-year contract starting in 1639, while another apprentice, Philips Bunnens, had to pay the exceedingly high amount of 600 guilders for four years of apprenticeship starting in 1649. Something similar was true for, among others, the very productive silversmith Lambertus ­Hannocet, who charged Jean Laureyssens only 40 guilders a year for a four-year training

37 38 39 40

in ­silver which were even sold to merchants in Paris. See Process Supplements 6748 (1666) and N 591 (1667). One of these chandeliers cost 1600 guilders. The low or absent tuitions were in part due to the apprentices being family. Moreover, one of them must have already been partially trained in his father’s workshop: See N 587 (12/06/1658); N 3484, fo. 152 (21/04/1650); N 802, fo. 20, 24, 29v (29/03, 10/10 and 18/10/1662); N 588 (06/1662). caa, N 1390, no. 64, 27 November 1749; and N 4102, no. 1, 3 January 1771. caa, N 4506, 26 January 1751; N 4128, 24 July 1754; and N 594, 9 September 1670; N 959, no. 45, 21 June 1773; N 960, no. 80, 31 October 1774; N 962, no. 67, 30 October 1776; N 965, no. 45, 13 April 1779. N 1990 fo. 147 and N 4310 no. 20. See subcontracting database by Raoul De Kerf.

Wandering about the Learning Market

51

starting in 1738, while demanding 88 guilders a year from Leonardus Ferrier for another four-year apprenticeship term starting in 1743. So, while the price of learning differed both among and within ateliers in Antwerp, the workshops cannot be divided into workshops offering different specializations, or into workshops offering transferable skills versus workshops offering specialized skills. Nor was there a linear process of de-skilling. The diminishing share of gold beating could be seen as an example of de-skilling due to process and product innovations. It is partly attributable to the invention of a rolling machine in late seventeenth-century England, which made the heavy work easier, and partly to the decreasing popularity of gilded silver tableware, which nearly disappeared after 1700.41 Something similar may apply to chasing. Antwerp probate inventories show that traditional items such as large and highly decorated silver plates and beakers were increasingly replaced by spoons, forks and salt shakers by the first half of the eighteenth century.42 Unsurprisingly, therefore, the share of silversmiths and chasers renowned for their large and highly decorated religious work such as Jan Baptist and Josephus Hennekin, Henry Dardenne, Peter Jacobs, and Wierick Somers, declined after 1700. At the same time, producers of smaller profane silverware including Henricus Adams, Lambertus van Gemert and Matthias van Deuren took the lead. Except for Anthony Lepies in the early eighteenth century and maybe Jean Baptist Everaerts somewhat later, most eighteenth-century silversmiths in our sample concentrated on smaller profane silverware while religious items only took second place even among those who still made them.43 De-skilling, then, may have been a more general trend in this sector, albeit connected to specialization in a specific way. On the one hand, chasing may 41 42

43

Anne-Mie Adriaensens, Zilverwerk: mooi gemaakt – goed onderhouden (Antwerp: Museum Sterckshof, 1995), 5 and 24; Idem, Van scotelgenoot tot tafelgenoot (Antwerp: Museum Sterckshof, 1996), 9. Bruno Blondé and Inneke Baatsen, “Zilver in Antwerpen. Drie eeuwen particulier zilverbezit in context,” in Zilver in Antwerpen: de handel, het ambacht en de klant (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 95–125. See also Bruno Blondé and Ilja Van Damme, “Een crisis als uitdaging? Kleinhandelsevoluties en verbruiksveranderingen te Antwerpen (ca. 1648 – ca. 1748),” Tijdschrift voor sociale en economische geschiedenis 4, no.1 (2007). For the influence of Paris on the changing consumer patterns: Cissie Fairchilds, “The production and marketing of populuxe goods in eighteenth-century Paris,” in Consumption and the world of goods, eds. John Brewer and Roy Porter (New York: Routledge, 1994). For its influence on the Southern Netherlands: Ilja Van Damme, “Zotte verwaandheid. Over Franse verleiding en Zuid-Nederlands onbehagen, 1650–1750),” in Het verderf van Parijs, eds. Raf De Bont and Tom Verschaffel (Leuven: University Press, 2004). For an overview, see database of De Kerf.

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have transformed from a highly valued specialization which, at least for the most artful items, was outsourced to a handful of exceptional artists, into a skill that was part of the total package. On the other hand, however, the total package appears to have included only a smaller and more standardized range of products, which could eventually even be termed a specialization itself.44 In this vein, a substantial number of the small workers worked as subcontractors to large wholesalers, as was the case with, for instance, Jacobus van Bellinghen, who regularly produced buttons commissioned by Michiel Goubou iii. Another example of a gold- and silversmith who contracted several of his colleagues was Gaspar Heylens, who asked them to produce cutlery and jewels for him.45 Still, an alternative path materialized as well. Large-scale masters often offered specific skills next to transferable skills. Some specialized masters such as Franchois Ollier trained diamond setters exclusively. However, – even disregarding the likely bias towards specialized skills – diamond setters such as Jacobus Renders, Jan Baptist Herck iv and Michiel Dumonceau frequently taught diamond setting to some of their pupils while training others in simple goldsmithing. In a contract between Peter Huybrechts ii and Jacob Mertens iii, it is clearly stipulated that the apprentice would learn goldsmithing and not diamond setting.46 The most notable example in our case study is the workshop of Guilliam De Rijck, for whom nineteen contracts were found dated between 1670 and 1680. The range of skills that could be learned on his shop floor was quite impressive. De Rijck was not only a goldsmith, but also a painter, engraver and art dealer. His contracts not only refer to the “craft” of gold- and silversmithing, but also to the “art” of goldsmithing, sometimes within the same phrase.47 The contract of apprentice Judocus van Hencxthoven, makes a clear distinction between learning the craft of gold- and silversmithing and learning “the art of the master.”48 It is thus not a coincidence that the contracts with De Rijck sometimes included drawing, which, at the time, was a highly coveted skill that not every master could offer.49 44

45 46 47 48 49

As was the case with Carolus Desruelles, who had already learned the basics of silversmithing in another atelier, but was still prepared to pay a high sum in 1713 for a two-year specialization in the production of fashionable tableware at the atelier of Henricus Adams. See N 3070 (18/11/1713). See Privilegiekamer (P) 7–12350 and N 3975 (23/07/1692). caa, N 3175, fo. 146 (1706). “te leeren het ampt en de conste van goutsmeden.” caa, N 4419, fo. 1. “de genotene montcosten, het leeren van de stiel ende conste des eerste comparant” (the master). caa, N 4641, fo. 21. caa, N 4641, fo. 53 and N 4642, fo. 1. In addition to the nineteen contracts to learn goldsmithing, three contracts with painting-apprentices are preserved. De Munck, Technologies, Ch. 6.5 (with additional references).

Wandering about the Learning Market

53

In addition to the fragmentation and dispersal of skills across specialized ateliers, the Antwerp case thus points to a complementary evolution in which learning gradually concentrated in a limited number of ateliers. Moreover, while specialization could involve highly valued skills, the concentration of apprentices in larger ateliers was not necessarily connected to de-skilling either. It would seem that the atelier of Guilliam De Rijck was a genuine “learning atelier,” the reputation of which attracted multiple apprentices.50 While these findings may again partly be induced by the bias in our database, earlier research based on more representative information in registration books of guilds has pointed to concentration trends during the eighteenth century as well. While the difference between large and small masters increased, the ­larger masters did not only hire a larger share of the total workforce, but a larger share of the apprentices as well.51 This cannot be explained by the absence of subcontracting, either. Networks of cooperation, concentration and subcontracting were clearly ubiquitous in this sector and in this respect the Antwerp gold- and silversmiths did not differ much from those in expanding centres such as London and Paris in the seventeenth and eighteenth century.52 Additional sources such as probate inventories, testaments, and account books suggest that subcontracting (as opposed to cooperation between ateliers) did become more important. Among the renowned artists who delivered copious silverware reliquaries and monstrances to churches, religious institutions, and guilds and brotherhoods in the first half of the seventeenth century, cooperation had been an

50 51

52

Interestingly, in 1670, the guild charged De Rijck for having more than two apprentices. When De Rijck replied that they were journeymen, the guild board protested the practice of training older journeymen (caa, PS 965). See Deceulaer, Pluriforme patronen, 268–272; De Munck, Technologies, 46–47. The reverse would seem to have happened as well; see Marc Absolon, Prosopografische benadering van het ambacht van de timmerlieden en schrijnwerkers te Brugge in de achttiende eeuw, 2 vols. (unpublished master’s thesis: Brussels: vub, 1994), 98. For London: David Mitchell, “Innovation and the transfer of skill in the goldsmiths’ trade in Restoration London,” in Goldsmiths ed. Mitchell (Stroud: Oxford, 1995), 14–16; Helen Clifford, “The King’s arms and feathers. A case study exploring the networks of manufacture operating in the London goldsmiths’ trade in the eighteenth century,” in Goldsmiths, ed. Mitchell, 84–95; and Idem, Silver in London. The Parker and Wakelin partnership, 1760–1776 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004); For Paris, see Bimbenet-Privat, “Goldsmiths’ Apprenticeship,’” 23–31; Carolyn Sargentson, Merchants and luxury markets. The marchands merciers of eighteenth-century Paris (London: Victoria and Albert Museum Studies in the History of Art and Design, 1996), 18–43.

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important business s­trategy.53 Yet, while the heavy traditional designs were increasingly replaced by finer pieces of silver (whether jewels, tableware, or accessories) from the mid-seventeenth century on, references to cooperation diminished and almost disappeared after 1723. Instead, subcontracting to small workshops, including sending gold- and silverware to specialized diamond setters, became the dominant form of cooperation. Diamond setters and engravers worked to order for other goldsmiths. Testaments often mention debts to masters for having produced small ware (mainly tableware) and jewels for other master gold- and silversmiths. Gaspar Heylens, for example, had debts to many other masters who had made tableware and jewels for him in 1692, and Cornelis van Gaesbeeck had worked to order for other important masters who still owed him money when he died.54 In short, certain renowned goldand silversmiths increasingly refrained from producing small ware themselves. This also becomes clear in judicial proceedings started by half a dozen of the important masters against the deans of the guild in 1740. The latter had seized small bracelets, rings, crosses, buckles, and buttons from their workshops because they were unmarked, which suggests that they had been commissioned by other masters.55 Clearly, then, while subcontracting did exist before the mid-seventeenth century, a number of smaller masters had started specializing in diamond setting, engraving, gilding, and thimble making to a greater extent, as well as a range of minuterien or small work that was often made to order for larger masters who offered them in their ateliers. However, market-based usage of skills as understood by Riello appears to have materialized only for jewellery set with diamonds, engraving and thimble making. For the remainder, l­earning – at least, judging by the contracts which were registered before a notary – was rather concentrated in large ateliers. Hence, our findings call for a more dynamic view of the learning market, including, but also beyond, subcontracting and specialization. For this purpose, skills already acquired before entering into a contract should also be taken into consideration. A significant number 53

54 55

Thanks to preserved contracts, we know that it took at least five different silversmiths in the early seventeenth century to make a reliquary for the Saint-Rombout’s cathedral in Mechelen, for which Wierick Somers delivered chased plates while contracting David van der Meeren to produce seventeen statues. The same Wierick Somers also chased the plates of a reliquary ordered by Marie de Medici in 1635, while his step-father did the casting, and a year later he supervised the production of a big tower monstrance for the  church of Sint-Niklaas, which was finally (partially) made by Victor de Hooghe by order of Peter Jacobs. N 2410, fo. 78; N 3452, fo. 4; N 2206, fo. 212 and N 697 (20/09/1636). See also Van Hemeldonck, “Het Antwerpse zilversmidsatelier,” 29–30. caa, N 3975 (23/07/1692); N 2248 (23/06/1699). caa, P 7-12350.

Wandering about the Learning Market

55

of the apprentices in the “learning ateliers” were immigrants, especially those who had previous experience. Overall, 20 per cent of the apprentices who learned gold- and silversmithing in Antwerp were non-natives. Of those who concluded shorter contracts (one to three years), at least 31 per cent were immigrants who had already acquired skills elsewhere. In the atelier of De Rijck, eight of the seventeen apprentices were non-natives, of which four came to advance or perfect their skills. One “apprentice” came from The Hague and paid 250 guilders in order to “work and exercise as a journeyman in the craft.”56 Undoubtedly, Antwerp’s capacity to attract apprentices was related to its position in a wider inter-urban network of gold- and silversmiths, although our data on Antwerp reveal a certain paradox. On the one hand, the skills involved in producing gold- and silverware became simpler – both more standardized and specialized. Simultaneously, Antwerp on the whole became less attractive for immigrants.57 As a result, the share of immigrant apprentices in this trade declined from 25 per cent in 1600–1650 to only 10 per cent in 1750–1796, and the average distance travelled went down from 140 km in the seventeenth century to 69 km in 1700–1770.58 However, the average prices of the contracts were on the rise, even when controlling for inflation (Annex 3).59 This suggests that Antwerp gold- and silversmiths succeeded in becoming market leaders for a specific type of product. Alternatively, however, some apprentices also paid large amounts to learn a broader range of more traditional skills, suggesting that Antwerp gold- and silversmith families possessed a range of skills passed from generation to generation despite the overall decline in the trade. It was precisely during the second half of the seventeenth century, when the heyday of the Antwerp luxury sector was coming to an end and would soon be replaced by Paris as the leading fashion centre, that many immigrants came to Antwerp to perfect their skills for one or two years, having already been fully or partially trained elsewhere. In the years between 1650 and 1700, this was the case with at least seven out of twentyseven of the foreign apprentices, several of whom had found their way to De Rijck’s workshop.60 In all likelihood, then, 56 57

58 59 60

caa, N 4641, fo. 53 (‘om als gesel te wercken ende sich te exerceren inden stiel’). Our italics. Clé Lesger, “Migratiestromen en economische ontwikkeling in vroegmoderne steden. Nieuwe burgers in Antwerpen en Amsterdam, 1541–1655,” Stadsgeschiedenis 1, no. 1 (2006); Verbeemen, “Immigratie te Antwerpen,” Mededelingen van de Geschieds- en Oudheidkundige kring voor Leuven en omgeving (Leuven: Lustrumuitgave De Brabantse Stad, 1965). De Kerf, De circulatie, 126. For the deflation, the price index created by B. Allen was used: see http://www.iisg.nl/ hpw/data.php, accessed 1 May 2018. After 1700, we found no examples of non-natives coming to Antwerp to perfect their skills for one or two years, but while the share of foreign apprentices continued to decrease

56

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some Antwerp masters continued to be attractive for skills other than the specializations developed in response to the crisis. 4 Conclusions Our analysis does, ultimately, point to a shift towards a “market-based vision of skills” but the Antwerp case cannot be framed entirely within the model proposed by Cottereau and Riello. Concentration trends in a limited number of learning ateliers existed alongside subcontracting ateliers in which only specific skills were transferred, yet an evolution towards a situation in which some ateliers did not train (or perhaps offered transferable skills only) while others trained only specialized skills fails to do justice to the complexities of the “learning market” studied here. While the sheer variety in terms of specialization cannot be ignored, large ateliers often offered a wider range of skills, including basic, specialized, and advanced skills. Unfortunately, the limited information we have about the size of the ateliers, the range of products made, the total number of journeymen and apprentices, and the actual networks of cooperation and subcontracting, ­prevents us from drawing firm conclusions about causality. What is clear, however, is that neither concentration trends nor subcontracting necessarily resulted in d­ e-skilling. While subcontracting could result in learning highly valued a­ dvanced skills in a specialized atelier, apprentices in a large “learning atelier” could learn either a broad range of basic skills or a more specific, but equally highly valued set of skills – or both. Above all, it clearly emerges from our data that contracts registered with a public notary were extremely customized, i.e., adapted to both the skills to be acquired and the skill level of the apprentices, in addition to other factors known to have affected the prices, such as term length and boarding. Although training of course implies disciplining and the reproduction of a certain work ethos, it appears to have been separate from upbringing and socialization as it was traditionally understood and, and least for some apprentices, to have gradually become more disconnected from the broader patriarchal context in which learning had been embedded. What is at stake, then, is the very definition of apprentice, which was, even in this (at least according to the model of Grießinger and Reith) “traditional”

during the eighteenth century, the share of masters with a non-Antwerp and especially with a non-Brabantine origin increased: see De Kerf, De circulatie, Chapters ii and iii.

57

Wandering about the Learning Market

sector, no longer tied to the patriarchal household and therefore connected to upbringing more than to learning. However, this is not to say that these apprentices were simply subject to proletarianization and de-skilling. While some apprentices appear to have been subject to de-skilling due to specialization, others became more advanced, acquiring either highly valued specialized skills or other additional skills. Moreover, they often did so while working as semi-skilled journeyman apprentices. These apprentices wandered from workshop to workshop or from city to city in order to learn, while making a living in what could be called “learning ateliers.” Annex 2.1 Average total prices and prices per year for apprenticeship contracts with a duration of 1 to 8 years per period and per sub-sector (in guilders, excluding free-of-charge contracts). Silversmiths

Goldsmiths

Duration in n years

average total price

average price per year

average total price

average price per year

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1600–1649 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1650–1699 1

72 80 208 183 208 157

72 40 68 46 42 26

84 120 222 195 60

42 40 55 39 10

172 60 87 155 267 200 180

47 55 43 52 66 40 30

179 72 275 213 284 324 261

44 72 137 71 69 65 43

200 185

25 52

281 276 75

35 68 75

58

De Munck and De Kerf

Silversmiths

Goldsmiths

Duration in n years

average total price

average price per year

average total price

average price per year

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1700–1749 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1750–1790 All

235

111

351 375 225 80

88 75 38 11

200 270 432

100 90 108

333

56

329

82

370

95

200

100

436

109

162 525 489 507 400

81 175 122 101 67

377 246

107 65

442 310

112 78

Source: Database De Kerf & De Munck Annex 2.2 N contracts per duration of the contracts per period. 1–3 years

1600–1650 1650–1700 1700–1750 1750–1796 1600–1796

n

%

7 42 8 7 64

23% 34% 14% 23% 26%

4 years n 10 36 37 17 100

Source: Database De Kerf & De Munck

5 years

6–12 years

%

n

%

n

%

total

32% 29% 64% 55% 41%

9 20 6 4 39

29% 16% 10% 13% 16%

5 26 7 3 41

16% 21% 12% 10% 17%

31 124 58 31 244

59

Wandering about the Learning Market 500

average total prices per decade

450

average deflated prices per decade

400 350 300 250 200 150 100

1770–1780

1760–1770

1750–1760

1740–1750

1730–1740

1720–1730

1710–1720

1700–1710

1690–1700

1680–1690

1670–1680

1660–1670

1650–1660

1640–1650

1630–1640

1620–1630

1610–1620

0

1600–1610

50

decade Annex 2.3 Average total and deflated prices per decade (in guilders, excluding free-of-charge contracts). Source: Database De Kerf & De Munck

Bibliography Absolon, Marc. Prosopografische benadering van het ambacht van de timmerlieden en schrijnwerkers te Brugge in de achttiende eeuw, 2 vols. (unpublished master’s thesis) Brussels: vub, 1994. Adriaensens, Anne-Mie. Zilverwerk: mooi gemaakt – goed onderhouden. Antwerp: Museum Sterckshof, 1995. Adriaensens, Anne-Mie. Van scotelgenoot tot tafelgenoot. Antwerp: Museum Sterckshof, 1996. Bimbenet-Privat, Michele. “Goldsmiths’ apprenticeship during the first half of the seventeenth century: The situation in Paris.” In Goldsmiths, silversmiths and bankers. Innovation and the transfer of skill, 1500–1800, edited by David Mitchell, 23–31. London and Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd. and Centre for Metropolitan History, 1995. Blondé, Bruno, and Ilja Van Damme. “Een crisis als uitdaging? Kleinhandelsevoluties en verbruiksveranderingen te Antwerpen (ca. 1648–ca. 1748).” Tijdschrift voor sociale en economische geschiedenis 4, no. 1 (2007): 61–88. Blondé, Bruno, and Inneke Baatsen. “Zilver in Antwerpen. Drie eeuwen particulier zilverbezit in context.” In Zilver in Antwerpen: de handel, het ambacht en de klant, edited by Leo De Ren, 95–125. Leuven, Peeters, 2011.

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Clifford, Helen. ” The King’s arms and feathers. A case study exploring the networks of manufacture operating in the London goldsmiths’ trade in the eighteenth century.” In Goldsmiths silversmiths and bankers: innovation and the transfer of skill, 1500–1800, edited by David Mitchell, 84–95. London and Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd. and Centre for Metropolitan History, 1995. Clifford, Helen. Silver in London. The Parker and Wakelin partnership, 1760–1776. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Coppens, Marguerite. “Lois et usages réglant les rapports des différents acteurs de l’industrie dentellière dans les Pays-Bas autrichiens au XVIIIe siècle.” Belgisch tijdschrift voor oudheidkunde en kunstgeschiedenis 65 (1996): 157–170. Coppens, Marguerite. “Réglementation de l’apprentissage du métier de dentellière sous l’Ancien Régime: quelques exemples.” Revue belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art 67 (1998): 93–112. Cottereau, Alain. “The fate of collective manufactures in the industrial world. The silk industries of Lyon and London, 1800–1850.” In World of possibilities. Flexibilities and mass production in Western industrialization, edited by Charles F. Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin, 75–152. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Davids, Karel, and Bert De Munck. Innovation and creativity in late medieval and early modern European cities. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014. De Bie, Annelies. “The paradox of the Antwerp rose: Symbol of decline or token of craftsmanship?” In Innovation and creativity in late medieval and early modern European cities, edited by Karel Davids and Bert De Munck, 269–293. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014. Deceulaer, Harald. “Entrepreneurs in the guilds: Ready to wear clothing and subcontracting in late 16th and early 17th century Antwerp.” Textile History 31 (2000): 133–149. Deceulaer, Harald. Pluriforme patronen en een verschillende snit. Sociaal-economische, institutionele en culturele transformaties in de kledingsector in Antwerpen, Brussel en Gent, 1585–1800. Amsterdam: Stichting Beheer iisg, 2001. De Kerf, Raoul. De circulatie van technische kennis in het vroegmoderne Antwerpse ambachtswezen, 1500–1800. (Unpublished Phd Thesis). Antwerp: University of Antwerp, 2013. De Munck, Bert. Technologies of learning. Apprenticeship in Antwerp from the 15th century to the end of the ancien régime. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007. De Munck, Bert. “One counter and your own account: redefining illicit labour in early modern Antwerp.” Urban History 37, no. 1 (2010a): 26–44. De Munck, Bert. “From brotherhood community to civil society? Apprentices between guild, household and the freedom of contract in early modern Antwerp.” Social History 35, no. 1 (2010b): 1–20.

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De Munck, Bert. “Gilding golden ages. Perspectives from early modern Antwerp on the guild-debate, c. 1450- c. 1650.” European Review of Economic History 15, no. 2 (2011): 221–253. Denuncé, H. “James Dorme,” Antwerpsch archievenblad 1929, 227. Epstein, Stephan R. “Craft guilds, apprenticeship, and technological change in preindustrial Europe.” Journal of Economic History 58, no. 3 (1998): 684–713. Fairchilds, Cissie. “The Production and marketing of populuxe goods in eighteenthcentury Paris.” In Consumption and the world of goods, edited by John Brewer and Roy Porter, 228–248. New York: Routledge, 1994. Grießinger, Andreas, and Reinhold Reith. “Lehrlinge im deutschen Handwerk des ausgehenden 18. Jahrhunderts. Arbeitsorganisation, Sozialbeziehungen und alltägliche Konflikte.” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 13 (1986): 149–199. Griffiths, Paul. Youth and authority. Formative experiences in England, 1560–1640. ­Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Humphries, Jane. “English apprenticeship: A neglected factor in the First Industrial Revolution.” In The economic future in historical perspective, edited by Paul A. David and Mark Thomas, 73–120. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Kaplan, Steven. “L’apprentissage au XVIIIe siècle: le cas de Paris.” Revue d’histoire mo­ derne et contemporaine 40, no. 3 (1993): 436–479. Krausman Ben-Amos, Ilana. Adolescence and youth in early modern England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Lane, Joan. Apprenticeship in England, 1600–1914. London: Taylor and Francis, 1996. Lesger, Clé. “Migratiestromen en economische ontwikkeling in vroegmoderne steden. Nieuwe burgers in Antwerpen en Amsterdam, 1541–1655.” Stadsgeschiedenis 1, no. 1 (2006): 97–121. Lis, Catharina, and Hugo Soly. “Subcontracting in guild-based export trades, Thirteenth–eighteenth Centuries.” In Guilds, innovation, and the European economy, 1400–1800, edited by Stephan R. Epstein and Maarten Prak, 81–113. Cambridge: cup, 2008. Minns, Chris, and Patrick Wallis. “Rules and reality: quantifying the practice of apprenticeship in early modern England.” The Economic History Review 65, no. 2 (2012): 556–579. Mitchell, David. “Innovation and the transfer of skill in the goldsmiths’ trade in Restoration London.” In Goldsmiths silversmiths and bankers: innovation and the transfer of skill, 1500–1800, edited by David Mitchell, 5–23. London and Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd. and Centre for Metropolitan History, 1995. Prak, Maarten. “Moral order in the world of work: Social control and the guilds in ­Europe.” In Social control in Europe. Volume one, 1500–1800, edited by Herman Roodenburg and Pieter Spierenburg, 176–199. Columbus: Ohio state University Press, 2004.

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Rappaport, Steve. Worlds within worlds: Structures of life in sixteenth-century London. Cambridge: University Press, 1989. Reith, Reinhold. “Zur beruflichen Sozialisation im Handwerk vom 18. Jahrhundert bis ins frühe 20. Jahrhundert. Umrisse einer Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Lehrlinge.” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 76 (1989): 1–27. Reith, Reinhold. “Apprentices in the German and Austrian craft in early modern times: Apprentices as wage earners?” In Learning on the shop floor. Historical perspectives on apprenticeship, edited by Bert De Munck, Steven L. Kaplan, and Hugo Soly, 179– 199. New York: Berghahn, 2007. Riello, Giorgio. A foot in the past. Consumers, producers and footwear in the long eighteenth century. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006. Sargentson, Carolyn. Merchants and luxury markets. The marchands merciers of e­ ighteenth-century Paris. London: Victoria and Albert Museum Studies in the History of Art and Design, 1996. Schlugleit, Dora. Geschiedenis van het Antwerpse diamantslijpersambacht (1582–1797). Antwerp, Guillaume, 1935. Snell, K.D.M. Annals of the labouring poor: Social change and agrarian England, 1660– 1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Stevens, Margaret. “A theoretical model of on-the-job training with imperfect competition.” Oxford Economic Papers New Series 46, no. 4 (1994): 537–562. Thijs, Alfons K.L. De zijdenijverheid te Antwerpen in de zeventiende eeuw. Brussels: Pro Civitate, 1969. Thijs, Alfons K.L. Van “werkwinkel” tot “fabriek.” De textielnijverheid te Antwerpen (einde 15de–begin 19de eeuw). Brussels, Gemeentekrediet, 1987. Thijs, Alfons K.L. “Antwerp’s luxury industries: The pursuit of profit and artistic sensitivity.” In Antwerp. Story of a metropolis, 16th-17th century, edited by Jan Van Der Stock, 105–113. Antwerp: Snoeck-Ducaju, 1993. Van Damme, Ilja. “Het vertrek van Mercurius: historiografische en hypothetische verkenningen van het economisch wedervaren van Antwerpen in de tweede helft van de zeventiende eeuw.” neha-Jaarboek voor economische, bedrijfs- en techniekgeschiedenis (2003): 6–39. Van Damme, Ilja. “Zotte verwaandheid. Over Franse verleiding en Zuid-Nederlands onbehagen, 1650–1750.” In Het verderf van Parijs, edited by Raf De Bont and Tom Verschaffel, 188–203. Leuven: University Press, 2004. Van Damme, Ilja. “Changing consumer preferences and evolutions in retailing: Buying and selling consumer durables in Antwerp (c. 1648-c. 1748).” In Buyers and sellers. Retail circuits and practices in medieval and early modern Europe, edited by Bruno Blondé, Peter Stabel, Jon Stobart, and Ilja Van Damme, 199–223. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006.

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Verbeemen, J. “Immigratie te Antwerpen.” Mededelingen van de Geschieds- en Oudheidkundige kring voor Leuven en omgeving. Leuven: Lustrumuitgave De Brabantse Stad (1965): 81–100. Wallis, Patrick. “Apprenticeship and training in England.” The Journal of Economic History 68, no. 3 (2008): 832–861.

Chapter 3

Educating World Citizens: The Rise of International Education in the Twenty-first Century Pál Nyíri In the nineteenth century, many children of the Eastern-European and Ottoman nobility had German, English, or French governesses whose task was to educate their charges in the languages, but also manners, that gave access to the European high society that then ruled the world.1 By the early twentieth century, as attested by numerous works of fiction and memoirs, this custom penetrated the upper echelons of the bourgeoisie.2 Today, many well-heeled New Yorkers hire young, educated Chinese women who are called nannies but play a role more like governesses: providing their employers’ children with the language skills and cultural know-how to engage with the world’s largest market and emerging superpower.3 In 2008, Nickelodeon launched Ni hao K ­ ai-lan, an educational animation series intended to teach American children the ­basics of Mandarin but also, seemingly, the visual language of Chinese (and East Asian) animation – an important element of popular culture. The series has been dubbed into many languages, including Norwegian, Russian, and Filipino. 1 Harvey J. Pitcher, When Miss Emmie was in Russia: English governesses before, during, and after the October Revolution (London: Murray, 1977); Anthony Glenn Cross, “Early Miss Emmies: English nannies, governesses, and companions in pre-Emancipation Russia,” New Zealand Slavonic Journal 1 (1981); B. Petzen, “Matmazels’ nell’ Harem. Le governanti europee nell’Impero Ottomano,” Genesis. Rivista della Società Italiana delle Storiche 1 (2002); A ­ lexandra Schmall, ed., Levelek az Andrássy-házból (1864–69) (Budapest: General Press, 2007). Earlier versions of this chapter were written as part of a joint writing project with Peggy Levitt and benefited from discussions with her. 2 The figure of the English miss, the French mademoiselle or the German Fräulein appears in many well-known works of Russian and Eastern European literature. For example, one of the heroines in Anton Chekhov’s 1896 novella The House with the Mezzanine is nicknamed Misus because of the way she addressed her governess as a child. More recently, in anthropologist Jenny White’s novel The Sultan’s seal, the murder of two English governesses serves as the backdrop to political ferment in late Ottoman Stamboul. 3 Ginia Bellafante, “To give children an edge, Au pairs from China,” New York Times, 5 S­ eptember 2006. Ivanka Trump hired a nanny to teach her daughter Arabella Chinese when she was 18 months old. Jiayang Fan, “China and the legend of Ivanka,” New Yorker, 11 April 2017.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_005

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Meanwhile, in a book on the recent transformations of Chinese society, the journalist Evan Osnos commented on the number of children of high officials being sent to elite boarding schools in the United States: “I stopped being surprised when Communist Party grandees told me their offspring were at Taft or Andover.”4 Yet when it comes to the children of ordinary Chinese people, the Communist Party today appears to closely follow Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s injunction. In his Considerations on the Government of Poland, Rousseau was unequivocal about a government’s obligation to forge patriotic citizens through public education. Humanism and patriotism, he asserted, were fundamentally irreconcilable. National education had to be entrusted to patriots, not specialists. Any universal knowledge or reflection was bound to undermine devotion to the nation. By the time he was twenty, a Pole must have nothing human left in him, because he must be a Pole through and through. 1

Challenging the Citizen-making Machine

Rousseau’s recommendations were made to a state clinging precariously onto its fragile sovereignty. But the vital link between education, which in his time was just beginning to be seen as a state task, and the creation of a citizenry willing to fight and die for the idea of a nation, was effectively taken on board across much of the world in the following century. In the modern nationstate, public education is the foremost means of citizen-making, that is, both of social “integration”– corresponding to accepted patterns of behaviour and “values” shaped by the state and the elites – and the formation of a national ­consciousness. Since World War ii, the explicit mission of “patriotic education” has disappeared from the pedagogical agendas of many nations, but in others, it has remained or even, as in China after 1989, Russia after 2001, or Hungary after 2010, made a comeback. Although some countries, such as Great Britain, have gone so far as to include “global citizenship education” in their curricula, there is a deeper, structural way in which national education systems remain strongholds of citizen-making, simply by virtue of their regulatory power, defining as they do the values and knowledge standard that supposedly unite every graduate at each level in a given country and distinguish them from their peers in neighbouring countries. The real challenge to this is posed by the internationalization of education, which allows manoeuvring between, bypassing and manipulating 4 Evan Osnos, Age of ambition: Chasing fortune, truth, and faith in the new China (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), 67.

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d­ ifferent ­systems. While elites have always traveled abroad to study, there was, until recently, no question that, upon their return home, they had to conform to a very national pattern of scrutiny, eventual institutional recognition and step-by-step advancement. Today, this has been eroded by an increasing number of alternative education “products” – from international high schools to university feeder programmes and certificates provided by commercial enterprises – that are perceived to be globally convertible. At the tertiary level, “international education” as a separate sector with its own professional organizations actively catering to a global market – as ­opposed to national education systems accepting students from abroad – ­began to emerge in the 1980s. In the United States, which attracts the highest number of foreign students, their population rose from 135,000 students in 1970 to 515,000 in 2000 and over 1 million in 2016.5 In 2014, according to oecd, 5 million students were studying outside their native countries, three times as many as in 1990.6 In some countries, such as Australia, “international students” account for a quarter of all tertiary enrolments.7 While the share of international students in the world’s total student population is still small, the hold of national education systems is further weakened by a variety of joint degree programs (such as the European Union’s ­Erasmus scheme, in which universities from three to four countries cooperate in granting a degree), partnerships between degree-granting institutions in one country and degree-administering ones in another, and private universities or “overseas campuses” that are located in one country but accredited in another. These grant degrees from the institution’s country of accreditation – mostly the United States, Britain, or Australia – typically at a lower price than education would cost there and often with less stringent admission requirements, but some also offer the option of completing part of the degree on the main campus. A few, such as the American University of Beirut or the Central European University (ceu) in Budapest, are prestigious institutions that can therefore strike a nerve if they are deemed to represent an ideology perceived as threatening by a national government, as demonstrated by the Hungarian government’s ongoing efforts to close down ceu.

5 Open doors 2016. New York: Institute of International Education, 2015. 6 “The state of international student mobility in 2015,” icef Monitor, November 5, 2015, http://monitor.icef.com/2015/11/the-state-of-international-student-mobility-in-2015/, ­accessed 1 May 2018. 7 https://internationaleducation.gov.au/research/International-Student-Data/Pages/default. aspx; http://www.australianuniversities.com.au/directory/student-numbers/, accessed 27 September 2017.

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Growth in “offshore” education – which includes both overseas campuses and long-distance learning degrees, enabling students to obtain a degree from an overseas university without leaving home – as well as in the number of universities, colleges, and secondary schools accredited outside their countries of operation and language schools have by now created a more flexible alternative to state-controlled education across North America, Australia, and Europe. ­According to British government figures, by 2016, the number of students studying “wholly overseas” for a UK higher education qualification exceeded that of “onshore” international students in the UK (701,000 compared to 438,000) by more than 50 per cent.8 Within the field of education studies, there is a large body of literature on international education that tends to focus on the challenges of “intercultural pedagogy,” curriculum development, and marketing. As is clear from the brief review above, the term “international education” refers both to a programmatic approach and to a certain type of schooling, an ambiguity that is sometimes deliberate on the side of education providers but that translates into two distinct bodies of scholarship, one concerned with normative goals and obstacles and the other with the management of the “international classroom.”9 Put differently, one treats international education as a way of organizing knowledge for an increasingly globalized world, while the other is concerned with the consequences of global markets for the organization of teaching. Both approaches connect in obvious ways to the themes that run through Karel Davids’s work: the global circulation of knowledge, global markets, and the intersections of the two. Yet both bodies of literature have only limited concern for the broader social context of the rise of international education and for its relationship to international migration. Students (or, in many cases, their parents) choose these options over national education systems for various reasons, which may or may not have to do with an abstract desire for “global learning.” National education systems at the secondary and tertiary level may be more difficult to access because they have limited capacity or relatively strict entry requirements, such as an entrance examination; or they are of poorer quality. But, perhaps most commonly in the case of students from poorer countries p ­ ursuing 8 UK Council for International Student Affairs, “International student statistics: UK higher education,” https://institutions.ukcisa.org.uk/Info-for-universities-colleges--schools/ Policy-research--statistics/Research--statistics/International-students-in-UK-HE/, accessed 28 September 2017. 9 James Cambridge and Jeff Thompson, “Internationalism and globalization as contexts for international education,” Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 34, no. 2 (2004).

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degrees accredited in richer ones, they do so because these degrees are seen as a gateway to jobs and residence in more developed countries, both by virtue of the degree itself and by virtue of the knowledge, social skills and cultural capital that the process of studying and socializing at a university is expected to impart. While such hopes may be linked to individual countries such as the United States or Australia, they are also more generally understood in terms of admission to the global world of multinational corporations and organizations, a mobile world in which individuals can move move abroad, or do so only temporarily to later return to their native country, now as part of a better-paid and higher-status workforce. The prevalence of such aspirations has grown dramatically in the last thirty years as the globalization of media, the easing of international movement, the expansion of higher education and the growing prominence of globalized white-collar professions – from banking and accountancy to human resources and corporate communication – in popular culture have brought alluring images of the “good life” to billions of households worldwide. Meanwhile, the liberalization of employment regimes and the dismantling of welfare provisions in much of the world have increasingly turned education into an essential tool of competition. This tool, in its turn, is increasingly turned into a market commodity, accessible to those who can pay for it and do not trust public education provided by the state because it is too selective – whether the selection is based on ability, favour, or underthe-table money – or because the credentials it provides are too weak to compete. 2

World Citizenship as Educational Goal

By the 2000s, this dynamic made itself felt in the internationalization of secondary education. In primary and secondary schooling, the term “international education” has been used since World War i, if not earlier, to refer to the internationalization of the curriculum, the student population and the learning environment, rather than of institutions or accreditation systems, so as to steer young people towards solving the common problems of humankind.10 The international education movement that came to prominence among curriculum reformers after World War ii was strongly value-driven. Its orientation went back to Rousseau’s contemporaries, the nonconformist Welsh preacher Richard Price and the French mathematician and statesman the Marquis de 10

Robert Sylvester, “Mapping international education: an historical survey, 1893–1944,” Journal of Research in International Education 1, no. 1 (2002).

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Condorcet, who held views radically opposed to Rousseau’s: “We are too apt to confine wisdom and virtue within the circle of our own acquaintance and party. Our friends, our country, and in short everything related to us, we are disposed to overvalue,” Price wrote. “A wise man will guard himself against this delusion. He will study to think of all things as they are, and not suffer any partial affections to blind his understanding.”11 Condorcet, whose programme of national education was adopted by the French Republic’s National Assembly in 1791 but was swept away by later radicalism, considered the teaching of critical thinking central to public education, notably to enable societies to defend themselves against those who urge them to commit crimes in the name of patriotism. Price would have approved of the International School of Geneva (isg), which began teaching world history and world geography in the 1930s and served as the headquarters of the International School Association after the latter’s founding in 1951.12 The isg defined the goals of international education in 1950 as giving a “child an understanding of his past as a common heritage to which all men irrespective of nation, race, or creed have contributed” and of his present world as a “world in which peoples are interdependent […] with the objective of thinking free from fear or prejudice.”13 An explicit repudiation of a national framework for cognitive and emotional development in favour of “global citizenship” or “world-mindedness” often figures in writings by and about practitioners of international education in that sense and are important to the identity to the International Baccalaureate Organization (ibo, whose member schools are called World Schools), the International General ­Certificate of Secondary Education (igcse) and the International Primary Curriculum (ipc).14 In 1985, ibo included “international awareness: appreciating cultures and attitudes other than one’s own” in its learning goals, and in 1992, ibo’s president described the organization’s mission as “the shaping […] of individuals who will be good citizens […] of the world.”15 In 1996, ibo’s mission statement emphasized 11 12 13 14 15

Richard Price, Discourse on the love of our country (London: George Stafford for T. Cadell, 1789). William N. Oats, “The International School of Geneva: An experiment in international and intercultural education” (BEd report, University of Melbourne, 1952). Ian Hill, “International education as developed by the International Baccalaureate Organization,” in The sage handbook of research in international education, eds. Mary Hayden et al. (London: sage, 2007), 28. Donald L. Sampson and Howard P. Smith, “A scale to measure world-minded attitudes,” Journal of Social Psychology 45 (1957). Hill, “International education,” 30, 35.

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the ideals of international understanding and responsible citizenship, to the end that IB students may become critical and compassionate thinkers […] conscious of the shared humanity that binds all people together while respecting the variety of cultures and attitudes that makes for the richness of life.16 These principles were translated into specific curricular adjustments. For instance, ibo’s 2003 guidelines for the teaching of economics state that teachers must aim to promote […] an awareness of how the impact of economics can both improve cooperation and understanding between countries and, unfortunately, cause extensive damage. […] [S]tudents must be taught to consider economic theories […] from the points of view of different individuals, nations and cultures […]17 In 2006, the “IB Learner’s Profile” declares that International Baccalaureate “programmes aim to develop internationally minded people who, recognizing our common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet, help to create a better, more peaceful world.”18 The International Schools Assessment programme, used to assess pupils in lower grades, applies a set of four criteria for developing “international mindedness”: “the school philosophy, the cultural composition of the school and its community […] administration practices, and an international curriculum.”19 During the Cold War, ideals of international understanding were related in particular to the confrontation between the First and Second Worlds and the sense of threat produced by the arms race between them. In 1962, the first United World College was founded in Wales “with the vision of bringing together young people whose experience was of the political conflict of the cold war era, offering an educational experience based on shared learning, collaboration and understanding so that the students would act as champions of peace,” as uwc’s website declares. Today, uwc has fourteen schools and colleges accepting students aged between two and nineteen, with the secondary schools offering various versions of the IB curriculum.

16 Ibid., 35. 17 Idem. 18 Ibid., 37. 19 Ibid., 27.

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International Schools and Migration

The number of international schools grew rapidly after the end of the Cold War, and in the 1990s their curriculum expanded from upper secondary to primary and middle schooling. Beginning in the 1980s, an increasing number of public schools in the U.S., and Northern Europe also adopted the IB programme, so that by 2006, over half of the World Schools were state schools with no tuition fees.20 Although IB programmes are now taught in Spanish, French, Russian, Turkish, and Arabic, in 2012 – the last year for which the ibo released such data – over 80 per cent were in English.21 As of June 2014, the ibo counted 3,923 World Schools.22 The 1990s and the 2000s also saw the emergence of a number of curriculum initiatives, some of them state-led, to promote “development education,” “peace education” or even “global citizenship education” in mainstream schools.23 For example, the British Council instituted an International School Award that “aims to encourage schools to include global learning into the curriculum.”24 Think Global, the leading British organization promoting “global learning,” aims to “help people understand the wider world around them and make the global connections between issues such as poverty or climate change.”25 There is even, in addition to a number of academic journals in the field of international education, an International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning that, since 2008, “publishes the outcomes of research and current debates on development education and related concepts such as global learning, global education, and global citizenship.”26 Some critics charge that global citizenship education programmes of various stripes are geared too much to preparing pupils to function in a globalized economy and not enough to interrogate the received wisdom, and the

20 Ibid., 34. 21 International Baccalaureate Organization, “The IB Diploma Programme Statistical ­Bulletin, 2013,” http://www.ibo.org/facts/statbulletin/dpstats/documents/2013-May DPStatisticalBulletin.pdf, accessed 22 July 2014. 22 http://www.ibo.org/facts/fastfacts/index.cfm , accessed 22 July 2014. 23 Eleanor J. Brown and W. John Morgan, “A culture of peace via global citizenship education,” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 20 (2008). 24 Ibid., 287. 25 Eleanor Brown, “Fair-minded critical thinking in development education: Reflections on pedagogies for transformation,” International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning 6, no. 1 (2014): 6. 26 http://ioepress.co.uk/journals/international-journal-of-development-education-and -global-learning/#sthash.nGAu04bF.dpuf, accessed 14 January 2015.

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inequalities, that underpin it.27 Two British studies in the early 2000s found that teachers involved in global education programmes were generally happy to incorporate content regarding “other cultures” but ignored more complex global issues.28 In the United States, Hans Schattle has argued that “global education” has not yet resulted in the emergence of a “new, distinct and globallyoriented ideology” but rather in the adaptation of mainstream liberalism to “increasing public recognition of global interdependence.”29 While “worldmindedness” may be the declared aim of World Schools, it is not a criterion against which student performance is measured, and there is little evidence to assess the extent to which it is internalized by graduates. A study of pupils of an international school in Singapore and one in Sydney concluded that Sydney students denounced their local peers’ lack of familiarity with foreign countries, but those in Singapore had little interaction with locals to begin with.30 Since a certain cosmopolitanism does characterize the students of international schools, it is hard to judge inhowfar it is shaped by the curriculum and the teachers as opposed to the typically multinational populations of these schools.31 Moreover, beginning in the 1960s, the dynamics of international education started to change as the international expansion of corporations generated demand for an internationally accredited curriculum. “International schools” now increasingly meant schools for “expat” children from high-­ income families where they could follow a single, internationally recognised curriculum even as they moved from one country to another. The number of international schools catering to expat children and, later, children in nonWestern societies whose parents saw them as “passports out of the country, to a better job and to universities around the world” – have probably experienced equally if not more impressive growth than the ibo’s World Schools, although statistics are unavailable.32 And while the ibo’s latest, 2010 strategic

27 28 29 30 31 32

E.g. Vanessa Andreotti, “Global education in the ‘21st Century’: Two different perspectives on the ‘Post-’ of Postmodernism,” International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning 2, no. 2 (2009). Brown, “Fair-minded,” 26–27. Hans Schattle, “Education for global citizenship: Illustrations of ideological pluralism and adaptation,” Journal of Political Ideologies 13, no. 1 (2008): 73. Gabrielle Désilets, “Seeing ‘difference’ differently,” in Migrant professionals in the city: ­Local encounters, identities, and inequalities, ed. Lars Meier (Abingdon, Oxford, and New York: Routledge, 2015). See Mary C. Hayden and Jeff J. Thompson, “International education: Perceptions of teachers in international schools,” International Review of Education 44, no. 5–6 (1998). Kieran James, “International education: The concept, and its relationship to intercultural education,” Journal of Research in International Education 4, no. 3 (2005): 320.

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plan formulates the goal of making World Schools more accessible to children from less advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, outside North America and Western Europe they largely remain the preserve of the moneyed. International schools affiliated with smaller organizations, or unaffiliated ones, are more likely to target more specific sections of the population – from elites to the aspiring lower middle classes. Somewhat ironically, it is the more exclusive schools that tend to insist on teaching “world-mindedness ,” tolerance, and the original ideals of “international education.” In any case, for many parents and pupils from poorer countries, mastering properly accented, confident English and forms of social behaviour seen as appropriate in desirable countries of residence and in the global circuits of wealth are more important for this function than acquiring either curricular knowledge or openness to human diversity. In the last decade, this has been accompanied by a growing number of pre-tertiary pupils studying abroad, either on their own or accompanied by their mothers. Over 35,000 international students were enrolled in primary and secondary schools in Canada in 2010. The U.S. issued 31,889 student visas to Chinese children planning to attend high schools in the 2013/14 school year, up from just 639 in 2005. Some primary and secondary schools in North-America, Britain, and ­Australia specialize in hosting children from China, with South Korean students in second place, in the U.S. Lake Shore High School in St. Clair Shores, a Detroit suburb, attracts about ninety Chinese students each year. Summer camps for Chinese children aspiring to apply to universities in these countries have become a business of their own, as highlighted by the death of seventy such children in the crash of an Asiana Airlines plane heading for San ­Francisco in 2013. In Singapore, “study mama” has become a commonly used term to designate mothers, mostly from mainland China, accompanying secondary school students. While the overwhelming majority of children going to school outside their native countries do so because their parents have moved, many are sent to live with relatives. International schools are also attractive to parents who already live outside their native countries but want to enable their children to move on. Between 2001 and 2004, I conducted research at international schools in Budapest.33 As a regional business hub for Eastern Europe at the time, the city had its share of Western expatriate families, in addition to attractin a number of migrants from the Balkans and farther afield, notably China. The schools that called themselves “international” were united by the fact that that they did not follow the 33

Pál Nyíri, “The nation-state, public education and the logic of migration: Chinese students in Hungary,” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 17, no. 1 (2006).

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national curriculum or prepare students to take Hungarian university entrance exams, but otherwise, their curricula, educational goals, and student populations varied widely. The Austrian- and German-run institutions, whose fees were lowest, fed into German-language higher education and attracted mostly Hungarian children. French- and Spanish-language schools catered mostly to native speakers from upper-class expat families. These institutions adopted some “multicultural” elements in their activities but belonged to national education systems. The American and British International Schools, with yearly fees over usd 10,000 at the time, were the most expensive and catered mostly to children of expatriate managers of multinational companies and diplomats. These schools enabled students to complete their education in an educational and social “bubble” that provided seamless continuity as the families moved from country to country. Both offered the International Baccalaureate, and though they had ties, respectively, to the United States and Britain, their curricula did not follow the logic of national education systems. As World Schools, they were, at least on paper, committed to ibo’s strategic plan. Other schools found their main market in the families of Chinese, Russianspeaking, Israeli, and Arab migrant entrepreneurs in Hungary. Some of them had been founded by Christian missionary organizations, others by H ­ ungarian or foreign entrepreneurs. With tuition fees amounting to half to two-thirds of the two World Schools, they were accessible to more parents. All taught in English and had a multinational staff. Over two-thirds of the pupils at these schools were migrants, and some of the schools advertised in local Chineseand Russian-language newspapers. The schools had adapted to the situation of migrant children with diverse educational backgrounds, often without adequate knowledge of either Hungarian or English and not infrequently having spent one or two years of school. The schools offered remedial English and native language classes, placed students within their peer groups, and were often flexible about allowing students to graduate faster by “jumping” classes, reducing the number of final examination subjects. In all these aspects, they met migrant children’s educational needs better than the national school system. They offered no inroads into Hungarian higher education – or Hungarian society, in which they often encountered discrimination – but aimed instead at strengthening pupils’ self-respect and teaching them communication skills that would help their progress within a global, commodified educational system of the Anglo-American type. The cultural capital they offered in the form of knowledge, language skills, patterns of behaviour and discourse was intended to be globally rather than locally convertible, and was marketed in that way. Pupils at the schools were not necessarily “cosmopolitan” in the sense of being able to or interested in reflecting on different life-worlds and were not taught

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to do so, but they may have developed such interests, as friendships among children from differing cultural backgrounds were common. Pupils in Christian schools often developed strong evangelical identities that became the basis of their social networks. Most graduates went on to English-language higher education in Hungary or to universities in the United States or Great Britain. The main promise of these international schools was, in essence, to provide access to a more desirable life. They consciously prepared their students for English-speaking global careers. As one of them, Britannica International School, put it in its staff handbook, it aimed “to prepare its students for a mature and purposeful participation in a multicultural, international and technological society.” Nonetheless, some schools underline multiculturalism as an inherent value. Britannica’s staff handbook, for example, stated that the school “is proud of … not having a single dominant culture. Ethnic diversity is one of its great strengths.” 4

An Elite Bubble, a Vehicle for Migration, or a Training Ground for Global Citizens?

Critics charge that international schools are elite institutions that essentially reproduce national inequalities in access to education on a global scale.34 This view tends to be based on private World Schools offering the IB curriculum. Once we consider the broader spectrum of international schools – as defined by the adoption of non-national curricula and accreditation – the situation appears more inclusive than this view would have it. It is certainly true that international schools almost invariably charge much higher fees than national ones, sometimes for an education that is actually inferior and does not offer the hoped-for springboard towards an internationally recognized university degree and the “intercontinental life” glamourously depicted in the television commercials of the eponymous hotel chain. Furthermore, the question arises to what extent any cosmopolitanism produced by these schools may be limited by the homogenizing effect of upper-middle class lifestyles students are likely to share. These limitations are real. The outcomes of international schooling are likely to be as diverse as the schools themselves, their teaching philosophies, and their student populations. Even so, international schools provide young people who can access them with the tools to think outside the 34

John Lowe, “International examinations: The new credentialism and reproduction of a­ dvantage in a globalizing world,” Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 7, no. 3 (2000).

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straitjacket of the nation. This is particularly important in those places where not only school curricula – especially history and literature – but also media, museums, and government statements frame past and present exclusively in terms of national interest and national uniqueness. At a time when state nationalist projects are on the rise once again, yet global mobility continues apace, international education will be an interesting meeting ground of these potentially conflicting trends. As states balance the impetus to “internationalize” education systems in order to produce a more globally competible workforce and to satisfy the demands of growing middle classes with the desire to retake control of curricula, we may see new ways in which educators and parent attempt to circumvent these systems. Bibliography Andreotti, Vanessa. “Global education in the ‘21st Century’: Two different perspectives on the ‘post-’ of Postmodernism.” International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning 2, no. 2 (2009): 5–22. Brown, Eleanor. “Fair-minded critical thinking in development education: Reflections on pedagogies for transformation.” International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning 6, no. 1 (2014): 5–37. Brown, Eleanor J., and W. John Morgan. “A culture of peace via global citizenship education.” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 20 (2008): 283–291. Cross, Anthony Glenn. “Early Miss Emmies: English nannies, governesses, and companions in pre-Emancipation Russia.” New Zealand Slavonic Journal 1 (1981): 1–20. Désilets, Gabrielle. “Seeing ‘difference’ differently.” In Migrant professionals in the city: Local encounters, identities, and inequalities, edited by Lars Meier, 40–58. Abingdon, Oxon., and New York: Routledge, 2015. Hayden, Mary C., and Jeff J. Thompson. “International education: Perceptions of teachers in international schools.” International Review of Education 44, no. 5–6 (1998): 549–568. Hill, Ian. “International education as developed by the International Baccalaureate Organization.” In The sage Handbook of research in international education, edited by Mary Hayden et al, 25–38. London: sage, 2007. James, Kieran. “International education: The concept, and its relationship to intercultural education.” Journal of Research in International Education 4, no. 3 (2005): 313–332. Lowe, John. “International examinations: The new credentialism and reproduction of advantage in a globalizing world.” Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 7, no. 3 (2000): 363–377.

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Nyíri, Pál. “The nation-state, public education and the logic of migration: Chinese students in Hungary.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 17, no. 1 (2000): 32–46. Oats, William N. “The International School of Geneva: An experiment in international and intercultural education.” BEd report, University of Melbourne, 1952. Osnos, Evan. Age of ambition: Chasing fortune, truth, and faith in the new China. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. Petzen, B. “‘Matmazels’ nell’ Harem. Le governanti europee nell’Impero Ottomano.” Genesis. Rivista della Società Italiana delle Storiche 1 (2002): 61–84. Pitcher, Harvey J. When Miss Emmie was in Russia: English governesses before, during, and after the October Revolution. London: Murray, 1977. Price, Richard. Discourse on the love of our country. London: George Stafford for T. ­Cadell, 1789. Sampson, Donald L., and Howard P. Smith. “A scale to measure world-minded attitudes.” Journal of Social Psychology 45 (1957): 99–106. Schattle, Hans. “Education for global citizenship: Illustrations of ideological pluralism and adaptation.” Journal of Political Ideologies 13, no. 1 (2008): 73–94. Schmall, Alexandra, ed., Levelek az Andrássy-házból (1864–69). Budapest: General Press, 2007. Sylvester, Robert. “Mapping international education: An historical survey, 1893–1944.” Journal of Research in International Education 1, no. 1 (2002): 91–125. White, Jenny. The Sultan’s seal. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.

part 2 Institutions for a Global Economy

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Chapter 4

A Changing Landscape: Institutions and Institutional Change in the Dutch Economy Jeroen Touwen When cliometrics became popular, economic historians embraced the priceequilibrium model to analyse and explain economic developments. Then when the spotlight fell on the embeddedness of markets, they threw themselves with dedication at institutions, connecting quantitative analysis with concepts and ideas that had been around since Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929). Studying institutions means studying the historical role of context, which suits the historian more than the social scientist. It has enriched the field because economic activities take place in the context of rules, regulations, and also cultural habits. Markets can be powerful drivers of change, but institutions support or slow down these developments. Old habits that stand in the way of an efficient market may have broad public support, enforced by tradition. In his inaugural lecture in 1995, aptly titled “By force of habit?”, Karel Davids makes several observations that show how institutions relate to long-term economic development. He summarizes two views on economic institutions. According to one view, favourable institutions explain economic growth. According to the second, certain institutions endure without being efficient and slow down economic development.1 There is no general principle that good institutions drive out bad institutions. In this chapter, I explore several recent developments in thinking about how institutions change, thus facilitating or hindering economic development. First I will briefly survey current insights on institutions and economic growth. Then I will explore the connection with culture: how can we approach informal institutions as a useful concept in economic history? The exercise of mapping national differences in entrepreneurship is related to the field of comparative capitalism. “Varieties of Capitalism” distinguishes between liberal market economies and coordinated market economies. This typology is based on a systematic comparison of institutional differences and is therefore interesting to examine in this context. The preference of economic actors for 1 C.A. Davids, De macht der gewoonte? Economische ontwikkeling en institutionele context in Nederland op de lange termijn. Inaugural lecture VU Amsterdam (Amsterdam: VU, 1995), 5.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_006

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a higher or lower degree of non-market coordination (such as inter-firm cooperation, codetermination, employment protection, and institutionalized consultation) is strongly linked to culture. These preferences for certain solutions may lead to feedback loops, where feedback reinforces the chosen options. As we will see, this results in increasing support, because economic actors anticipate a certain context for their decisions, such as bargaining platforms or consultative structures. This observation brings us to the topic of institutional change. I will outline several typologies of institutional change and discuss the role of shocks, beliefs and supranational top-down influence. The focus here is on how changes came about. Were rules and laws simply replaced by new rules and laws? Or were additions made on top of the existing rules? How does this relate to the coordinated character of the market economy? From a more actor-oriented perspective, several mechanisms of change are outlined. In addition to leadership, I mention the importance of both public pressure and top-down pressure by international treaties. The classic theme of cartelization in the Netherlands is then used to illustrate how institutions change. I summarize the changing views on cartelization and reflect briefly upon the consequences for the comparative position of Dutch capitalism in post-war Europe. Late twentieth century institutional change in the Dutch coordinated market economy was increasingly a topdown international effect, rather than the result of shock or leadership. My hypothesis is that the path of institutional change is typical of a specific institutional setting or variety of capitalism, because it reinforces or consolidates the institutional choices. Change is not uncontested, but the decision-making process is significant in relation to the type of capitalism. Over time, as a cause of institutional change, international treaties and commitments become an important complementary force, alongside the effects of leadership and social pressure. 1

Institutions and Growth

In the Low Countries, two beneficial institutions have been identified as a legacy of the late Middle Ages: a level of freedom in entrepreneurship and a certain degree of private property protection. Both of these were inspired by the nobility’s wish to accumulate taxes. In later form, they may have fostered the Dutch miracle of the seventeenth century.2 Likewise, at a somewhat deeper 2 North explicitly encouraged the study of transaction costs and property rights; Douglass C. North, “Beyond the New Economic History,” Journal of Economic History 34, no. 1 (1974).

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level, the absence of strong feudal ties was another beneficial institution.3 In addition to this favourable heritage, there were several types of vertical and horizontal institutional structures that had a more complicated effect. These structures included guilds, urban regulations, institutions that regulated the countryside and, at the regional level, rules that restricted entrepreneurship. They are examples of economic institutions that could be either good or bad for further development and are therefore specifically interesting to the historian.4 Broadly speaking, these forms of non-market coordination were favourable during the seventeenth century, reducing transaction costs, providing information to market parties, and allowing risk spreading.5 Ironically, they were also key to explaining the eighteenth century stagnation of the Dutch Republic. This, D ­ avids argues, is not the consequence of interest group lobbying, which Mancur Olson highlighted in his work on “institutional sclerosis,” but rather because these institutional constraints formed an obstruction to the process of technological innovation.6 Fortunately, inefficient institutions that disrupt efficient economic processes or favour conservative interests will not remain in place forever. Long-term economic development sometimes shows the gradual erosion or displacement of institutions that obstruct markets, as evidenced by the industrialization in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century. Between 1795 and 1870 several old

3 4

5

6

A ­distinction is generally made between formal institutions (laws, etc.) and informal institutions (cultural habits, etc.). Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude, The first modern economy. Success, failure, and perseverance of the Dutch economy, 1500–1815 (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 33, 46, 198–205. See, for example, C.A. Davids, The rise and decline of Dutch technological leadership. Technology, economy and culture in the Netherlands, 1350–1800 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2008); C.A. Davids, “Regions, families, religion. Continuity and change in social contexts of entrepreneurship 1800–2000,” in Entrepreneurship in context, eds. M. van Gelderen and E. Masurel (London: Routledge, 2011); C.A. Davids and J. Lucassen, eds., A miracle mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Karel Davids, “Beginning entrepreneurs and municipal governments in Holland at the time of the Dutch Republic,” in Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in early modern times. Merchants and industrialists within the orbit of the Dutch staple market, eds. Leo Noordegraaf and Clé Lesger (The Hague: Hollandse Historische Reeks, 1995); Karel Davids, “Technological change and the economic expansion of the Dutch Republic,” in The Dutch economy in the Golden Age. Nine studies, eds. Karel Davids and Leo Noordegraaf (Amsterdam: neha, 1993). See also Jan Luiten van Zanden and Maarten Prak, “Towards an economic Interpretation of citizenship. The Dutch Republic between medieval communes and modern nation-states,” European Review of Economic History 10 (2006). Mancur Olson, The rise and decline of nations. Economic growth, stagflation, and social rigidities (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982).

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institutions disappeared: fishing was liberalized, urban excises were abolished, and in judicial terms the countryside was made equal to the cities.7 The abolition of the guilds in 1820 is also often mentioned in this context. Acemoglu and Robinson developed a much broader view of the economic role of “extractive” institutions, which prevent long-term growth of prosperity and concentrate power in the hands of the few.8 As the world turns, economies continuously adapt to changing circumstances. Economic actors try to fix a deal and earn a profit, and institutions exert an influence on this process, in order to make it more just, or to effectuate some degree of redistribution, or to exert some kind of power. Structural change ­occurs due to technological change or demographic transition, but change can also result from adjustments in the political economy, such as welfare state legislation, trade liberalization, the formation of trade blocs, and intergovernmental regimes. 2

Formal and Informal Institutions

The strange marriage of formal and informal institutions tempts us to make informal institutions into some kind of residual explanation for anything that has not yet been properly explained. Deeply rooted cultural traditions may form a continuous force in the background and, as ultimate causes, should in theory not be confused with the proximate causes of regulations and laws. Regulations function only within a setting of informal rules that are shared with others, and that shape a common understanding.9 The problem is that informal institutions are difficult to operationalize and measure. They often constitute a condition, rather than a driver that shapes support for a certain solution. After an interval of laissez-faire, in the twentieth century non-market coordination resurfaced in the Netherlands in the form of neo-corporatist or ­liberal-corporatist concertation. These were inspired by best practice in surrounding countries but also seem to be connected with earlier forms of consultation, prompted by an inclination to solve dispute through meetings. The idea of a deeply rooted and culturally determined “polder mentality” was suggested 7 Davids, “De macht der gewoonte?,” 15. 8 Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why nations fail. The origins of power, prosperity and poverty (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012) 429–430. 9 P.H.H. Vries, “The role of culture and institutions in economic history. Can economics be of any help?,” neha-Jaarboek voor Economische, Bedrijfs- en Techniekgeschiedenis 64 (2001).

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in Karel Davids’s inaugural lecture in 1995. Jan Lucassen made a similar suggestion in the field of labour relations.10 This idea inspired Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden to carry out a long-term analysis of institutionalized consultation in the Netherlands. Yet despite their wish to highlight continuity, they could not ignore the fact that the arrangements were structurally different. They came up with three different polder regimes: the agrarian polder model 1000–1350, with its structured assemblies; the commercial polder model 1600–1750, with its guilds and civil society; and the industrial polder model of the twentieth century, with its institutionalized bargaining.11 Only a rigid comparison of decision-making procedures in different countries could tell us whether a typically Dutch pattern can be discerned. What we are observing may perhaps be a set of European experiments aimed at solving coordination problems that were typical of a certain day and age. Such variations may have been more similar across countries than across time. Davids, Devos and Pasture state that “at the end of the day, policy learning, transnational influences and the relational dynamics between the state, the employers and the trade unions mattered more for the development of consultation economies in Western European democracies than path dependency and the “weight of history”.”12 3

Culture and Management

These relational dynamics bring us to the informal institutions at the microeconomic level and the way economic actors interact. This subject is explored thoroughly in management literature. In management studies, dealing with the hands-on reality of marketing products in different countries, it is widely known that culture makes a big difference. This can be seen from the tremendous interest in Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions since the early 1970s.13 10 11 12 13

J. Lucassen, Jan, Jan Salie en diens kinderen. Vergelijkend onderzoek naar continuïteit en discontinuïteit in de ontwikkeling van arbeidsverhoudingen. Inaugural Lecture VU Amsterdam (Amsterdam: VU, 1991). Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden, Nederland en het Poldermodel. Sociaal-­ economische geschiedenis van Nederland 1000–2000 (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2013). Patrick Pasture, Karel Davids and Greta Devos, “Introduction,” in Changing liaisons. The dynamics of social partnership in 20th century West-European democracies, eds. Karel ­Davids, Greta Devos, and Patrick Pasture (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2007), 24. G. Hofstede, Culture’s consequences. Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations. Second ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1981). Trompenaars expanded on the theme of effects of cultural differences on management: F. Trompenaars and C. Hampden-Turner, Riding the waves of culture (London: Nicholas Brealey, 1997); Charles

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­ ofstede speaks of “mental software,” the collective programming of the mind, H which distinguishes members of one group of people from another. In this way, intercultural management scholars systematically analyse differences between national entrepreneurial cultures. One might wonder whether the cultural dimensions are associated with the different types of capitalism distinguished in the literature. However, a comparison of cultural dimensions with a classification of types of capitalism does not reveal much overlap.14 There was no obvious link between cultural dimensions and the occurrence of mechanisms of coordination in various countries.15 The explanatory value of cultural differences seems to be limited when we are looking for the origins of non-market coordination, such as interfirm cooperation, codetermination and institutionalized consultation. This is because there are many different ways to translate cultural preferences into institutional arrangements. At most, the analysis of cultural differences contributes to explaining why very little institutional convergence took place in post-war oecd economies – except for some consciously pursued, hard-won and limited convergence within the European Union. This also means that successful examples of Dutch coordination cannot be exported to other countries as a “model.” Dutch coordination in the twentieth century was highly dependent on formal institutions. The neo-corporatist economy was organized by administrative legislation, particularly the “pbo” Act (Wet op de Publiekrechtelijke B ­ edrijfsorganisatie). This Act came into force in 1950 and organized coordination under public law, also establishing the Social and Economic Council for regular peak-level consultations. Although the ambitions of this system of industrial organization were never quite fulfilled (planning only really took off in agriculture and fisheries), it had a powerful impact on labour relations and wage bargaining. Its roots can be found in pre-war attempts to coordinate labour relations, which were strongly supported by Christian Democrats and also largely accepted by progressive liberal employers, who had decided that laissez faire was no longer a solution.16

Hampden-Turner and Fons Trompenaars, The seven cultures of capitalism. Value systems for creating wealth in Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands (London: Doubleday, 1993). 14 Jeroen Touwen, Coordination in transition. The Netherlands and the world economy, 1­ 950–2010 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 91–98. 15 Touwen, Coordination in transition, 98. 16 Ben Jackson, “At the origins of neoliberalism. The free economy and the strong state, 1930–1947,” The Historical Journal 53, no. 1 (2010).

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Classifications of Institutional Settings

Once certain rules have been introduced, increasing support for them may develop when economic actors anticipate a certain context for their decisions. For example, they may start to appreciate bargaining platforms or consultative structures. Since the sets of rules that are introduced characterize a certain variant of the market economy, the presence of bargaining institutions can be used as a criterion to distinguish different market economies. And although a typology is often descriptive, it helps us to uncover causal mechanisms, such as positive or negative feedback loops within types. In 2001, Hall and Soskice introduced the concepts “liberal market economy” and “coordinated market economy”, broad categories inspired by the ­American and German examples respectively.17 They implicitly adopt a focus on institutional change, because they postulate an underlying mechanism of institutional complementarities and comparative institutional advantages. This explains the existence of two ideal-types of market economies. Both types are market economies that can function successfully in a competitive world economy. However, the two constellations explain different organizations of the supply side in terms of their path dependencies. Economic actors have to deal with these institutional systems in their attempts to strike a deal, but are not hindered by them – rather, they steer them in a certain direction. “Varieties of Capitalism” outlines five subfields of institutions between which socalled “institutional complementarities” occur. This means that solutions in one sphere are accompanied by a preference in another sphere. For example, investment in vocational training occurs when there is long-term employment and employment protection, and may also be accompanied by codetermination. This suggests that complementarities exist: between labour relations (consultation of employees at the firm level); inter-firm relations; corporate governance and acquisition of investment capital; vocational training and education of employees; and information sharing with employees (motivating individual workers by means of participation, human resource management). Firms’ strategies in these spheres influence and reinforce each other, thus creating a comparative advantage.18 In critical reviews of “Varieties of Capitalism” since its publication in 2001, it has been remarked that institutional complementarities are not binding in 17 18

Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, “An introduction to varieties of capitalism,” in Varieties of capitalism. The institutional foundations of comparative advantage, eds. Hall and Soskice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Hall and Soskice, “Introduction,” 7.

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the sense that one set of institutions cannot move in a direction different from another set of institutions. In other words, “compartmentalized change” is possible. As Deeg shows, German companies embraced shareholder capitalism while maintaining worker consultation. These institutions could develop in opposite rather than complementary directions.19 Similarly, in the ­Netherlands all kinds of neoliberal policy measures are combined with traditional consultative practices.20 An institutional setting is not a marketplace where economic actors pick pairs on the basis of a rational evaluation of gains. Institutional choice has a path-dependent nature. An interesting question inspired by these observations is: through what kind of mechanism do existing institutions change? Does a society discard certain institutions after a while when, despite all their traditional support, a powerful group of people decide they have become obsolete? Can such renovation overrule deeply embedded cultural characteristics? Or, by contrast, will some form of collective preference predetermine the range of options from which a choice can be made? When the need is felt to organize new institutional structures to solve urgent problems, will coordinated market economies preferably vote for consultation instead of bargaining at arms’ length, as a result of a culturally determined preference for non-market coordination? It seems very likely that such preferences are subject to the reigning paradigm or are manipulated by dominant actors. Both the paradigm and the power balance can change within a decade.21 Scholars have observed that once you stick a l­abel on a certain type of economy, the label tends to stay for a long time (=“conservative bias”), but in fact institutions change – because economies change and rules and regulations have to be adapted continuously. It is therefore more logical to expect that informal institutions also have an effect on how formal institutions change. 5

Typologies of Change

This brings us to the topic of institutional change. Since feedback mechanisms reinforce the chosen options, institutional change – however contested, because it takes place in political arenas – will point in a direction that is 19

Richard Deeg, “Change from within: German and Italian finance in the 1990s,” in Beyond continuity. Institutional change in advanced political economies, eds. Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 183–184. 20 Touwen, Coordination in transition, 317. 21 P.A. Hall, “Policy paradigms, social learning, and the state. The case of economic policymaking in Britain,” Comparative Politics 25 (1993).

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s­ ignificant in relation to the type of capitalism at hand. Most obviously, change can be radical or incremental, reflecting the decision-making structure in an economy. This suggests that there is a typology of change, in which radical change is compatible with liberal market economies and incremental change is more compatible with coordinated market economies.22 It is therefore interesting to compare trajectories of change: between radical and incremental change, or between conflict-oriented versus conflict-avoiding approaches. In a globalizing world, which has removed many barriers to the functioning of the market, institutions experience a constant pressure to adapt or reform. That free markets do not converge on one model is something that may not surprise historians, but it has been a serious topic of study.23 What typically happens is that either new laws and regulations are added to existing ones, or laws are replaced by other laws. These options are called layering and conversion (or reform) respectively. A national preference for one of these types of change can thus be connected to the variety of capitalism, as both cause and effect: in an economy with a penchant for more radical, rigorous measures, conversion will be the more frequent occurrence. For example, the change to supply-side policies in the 1980s was faster and more far-reaching in New Zealand and the United Kingdom than in Sweden and the Netherlands.24 Historians have pointed out that the Rheinland model is not a static type, but constitutes a range of choices in the political economy.25 Although these may have a common denominator, they evolve in response to developments in technology and in the global market. We cannot uphold the idea that ­Anglo-American economies always favour the free market while Rhineland economies favour corporatism and networking, particularly since market-­ oriented reforms have taken place since the 1980s. Thus, Kathleen Thelen points out that despite their deep cultural roots, institutions should not be viewed as “frozen” residues, or “crystallizations” of previous political conflict. 22 Idem. 23 “A large body of evidence suggests that national political economies have maintained their distinctive ‘varieties of capitalism,’ rather than converging on the liberal market model epitomized by the United States.” Pepper D. Culpepper, “Institutional change in contemporary capitalism. Coordinated financial systems since 1990,” World Politics 57, no. 2 (2005): 173. 24 Jeroen Touwen, “Varieties of capitalism and institutional change in New Zealand, Sweden and the Netherlands in the 1980s and 1990s,” in Aspects in varieties of capitalism. Dynamics, economic crisis, new players, eds. H. Egbert and C. Esser (Saarbruecken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010). 25 See, for example, Keetie Sluyterman, ed., Varieties of capitalism and business history. The Dutch case (London: Routledge, 2015).

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“Presently a growing body of work has begun to conceive of institutional reproduction as a dynamic political process.” A more detailed picture of how institutions change may be useful here. 6

Reform, Reinterpretation, Defection

Streeck and Thelen took “Varieties of Capitalism” as their starting point to show how the mutual reinforcement of institutional complementarities can be breached, and how rules can be bent or replaced. They introduced five different trajectories of gradual, transformative institutional change: a. Displacement: introduction of new models, defection from old rules; b. Layering: adding new institutions to existing ones; c. Drift: allowing institutions to weaken or decay; d. Conversion: redirecting the rules or reinterpreting them; e. Exhaustion: gradual breakdown of obsolete rules.26 Elsewhere, Hall and Thelen distinguish between three different paths of institutional change. These three main routes are reform, where institutions are explicitly changed, reinterpretation, where entrepreneurial actors reinterpret institutions and give them new uses, and defection, where new styles of coordination are introduced within the existing framework by defecting from existing arrangements.27 Both reform and reinterpretation may include layering (adding new rules to existing ones) or conversion (redirecting or reinterpreting rules and regulations). Defection can involve drift (institutions are allowed to weaken or decay), displacement (new models are introduced, there is defection from old rules) or exhaustion (gradual breakdown of obsolete rules).28 Thelen also outlines three mechanisms through which institutions may s­ urvive over time: lock-in, conversion and layering.29 It is clear that changes are not always the result of economic rationality. They can be driven by ideology (for example, orthodox neoclassical economics), by necessity (high unemployment, high inflation), by rhetoric (mobilizing the rank and file, shifting the ­consensus), by pragmatism (the profit squeeze, the need to curtail public expenditure) and by contingency (a rise to power of liberal parties, the occurrence of a financial crisis). 26 27 28 29

Streeck and Thelen, “Introduction,” 32. Peter A. Hall and Kathleen Thelen, “Institutional change in varieties of capitalism,” SocioEconomic Review 7, no. 1 (2009). Streeck and Thelen, “Introduction,” 32. James Mahoney and Kathleen Thelen, Explaining institutional change. Ambiguity, agency, power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

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In a thematic volume studying the period 1979–2008, Jackson and Deeg emphasize that the way forward in comparative capitalism is not to introduce more typologies, but to study how institutional change took place. They analyse changes in, among other things, finance, corporate governance, industrial relations and social protection. On the basis of their findings, they discern four levels that regulate the economy: international regulations, macro state policies, meso state policies and the micro level of economic actors and firms.30 They also claim that institutional change is, after all, the phenomenon that sets types of capitalism apart.31 7

North, Alston, and Beliefs as Drivers

Economic processes consist of transactions made by actors who are incentivedriven, and for this reason economists prefer to focus on incentives. This provides another perspective on institutional change. In a recent article, Alston approaches institutions as rules that incentivize behaviour, and emphasizes that institutional reform must be contextual, and must fit a country’s political and economic endowment.32 After Douglass North had analysed property rights and transaction costs, by the turn of the twenty-first century he still found a full understanding of long-run change elusive. Alston writes: “It was like peeling an onion, layer by layer. Transaction costs and property rights are embedded in institutions, but institutional choice was embedded in beliefs.”33 Beliefs form a mental map (compare Hofstede’s mental software), because they anticipate economic and political outcomes of formal rules. There will be competing ideas and beliefs, but one will come out on top. In brief, Alston’s model portrays shocks in the economy or political situation that create a window of opportunity, which can then be used by leaders to coordinate change through a network of organizations, according to a shared belief, thus generating incremental change that ultimately results in different economic or political outcomes.34

30

Gregory Jackson and Richard Deeg, “The long-term trajectories of institutional change in European capitalism,” Journal of European Public Policy 19, no. 8 (2012). 31 Gregory Jackson and Richard Deeg, “From comparing capitalisms to the politics of institutional change,” Review of International Political Economy 15, no. 4 (2008): 699. 32 Lee Alston, “Beyond institutions. Beliefs and leadership,” Journal of Economic History 77, no. 2 (2017): 354. 33 Ibid., 355. 34 Ibid., 359.

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These dominant beliefs are an interesting element: they can be described as a shared economic understanding or as a paradigm, and are an essential component of change in democratic states. When a thorough reorientation takes place, the economic actors (helped by economic policy or economic knowledge, or technology such as ict) may develop a new paradigm. A paradigm shift is not only a policy shift in order to re-establish political goals, but also a shared understanding of economic actors in response to changed circumstances.35 When do these changing beliefs result in changing institutions? This may occur, according to Alston, when leaders use the windows of opportunity created by shocks in order to initiate reform.36 Shocks open up opportunities for institutional change. In coordinated market economies, leaders will not always jump at the chance provided by a window of opportunity, because rounds of deliberation precede reform measures. They generally prefer layering (or merely institutional drift) to radical reform, in order to pacify the rank-and-file of consulting parties with different views. For this reason, incremental change is sometimes framed as a different reaction to exogenous shocks compared with the traditional institutional change. “The challenge of studying institutional change is not so much to show what has changed, but how, when and why this change occurred, and what this change really means.”37 It is remarkable that the incentive-driven economists’ view on institutional change does not seem to take account of the existing context. Leadership, as Alston points out, involves moral authority and is crucial for initiating change.38 However, by focusing on leadership, we may lose sight of other mechanisms that propel change. 8

Leadership, Public Pressure, and Top-down Change

In addition to leadership, we could acknowledge the importance of public pressure and also higher level pressure by international treaties, which constitutes top-down change. Both have increasingly influenced the course of events in the twentieth century – because democratization gave a vote to the general public, and because the supranational level of political economy expanded substantially. Public pressure was an essential driver for the introduction of 35 36 37 38

Hall, “Policy paradigms.” Alston, “Beyond institutions,” 359. Jeroen van der Heijden, “Institutional layering. A review of the use of the concept,” Politics 31, no. 1 (2011): 10. Alston, “Beyond institutions,” 355.

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the post-war welfare state. Introducing welfare state laws had far-reaching economic effects and set in motion several types of incentive-based feedback loops. Of course, one can view the efforts of Lord Beveridge as an expression of leadership, and likewise the actions of politicians such as Willem Drees in the Netherlands. The Depression and the war can be seen as historic events that also form part of the explanation. In the 1950s and 1960s public pressure translated into the influence of trade unions and the influence of an electorate inclined towards social-democratic ideas. As Hemerijck writes: “The so-called “post-war settlement” between workers and employers can be viewed as the pragmatic and concerted post-war response to the disruptive, political and social crisis of the interwar period. Both organized capital and labour supported the welfare state and the Keynesian mixed economic order.”39 Political systems also influence outcomes of the regulatory process. Proportional representation is more likely to lead to generous welfare states and consensual labour relations. Two-party systems with majoritarian rule lead to more right-wing governments and tend to allow larger changes in political trends or more radical change in formal institutions.40 Is the nation state still the determinant force in institutional change? Yes it is, but by increasingly using their role as orchestrator of international treaties and supranational institutions, states also become subordinate to treaties they have signed themselves.41 9

Cartelization and Competition Policy

Let us now examine a classic example of Dutch economic history, a twentieth century topic that has received recurrent attention in the literature: cartelization and competition policy. Cartels can be placed in a tradition of entrepreneurial cooperation that we also observe in premodern guilds. As I briefly mentioned above, the debate on guilds shows that such employer cooperation can be viewed as either a positive or negative influence on economic growth. 39

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Anton Hemerijck, “Corporatist governance, the welfare state and European integration,” in Changing liaisons. The dynamics of social partnership in 20th century West-European Democracies, eds. Karel Davids, Greta Devos, and Patrick Pasture (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2007), 41. Torben Iversen and David Soskice, “Electoral institutions and the politics of coalitions. Why some democracies redistribute more than others,” American Political Science Review 100, no. 2 (2006); Philip Manow, “Electoral rules, class coalitions and welfare state regimes, or how to explain Esping-Andersen with Stein Rokkan,” Socio-Economic Review 7 (2009). Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and domestic politics. The logic of two-level games,” International Organization 42, no. 3 (1988).

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Likewise, views on cartelization develop over time and emphasize positive or negative effects of cartels on the macro economy. In the early twentieth century Dutch economy, cartels were accepted (and embedded) in an informal context of cooperation and hierarchy. From the 1960s onward, however, they were layered and subsequently eliminated during the introduction of the common European market. Cartelization is an example of institutional change that is less dependent on leadership and more dependent on supranational policy changing the dominant beliefs. After the First World War, and increasingly during the 1930s depression, Dutch firms did not appreciate fierce competition. Employers feared a race to the bottom in prices, which would destabilize their position and favour foreign competitors. The government complied: it increasingly regulated and coached domestic competition. In 1935 an Act was passed that gave the government power to declare agreements between businesses either binding or non-binding. This Act had an impact on competition policy, as it meant that companies participating in cartels had legal protection and the other participants had to conform to the agreement. This prevented “unfair” competition. In 1937 the Vestigingswet Kleinbedrijf (an Act on the establishment of small businesses) was passed, creating a barrier to the entry of new firms and favouring the existing workshops and stores. In 1939 the so-called Rijksbureaus were introduced. These were vertical organizations that managed the value chain in a specific sector, from raw materials to distribution, forming a link between production and trade. Government interference in the private sector therefore increased, in close cooperation with lobby groups representing trade and industry.42 The government accepted and even favoured cartelization, because national cooperation could counter international competition. Industrial organization was encouraged and improved during the German occupation in 1940–1945, and cooperation was now used to serve the German war industry. In addition to the Rijksbureaus, in 1940–1942 “company groups” (bedrijfsgroepen) were organized parallel to the German system, in industry, trade, transport, crafts, banking and insurance. The older cartelization Acts were replaced by the ­Kartelbesluit (Cartel Decree). Thus, industrial organization in the ­Netherlands was strengthened during World War ii, increasing the resemblance to German industrial organization.43 In consequence of wartime planning and economic 42

43

Jan Bruggeman and Aart Camijn, Ondernemers verbonden. 100 Jaar Centrale Ondernemingsorganisatie in Nederland (Wormer: Inmerc, 1999) 165–171; Bram Bouwens and Joost Dankers, Tussen Concurrentie en Concentratie. Belangenorganisaties, Kartels, Fusies en Overnames. Bedrijfsleven in Nederland in de Twintigste Eeuw, Volume three (Amsterdam: Boom, 2012) 100. Bouwens and Dankers, Tussen Concurrentie en Concentratie, 101–104.

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regulation, cartels flourished. When in 1950 a preliminary framework was published for the Economic Competition Act (Wet op Economische Mededinging, wem), cartelization was regarded as compatible with Dutch informal institutions and not something that required a complete overhaul. The wem itself, which came into force in 1958, emphasized self-regulation and took a lenient stance on cartelization. Typically, for most of the twentieth century in the Netherlands, cartels were not seen as a threat to the functioning of the market, but rather accepted as part of the traditional laissez-faire principle. Dutch anti-cartel laws were ­anti-abuse rather than prohibitive in nature: they were aimed at preventing the abuse of cartels. The fact that companies cooperated was acceptable as long as this did not harm the public interest. This also meant that their importance was usually underestimated. After the Second World War, the general climate of consensus and agreement in the Netherlands (dissenting views and open debates were not appreciated) encouraged arrangements between businessmen. The Dutch cartel situation was somewhat peculiar: cartels had to be registered, but the register was kept secret.44 This conformed to the traditional Dutch belief in the benefits of business interest associations, and can therefore be seen as a characteristic of coordination: self-regulation was preferred to the invisible hand of the market. Change in the post-war decades came from outside: European legislation in the Treaty of Rome of 1957, particularly in the area of competition, was much more restrictive towards cartels. This caused the Dutch employers’ organizations considerable concern during the late 1950s.45 In 1964 vertical price agreements were banned. As a result of the EU’s increasingly strict anti-cartel policy, a criminal connotation was attached to cartelization. Yet the practice of institutionalized consultation, the “polder model,” remained unthreatened, even though it was also based on a high degree of employer organization.46 The Economic Competition Act (wem) was considered much too tolerant towards cartelization, but it was a long time before it was succeeded by the Competitive Trading Act (Mededingingswet, Mw) of 1998, which explicitly prohibited cartels. From then on, there was a special authority to check compliance and safeguard free competition: the Dutch Competition A ­ uthority 44

45 46

R.T. Griffiths and W. Asbeek Brusse, “The management of markets. Business, governments and cartels in post-war Europe,” in Business and European integration since 1800. Regional, national and international perspectives, ed. U. Olson (Goteborg: Goteborg University, 1997). Bruggeman and Camijn, Ondernemers verbonden, 163. Doreen Arnoldus, In goed overleg? Het overleg over de sociale zekerheid in Nederland vergeleken met België, 1967–1984 (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2007), 42–45.

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­(Nederlandse Mededingings Autoriteit).47 Cartel fines were energetically imposed by the European Union, and in 2016 they reached an annual record of 4.1 billion euros.48 The new Mededingingswet concluded a process that had taken two decades. It represented both the effect of European integration and the acceptance of a more liberal economic paradigm.49 During that period the number of gentlemen’s agreements and cartels declined, in response to European pressure combined with the spread of new business strategies. In fact, then, this specific type of coordination, which was not regarded as any kind of obstacle to the market, was forcefully abandoned due to topdown rules that embodied new views on international competition. It was not the choice of the private sector or the national government to reduce coordination, but rather the consequence of the larger move towards a common ­European market. The reason behind the European pressure for free markets is that firms should not be allowed to organize themselves to boost profits and gain protection against the disciplining force of the market. But in response to foreign competition, cartelization could be a way to protect firms against the risk of a sudden loss of sales. Coordination had other advantages, too, some of which were even in the interest of the consumer, such as dense retail networks and secure jobs. While this may not have lowered prices or encouraged innovation, it certainly served the strategic purpose of ensuring the firm’s continuity, allowed domestic innovative investment, and protected jobs. In the food and drink sector, cooperation supported a dense retail network that was very convenient for consumers, especially in times when people were much less mobile and there were fewer cars. By setting fixed prices for quality brands, the system allowed keen cost calculation. In more recent times, a policy inspired by external threats and intended to safeguard international competitiveness of the national economy by encouraging cooperation between employers is a component of so-called strategic 47

48

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In 2013 it merged with opta (Onafhankelijke Post en Telecommunicatie Autoriteit, which supervised and regulated the telecommunications market) and CA (Consumentenautoriteit, which checked that companies trade fairly with consumers) to form the Autoriteit Consument en Markt (acm, Consumer and Market Authority). This includes a 3 billion euro fine that EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager imposed on a cartel of truck manufacturers, including daf, for fixing prices. See Het Financieele Dagblad, 5 January 2017. In 2007 three of the most important Dutch beer breweries, Heineken, Grolsch and Bavaria, were fined 273 million euros for an illegal pact sharing out the Dutch market and keeping prices at a high level. Bouwens and Dankers, Tussen concurrentie en concentratie, 218–226.

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trade theory.50 Regulating or obstructing free markets in an open economy is not as exceptional or foolish as the neoliberal paradigm suggests. “Strategic Trade Theory” (or “New Trade Theory”) provides the rationale for interfering in the free market through subsidies, protectionism or domestic industrial policy, to assist producers in the global competitive market. During the prewar decades and the 1950s, there was a certain pragmatism, aimed at securing business interests in an open economy. Sluyterman writes: “The cross-class coalition between employers and employees, which was supported by the government, encouraged the persistence of cartels in the Netherlands. […] Only reluctantly did the Dutch accept the EU view that cartels were negative instruments and had to be curtailed.”51 For a long time, institutional change in the area of business cooperation consisted of layering, adding new laws on top of older laws. Cartel agreements were made generally binding (similar to wage negotiations in collective ­labour agreements), so that practices that had developed in the private sector were enforced by law. New legislation, such as the 1958 Economic Competition Act, built upon this. However, the U-turn came from the European ­Economic Community, which had an entirely different view on cartels, introducing a d­ isplacement. Here the traditional consensus-seeking coordination was disrupted by a strong external force, disturbing the institutional path dependency. There are many similar top-down influences, through the communication of best practice and through international treaties. Examples include the climate treaties, but also multinationals introducing performance-related pay. In broad terms, national institutions are increasingly changing as a result of international influences. 10 Conclusion Comparative capitalism classifies countries into categories on the basis of their economic institutions. Another criterion is the way institutional change is implemented in the national economy. The path of institutional change is typical of a specific variety of capitalism, since it reinforces or consolidates 50 51

Robert Gilpin, Global political economy. Understanding the international economic order (Princeton 2001) 122–123, 214–215; Chang, Ha-Joon, Kicking away the ladder? Development strategy in historical perspective (London: Anthem, 2002). Keetie Sluyterman, “Introduction: Changing business systems in the Netherlands in the twentieth century,” Business History Review 84, no. 4 (2010): 749.

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the institutional choices. This is not uncontested, but the outcome of the ­decision-making process is significant. In the course of time, institutions are modified in response to structural changes in the economy. These changes can be the result of technological developments or demographic change, but also of changing beliefs, social pressure or intergovernmental agreements. Institutional change is associated with a specific institutional setting, because the very institutions that set economies apart also influence the type of ­institutional change that takes place. However, this connection is not clear-cut. Institutional change is also influenced by other factors, such as political systems, crises, internationalization of the economy and contingent events that require radical policy measures. Immediately after the Second World War, the industrialized countries introduced institutional arrangements to improve the stability of their economies and prevent a breakdown of the kind that happened in the 1930s. Coordination and regulation were introduced in various ways. In each country a specific outcome resulted, a mixture of both existing traditions and new policy ideas.52 Assessing the implications of institutional change for comparative capitalism, we suspect that coordinated market economies are more susceptible to layering and conversion, because their decision-making structure involves more stakeholders, whereas in liberal market economies the decision-making structure is leaner, so there are more possibilities for radical reform. In addition to leadership, propelling institutional change on the basis of changing ideas or beliefs, I outlined other mechanisms that drive change. Public pressure has become increasingly important in forcing institutional systems to change, as too has pressure from international treaties, which constitutes a top-down influence. With an examination of the demise of Dutch cartels, I reviewed the international effect on institutions. Applying Streeck and Thelen’s classification of types of change to the formal institutions relating to cartels, I observed a rather radical displacement, or formal change, in these institutions, after a lengthy period consisting mainly of layering. Defection from the old rules took place and a new approach was introduced. The change came from the European ­Economic Community, whose view on cartels was entirely different from that of the Dutch coordinated market economy. Consensus-seeking coordination was disrupted by a strong external force and a new economic understanding, which disturbed institutional path dependency. Only the slow pace of reform was a sign of persisting Dutch coordinating, consultative or deliberative institutions. 52

Barry Eichengreen, The European economy since 1945. Coordinated capitalism and beyond (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 419–420.

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Bibliography Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. Why nations fail. The origins of power, prosperity and poverty. New York: Crown Publishers, 2012. Alston, Lee. “Beyond institutions. Beliefs and leadership.” Journal of Economic History 77, no. 2 (2017): 353–372. Arnoldus, Doreen. In goed overleg? Het overleg over de sociale zekerheid in Nederland vergeleken met België, 1967–1984. Amsterdam: Aksant, 2007. Bouwens, Bram, and Joost Dankers. Tussen concurrentie en concentratie. Belangenorganisaties, kartels, fusies en overnames. Bedrijfsleven in Nederland in de twintigste eeuw, Volume 3. Amsterdam: Boom, 2012. Bruggeman, Jan, and Aart Camijn. Ondernemers verbonden. 100 Jaar centrale ondernemingsorganisatie in Nederland. Wormer: Inmerc, 1999. Chang, Ha-Joon. Kicking away the ladder? Development strategy in historical perspective. London: Anthem, 2002. Culpepper, Pepper D. “Institutional change in contemporary capitalism. Coordinated financial systems since 1990.” World Politics 57, no. 2 (2005): 173–199. Davids, Karel. “Beginning entrepreneurs and municipal governments in Holland at the time of the Dutch Republic.” In Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in early modern times. Merchants and industrialists within the orbit of the Dutch staple market, edited by Leo Noordegraaf and Clé Lesger, 79–104. The Hague: Hollandse Historische Reeks, 1995a. Davids, Karel. De macht der gewoonte? economische ontwikkeling en institutionele context in Nederland op de lange termijn. Inaugural Lecture VU Amsterdam. ­Amsterdam: VU, 1995b. Davids, Karel. “Regions, families, religion. Continuity and change in social contexts of entrepreneurship 1800–2000.” In Entrepreneurship in context, edited by M. van ­Gelderen and E. Masurel, 127–138. London: Routledge, 2011. Davids, Karel. “Technological change and the economic expansion of the Dutch Republic.” In The Dutch economy in the Golden Age. Nine studies, edited by Karel Davids and Leo Noordegraaf, 79–104. Amsterdam: neha, 1993. Davids, Karel. The rise and decline of Dutch technological leadership. Technology, economy and culture in the Netherlands, 1350–1800. Two volumes. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2008. Davids, C.A., and J. Lucassen, eds. A miracle mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Deeg, Richard. “Change from within: German and Italian finance in the 1990s.” In Beyond continuity. Institutional change in advanced political economies, edited by ­Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen, 169–202. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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Eichengreen, Barry J. The European economy since 1945. Coordinated capitalism and beyond. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008. Gilpin, R. Global political economy. Understanding the international economic order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. Griffiths, R.T., and W. Asbeek Brusse. “The management of markets. Business, governments and cartels in post-war Europe.” In Business and European integration since 1800. Regional, national and international perspectives, edited by U. Olson, 162–188. Goteborg: Goteborg University, 1997. Hall, P.A. “Policy paradigms, social learning, and the state. The case of economic policymaking in Britain.” Comparative Politics 25 (1993): 275–296. Hall, Peter A., and David Soskice. “An introduction to varieties of capitalism.” In Varieties of capitalism. The institutional foundations of comparative advantage, edited by Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, 1–68. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Hall, Peter A., and Kathleen Thelen. “Institutional change in varieties of capitalism.” Socio-Economic Review 7, no. 1 (2009): 7–34. Hampden-Turner, Charles, and Fons Trompenaars. The seven cultures of capitalism. Value systems for creating wealth in Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands. London: Doubleday, 1993. Heijden, Jeroen van der. “Institutional layering. A review of the use of the concept.” Politics 31, no. 1 (2011): 9–18. Hemerijck, Anton. “Corporatist governance, the welfare state and European integration.” In Changing liaisons. The dynamics of social partnership in 20th century WestEuropean democracies, edited by Karel Davids, Greta Devos, and Patrick Pasture, 29–84. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2007. Hofstede, G. Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations. Second ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1981. Iversen, T., and D. Soskice. “Electoral institutions and the politics of coalitions. Why some democracies redistribute more than others.” American Political Science Review 100, no. 2 (2006): 165–181. Jackson, Ben. “At the origins of neoliberalism. The free economy and the strong state, 1930–1947.” The Historical Journal 53, no. 1 (2010): 129–151. Jackson, Gregory, and Richard Deeg. “The long-term trajectories of institutional change in European capitalism.” Journal of European Public Policy, 19, no. 8 (2012): 1109–1125. Jackson, Gregory, and Richard Deeg. “From comparing capitalisms to the politics of institutional change.” Review of International Political Economy 15, no. 4 (2008): 680–709. Lucassen, J. Jan, Jan Salie en diens kinderen. Vergelijkend onderzoek naar continuïteit en discontinuïteit in de ontwikkeling van arbeidsverhoudingen. Inaugural lecture VU Amsterdam. Amsterdam: VU, 1991. Mahoney, James, and Kathleen Thelen. Explaining institutional change. Ambiguity, agency, power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

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Manow, Philip. “Electoral rules, class coalitions and welfare state regimes, or how to e­ xplain Esping-Andersen with Stein Rokkan.” Socio-Economic Review 7 (2009): 101–121. North, Douglass C. “Beyond the New Economic History.” Journal of Economic History 34, no. 1 (1974): 1–7. Olson, Mancur. The rise and decline of nations. Economic growth, stagflation, and social rigidities. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. Pasture, Patrick, Karel Davids, and Greta Devos. “Introduction.” In Changing liaisons. The dynamics of social partnership in 20th century West-European democracies, edited by Karel Davids, Greta Devos, and Patrick Pasture, 11–27. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2007. Prak, Maarten, and Jan Luiten van Zanden. “Towards an economic interpretation of citizenship. The Dutch Republic between medieval communes and modern nationstates.” European Review of Economic History 10 (2006): 111–145. Prak, Maarten, and Jan Luiten van Zanden. Nederland en het Poldermodel. ­Sociaaleconomische geschiedenis van Nederland 1000–2000. Amsterdam: Bert ­Bakker, 2013. Putnam, Robert D. “Diplomacy and domestic politics. The logic of two-level games.” International Organization 42, no. 3 (1988): 427–460. Prak, Maarten, and Jan Luiten van Zanden. ed. Varieties of capitalism and business history. The Dutch case London: Routledge, 2015. Sluyterman, Keetie. “Introduction: Changing business systems in the Netherlands in the twentieth century.” Business History Review 84, no. 4 (2010): 737–750. Streeck, Wolfgang, and Kathleen Thelen. “Introduction: Institutional change in advanced political economies.” In Beyond continuity. Institutional change in advanced political economies, edited by Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen, 1–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Touwen, Jeroen. Coordination in transition. The Netherlands and the world economy, 1950–2010. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Touwen, Jeroen. “Varieties of capitalism and institutional change in New Zealand, ­Sweden and the Netherlands in the 1980s and 1990s.” In Aspects in varieties of capitalism. Dynamics, economic crisis, new players, edited by H. Egbert and C. Esser, 171–202. Saarbruecken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010. Trompenaars, F., and C. Hampden-Turner. Riding the waves of culture. London: Nicholas Brealey, 1997. Vries, P.H.H. “The role of culture and institutions in economic history: Can economics be of any help?.” NEHA-Jaarboek voor Economische, Bedrijfs- en Techniekgeschiedenis 64 (2001): 30–60. Vries, Jan de, and Ad van der Woude. The first modern economy. Success, failure, and perseverance of the Dutch economy, 1500–1815. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Chapter 5

Social Partnership in the Northern Netherlands (1985-?) Marijn Molema Collective deliberation in the social economic domain is an important principle in many of the modern industrialized countries. Social scientists embed such principles in the “Rhineland model” which stands for the cooperation between employers, employees, and the government.1 Currently, the “varieties of capitalism” debate is in vogue, with the concept of the “coordinated market economy” figuring prominently.2 This concept refers to the network of firms and institutions that together regulate market economies. Compared with the “liberal market economy,” the “coordinated market economy” contains more strategic interaction between actors in the social-economic domain. In close interaction with analytical frameworks such as these, historians study the origins and practices of consultation between the associations of workers, employers’ organizations and the state.3 A milestone in the historiography of this matter was created by the Belgian-Dutch research project “The growth of the consultative economy. Comparative research on the development of national consultative bodies and government in the Netherlands and ­Flanders-Belgium between c. 1920 and 1970.”4 At the beginning of the twenty-first century, this long-term research project was led by, among others, Karel Davids. 1 Michel Albert, Capitalisme contre capitalisme (Paris: Le Seuil, 1991). 2 Peter A. Hall and David W. Soskice, Varieties of capitalism: The institutional foundations of comparative advantage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Jeroen Touwen, “Varieties of capitalism en de Nederlandse economie in de periode 1950–2000,” Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 3, no. 1 (2006). 3 Discussion dossier Low Countries Historical Review 129, no. 1; Bas van Bavel, Joost Dankers, Jan Peet, and Teun Jaspers, ser 1950–2010: Zestig jaar denkwerk voor draagvlak (Amsterdam: Boom, 2010). 4 Karel Davids, Greta Devos, and Patrick Pasture, eds., Changing liaisons: The dynamics of social partnership in 20th century West-European democracies (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2007); Doreen Arnoldus, Karel Davids, Gregory Vercauteren, and Ivan Wijnens, “De groei van overlegeconomie in Nederland en België. Een overzicht van ontwikkelingen in het onderzoek,” Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 1, no. 1 (2004); Karel Davids, “Overheid, sociale partners en representatie in een veranderende wereld: Een historisch perspectief.” Beleid en Maatschappij 34, no. 1 (2007).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_007

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His ­comparative approach resulted in better insight into dynamic processes between employers’ organizations and trade unions. The focus on national practices within this project is illustrative for the historiography of social partnership. Approaches that analyse the consultation economy at sub-national levels are scarce, although there are exceptions for the Belgian case.5 Current processes of decentralization transfer social and economic responsibilities from the national level to regional and local administrations. An example is labour market policy, in which twenty Dutch labour market regions have been given executive tasks since 2014. Other examples from the Netherlands can be found throughout the country: Brainport ­Eindhoven, Parkstad Limburg and the Zwolle Region are current illustrations of regional governance. Recent reports by national policymakers and advisers underscore the importance of these practices.6 Cities and regions are seen as environments in which crucial components of socioeconomic life take place. Such components include everyday matters such as commuting to work, as well as contacts between governments, centres of knowledge, and entrepreneurs. Due to the spatial proximity between the actors, such contacts can flourish on an urban as well as on a regional scale.7 Building on these trends in public administration, it is worthwhile to ­extend historical research on practices of social and economic consultation to the sub-national level as well. As a matter of fact, there is a young, dynamic tradition of social partnership in several Dutch regions. Between 1982 and 1992, a regional Social and Economic Council (Sociaal-­Economische Raad, ser) was set up in each province. However, six of them have since then been abolished (see table 5.1). At the urban level, we see a similar pattern of “rise and fall.” For example, the city of Delft founded its own municipal ser in 2009, but as its recommendations did not have enough impact, it was abolished in 2014.8 Apparently, regional consultation practices are less vigorous and viable compared to the work of the national ser. This leads 5 Ophelia Ongena, Economische Raad Voor Oost-Vlaanderen. 55 Jaar de stuwende kracht (Gent: erov, 2010); Idem, Een geschiedenis van het sociaal-economisch overleg in Vlaanderen ­(1945–2010). 25 Jaar serv (Gent: Academia Press, 2010). 6 Studiegroep Openbaar Bestuur, “Maak verschil. Krachtig inspelen op regionaal-­economische opgaven,” https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2016/03/15/rapport-maak -verschil, accessed 2 May 2018; Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid (wrr), Naar een Lerende Economie (The Hague: wrr, 2013). 7 Michael Storper, The regional world. Territorial development in a global economy (New York and London: Guilford Press, 1997). 8 Letter of the Municipal Board of Delft to the Municipal Council of Delft, 21 February 2014, http://ris.delft.nl/, accessed 5 October 2017.

104 Table 5.1

Molema Regional institutes of social and economic cooperation

Province

Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe Overijssel Gelderland Flevoland Utrecht Noord-Holland Zuid-Holland Noord-Brabant Zeeland Limburg

Year of Abbreviated Name switch foundation name at to ser foundation 1992

sean

2007

1981 1997 1994 1987 1985 1982 1988 1988 1987

seaco SoPaG seor oase seon seroa seob secg sear

2007 2007 2007 2005 2008 2002 2005 2009 -

Year of abolition

2013 2013 2013 2006; 2013 2007 2001

Source: ser reports on regional institutes, semi-static archive ser, The Hague

to the central question of this contribution: how can it be that socioeconomic consultation structures that are firmly rooted in the national arena of Dutch politics, seem to be more vulnerable at the regional level? This question helps to expand the historiography on social partnership to practices on the subnational scale, but it also helps to question the vulnerabilities of regional sers. These vulnerabilities deserve our attention: if the state decentralizes responsibilities to the region, we should be careful for consequences with regard to our traditions of social partnership. As ambitious as this contribution is when it comes to scientific and societal relevance, it is as modest with regard to empirical analysis. We can hardly compare or relate our results to the work of others. Therefore, this chapter is an exploration in which the practices of social partnership in the region are described with a focus on the northern provinces of Friesland, Groningen, and Drenthe. These provinces cooperated in the ser Noord-Nederland and its forerunners from 1985. Its organizational history provides interesting and partly unique case study material. First, the northern Netherlands struggled with economic vulnerability caused by its remoteness from the country’s largest economic agglomerations. This resulted in lower growth rates and higher unemployment than the national averages. ser Noord-Nederland – and its

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­predecessors – were committed to the theme of the region’s economic vulnerability, and national policies that were aimed at improving the development of the North. Second, the cooperation between these three provinces resulted in one of the main obstacles to regional social partnership: the competition between politicians from different administrative entities. Implicitly or explicitly, there was a continuous struggle concerning who had the right to speak and act on behalf of “the North.” In addition, there was discussion regarding the division of national subsidies over the three provinces. As we will see, this competition has undermined the legitimacy of ser Noord-Nederland. Third, ser Noord-Nederland embodied an interesting history of adaptation and organizational change. In the last decade, ser Noord-Nederland had to change its natural point of focus when the national government terminated regionaleconomic policies after sixty years. We will see how ser Noord-Nederland succeeded in finding a new orientation – although it was not able to entirely ­restore its legitimacy. This chapter is based on reports from the national ser and the ser NoordNederland. In addition, a limited amount of archival research, as well as a series of interviews with stakeholders are the sources for this exploration.9 This chapter is based on four propositions with which I will attempt to grasp the internal dynamics in small consultative bodies, such as the ser NoordNederland. It must be stated beforehand that these internal dynamics do not examine all relevant aspects and developments with regard to regional sers. There are a number of external factors that define the success or failure of social partnership in the region. However, this contribution is limited to our understanding of the vulnerabilities that come from within the ser NoordNederland, describing external factors shortly and only as far as it is relevant to social partnership in the northern provinces. 1

What Happened before: The Foundation of a Regional ser

The first organizational form of consultation in the northern Netherlands was established in 1985 and was called the Board Consultation North (Besturen Overleg Noord, hereafter: bon). The foundation was part of a larger trend, in 9 As such, this contributions rests on a project assigned by the ser Noord-Nederland to the Fryske Akademy in 2017, which resulted in the publication: M. Molema and H. Wagenaar, ­Balans van de ser Noord-Nederland. 25 Jaar zoeken naar een evenwicht in functies (Leeuwarden: Het Nieuwe Kanaal, 2017). Some parts of this chapter were translated from Dutch to English and supplemented in order to fit this chapter. The author wants to thank Homer Wagenaar from the University of Groningen for his considerable role in the research process.

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which social partners and provincial governments in other regions founded similar consultative bodies. This fact underscores the importance of national influences on regional practices. It was precisely in the 1980s that the Dutch government, trade unions, and employers’ organizations firmly embraced the idea of cooperation after a period dominated by social conflict.10 Such relationships have a prominent position in our first thesis: First thesis: The emergence, as well as the further development, of social and economic consultation organizations at the sub-national level are closely connected to and cannot be understood without taking into account circumstances at the national level and, sometimes, even the international level; there is a close interaction between the region and political arenas outside the region. When taking the relationship between the regional and the national level as our starting point, we must first explore this relationship at a theoretical and methodological level in order to assess the mechanisms which dominate in the interaction between regions and national (and international) arenas of social and economic politics. Referring to the sociological systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, we can regard an organization as a self-organising system. The foundational moment of this system is marked by the formulation of rules that define membership.11 Such regulations do not emerge out of thin air: in most cases, the foundational rules of an organization originate in networks that have been built in preceding years or even decades. The bon originated in a policy network in which national, as well as sub-national, actors and organizations met to discuss the development of the three northern provinces. After fifteen years of informal or semi-official communication between the social partners and the state, contacts were institutionalized in the bon. Which kind of networks were formed at what time? And what triggered the institutionalization of consultation practices into the bon? An event that marked the start of this regional policy network took place on 11 April 1957.12 Members of the Provincial Executives, several senior civil servants, as well as a number of Royal Commissioners (Commissarissen van de 10

Herman de Liagre Bohl, “Consensus en polarisatie. Spanningen in de verzorgingsstaat.” In Land van kleine gebaren. Een politieke geschiedenis van Nederland, eds. Herman de Liagre Bohl et al. (Nijmegen: sun, 2001). 11 Niklas Luhmann, Soziale Systeme. Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1984), 268. 12 Groninger Archieven, Archive of the Province of Groningen, 1776/2693 (Protocol, 11 April 1957).

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Koningin) met at the Provincial Office in Zwolle. They represented the provinces of Drenthe, Friesland, Gelderland, Groningen, and Overijssel. Jasper Vink, director of the National Service for the National Plan, was among the speakers. Vink, who could be considered the country’s most senior urban planner, addressed the high population pressure in the western part of the country. He drew the attention of the northern politicians to funding instruments that could promote the development of other parts of the Netherlands, including subsidies for the establishment of manufacturing industries, the spreading of government agencies, and the development of educational institutions. Vink proposed to develop plans for each part of the country, grouping toegether Groningen, Friesland, and Drenthe as “the North.” Vink got his way – the provinces cooperated in the Executive Committee for the North of the Country (Bestuurscommissie Noorden des Lands, bcn). However, he could not prevent the bcn from putting its own spin on the planning process. In September 1958, the bcn published a report that provided more than a technocratic plan.13 The report emphasized the political message that it was a necessity to invest in the social and economic development of North. Regional development policy was initially restricted to administrators, policymakers, and politicians. Social partners (i.e. organizations of workers and employers) were not involved. We are thus immediately faced with the main difference between the regional and national traditions of social and economic dialogue, namely that regional consultation – on a formal basis – was not achieved until the 1970s. The major themes of social and economic consultation, such as wage policy and social security, were debated in national political arenas. On the regional scale, there were no issues that were as politicized as the themes that needed to be discussed on the national level. This situation changed at the end of the 1960s, when regional development became subject to fierce discussions in society – not only in the North but also in the national parliament. Employers’ and employees’ organizations now also became involved in the debate about the development of the northern Netherlands. At the end of the 1960s, the policy itself was more than ten years old. There were some concrete results, such as the modernization of several northern cities, including Emmen, Drachten, and Delfzijl.14 Nevertheless, disappointment prevailed. This was an (unexpected) consequence of the regional development plans. Plans made by the Northern provinces were by no means ­technocratic 13 14

Bestuurscommissie Noorden des Lands, Het Noorden in Nederland (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1958). Gerrit van Vegchel, De metamorfose van Emmen. Een sociaal-historische analyse van twintig kostbare jaren 1945–1965 (Amsterdam and Meppel: Boom, 1995).

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documents, but were used as an instrument to persuade the national government to invest in their region. As had been envisaged, unemployment would no longer exceed the Dutch average in 2000. This was within reach once the industrial centres – equipped with better infrastructure and subsidies – would become the “locomotives” for the surrounding areas.15 However, these regional policy visions were at odds with reality. Average unemployment rates in the North remained higher than the national rates in the 1960s and 1970s – at least this was the perception.16 Moreover, the economic structure of the provinces was changing. Labour-intensive industries, such as textile and strawboard manufacturing in Groningen, started disappearing from the late 1960s onwards. Groningers became embittered: natural gas revenues from the Groninger soil were mainly invested elsewhere, provoking a strong feeling of injustice in this province. Labour strikes in East-Groningen (1969) and demonstrations in the city of Groningen (1971) attracted the attention of the national media. “Help the North Back on its Feet” was one of the slogans that fuelled the heated discussion. In 1971, the cabinet led by Prime Minister Biesheuvel took office. In response to the social upheaval, the minister of Economic Affairs, Harry Langman, introduced the “Integral Structure Plan for the North of the Netherlands” (isp).17 Initially, the analysis of the problem was straightforward: years of efforts to increase the level of prosperity of the Northern provinces had not produced the desired effect. According to the isp’s analysis, this was partly due to the fact that all kinds of policy areas, such as spatial planning, economic planning, recreation & tourism, education, and culture operated independently of each other. An integrated vision was needed, which would enable more effective coordination between the various policy areas. Between 1972 and 1979, the regional and national governments studied and debated these issues intensively.18 Most importantly for our analysis, the isp preparations favoured contact between policymakers and employers’ and employees’ organizations. The choice to involve social partners in the isp was meant not only to improve the content of the final plan, it was also a strategic choice to create support for 15 16 17 18

See, for example: Bestuurscommissie Noorden des Lands, Het Noorden op weg naar het jaar 2000 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1967). The real differences were moderate, though. In Groningen, the unemployed rate was 2.1 percent in 1970, compared to 1.2 percent in the Netherlands as a whole. Ministry of Economic Affairs, “Nota Noorden des lands 1972” (The Hague, 21 September 1972), Published records Dutch Parliament, 1972, no. 12010. See, for example: Stuurgroep Integraal Structuurplan Noorden des Lands, Het sociaaleconomisch beleid voor het Noorden des lands. Voortgangsrapport met hoofdlijnen voor een beleidskoers (The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1976).

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the isp. Trade unions and employers’ organizations would no longer be able to radically reject regional policy, as they were now part of it. Thus, the basis for social and economic dialogue between the regional government and the social partners was strengthened in the 1970s. The consultation practice of the 1970s was a prelude to the creation of the bon. The establishment of the bon, however, was preceded by another parallel process, in which the social partners generally acquired a more important role in the legitimization of economic policies.19 After the centre-right ­government of P.M. van Agt took office in 1977, political ideologies shifted to a neo-liberal idea of societal steering. This policy change put more emphasis on initiatives from the economic domain and civil society. Economic policy needed the expertise of entrepreneurs in order to set the right priorities. They were thought to be more in touch with the needs of business than civil servants and professional politicians were. Employees’ organizations were also willing to play a more active role. Unions and employers organizations traded wage moderation for shorter hours in 1982, which became known as the Wassenaar Agreement. Moreover, Gerrit Wagner, the chairman of Shell’s board of directors, launched a committee that initiated fundamental changes in industrial policies in 1981. The Wagner Committee recommended supporting manufacturing sectors with a strong economic basis and stimulating innovation in specific branches of these sectors, rather than subsidizing industries in decline.20 As for the northern Netherlands, Wagner inspired the creation of the ­Goudswaard Committee, which was to select strong economic sectors in the region. In 1982 the chairman of the northern district of the Christian Employers’ Association pleaded to extend national policies to re-inforce industries based in the outer regions.21 He received the support of the liberal minister of economic affairs, Gijs van Aardenne. Van Aardenne’s department emphasized the organizational capacity of the regions: contacts, cooperation, and coordination within the region should create more added value. With the support of Van Aardenne, the “Advisory Committee on the Northern Market Sector” was set up in 1984.22 This committee was also known as the Goudswaard Committee, named after its chairman, Han Goudswaard (1921–2013), who had formerly been a Unilever executive. The committee included two representatives of the 19 20 21 22

De Liagre Bohl, “Consensus en polarisatie,” 263–342. Adviescommissie inzake het Industriebeleid, Een nieuw industrieel elan (The Hague: without publisher, 1981). Drents Archief, Assen [hereafter, DA], Archive of the Bestuurscommissie Noorden des Lands, 0902/232 (Letter from ncw-Noord to bcn, 16 March 1983). Kijk op het Noorden, no. 87 (April 1984): 31.

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trade unions, three representatives of regional and national industries, as well as two scholars.23 The Committee was very active in the spring and summer of 1984 and identified a number of strong northern industries, including the agro-industry, dairy production, strawboard manufacturing, and logistics.24 By doing so, it laid the foundations for a standing committee in which employers’ and employees’ organizations discussed economic themes at a strategic level. The involvement of these social partners in the implementation of the Goudswaard recommendations was institutionalized with the foundation of the bon in 1985.25 Six representatives of both the trade unions and the employers’ organizations now convened four times a year. The bon meetings were formal meetings in which members of the Provincial Executives and one Royal Commissioner (who chaired the discussion) gathered and harmonized ideas from trade unions and employers’ organizations. The agenda remained closely linked to regional economic policy. This included, for example, a response to draft proposals from the national government, or a response from the social partners to national memoranda.26 One would hardly expect major events in world politics to influence a regional organization like the bon. Nonetheless, in the early 1990s, two geopolitical shifts triggered its reorganization by the Royal Commissioners of the three provinces. First, the acceleration of European integration stimulated a sense of regional awareness. The Single European Act, signed in 1986, offered the prospect of free movement of individuals, goods and capital – a promise fulfilled by the creation of the European Union in 1992. Second, countries in Eastern Europe opened up their borders as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Both world events came together at the beginning of the 1990s. According to the Royal Commissioners of the Northern provinces, Hans Wiegel (Friesland), Henk Vonhoff (Groningen), and Wim Meijer (Drenthe), the opening of economic and political borders offered new opportunities for the region. Wiegel, Vonhoff, and Meijer had a wealth of political experience and were, above all, leaders who were keenly aware of broad geopolitical changes in which the northern Netherlands needed to position itself.

23 Idem. 24 Adviescommissie voor de Noordelijke Marksector (Commissie Goudswaard), Het Noorden aan zet (Groningen, Assen and Leeuwarden: without publisher, 1984). 25 DA, Archive of the Bestuurscommissie Noorden des Lands, 0902/241 (Convocation, 1 ­December 1987). 26 DA, Archive of the Bestuurscommissie Noorden des Lands, 0902/241 (Protocol, 21 May 1987).

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The efforts of these Commissioners led to major innovations in the cooperation between the Northern provinces. Together they set up a Common Arrangement (Gemeenschappelijke Regeling), on the basis of which the Cooperative Association of the Northern Netherlands (Samenwerkingsverband Noord-Nederland, snn) was established in 1992.27 The snn was meant to be a far-reaching form of northern cooperation that would enable the three provinces to credibly present themselves as a European region. In a declaration – prior to the establishment of the snn – the provincial governments stressed the importance of social and economic cooperation: “Combining forces can contribute to a more equal position with regard to other regions in and outside the Netherlands.”28 Therefore, the name of the bon was changed to the SocialEconomic Council Northern Netherlands (Sociaal-Economische Adviesraad Noord-Nederland, sean). 2

Standing Operating Procedures

When organizations, such as regional boards of social and economic consultation, are founded, membership rules are defined in statutes and agreements. These formalized rules serve as organizational frameworks in which ­organizations communicate and process information. During and after their establishment, organizations develop standing operating procedures. Such procedures can be seen as routines that systematize the work process and prevent miscommunication between stakeholders of the organization.29 ­Routines result in conventions that facilitate decisions concerning the frequency of formal and informal meetings, the agenda-setting process, and how to process facts, data and analyses. We have already touched upon some of the bon’s procedures, such as the meetings of the members of the Provincial Executive and the Royal Commissioner. It is not only at the moment of foundation that standing operating procedures are formed: during the course of an organization’s existence, routines are altered and new conventions developed that help it to adapt to changing circumstances. In addition to these theoretical notions, we should also take into account the size of organizations. Changing the standing operating procedures of large organizations is far more complex and 27 28 29

Samenwerkingsverband Noord-Nederland, Gemeenschappelijke Regeling (1992). DA, Archive of the Bestuurscommissie Noorden des Lands, 0902/247 (Considerans, 29 June 1992). Helmut Willke, Systemtheorie ii: Interventionsstrategie. Grundzüge einer Theorie der Intervention in komplexe Systeme (Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius, 1996).

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t­ime-consuming compared to alterations made within small organizations. Small organizations are more prone to organizational change, simply because it takes fewer persons to change the routines. These conceptual considerations lead us to the second thesis: Second thesis: Regional social partnership organizations are relatively small, and as a consequence individuals may exert considerable influence on the development of standing operating procedures. Before Henk Speelman took office as secretary of the bon, he had supported the cooperation between the three Northern provinces as the secretary of the bcn. As such, he was a dedicated civil servant with a formal interpretation of his responsibilities; he focussed entirely on the process rather than the content. Speelman became the first secretary of sean. The membership rules and practices of sean did not differ significantly from those of the bon. For example, the composition of the board and the frequency of the meetings remained unaltered. Speelman initiated the publication of more than forty sean recommendations which dealt with subjects concerning regional economic policies and the effectiveness of policy instruments.30 The switch from bon to sean, however, did mark a fundamental change at the formal level. bon recommendations were directly addressed to the members of the Provincial Executive and the Royal Commissioner, whereas sean recommendations were addressed to the board of the snn. This was, within the context of 1992, reasonable, as the three Commissioners considered the snn a political alliance: a region within Europe. The elected members of the Provincial Executives and provincial parliaments did not embrace the political visions of the Commissioners. In the years after 1992, the snn became an executive administrative body rather than a political body; its tasks were limited to managing national and European subsidies for regional economic development. Within the institutional arrangement of 1992, the sean had to advise the snn directly. As a consequence, a distance was created between the sean and provincial politicians. The open exchange of ideas between the provincial executives on the one hand, and the social partners on the other hand, was replaced by more formal structures. The board of the snn requested the sean to give advice on specific topics. 30

Based on an analysis of the report, available online at: http://www.sernoordnederland.nl/ over-ser/adviezen-van-voor-2007 and http://www.sernoordnederland.nl/onze-adviezen, accessed 5 October 2017.

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After the unexpected death of Speelman in 2000, Wilma Mansveld took over and remained the sean’s secretary until 2011. Her personality and work style were very different from those of her predecessor. Mansveld had a background in business and was accustomed to taking initiative. She organized meetings, initiated recommendations and identified new policy developments. In a short space of time, Mansveld built a large regional and national network, taking full advantage of the freedom that the members of the sean allowed her. During her ten years in office, 147 recommendations were published – mostly in the form of short letters. These recommendations often dealt with subjects ­directly relating to national policy. When Mansveld suspected that a ministry, or the national ser, was about to publish a report or white paper, she published a sean recommendation beforehand, in the hope of influencing the national decision process. However, the sean was relatively unknown to national stakeholders, and this reduced the impact of its recommendations. Thus, Mansveld arranged for the sean to be renamed ser Noord-Nederland. The predicate “ser” echoed the name of the powerful national advisory board and enhanced the authority of the recommendations of the regional body. Moreover, five new experts were appointed to add to its intellectual competence. A side effect of this new composition was that the provincial politicians and officials no longer participated in the dialogue between the social partners. This was also the case for the Royal Commissioner, who had attended the meetings since 1985. However, this was believed to be a small price to pay for the increased intellectual authority and, hence, the enlarged lobbying capacity of ser Noord-Nederland.31 Another consequence of the change was that recommendations became more detailed and voluminous. Up to 2006, the average letter of recommendation counted 3.6 pages, but this grew to 13.9 pages between 2007 and 2016.32 In addition, the process of drafting recommendations was streamlined. In 2011 Fleur Gräper became secretary and introduced committees that prepared the plenary discussion of topics, just as in the national ser.33 Moreover, stakeholders were consulted during the advisory process, adding to the legitimacy of the recommendations. 31 32 33

ser Noord-Nederland, Advies inzake adviesstructuur Noord-Nederland, 31 December 2006. Based on an analysis of the report, available online at: http://www.sernoordnederland.nl/ over-ser/adviezen-van-voor-2007 and http://www.sernoordnederland.nl/onze-adviezen, accessed 5 October 2017. ser Noord-Nederland, Annual report 2011.

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Role-related Aspects

The first two theses, inspired by the social systems theory, focused on the constitution of organizational rules and alterations of standing operating procedures in small organizations. In the third paragraph, we will elaborate on the relationship between the organizational rules on the one hand and the functions of consultative bodies on the other hand. We have explored that varying rules and routines relate to different roles. Analytically, one can distinguish three roles for regional advisory boards on social and economic matters: consultation, lobbying and policy advice. The role of consultation is independent from specific contexts or topics. Regular meetings between employers’ organizations and trades unions allow for continuous dialogue between “labour” and “capital,” providing opportunities to deal with conflicts effectively and sometimes even to speak collectively. The lobbying role means that social and economic consultation bodies in peripheral regions discuss issues that matter to them – and their population. Recommendations that result from these discussions inform political parties, centres of knowledge and interest groups about the ideas of social partners. They can generate sympathy and support for the positions and opinions of the social partners. A third role is to actually give advice about a specific topic. These recommendations may lead to new insights among the parties involved, as these may alert them to matters they have overlooked, or contain innovative ideas. The order in which these roles are listed does not necessarily reflect the importance that stakeholders attach to them. From an historical perspective, continuities and discontinuities in these roles and the way they relate to each other should be considered. Analysing the standing operating procedures, which were discussed in the previous section, may be helpful in this regard. They also lead us to the third thesis. Third thesis: There is a close connection between standing operating procedures and the roles that regional bodies play in the broader field of social and economic policies. New routines in the organization may encourage or discourage specific functions. In the period 1985–2006, the majority of the work carried out by the bon and the sean was done so in a consulting role. In periodic meetings, social partners communicated directly with the Provincial Executives and Royal Commissioners. The lobbying role became more important in the final years of the 1990s, and was promoted and expanded by Wilma Mansveld in the 2000s. This process

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was stimulated by dynamic developments in the realm of regional e­ conomic politics. In 1997, a commission led by former minister Langman was set up to advise the national government on structural investments in the Northern economy. The commission pleaded for an additional 43,000 jobs as well as an investment of 10 billion guilders to the North.34 In the follow-up of this “Langman Report,” and of the subsequent “Compass Programma” (2000–2006), the sean played an active role. This is illustrated by a letter of advice issued in 1996, titled: “The strategic direction of the northern Netherlands in the context of the economic development of the Netherlands.” It sketched the necessity of connecting the North to Amsterdam, the northwest of Germany and even Eastern Europe by means of a train connection. The Dutch part of this railroad was to be called the Zuiderzeelijn. Obviously, the sean was interested in influencing decisions in “The Hague” – which symbolizes the centre of national political power, since most of the important institutions of national politics are located there. In the annual report of 2001, Chairman Klaas Swaak clearly stated that the sean’s added value lay primarily in the influence it could have in “The Hague.”35 Wilma Mansveld also emphasized this in an interview: “You have to set up your entire regional line of attack in such a way that they recognize it on the other side.”36 At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the sean continued its lobbying role. It contributed to spatial-economic planning, for example by proposing the concept of “economic core zones” within the northern Netherlands. On the one hand, this helped to push the political agenda of strengthening urban economies in the North; ideas that were prominent in the Compass Programme. On the other hand, the sean looked ahead to the years beyond this programme, which ended in 2006. Relatively new theories about economic clusters and innovation were embraced. New combinations of strong sectors in the northern Netherlands could increase regional competitiveness. The SEAN’s emphasis on these “Schumpeter clusters” was at the core of a letter of recommendation published in 2004.37 It emphasized new combinations between sectors, for example, “chemical industries-biomass-energy,” or “multisensory systems-administrative data processing–IT.” As such, the sean contributed to the last extensive subsidy programme for the regional economy in the North. 34 35 36 37

Commissie ruimtelijk-economisch perspectief Noord-Nederland (Commissie Langman), Ruimtelijk-economisch perspectief Noord-Nederland, The Hague, September 1997. Annual Report sean 2001, cited in: ser, Negen Provinciale Overleg- en Adviesraden (The Hague: ser, 2003). Interview Wilma Mansveld, 31 May 2017. sean, Bestuur met Visie, Laat Ruimte … (Groningen: sean, 2004).

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This programme, Koers Noord, ran from 2007 to 2010 and with it, the snn and the Ministry of Economic Affairs intended to invest in “promising clusters.”38 Koers Noord ended without a sequel in 2010; the government decided to launch no new permanent programmes for the development of the northern economy. This decision marks the end of a policy tradition that started in 1957 with the meeting in the Provincial Office of Overijssel. As an organization firmly rooted in this tradition of regional policies, the ser Noord-Nederland now found its radar screen rather empty. After 2010 there were no signals of white papers requiring recommendations from the social partners in the North. There were also virtually no regional policy instruments that needed critical assessment by the employers’ organizations and trade unions. Reorientation was essential. It came as no surprise, then, when the advisory role expanded. This was supported by the new structures that had strengthened the position of academic advisers. After 2007, 35% of positions on the advisory board were held by academics. In addition, academics were also active in the sub-committees which were introduced in 2011. Fleur Gräper initiated the publication of recommendations on topics beyond the classical scope of regional economic policies, such as The Energy Challenge (2012), the Human Capital Agenda (2014) and Factory Outlet Centres (2015).39 4

Balance and Legitimacy

Earlier in this chapter, we questioned the viability of regional social and economic consultation bodies. Of the initial twelve organizations that were founded in the Dutch provinces, six have already been disbanded. Even though the ser Noord-Nederland has survived, the snn withdrew its subsidies in 2017, thus putting the continuity of the organization at risk. Considering these d­ evelopments, we need to find an explanation for the vulnerability of regional consultation bodies. Now that we have analysed some important ­organizational aspects, we can relate these to each other in a fourth and final thesis: Fourth thesis: When one of the three roles of regional consultation bodies gains the upper hand, their organizational legitimacy is at risk.

38

Ministerie van Economische Zaken en Samenwerkingsverband Noord-Nederland, Koers Noord. Op weg naar pieken (The Hague: mez, 2007). 39 See http://www.sernoordnederland.nl/onze-adviezen, accessed 5 October 2017.

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The ser Noord-Nederland was evaluated in 2014, seven years after its reorganization. According to this evaluation the snn’s reports were too abstract and too scientific and they lacked a clear focus. What is more, its recommendations were not sufficiently attuned to current policy processes. However, the evaluation also concluded that the ser Noord-Nederland was working hard to improve its advisory practices, and that this process should be given a chance. Indeed, the evaluation supported the process of renewal that had been set in motion. Recent recommendations provide an insight into the attempts to fix the shortcomings. For instance, a comparison between two advisory letters, one from before and one written after the evaluation, leads to interesting differences. The 2014 letter examines innovation support for Small and ­Medium-Sized Enterprises.40 The second advisory report focussed on secondary vocational education and training (Middelbaar Beroeps Onderwijs, mbo).41 When we compare the 2014 letter with a letter from 2017, the difference in design is striking. Professional photographs were added to the 2017 report, and the layout was professional. The 2014 report is sober by comparison. Furthermore, the 2014 analysis was much more theoretical. By contrast, the report on the labour market in the 2017 letter was more practical, and explicitly addressed what had to be done and by whom. A similarity is that both reports called for more cooperation within the northern Netherlands. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the ser Noord-Nederland did try to follow the recommendations of the evaluation, it missed the fundamental point. In all likelihood, it was not the quality of the advisory role that mattered most, but the imbalance with the other two roles, those of consultation and lobbying. In spite of the efforts made by the ser Noord-Nederland, it was difficult to convince all members of the Provincial Executives of its added value. Since the provincial politicians and Royal Commissioners had stopped attending the regular meetings with the social partners in 2007, the consultation role had suffered. Provincial administrators and the social partners drifted apart. There was no regular exchange of thoughts between them. Furthermore, after 2010, the lobbying role missed its natural focus because the national government stopped formulating and implementing regional economic policies. As a consequence, the lobbying role, as the consultation role, currently contributes little to the legitimacy of the ser Noord-Nederland. One could argue that 40 41

ser Noord-Nederland, “Aan de Slag: Innovatieondersteuning voor het mkb in ­NoordNederland,” http://www.sernoordnederland.nl/uploads/bestanden/11ee170e-f725-4f07-82 81-10ebce1d4d10, accessed 2 May 2018. ser Noord-Nederland, “Het werkend alternatief voor Noord-Nederland: Maakt de Noordelijke aanpak verschil?,” http://www.sernoordnederland.nl/uploads/bestanden/ 1a97ea61-fde9-5c24-a9f7-3630daf2c5c9, accessed 2 May 2018.

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external developments were the most important aspects that triggered organizational change within the ser Noord-Nederland. However, this chapter focusses on the internal developments and how the consultative body tried to adapt to the changing circumstances. This process of adaptation was supported by the academic members of the ser Noord-Nederland. As they published independent reports they strengthened the independent advisory role of the consultative body. But the independent relationship between social partners and the provinces also worked the other way round. Provinces assessed consultative advice themselves. Ironically, the expansion of the advisory role – which filled the void left by the ­consultation and the lobbying roles – weakened the position of the ser NoordNederland, as politicians assessed its reports on their content and usefulness to their work. However, reports that are judged solely on the basis of their analytical substance are vulnerable, especially in a political environment. It is all too easy for politicians to criticize a conclusion that is not in line with their own views, or blame a report for something which has not been analysed. This is exactly what has happened in the past years of the ser Noord-Nederland.42 That is the reason why the snn stopped its subsidies after 2017. In 2018, the province of Groningen is now the only province still funding the institute, and it remains uncertain how long this situation will continue to be legitimized by Groningen politicians. 5 Conclusion The historiography of social partnerships remains limited to studies of national practices, notwithstanding a growing interest of social scientists and policymakers in the administrative capacity of cities and regions. In order to start and stimulate a regional perspective on the history of social and economic consultation practices, this chapter has formulated four theses and explored these with the help of the ser Noord-Nederland and its forerunners. The central question focused on the viability of these institutes: how can it be that socioeconomic consultation structures that are firmly rooted in the national arena of Dutch politics, seem to be so vulnerable at the regional level? Although we cannot answer this question for all regional or urban bodies of

42

One of the deputies we have interviewed, blamed the reports for repeating knowledge and insights generated by others. Another interviewee stated that the ser Noord-­Nederland should not intervene in politicized subjects. See Molema and Wagenaar, Balans, 47.

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social and economic consultation, we can identify some issues that clarify the weakness of social partnerships in cities and regions. The first observation is that we need to look more closely at the policy networks in which regional sers were founded. A better understanding of these networks will help us understand the goals and responsibilities that were assigned to the regional organizations of social and economic consultation. Second, we stressed the importance of standing operating procedures. In relatively small organizations, individuals can exert great influence on the operating r­ outines of the organization. Third, these routines are related to the consultation, lobbying and the advisory roles of these organizations. ­Finally, we have seen how one role can dominate the other two roles, thereby disturbing the balance between them. This is what occurred in the northern ­Netherlands. Standing operating procedures, such as meetings in subcommittees with a prominent role for academic experts, resulted in the expansion of the advisory role. The consultative role was weakened because provincial politicians and officials were no longer part of the regular meetings from 2007 onwards. This decision to exclude the officials from the meetings was rooted in changed standing operating procedures. These changing procedures were part of the cause (and not the result) of a diminishing political relevance of the ser Noord-Nederland, as the change of the organizational rules in 2007, especially the decision to exclude politicians from the meetings, decreased their political relevance in the long run. After the regional economic policies were terminated, the lobbying role also lost most of its added value. This end of the regional economic policies meant that the ser Noord-Nederland no ­longer had a natural focus, undermining the cooperation between the three Northern provinces. With the advisory role far ahead of the consultative and lobbying roles, it became easy to criticize the ser Noord-Nederland. While writing this chapter, it became public that part of the funding for the institute was to be abolished, and that Groningen remains the only province still funding the institute in 2018. This makes the institute vulnerable for the near future, and makes a case for a better balance between the role of consultation, lobbying and advice. Regional social and economic consultation bodies are limited in size: They are modest players within large and dynamic networks. It is difficult for these organizations to manage and adapt their various roles simultaneously. The loss of impact of some roles is compensated for by the extension of another role. However, this disturbs the balance, and makes regionalized social partnership vulnerable – at least in the case of the northern Netherlands. Further comparisons, within and outside the Netherlands, may be helpful in further exploring the strengths and weaknesses of social partnerships at the regional level.

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Bibliography Albert, Michel. Capitalisme Contre Capitalisme. Paris: Le Seuil, 1991. Arnoldus, Doreen, Karel Davids, Gregory Vercauteren, and Ivan Wijnens. “De groei van overlegeconomie in Nederland en België. Een overzicht van ontwikkelingen in het onderzoek.” Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 1, no. 1 (2004): 76–109. Bavel, Bas van, Joost Dankers, Jan Peet, and Teun Jaspers. ser 1950–2010: Zestig jaar denkwerk voor draagvlak. Amsterdam: Boom, 2010. Bestuurscommissie Noorden des Lands. Het Noorden in Nederland. Assen: Van ­Gorcum, 1958. Davids, Karel. “Overheid, sociale partners en representatie in een veranderende wereld: Een historisch perspectief.” Beleid en Maatschappij 34, no. 1 (2007): 69–77. Davids, Karel, Greta Devos, and Patrick Pasture, eds. Changing liaisons: The dynamics of social partnership in 20th century West-European democracies. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2007. De Liagre Böhl, Herman. “Consensus en polarisatie. Spanningen in de verzorgingsstaat.” In Land van kleine gebaren. Een politieke geschiedenis van Nederland, edited by Liagre Böhl De et al. 263–342. Nijmegen: sun, 2001. Hall, Peter Andrew, and David W. Soskice. Varieties of capitalism: The institutional foundations of comparative advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Luhmann, Niklas. Soziale Systeme. Grundriss einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1984. Molema, Marijn, and Homer Wagenaar. Balans van de ser Noord-Nederland. 25 Jaar zoeken naar een evenwicht in functies. Leeuwarden: Het Nieuwe Kanaal, 2017. Ongena, Ophelia. Economische Raad Voor Oost-Vlaanderen. 55 Jaar de stuwende kracht. Gent: erov, 2010a. Ongena, Ophelia. Een geschiedenis van het sociaal-economisch overleg in Vlaanderen (1945–2010). 25 Jaar serv. Gent: Academia Press, 2010b. Storper, Michael. The regional world. Territorial development in a global economy. New York and London: Guilford Press, 1997. Stuurgroep Integraal Structuurplan Noorden des Lands. Het sociaal-economisch beleid voor het Noorden des lands. Voortgangsrapport met hoofdlijnen voor een beleidskoers. The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1976. Touwen, Jeroen. “Varieties of capitalism en de Nederlandse economie in de periode 1950–2000.” Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 3, no. 1 (2006): 73–104. Vegchel, Gerrit van. De metamorfose van Emmen. Een Sociaal-Historische Analyse van Twintig Kostbare Jaren 1945–1965. Amsterdam and Meppel: Boom, 1995. Willke, Helmut. Systemtheorie ii: Interventionsstrategie. Grundzüge einer Theorie der Intervention in komplexe Systeme. Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius, 1996.

part 3 Chasing Whales, Crossing Oceans

∵

Chapter 6

Zaanse Jonas: Zaan Whaling and Shipbuilding in the Seventeenth Century Victor Enthoven In 1973–1974, Karel Davids attended a research seminar on Dutch whaling ­focussing on the important transition from company rule under the Noordsche Compagnie to free whaling after 1642. His paper discussed the Noordsche Compagnie, 1614–1663.1 The students used the documents on whaling collected by Simon Hart of the Amsterdam Archive, predominantly bevrachtingscontracten (charters) from the notarial protocol books.2 This was no coincidence. Hart hailed from the town of Zaandam, which had deeply rooted interests in whaling during the Golden Age. The results of this study were published by Jaap Bruijn and Karel Davids in the seminal article “Jonas vrij. De Nederlandse walvisvaart, in het bijzonder de Amsterdamse in de jaren 1640–1664” [“Jonah set free. Dutch whaling, especially from Amsterdam in the years 1640–1664”].3 Bruijn and Davids noticed a strange paradox. Despite the fact that after the transition to free fishing, whaling boomed in the Zaan region, Zaan masters active in whaling, however, not only disappeared largely from the Amsterdam records, they also left hardly any traces in the Zaan protocol books.4 At the same time, commandeurs from the Zaan-region (commanders of a whaleship) also disappeared from these record.5 Recently, Björn Quanjer confirmed this development by looking at commanders active as mercantile masters in the

1 Stadsarchief Amsterdam (hereafter: saa), Archief van Dr S. Hart [883] no. 576, Werkstukken over de Nederlandse walvisvaart in de periode 1630–1665 door studenten van de ­Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, werkcollege zeegeschiedenis, 1973–1974. 2 Protocol books are notebooks or copybooks which lawyers, known as notaries public, were required to keep as a record of their work. They contain transport deeds, charters, leases, testaments, probate inventories et cetera. 3 J.R. Bruijn and C.A. Davids, “Jonas vrij. De Nederlandse walvisvaart, in het bijzonder de Amsterdamse in de Jaren 1640–1664,” in Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek 38 (1975). 4 The Zaanstreek or Zaan region is located just northwest of Amsterdam and includes the villages of Westzaan, Zaandam, Oostzaan, Koog-aan-de-Zaan, Zaandijk, Jisp, Wormer, Wormerveer, Knollendam, Krommenie and Assendelft. The Zaan maritime industrial complex of saw mills, timber trade, shipbuilding, and shipping firms was concentrated in Zaandam. 5 Bruijn and Davids, “Jonas vrij,” 149, 150n, 161, 163, 169 table 5, 170, 176.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_008

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Baltic, Archangel and Southern-European trade.6 Based on the existing literature, Joost Schokkenbroek observed: In the [early modern] whale fishery shipbuilders from the Zaanstreek regularly also acted as whaleship owners, while at the same time renting out their ships for other kinds of expeditions. These shipwrights could make temporary investments in whaling by supplying the vessels. At the end of each season they could sell off the ship at a handsome price. [Aris] van Braam calls this way of going about investing in one’s ship and its subsequent sale a kind of “trade in second-hand ships”. This statement cries out for additional research both on ships as well on the assumed intermingled positions of shipwrights and whaleship owners in the Zaanstreek.7 This chapter will, by examining Schokkenbroek’s outcry with regard to the role played by Zaan shipwrights in whale fishery, shed light on the Bruijn/Davids paradox of the rise of the Zaan whaling industry and the simultaneous disappearance of Zaan masters and commanders from the archival records after 1650. In order to unravel this mystery, this chapter will address the changes in the Zaan shipping industry in conjunction with the booming whaling industry after the demise of the Noordsche Compagnie. Essential for this change was the relation between the vegetable oil industry and the whale-oil cookeries. In addition, it will address the rise of the shipbuilding industry, including a new ­business model for building ships on their own account which resulted in the “intermingled positions of shipwrights and whaleship owners in the Zaanstreek.”8 1

Origin of the Zaan Shipbuilding Industry

The early modern Zaan maritime industrial complex of saw mills, timber trade, shipbuilding, rope making, anchor forging, and shipping firms was rooted in 6 B. Quanjer, “Jan, Piet, Gerrit en Corneel die jagen op walvis. Nederlandse commandeurs ter walvisvaart in de vrachtvaart, 1675–1695,” Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 35, no. 2 (2016). 7 J. Schokkenbroek, Trying-out. An anatomy of Dutch whaling and sealing in the nineteenth century, 1815–1885 (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2008), 30; A. van Braam, “Over de omvang van de ­Zaandamse scheepsbouw in de 17e en 18e eeuw,” Holland: Historisch Tijdschrift 24, no. 1 (1992): 35, 42–43. 8 A.M. van der Woude, Het Noorderkwartier. Een regionaal historisch onderzoek in de demografische en economische geschiedenis van westelijk Nederland van de late Middeleeuwen tot het begin van de negentiende eeuw (Utrecht: H&S, 1983), 459–460.

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Kalf Koog-aan-de-Zaan

Z a a a n

Westzaan

Oostzaan

R i v e r Westzaandam Hoge Horn

Oostzaandam dam Zuiddijk Voorzaan

Nieuwe Haven Kattegat

IJ © Lion Charmant Map 6.1 The Zaanstreek or Zaan region.

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the exploitation of a merchantman by a master, known as schipperij. In general, an independent schipper (skipper or master) of the ship was the central figure of the venture. For smaller ships, such as inland waterway vessels and coasters, the skipper was also the owner of the ship. However, in the case of larger and more expensive seagoing vessels, investors had to be attracted. This entrepreneurial form is known as partenrederij, where each investor owned a portion of the ship; usually a part of an eighth, so: 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, and 1/64. The master acted as husband or bookkeeper: He purchased the vessel, hired a crew of predominantly local sailors, acquired cargo, navigated the ship, and kept the books. Amsterdam ship brokers chartered ships from Zaan masters for trade to and from Norway, the Baltic, Russia and the Mediterranean. For the period 1590–1620, 159 different Zaan masters have been identified in Amsterdam charters. At least a hundred seagoing vessels harboured in Zaandam. Local shipwrights supplied the Zaan masters with ships.9 The once famous Zaan shipbuilding industry started along the banks of the Zaan River. The Zaan River was an important drainage system for a large part of the Noorderkwartier and flowed into the IJ tidal inlet. To protect the surrounding land, the riverbanks were raised by a dyke. Between the dyke and the river, land was reclaimed. The length of the strips of land was limited because of the drainage function of the river. On these plots, called yards, the slipways were located. To protect the land from high tides and spring floods, the mouth of the river was closed by a dam from the Voorzaan, the stretch of water between the dam and the IJ; hence the name Zaandam. To sluice surplus water at low tide and for transportation purposes, three roofed locks were built in the dam: The largest was only 78 feet long (23 meters). So, when at the end of the sixteenth century, as a consequence of the amazing Dutch trade expansion, the demand for larger merchantmen exploded, the Zaan shipwrights were faced with a problem. To safeguard the drainage function of the river, the authorities prohibited the reclamation of more land from the river intended to extend the slipways, and the small roofed locks were also an obstacle. Around 1590 at the Hoge Horn in the Voorzaan, just southwest of the dam, land was reclaimed for nine shipyards with long slipways. In response to this competition, the shipwrights along the Zaan River, however, had a cunning plan. In 1608/9 they built what is called an overtoom, an installation of a wooden floor, 9 saa, Archief van Dr S. Hart no. 315, S. Hart, Schippers uit de Zaanstreek. Voordracht voor het Historisch Gezelschap Dr G.J. Boekenoogen (1980); A. van Braam, ed., Historische atlas van de Zaanlanden. Twintig eeuwen landschapsontwikkeling (Amsterdam: Meijer Pers, 1970), 35; H.J. Soeteboom, Zaanlandze Arcadia in vijf boeken verdeelt (Amsterdam: Wilhem Linnig van Koppenol, 1702), 529.

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capstans and pulleys to haul hulls as long as 124 feet (41 meters) over the dam. It was the largest in the world.10 2

Zaan whaling and the Noordsche Compagnie

Zaan masters became involved in whaling at an early stage. In 1612, the Zaandam ship Waterhond hunted for walruses near Bjørnøya, south of Spitsbergen (Svalbard). The next year, two ships sailed to Spitsbergen. A year later, the Noordsche Compagnie was established, ending all private ventures. Zaan whalers, however, would occasionally hunt under a Danish flag.11 The Noordsche Compagnie was a chartered company, organized in so-called kamers (branches) in Amsterdam, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Rotterdam, and Delft. As of 1616, there were also branches in Vlissingen, Middelburg and Veere. After 1636, Harlingen and Stavoren were added to the list. There was no branch in the Zaan. The company’s charter included a monopoly on whaling in the coastal waters between the Davis Strait and Novaya Zemlya (Nova Zembla). Use of open water was not included. In general, the whales were caught in the littoral of Spitsbergen and Jan Mayen, so-called bay-whaling. In the event of a whale sighting, the whaleship dropped its anchor near the shore and launched the whaleboats to hunt the Greenland right whale (Balaena mystivetus). The whales were hoisted on the beaches to be dissected and the blubber was processed (trying-out) in stoves or oil cookeries to extract the oil. The main settlement was Smeerenburg on Amsterdam Island at the north-western point of Spitsbergen. At the end of the season, baleen and casks filled with oil were hoisted on board the ships, which could then set sail for home, where the proceeds of the hunt were divided between the branches according to a fixed partition.12 Cornelis de Jong pictures an average year of the Noordsche Compagnie. Annually, some twenty whaleships caught between 350 and 360 whales. Each 10

11

12

S. Lootsma, “Een en ander over den Zaanschen Scheepsbouw,” in Historische Studiën over de Zaanstreek, ed. S. Lootsma, Volume one (Koog aan de Zaan: P. Out, 1939); A. van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse scheepsbouw, 1550–1654 (Wormerveer: S.N., 1998); A.J. Klein Wassink and F. Wieringa, “De kaartboeken van de Zaan,” in Perfect gemeten. Landmeters in Hollands Noorderkwartier, c. 1550–1700, ed. F. Wieringa (Wormerveer: Uitgeverij NoordHolland, 1994); S. Dautzenberg, P. Floore and B. Kist, eds., Zaanse Scheepsbouw. Opgravingen aan de Hogendijk te Zaandam (Zaandijk: Hollandia, 2001). S. Muller, Geschiedenis der Noordsche Compagnie (Utrecht: Gebroeders Van der Post, 1874), 73–74; S. Lootsma, Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der Nederlandsche walvischvaart (meer speciaal de Zaansche) (Amsterdam: Van Kampen & Zoon, 1937), 3–4; A. van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, 1610–1660, Volume one (Wormerveer: s.n., 1999), 103–105. L. Hacquebord, De Noordse Compagnie (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2014).

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whaler operated four whaleboats which were manned by six men: four rowers, a helmsman, and a harpoonist. The company operated five stations on Spitsbergen and four on Jan Mayen. Smeerenburg had seven oil cookeries: six with two kettles, and one with one kettle. The other stations were much smaller. Each cookery was operated by twenty-four to thirty-six men. These men, with the help of the ships’ crews, dissected the whales on the beaches.13 The branches of the Noordsche Compagnie equipped their own ships, but they also chartered private vessels for a hunting season lasting from March/ April until August/September. However, despite the research conducted by Bruijn and Davids and the shipping list of Louwrens Hacquebord, it is not always clear which whaleships were company ships and which were private ships. When a charter was drawn up, it was obviously a chartered, private, ship. The company ships were presumably the large so-called kapitaalschepen, manned by 60–80 men, including the men operating the oil cookeries. The chartered whalers were smaller, with a crew of some twelve mariners sailing the ships and twenty-four whalers for the whaleboats. No specialized or standardized vessels were used for whaling. The ship-owners had to supply all the ship’s inventory, including armament and cookware. On behalf of the owners, the master joined the voyage to oversee their interests and to assist the commander in navigating the ship. The freighter, usually a company director or a commander with a company permit, hired a crew, supplied the vleet (whaling tools) of whaleboats, harpoons, lines, spades and a variety of boarding and mincing knives, and the provisions. The commander was in charge of the hunt.14 For the Holland branches of the company, and in particular Amsterdam, an obvious place to look for tonnage was Zaandam. During the first decades until around the mid-1630s, one or two Zaan ships were chartered every year. In 1624, for instance, the Amsterdam branch chartered the Goliath from the Zaan master David Pietersz for a trip to Spitsbergen. The casks with whale oil and baleens had to be unloaded in Amsterdam.15 13

14

15

C. de Jong, Geschiedenis van de oude Nederlandse walvisvaart, Volume one (Johannesburg/ Pretoria: Universiteit van Suid-Afrika, 1972), 200–201; L. Hacquebord, “Traankokerijen op de kusten van Spitsbergen; wat de historische-archeologie ons ervan leert,” in Walvisvaart in de Gouden Eeuw. Opgravingen op Spitsbergen, eds. L. Hacquebord and W. Vroom (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1988), 64; Hacquebord, De Noordse Compagnie, 118–119. Bruijn and Davids, “Jonas vrij,” 143–144, 158, 166; L. Hacquebord, Smeerenburg. Het verblijf van Nederlandse walvisvaarders op de westkust van Spitsbergen in de zeventiende eeuw (Groningen: Arctisch Centrum, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 1984), 73; Hacquebord, De Noordse Compagnie, 118–119; Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, Volume two: 127–128. saa, Archief van S. Hart. Gedeeltelijke toegang op de notariële archieven [30452] no. 279, Zaandam, tot 1630, no. 280, Zaandam, 1631; L. Hacquebord, “Schepen naar Spitsbergen en Jan Mayen waarvan vermeldingen in de archieven in Nederland zijn g­ evonden,”

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From the mid-1630s onwards, the activities and the position of the Noordsche Compagnie deteriorated. Most of the branches co-operated to oppose the dominant position of Amsterdam. At the same time, whaleships started hunting more and more individually. Around 1635, the temperature dropped and ice started to cover the bays of Spitsbergen and Jan Mayen, forcing the whalers to hunt in open waters. Special hunting vessels, called jagers or zeevisschers, had to be chartered. This, in turn, paved the way for interlopers. Some of the blubber was no longer cooked up north, but shipped in casks to be processed back home.16 In these years master Jan Claesz Broocker from Zaandam ­regularly sailed to Jan Mayen or Spitsbergen for the Amsterdam or Enkuizen branch with the Sevenstar. In 1641, however, the Sevenstar – together with three other Zaandam and five ships from Jisp – sailed without a company permit.17 A year later, the charter of the Noordsche Compagnie was revoked and the company was liquidated. Nevertheless, some former shareholders and company directors continued to hunt near Spits bergen for several years. The last blubber was probably processed on Amsterdam Island in 1669.18 After the demise of the company, something peculiar happened. Despite the fact that the Noordsche Compagnie had branches in Flushing, Middelburg and Veere, whaling disappeared completely from Zeeland, while in the Zaan, in spite of the fact the company had no branch, whaling boomed. One explanation for this latter development can be found in the many droogmakerijen (land reclamations) in Holland and the use of different seeds for soil improvement, resulting in a thriving vegetable oil industry. 3

Droogmakerijen and Stinkers

The grassy meadows of Holland were most suitable for dairy and vetwijderij (raising oxen for slaughter). During the first half of the seventeenth century in Walvisvaart in de Gouden Eeuw. Opgravingen op Spitsbergen, eds. L. Hacquebord and W.  Vroom (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1988); Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, Volume one: 105–106; saa, Archief van de Notarissen ter Standplaats ­Amsterdam [5075] (ona) no. 740/123, Charter, 11 May 1624. 16 Hacquebord, Smeerenburg, 35–36, 74–75, 79. 17 Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, Volume one: 106–107, 109–110; Hacquebord, Smeerenburg, 75; Hacquebord, De Noordse Compagnie, 113–114; saa, ona no. 672/80, Contract, 2 April 1636; no. 674/102, Contract, 21 March 1637; no. 1587/181, Contract, 20 April 1640; no. 1568/6, Attestatie, 15 February 1641; no. 1587/293, Contract, 20 April 1641; no. 1587/313, Contract, 22 April 1641; no. 1526/94, Contract, 25 March 1641; saa, Archief van Dr S. Hart no. 580, Transcripties van notariële akten betreffende walvisvaart, 1636–1668. 18 Bruijn and Davids, “Jonas vrij,” 147; Hacquebord, Smeerenburg, 75; Hacquebord, De Noordse Compagnie, 113–114.

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many lakes were reclaimed to protect the surrounding land and to serve as an investment in arable land: Wogmeer (1608), Beemster (1612), Zoetermeerse Meerpolder (1617), Purmer (1622), Wijde Wormer (1626), Bijlmermeer (1627), Watergraafsmeer (1629), Heerhugowaard (1630), Schermer (1635), Enge Wormer (1636), and Starnmeer (1643). To improve the soil for the new land cabbage seed, colza and rapeseed were used. Cabbage seed is not very sensitive to salt and grows well on virgin, nitrogen-rich marshland. The cultivation of rapeseed also requires little soil cultivation and seedlings. If the crop fails, another crop can simply be sown in spring.19 Wind-powered mills were most suitable for pressing rapeseed. The Zaan River flows from north to south. The yards on its banks offered the opportunity for operating large numbers of windmills on the predominant west-east wind direction, without catching someone else’s wind. By 1630, some forty-five ­windmills pressing rape- and linseed operated in the Zaan. The vegetable oil was used for cooking, lubrication or lighting, or was used as a raw material for soap boiling and paint production. The by-product of oilcakes was sold as fodder to dairy and cattle farmers. Over time, a significant oilseed trade developed: the rapeseed and colza were largely of inland origin, while hempseed and linseed were imported from France, Russia, and the Baltic. By 1700, millions of gallons of vegetable oil were exported to the British Isles, Germany, and the Baltic.20 One entrepreneur who joined the oil bonanza was Aris Cornelisz Caeskoper (1618–1689), one of the founding fathers of the well-known Honig imperium. As his family name suggests, he started as a cheesemonger. Around 1678, however, he withdrew from the cheese trade. By then, he owned a 3/8 part of the oil mill Halve Maan on the Kalf, just north of Zaandam. At the time of his death in 1689, he owned a 1/3 part of the oil mill Kieft and a 1/2 part of the oil mill Pink. He also owned a share in the whaler Eendracht, of which his son Gerrit Arisz Caeskoper (1644–1722) was the husband.21 It was no coincidence that the 19 20

21

“Koolzaad onmisbaar bij ontginningen polders,” Reformatorisch Dagblad, 4 May 1974, available on the webpage Digibron. Kenniscentrum Gereformeerde Gezindte, url: http://www.digibron.nl, accessed 15 September 2017. P. Boorsma, Duizend Zaanse molens (Wormerveer: Drukkerij Meijer, 1950), 42–47; L.A. ­Ankum, “Een bijdrage tot de Zaanse olieslagerij,” Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis no. 73 (1960), 39–57, 215–251; Van der Woude, Het Noorderkwartier, 495–501; K. Davids, The rise and decline of Dutch technological leadership. Technology, economy and culture in the Netherlands, 1350–1800, Volumes one (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 175; H. Kaptein, “Een unieke economie. De Zaanse nijverheid op windkracht, 1600–1800,” in Geschiedenis van de Zaanstreek, eds. E. Beukers and C. van Sijl, Volume one (Zwolle: Wbooks, 2012), 277–280. G.J. Honig, Uit den gulden bijkorf. Genealogisch-historisch-economische studiën over Zaansche families (Koog aan de Zaan: P. Out, 1952), 49–102; B. Koene, De Caeskopers. Een Zaanse koopmansfamilie in de Gouden Eeuw (Hilversum: Verloren, 2011).

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­ aeskopers took part in the whaling industry: as a matter of fact, whale oil C served the same market as vegetable oils! In Dutch, an oil cookery is nicknamed stinkerij (stinker). So, when during the late 1630s whale blubber was shipped to the Netherlands, town councils were not very keen to allow oil cookeries in their municipality. The Zaan, with its thriving vegetable oil industry, uninhabited meadows and marshes, and canals and waterways that were convenient for transportation, was an obvious location for the stinkers.22 It is a matter of debate where and when the first oil-cookery was established in the Zaan. Allegedly, three oil-cookeries were in operation in the village of Jisp as early as 1640, probably to cook the blubber for the Jisper ships which made a whaling trip that year. Commanders and ship owners from Jisp had invested in the cookeries. By then, there were also about eight oil mills in Jisp. A few years later, seven cookeries boiled whale blubber in Jisp, and in 1663 there were nine.23 In 1644, an oil-cookery was active in ­Oostzaan. A map shows seven cookeries in Oostzaan in 1693. In ­Westzaandam, an oil cookery was mentioned in 1648.24 The oil-cookeries were, just as the thriving sawmills and timber trade, an important incentive for the booming Zaan whaling fleet. 4

Sawmills and Timber Trade

Along the banks of the Zaan River, oil mills appeared as well as sawmills. The use of a crankshaft that could transform the circular motion of the sail arm or wing into an up-and-down movement driving multi-bladed saw frames increased production tremendously. Additionally, this made sawing more accurate and uniform. In 1630, fifty-three sawmills were in operation in the Zaan, sawing predominantly high-quality thin oak lumber, such as wagenschot and staves, softwood planks, and beams. Traditionally, the heavy oak planks and beams used for shipbuilding arrived in Amsterdam from Norway and P ­ oland pre-sawn.25 22 23

24 25

Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, Volume two, 139. H.P. Moelker, Het dorp aan de rivier de Ghypse (Purmerend: Nooy’s Drukkerij-Uitgeverij, 1976), 93–94, 201–205; Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, Volume one, 110, Volume two, 137, 139; R. Couwenhoven, 1100 Zaanse molens (Wormer: Stichting Uitgeverij Noord-Holland, 2015), 266–267. Gemeentearchief Zaanstad (hereafter gaz), Beeldbank no. 55.00002, J. Leupenius, Kaartboek, 1693; J. Honig, Historische oudheid- en letterkundige studiën, Volume two (Zaandijk: J. Heijnis, 1867), 45, 78, 161; Bruijn and Davids, “Jonas vrij,” 145. J. Buis, Historia Forestis. Nederlandse bosgeschiedenis, Volume two (Utrecht: H&S, 1985), 509–510; C. Lesger, “Lange-termijn processen en de betekenis van politieke factoren in de Nederlandse houthandel ten tijde van de Republiek,” Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek 55 (1992), 107–108; Davids, The rise and decline, Volume one, 184–185.

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However, around the 1620s and 1630s, a major ­transformation took place in the timber trade. As a consequence of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), the Baltic timber and lumber trade declined, including the importation of heavy oak planks and beams. This resulted in an increase of unsawn Rhineland timber. At first, Amsterdam timber traders shipped the trunks to the Zaan to be sawn, which later developed into an autonomous Zaan timber trade in Rhineland wood. Enormous rafts of tree trunks sailed down the Rhine River to Dordrecht. From there, smaller rafts were hauled to Zaandam. The first public auction of timber and lumber in Zaandam was in 1655.26 The decline of the Norwegian and Baltic lumber trade and the rise of the Zaan Rhineland timber trade had far-reaching effects for the shipping industry. First, Zaan ships disappeared from the Norwegian and Baltic trade.27 Second, this resulted in a sharp decline of the Zaan schipperij. The independent master as owner and husband of a ship disappeared in the Zaan. This development was probably stimulated by the fact that many sailors abandoned the dangerous and unconformable life at sea and started working in the booming milling and shipbuilding industries. For the years around 1700, Paul van Royen was able to find only a handful of Zaan masters. No wonder that Björn Quanjer hardly found any Zaan commanders and masters in the intra-European trade after 1675.28 5

Rise of the Zaan Shipbuilding Industry

Several factors contributed to the growth of the Zaan shipbuilding industry. First, the close proximity to the Amsterdam metropolis and its many shipping firms and important financial services such as the Exchange (Beurs) and the

26

27

28

C.A. Schillemans, “De houtveilingen van Zaandam in de jaren 1655–1811,” in EconomischHistorisch Jaarboek 23 (1947), 185–186, 196–199, 247–248; Buis, Historia Forestis, Volume two, 505–513; Lesger, “Lange-termijn processen,” 112–113; L.A. van Prooije, “De invoer van Rijns hout per vlot 1650–1795,” in Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek 53 (1990); L.A. van Prooije, “Dordrecht als centrum van de Rijnse houthandel in de 17e en 18e eeuw,” in Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek 55 (1992); L.A. van Prooije, “De houtvlotterij en Dordrecht in de 17e en 18e eeuw,” Oud Rhenen 24, no. 2 (2005). J. Schreiner, Nederland og Norge, 1625–1650. Trelastutførsel og handelspolitikk (Oslo: ­Dybwad, 1933), 112; Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, Volume two, 126–127; The Soundtoll Registers, available on the webpage of the Soundtoll Registers Online, url: http://www.soundtoll.nl, accessed 20 September 2017. P.C. van Royen, Zeevarenden op de koopvaardijvloot omstreeks 1700 (Amsterdam: Bataafsche Leeuw, 1987), Annex 9; Quanjer, “Jan, Piet, Gerrit en Corneel.”

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Amsterdam Bank of Exchange (Wisselbank). Second, low costs because of the absence of guilds and all sorts of cost-increasing regulations resulting in low wages. Third, the many sawmills and bulk timber trade. And fourth, as will be debated below, the booming whaling industry.29 By 1630, the number of shipyards had risen from twenty in 1610 to thirty. The frantic timber trade and shipbuilding activities led to the development of three industrial areas in the Voorzaan. The Oosterkattegat along the Zuiddijk in Oostzaandam was established in 1636; followed by the Westerkattegat in. This so-called Kattegat was arranged into twenty-two yards. In 1651, the Nieuwe Haven was dug on the west side, housing twenty-four yards. The yards were designated for shipbuilding, sawmilling, timber and lumber yards, for instance. The foul-smelling oil cookeries were prohibited. By the 1670s, the number of Zaan shipyards had increased to around seventy.30 Initially, the shipwrights worked for a commission or on assignment; the ships were tailor-made and bespoke. Sometimes a bestek (estimate) was used.31 The client, usually a master, paid in three instalments: (1) after the keel was laid and the fore and aft stern were erected, (2) after the launch of the hull, and (3) after the ship was completed. The client paid the shipwright only for the lumber and the wages. The nails and bolts, for instance, had to be supplied by the client. The shipwright, in turn, paid the timber traders after receiving the money, which meant that the timber traders supplied the lumber on credit.32 Separate craftsmen provided the masts, ropes, tackles, sails, anchors, armament, etcetera.33 Over time, however, the Zaan shipwrights developed a different and unique business model: they started building hulls and completing ships for their own 29 30

31

32 33

Van Braam, “Over de omvang van de Zaandamse,” 35; Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse scheepsbouw, 27–30; Kaptein, “Een unieke economie,” 266–271. A. Loosjes, Beschrijving van de Zaanlandsche dorpen (Haarlem: F. Bohn, 1794), 201–203; Van Braam, “Over de omvang van de Zaandamse,” 38; Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse scheepsbouw, 13–14; gaz, Archief van Gemeentebestuur Oost-Zaandam, West-Zaandam en Zaandam [OA-0053] no. 275, Nieuwe Haven tot West-Zaerdam, 22 August 1651. saa, ona no. 1084/184, Bestek, 28 February 1648; gaz, Oud Notarieel Archief Z ­ aandam [OA-0020] (hereafter: onaz) no. 5753.1/63, Attestatie, 12 June 1650; saa, ona no. 1547/47, Bestek, 14 October 1651; Noord-Hollands Archief (hereafter: nha), Kaartindex>Zaandam> scheepsbouw, 1654; saa, ona no. 1132/310, Bestek, 26 March 1660; no. 1153/23, Bestek, 6 July 1665. gaz, onaz no. 5782/238, 1676; no. 5770A/142, Attestatie, 14 November 1676. saa, ona no. 761/421, 15 August, 1634; nha, Kaartindex>Zaandam>smak-boeierschepen, 12 October 1639; saa, ona no. 1555/457, 14 January, 1639; gaz, onaz no. 5750/512, Attestatie, 4 July 1641; nha, Kaartindex>Zaandam>pinasschepen>1651; saa, ona no. 1547/47, 14 October 1651; nha, Kaartindex>Oostzaandam>fluitschepen>bouw, 14 November 1652.

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account, without a client or assignment. At present, it is unclear when this practice started. An inherent characteristic of this custom is the lack of paperwork: no contract or estimate were needed. Only when the ship was sold, was a purchase agreement drafted. But such a contract does not reveal the provenance of the ship, let alone whether the ship was built for its own account. The first clear evidence of this practice dates to 1652: Zaan shipwrights built eleven hulls on their own account in the expectation that they could sell them as warships to one of the Admiralties. In the end, only the Zeeland Admiralty purchased three Zaan hulls.34 Who would pay for the shipbuilding materials and the wages in the absence of a client? The building of a hull of a medium-sized fluitschip (flyboat) of around 110 feet cost some 10,000 guilders, which was beyond the financial limits of an average shipwright.35 The simple answer is: the suppliers, and primarily the timber traders. They advanced the credit in kind in the form of planks, beams, trusses and knees. Blacksmiths supplied the nails and bolts.36 The shipwright only had to advance the carpenters’ wages. The suppliers would be paid when the hull was sold after completion. In 1695, for instance, shipwright Claas Dirksz Heyn had the hull of a 114-foot flyboat built and sold it to Jan van Tarelinck of Amsterdam. He then paid off his creditors.37 Even when the hull was not sold, the ship was completed. In that case, many more suppliers were needed such as mast, rope, tackle, and sail makers. A complete medium-sized flyboat would have costed between 15,000 and 18,000 guilders. In return for the goods they had supplied, they would get a part (share) in the ship, based on the value of their investment.38 The ropewalks Witte Olifant and Blauwe Arent, for instance, owned dozens of ship’s shares.39 This practice 34

35 36 37 38

39

J.E. Elias, De vlootbouw in Nederland in de eerste helft der 17e eeuw, 1596–1655 (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgeversmaatschappij, 1933), 126–127; A. Hoving, “Utrecht,” Scheepshistorie 3 (2007), 15–16; H. Roovers, “De Zaandamse scheepsbouw in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw,” Zaans Erfgoed 58 (2016); H. Roovers, “Zaandamse schepen voor de vloot van de Republiek. Bestellingen door de Zeeuwse Admiraliteit,” Zaans Erfgoed 59 (2016). gaz, Familiearchief Honig(h) [PA-0454] no. 1950/29, Het boek van de tumerwerf, 1675. gaz, onaz no. 5750/306, Attestatie, 19 August 1638; no. 5783/238, Attestatie, 11 October 1676. gaz, onaz no. 5829/124, Declaratoir, 6 April 1715. gaz, onaz no. 5773/8, Contract, 27 May 1685; saa, ona no. 5110/116, Compromis, 25 ­August 1695; gaz, onaz no. 5800/108, Quitantie, 26 July 1698; no. 5793.2/113, Attestatie, 3 December 1689; nha, Kaartindex>Zaandam>fluitschepen>bouw, 1713; gaz, Bibliotheek no. 9A11, S. Lootsma, Aantekeningen over scheepsbouw en scheepvaart; hoofdzake lijk uit notaris-protocollen; nha, Kaartindex >Zaandam>fluitschepen>bouw, 1714; nha, Kaartindex>Zaandam>galjootschepen>bouw, 1714. gaz, onaz no. 5888/28, Inventaris, 8 February 1734; no. 6036/54, Transport, 15 June 1737; no. 5938.1/15, Transport, 20 February 1745; no. 6141/286, Transport, 7 July 1778; gaz, ­Gaardersarchief Westzaan [OA-0003] no. 22, Register 40e penning, 22 April 1771.

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of building ships at one’s own expense had far-reaching consequences for the ownership and the exploitation of ships, resulting in what Ad van de Woude has called the vertical concentration of timber trade, sawmilling, and shipbuilding.40 Whaling can be added to this chain. If the ship was completed and was not sold, the question remained: What to do with it? The owners appointed from their midst a husband to serve their interests. The absence of charters in both the Amsterdam and the Zaandam archives makes it clear that these vessels were only rarely chartered as merchantmen. The booming whaling industry offered an alternative. Instead of chartering the ship, the vessel was hired out or leased as a whaler to a director who represented a consortium of investors. The average rent for a hunting season was 3,500 guilders (see annex). For this, no charter was needed. Usually the rental agreement was made underhand. Only occasionally was a so-called huurceduul (lease) drafted.41 The director was the central figure of the whaling venture. For instance, he would hire a commander and his whale catching equipment, as well as a crew. The commander also navigated the ship and would act as master. The owners were hardly involved in the exploitation of the ship. My guess is that after some three whaling trips it was a good time to sell the flyboat; as most of the initial investment would have been paid for by the leases by then, while the ship could still fetch a handsome sum of 8,000–10,000 guilders at a public auction.42 If a ship was sold later, the price was lower, but the income from rent higher. Ships of even ten years old could be found on sale at auctions. Most of the directors or leaseholders hailed from Zaandam, the Noorderkwartier, especially Jisp and De Rijp, and Amsterdam.43 Occasionally, a whaleship was rented out in Rotterdam or Dordrecht. In 1680, for instance, the Mayor of Dordrecht, Jacob van Meeuwen, leased the Zaan flyboat Witte Papiermolen. Ten years later, shipwright Claas Hendriksz Sluijck rented out the 108-foot ship 40 41 42

43

Van der Woude, Het Noorderkwartier, 459; Van Braam, “Over de omvang van de Zaanse,” 36. gaz, onaz no. 5775/142, Huurceduul, 30 July 1691; no. 5775/143, Huurceduul, 30 July 1691; no. 5775/144, Huurceduul, 30 July 1691; no. 5776/20, Huurceduul, 1 December 1691; no. 5776/20A, Huurceduul, 1 December 1691. gaz, Oud Rechtelijk Archief Westzaan [OA-0008] no. 1675, Veilboek Banne Westzaan, 1 July 1659; no. 1685, Veilboek Banne Westzaan, 13 December 1683; no. 1687, Veilboek Banne Westzaan, 20 January, 8 November 1685, 8 October 1686; no. 1690, Veilboek Banne Westzaan, 8 November 1689, 31 October 1690; no. 1695, Veilboek Banne Westzaan, 2 ­February, 9 and 16 March, 29 August, 10 November 1697; no. 1700, Veilboek Banne Westzaan, 28 ­November 1705, 2 February, 4 March, 20 October, 27 November, December 1706. gaz, onaz nos 5904–5906, 5937–5940, 5986–5992, 6039–6040.

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Stad Brielle to Marten Hogenhouck, Secretary of the Grote Visserij op de Maze (Rotterdam Board of Pelagic Fisheries).44 Initially, the director hired a commander from the Zaan region, especially from Jisp and Zaandam. In 1647/8, fourteen commanders hailed from Jisp, and in 1660 at least fourteen from Zaandam. After 1660, however, the number of Jisp and Zaan commanders dropped rapidly, and just as the masters, the commanders disappeared from the Zaan, as Björn Quanjer has noticed.45 Instead, directors hired commanders from the Noorderkwartier from places such as Huisduinen, De Rijp, Graft, the Waddeneilanden Texel and Vlieland, and after 1700 from Scandinavia and North Germany, especially the island Föhr.46 How this new Zaandam business model functioned can be illustrated by shipwright Adriaan Jacobsz Dam (†1730) (see annex). At the time of his death, an unfinished flyboat was moored at his yard, presumably built at his own expense. He also owned relatively large parts of the ships Adriaan & Catharina, Drie Dammen, Anna Catharina Maria, Hillegonda, and Sparrehout. It is likely that he built these ships for himself and that he also acted as husband. He had hired out all five ships for whaling. All his relatively large shares were insured. Four other ships in which he owned smaller parts were also leased for whaling, but in those instances he was not the husband. He did not bother to insure these shares. In addition, he had inherited some tiny shares. Seven of his ships were still sailing in 1745.47

44 Honig, Historische, oudheid- en letterkundige studiën, Volume two, 88; M.E. de Gruyl, Dordtse Jonas in olie. Een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse walvisvaart ­(Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1997), 14, Annex i; saa, ona no. 5260, Contract, 9 June 1690. 45 Bruijn and Davids, “Jonas vrij,” 161; Quanjer, “Jan, Piet, Gerrit en Corneel.” 46 Lootsma, Nederlandsche walvischvaart, 25–33; P. Dekker, “De walvisvaarders uit noordelijk Noord-Holland van 1770–1803,” West Frieslands Oud en Nieuw 40 (1973); P. Dekker, “De Helderse en Huisduiner bevelhebbers ter walvisvaart in de 18e eeuw. Het grootste commandeursdomicilie,” West-Frieslands Oud en Nieuw 41 (1974); De Jong, Geschiedenis van de oude Nederlandse, Volume one, 74–78; H. Kaptein, Het Schermereiland. Een zeevarend plattelandsgebied, 950–1800 (Bergen: Octavao, 1988), 133–134; Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, Volume one, 113–116; I. Vonk and W. Eelman, Verhalen over twee Texelse walvisvaarders en ’t Walvisvaarders Huisje (Den Burg: TexelNU, 2014); W. Lüden, Föhrer Seefahrer und ihre Schiffe (Wyk auf Föhr: Verlag Boyens & Co., 1998), 12–73; J.R. Bruijn, “A Small North Frisian Island and the Decline of the Dutch Whaling Trade, c. 1780,” in Négoce ports et océans 16e-20e siecles. Mélanges offerts à Paul Butel, eds. S. Marzagalli and H. Bonin (Bordeaux: Presses universitaires de Bordeaux, 2000); J.R. Bruijn, Zeegang. Zeevarend Nederland in de achttiende eeuw (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2016), 24–26. 47 gaz, onaz no. 5905/89, Declaratoir, 27 March 1745; no. 5938.1/23, Declaratoir, 26 February 1745; no. 5940/86, Declaratoir, 20 October 1747; no. 5938.1/22, Declaratoir, 26 February 1745;

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137

“New whaling”

After the demise of the Noordsche Compagnie in 1642 free whaling boomed, and especially in the Zaan region. Already in 1643/4 some nine or ten whalers sailed from Jisp and three from Zaandam. In 1660, twenty-eight Zaandam shipowners had equipped forty-three whalers, six to eight whalers sailed from Jisp and sixty-six from Amsterdam. By the 1670s, the total number had risen to no fewer than 148.48 The thriving free whaling industry coincided with the transformation from bay-whaling to the much more hazardous pelagic whaling and ice-fishing near the icepack. As the hunt moved away from the littoral waters, whalers were no longer able to tow a dead whale to remote shores and try house, which meant the whales had to be processed on board. The whale was tied to the ship along the portside and “peeled like an orange”. Large chunks of blubber were cut into smaller pieces and stowed away in casks or cooked into oil. This dirty, slippery and dangerous work had to be done on the main deck. Floes could pierce the hull and, when stuck, the icepack could crush the ship. When loaded, the ship would set sail to the Netherlands where cookeries would boil down the rest of the blubber to yield oil.49 The booming free whaling trade and ice-fishery created huge demand for another type of ship used for bay-whaling. These ships had to be large enough, especially the main deck, for processing the blubber. On the other hand, the ship should not be too big and had to be cost efficient. And finally, the whaler had to be strong and sturdy enough to withstand floes and ice. The Zaan shipwrights developed a medium-sized flyboat with a length of, on average, 112 feet (34 meters) and a width of 29 feet (8.5 meters), measuring 150 last, completely made of oak. After completion, the underwater ship was strengthened with extra planking (verdubbeling) and an extra borst- or stootlap (pumper) at the bow.50 The Zaan shipwrights would become the main suppliers of the Dutch and even the European whaling fleet. Zaandam became the national and no. 5987/94, Declaratoir, 9 April 1745; no. 5905/53, Declaratoir, 10 March 1745; no. 5905/54, Declaratoir, 13 March 1745. 48 Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, Volume one, 113–116; De Jong, Geschiedenis van de oude Nederlandse, Volume three; saa, Archief van Dr S. Hart no. 580, Transcripties van notariële akten betreffende walvisvaart, 1636–1668. 49 Schokkenbroek, Trying-out, 31–32. 50 Bruijn and Davids, “Jonas vrij,” 158; De Jong, Geschiedenis van de oude Nederlandse, Volume one, 123–127; Volume two, 19; saa, ona no. 2881/83, 5 March 1660, no. 2793/97, 12 April 1660, no. 1516/30, 11 October 1660; Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, Volume two, 129.

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­international market for medium-sized flyboats with a large stock of unfinished hulls, brand-new vessels, affordably-priced used ships, and cheap worndown whalers for sale or rent.51 By 1670, the conversion from ships being chartered from a master/owner to leasing a whaler from a husband/merchant was more or less completed. During the 1670s, between one and three ships were chartered in Amsterdam from a Zaan master for a whaling trip every year.52 In 1677, however, twentyseven Zaan merchants of shipwrights and timber traders insured their shares in thirty-eight whalers. These ships were rented out.53 At the same time, Zaan shipwrights would sell new and used medium-sized flyboats abroad, especially to the whaling industries of North Germany and Denmark (see table 6.1).54 The integration of the whaling industry into the above mentioned vertical concentration of the timber trade and the sawmilling and shipbuilding ­industries can be illustrated by Gerrit Arisz Caeskoper (1644–1722), son of the previously mentioned Aris Cornelisz Caeskoper. Around the middle of the seventeenth century, Dirk Dirksz Blaauw was a timber trader. His daughter, Lijsbeth Dircks Blaauw (1638–1690), inherited several of his ship’s shares. She was married to another timber trader, Jan Arendsz Meyn (1629–1672). At his death, she inherited shares in thirty-six ships and 10/48 part in the Meyn timber trade. Within one year, Lijsbeth married oil miller and seed trader Gerrit Arisz Caeskoper. Overnight he became a ship-owner, timber trader and even a shipbuilder, as the owner of shipyard the Vijverberg at the Zuiddijk. After a few years, he liquidated his interests in the timber trade and the shipyard, but was, in addition to his seed and oil trade, deeply involved in the whaling industry. On the Kalf he owned shares in a bakhuis (oil storage), the oil mill Halve Maan, and an oil cookery. In Koog-aan-de-Zaan, he partially owned the warehouse Caeskoper and the vleethuis the Walvis to store whale catching equipment during winter. As a ship owner and husband, he owned several shares in whalers together with his father and brother Claas Arisz Caeskoper (1650–1729). In 1683 51 52 53

54

gaz, onaz no. 5762, 24 April 24 1661; Lootsma, Nederlandsche walvischvaart, Annex iii; C; Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, Volume two, 136–137. saa, Archief van S. Hart. Gedeeltelijke toegang op de notariële archieven no. 280, Zaandam, 1631. gaz, onaz no. 5783/277A, Contract, 20 March 1677; gaz, Werkarchief van A. van Braam [PA-0432] no. 46/3513, Notitie no. 284; E.L.G. den Dooren de Jong and S. Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche walvischvangst, 1612–1803,” Het Verzekerings-Archief 16 (1935), Annex ii. L. Brinner, Die deutsche Gronlandfahrt (Berlin: K. Curtius, 1913); W. Oesau, Hamburgs Grönlandfahrt auf Walfischfang und Robbenschlag vom 17.-19. Jahrhundert (Hamburg: J.J. Augustin, 1955); De Jong, Geschiedenis van de oude Nederlandse, Volume ii, 331, 386–389.

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Zaanse Jonas Table 6.1 Medium-sized Zaan flyboats sold abroad, 1688–1693.

Country

Number

Germany Denmark Sweden England Portugal Norway Russia Italy Total

33 27 8 6 6 4 2 1 87

Source: gaz, onaz no. 5881/129, Inventaris, August 2, 1730

and 1700, Gerrit Arisz represented the Koog in the College van de Groenlandsche Visserij (Board of Greenland Fishing).55 7 Conclusion The starting point for this chapter was the paradox noted by Bruijn/Davids with respect to the rise of the Zaan whaling industry and the simultaneous disappearance of Zaan masters chartering their ships for whaling from the archival records after 1650, as well as Schokkenbroek’s call for more research on the role played by Zaan shipwrights in whale fishery. The crux of these two matters is the innovative new business model of Zaan shipwrights to build ­medium-sized flyboats at their own expense and renting these vessels as whalers. After 1630, sailors vanished from the Zaandam streets for two reasons. First, as a consequence of the declining Nordic timber and lumber trade, Zaan ships withdrew from the Norwegian and Baltic trade. Second, at the same time many Zaan seafarers abandoned the dangerous and unconformable life at sea to start working in the booming milling and shipbuilding industries. This explains the disappearance of the independent master as owner and husband from the archival records after 1650/60.

55 Honig, Uit den gulden bijkorf, 49–102; Koene, De Caeskopers; gaz, Archief van de familie en firma Honig [PA-0143].

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Simultaneously, the whaling industry changed profoundly: from company rule to free whaling, and from bay-whaling to ice-fishing near the icepack. The number of Dutch whaleships increased from some twenty in 1640 to no fewer than 150 in the 1670s. An important connection between the Zaan and the rising whaling industry was the booming vegetable oil industry. Whale oil served the same market as vegetable oil, and the Zaan was an obvious choice for ­building foul-smelling whale-oil cookeries for boiling whale blubber. Furthermore, Zaan shipwrights seized new opportunities by building medium-sized flyboats – suitable for and adapted to ice-whaling – at their own expense. After the ship was completed and remained unsold, the vessel was not chartered, but rented out or leased as a whaler; generally speaking to a director who represented the leaseholders. Usually, ships were rented underhand and hardly left a paper trail. The director became the central figure of the whaling venture, in charge of hiring a commander, the whale-catching equipment, as well as the crew. The commander also navigated the ship and would act as master. The independent master and husband played no role in this new format. As a result of the declining numbers of Zaan seafarers, Zaan and Amsterdam directors hired commanders from the Noorderkwartier, the Waddeneilanden, ­Scandinavia and North Germany. After several whaling trips, the vessels would be sold on the second-hand market. As a consequence of the business model of building medium-sized flyboats at their own expense, then, Zaan shipwrights became a major force in the whaling industry: first by supplying the market with reasonably priced whalers, and second as whaleship owners and husbands. Bibliography Ankum, L.A. “Een bijdrage tot de Zaanse olieslagrij.” Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis no. 73 (1960): 39–75 and 215–251. Boorsma, P. Duizend Zaanse molens. Wormerveer: Drukkerij Meijer, 1950. Braam, A. van, ed. Historische atlas van de Zaanlanden. Twintig eeuwen landschapsontwikkeling. Amsterdam: Meijer Pers, 1970. Braam, A. van, “Over de omvang van de Zaandamse scheepsbouw in de 17e en 18e eeuw.” Holland: Historisch Tijdschrift 24, no. 1 (1992): 33–49. Braam, A. van, Opkomst van de Zaanse scheepsbouw, 1550–1654. Wormerveer: s.n., 1998. Braam, A. van, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, 1610–1660, two volumes. Wormerveer: s.n., 1999–2000. Brinner, L. Die deutsche Gronlandfahrt. Berlin: K. Curtius, 1913. Bruijn, J.R. “A Small North Frisian Island and the Decline of the Dutch Whaling Trade, c. 1780.” In Négoce ports et océans 16e-20e siecles. Mélanges offerts à Paul Butel, ­edited

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Roovers, H. “Zaandamse schepen voor de vloot van de Republiek. Bestellingen door de Zeeuwse Admiraliteit.” Zaans Erfgoed 59 (2016): 8–12. Royen, P.C. van. Zeevarenden op de koopvaardijvloot omstreeks 1700. Amsterdam: ­Bataafsche Leeuw, 1987. Schillemans, C.A. “De houtveilingen van Zaandam in de jaren 1655–1811.” In Economisch-Historisch Jaarboek 23 (1947): 171–315. Schokkenbroek, J. Trying-out. An anatomy of Dutch whaling and sealing in the nineteenth century, 1815–1885. Amsterdam: Aksant, 2008. Schreiner, J. Nederland og Norge, 1625–1650. Trelastutførsel og handelspolitikk. Oslo: Dybwad, 1933. Soeteboom, H.J. Zaanlandze Arcadia in vijf boeken verdeelt. Amsterdam: Wilhem L­ innig van Koppenol, 1702. Vonk, I., and W. Eelman. Verhalen over twee Texelse walvisvaarders en ’t Walvisvaarders Huisje. Den Burg: TexelNU, 2014. Woude, A.M. van der. Het Noorderkwartier. Een regionaal historisch onderzoek in de demografische en economische geschiedenis van westelijk Nederland van de late middeleeuwen tot het begin van de negentiende eeuw. Utrecht: Hes Uitgevers, 1983.

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Annex 6.1 Ships owned by Adriaan Jacobusz Dam, 1730. Share

39/64 32/64 40/64

21⅓/64 13⅓/64 10½/64 ⅓/24

16¾/64 11/64 15/64 1/32

? 1/32 1/48 1/64 1/32 1/32 ⅓/32 ⅓/32 ⅓/8

Type

Ship’s name

flyboat

Unfinished, moored at the deceased’s wharf Adriaan & Cath. 118,0 Drie Dammen 113,3 Anna Cath. Maria 114,0 Hillegonda 112,0 Sparrehout 116,0 Juffrouw Maria 115,8 Sara 100,0 Twee Cornelissen 112,3 Meijboom 113,0 Westzaandam 107,0 Catharina Vergulde appel Cornelis & Jacob Elisabeth Johanna Kruiskerk van Westzaandam Stad Hamburg

flyboat flyboat flyboat flyboat flyboat flyboat flyboat ship ship ship ship ship ship ship ship + vleet ship + vleet ship + vleet vleet vleet 2 hoys (lighters)

Length (feet)

Source: gaz, onaz nos. 5774–5777a, 5793–5795, 5807, 5812–5813

Launched

1729 1727 1726 1729 1727 1723 1719 1727 1721

Insured Value ( ƒ )

11.500 6.500 7.500 4.667 2.667

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Zaanse Jonas

Lease ( ƒ )

Husband

Destination

Leaseholder

Adriaan J. Dam Adriaan J. Dam Adriaan J. Dam Adriaan J. Dam Adriaan J. Dam Gerrit J. Dam Coppenol Gerrit J. Dam Gerrit Poel Meijndert A. Bloem Gerrit J. Dam Gerrit J. Dam Gerrit J. Dam Jan de Bakker Gerrit Poel Simon Groot Gerrit Vis Jan de Backer Abraham Abusehart Lynst Rogge

whaling whaling whaling whaling whaling whaling La Rochelle whaling whaling whaling whaling whaling sold for ƒ 9,550 trading voyage whaling whaling whaling whaling whaling

Roelof Boot Gerrit A. Koningh Jan Pieters Mol Willem Bruijgom David De Neufville Jan Louwe jr

3,975 3,700 3,750 3,400 3,500 ?

Nicolaas Deijl Gerrit Poel Jacobus Verschriek

2,700 3,650 2,600

ƒ 20 per whale ƒ 20 per whale ƒ 25 per whale ƒ 20 per whale 1 Ducat per whale

Chapter 7

Keeping Risk at Bay: Risk Management and Insurance in Eighteenth-century Dutch Whaling Sabine Go and Jaap Bruijn During the eighteenth century, whaling was an important part of the regional economy of the villages and communities along the river Zaan, just northwest of Amsterdam. Every year, numerous ships with crews of many hundreds of men sailed north to hunt for the ever more depleted stock of the Greenland Right whales. Although any maritime undertaking was risky in early modern times, whaling in particular was dangerous: the hunt itself had its risks, which increased when the animals had to be hunted down in pack ice. How did these entrepreneurs deal with the risks involved? In this chapter, we will focus on the owners of the whaling ships of the Zaan-region and how they coped with the risks of their trade. In particular, we will look at the various cooperative institutions that were created by entrepreneurs in order to support those who were struck by disaster. How did these cooperatives develop and what was their importance through the years? And, considering the proximity of Amsterdam, the most important insurance market of Europe, why did the entrepreneurs in the Zaan-region choose to set up their own institutions to deal with the financial consequences in case of disaster?1 The Zaan-region cooperations were not exclusive to the whaling industry. In fact, this highly industrialized region was known for its many cooperative institutions, as was analysed by Karel Davids in his study of industrial mills.2 Owners of industrial mills in particular created cooperatives that functioned as fire insurance. These institutions not only protected unfortunate entrepreneurs from poverty after their mill burned down, they also advanced safety 1 Frank Spooner, Risks at sea: Amsterdam insurance and maritime Europe, 1766–1780 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 25; Jacques Le Moine de L’Espine and Isaac le Long. Den koophandel van Amsterdam naar alle gewesten des werelds (Rotterdam: Ph. Losel, J.D. Beman, H. Kentlink, etc., 1753), 39–40. 2 Karel Davids, “Windmills and the openness of technological innovation in a Dutch industrial district, the Zaanstreek c. 1600–1800,” Paper presented at the Society for the History of Technology Meeting. San Jose, California, usa, October 2001; Karel Davids, “The transformation of an old industrial district: Firms, family, and mutuality in the Zaanstreek between 1840 and 1920,” Enterprise and History 7 (2006).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_009

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protocols, innovation, and the dissemination of technology, whilst at the same time strengthening social networks. Apart from Davids’s article focusing on the industrial mills, this region, in close proximity of the Republic’s commercial nucleus Amsterdam, has often been overlooked by researchers.3 Only a few historians have researched the economic structure and development of the Zaanstreek and have added to the literature valuable accounts of the region’s most important industries and companies or biographical studies of prominent entrepreneurs.4 However, most of these contributions were limited in their theoretical scope and regional focus, often lacking a comparative dimension. A notable exception is Ad van der Woude’s Het Noorderkwartier, which analysed the economies of the northern part of the province of Holland in a broader perspective. This comparative approach was further developed in De Vries and Van der Woude’s major overview of the early modern Dutch economy.5 A number of studies regarding the Zaan-region include the emergence and development of whaling.6 There are also some national studies on the development of Dutch whaling.7 However, these studies mostly focus on the number of vessels that sailed north, the whaling crews and their background, the hunting methods and the catches. The management of the trade and the industry’s risks have received only sparse attention, with the exception of Davids, who, in an overview of insurance and 3 For more on Amsterdam, see for example Clé Lesger, The rise of the Amsterdam market and information exchange: Merchants, commercial expansion and change in the spatial economy of the Low Countries, c.1550–1630 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006); Milja van Tielhof, The ‘mother of all trades’: The Baltic grain trade in Amsterdam from the late 16th to the early 19th century (Leiden: Brill, 2002); Maarten Prak and Lidewij Hesselink, “Stad van gevestigden, 1650–1730,” in Geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Volume ii.2. Zelfbewuste stadstaat 1650–1813, eds. Willem T.M. Frijhoff and Maarten Prak (Amsterdam: sun, 2005). 4 Gerrit Jan Honig, Uit den gulden bijkorf: Genealogisch-historisch-economische studiën over Zaansche families (Koog Aan De Zaan: Out, 1952); J. Honig, Historische oudheid en letterkundige studiën, two volumes (Zaandijk: J. Heijnis Tsz., 1866–1867); Aris van Braam, Bloei en verval van het economisch-sociale leven aan de Zaan in de 17de en 18de eeuw (Wormerveer: Meijer, 1958); Aris van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, 1610–1660, two volumes (Wormerveer: s.n., 1999–2000). 5 A. van der Woude, Het Noorderkwartier. Een regionaal historisch onderzoek in de demografische en economische geschiedenis van westelijk Nederland van de late middeleeuwen tot het begin van de negentiende eeuw (Wageningen: H. Veenman & Zonen N.V., 1972); J. de Vries and A. van der Woude, The first modern economy: Success, failure, and perseverance of the Dutch economy, 1500–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 6 Van Braam, Opkomst van de Zaanse; Honig, Historische Oudheid, volume two. 7 C. de Jong, Geschiedenis van de oude Nederlandse walvisvaart (Johannesburg/Pretoria: De Jong, 1972); Jur R. Leinenga, Arctische walvisvangst in de achttiende eeuw: De betekenis van Straat Davis als vangstgebied (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1995).

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risk management methods, included whaling. Finally, there is the much older work of Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma: in their important contributions, they extensively researched the various mutual insurance contracts that were initiated by the whaling entrepreneurs in the Zaan-region.8 They concluded that the mutual insurance contracts were discontinued due to the decline of the whaling industry. Was this, however, the only factor that contributed to the demise of these institutions? What can we learn from the mutual contracts that were created by the mill owners in the same region? How did the whaling entrepreneurs deal with the financial risks of their trade after the dissolution of these contracts? Before we turn our attention to the whaling entrepreneurs of the Zaan-­ region and the way they managed the risks of the trade, we will take a look at whaling in general. Which features characterized the industry, which actors were involved and how many people made their living from this industry? What was the size and significance of the industry for the economy of Holland in the eighteenth century? Next, we will focus on insurance and other ways the owners of whaling ships managed the risks they were faced with. Then, we will look at the case of the whaling industry and the mutual insurance contracts in a larger perspective. How unique were these contracts and did they meet the objectives of the participants or were there other reasons than purely economic ones to join these cooperative institutions? 1

The Whaling Industry in the Eighteenth Century

Dutch whaling started early in the seventeenth century, when in 1614 various groups of local entrepreneurs united in the Noordse Compagnie received a state monopoly and soon managed to turn whaling into a profitable business. The Compagnie was disbanded in 1642. By then many “free traders” had started their own private whaling enterprises. By the middle of the seventeenth century, whaling had developed into a booming business. The number of ships involved increased rapidly every year, reaching an all-time peak in the year

8 Karel Davids, “Zekerheidsregelingen in de scheepvaart en het landtransport, 1500–1800,” Studies over zekerheidsarrangementen, risico’s, risicobestrijding en verzekeringen in Nederland vanaf de Middeleeuwen, eds. J. van Gerwen and M.H.D. van Leeuwen (Amsterdam: Nederlandsch Economisch Historisch Archief, 1998); E.L.G. den Dooren de Jong and J. Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche walvischvangst 1612–1803,” Het Verzekerings-archief xvi (1935); S. Lootsma, Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der Nederlandsche walvischvaart (meer speciaal de Zaansche) (Wormerveer: Meijer, 1937).

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Main whaling areas. Map made by Bert Brouwenstijn

1684 with 246.9 Well into the eighteenth-century, whaling continued to be a major Dutch maritime activity, requiring hundred to two hundred vessels during each catching season. Late in the 1770s, the number decreased to 111. A twoyear halt in 1781 and 1782 during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War turned out to be the overture to a final breakdown of this activity during the years preceding the demise of the Dutch Republic in 1795. Whales were primarily caught for their blubber, which was cooked into whale-oil in try houses. This whale oil was high in demand for all kinds of applications. Its price was volatile and depended upon the annual whale catch, as well as the production and price of vegetable oil. The oil was traded for three different purposes: (1) for illumination (2) as an additive material in tanning, in the wool industries, in rope making and in the manufacture of tar and paint, (3) as raw material for the production of soap in the many soap works in the country. The oil was traded in five different qualities per kwarteel, which was a barrel of 232.8 litres, and the prices were quoted in the official list of the 9 Bruijn and Davids, “Jonas Vrij. De Nederlandse walvisvaart, in het bijzonder de Amsterdamse, in de jaren 1640–1664,” Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek 38 (1975): 149–154 and 161–166.

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Amsterdam Stock Exchange. Whale oil was an important export commodity as well. Whale bones, the baleen, were a by-product. Baleen was finely tooled into all kinds of objects and used in ladies’ corsets. It was the slow-swimming Right whale (Groenlandse walvis) which offered huge quantities of the highly valued blubber. A full-grown Right whale had a layer of fat (blubber) of 40 to 60 cm. During the summer months, the right whales stayed along the edges of the pack ice in the Arctic, feeding on zooplankton. Early in the summer they migrated northwards, to return once temperatures dropped. The waters west and northwest of Spitsbergen (around 79° NL) east of Greenland were the favourite catching grounds. The ships involved in these enterprises were called Groenlandvaarders. From 1719 onwards, Dutch whalers also exploited the Right whale stock west of Greenland in Davis Strait and Baffin Bay (see map 7.1). These were called Straat Davisvaarders, (alas not Davidsvaarders). During the eighteenth century, Dutch whalers were faced with deteriorating conditions in their trade, encountering fierce foreign competition, in particular from Britain.10 Simultaneously, all whalers contributed to increasing overfishing. It became more and more difficult to catch sufficient whales to yield a profitable number of barrels of whale oil. The whale stock was shrinking and the whales that were caught were often not full-grown, thus providing less blubber and shorter whalebones than in earlier days. Moreover, whales became shyer and withdrew from open water, seeking shelter in huge aggregates of large ice fields. Whalers were thus compelled or enticed to follow them with the risk of being enclosed for weeks on end in the ice or in small open waters between those ice fields. Additionally, several ships had to return empty or “clean” (schoon). The price for whale oil was known to fluctuate greatly, but it was by-and-large higher than in the previous century.11 The heart of the Dutch whaling industry was in Amsterdam and in particular in the nearby Zaan-region, north of the IJ, Amsterdam’s home roadstead. A minor competing centre existed in and around Rotterdam. In these areas, whaling was a stable, more or less permanent economic activity. There were other regions with small whaling activities in the Republic, but these were often rather short-lived. Each whaling vessel, mostly owned by a group of local merchants and several individual investors, was an economic entity with its own funds. This construction was also used in other sorts of enterprises, e.g. in the exploitation of windmills, to which we refer elsewhere in this chapter. The ship’s husband/bookkeeper, the boekhouder, was – at least ashore – the most important person of the enterprise and often the shareholder with the largest 10 11

Gordon Jackson, The British whaling trade (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1978). De Jong, Geschiedenis van de oude, Volume three, 218–224.

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investment. In whaling, the ship bookkeeper was called the ­director (­directeur). These directors often were men of high social standing in their city or village, at times members of the local magistrates’ ruling boards. The names of these directors are known, as well as the catches of their whaling vessels and the number of whale oil barrels produced: whaling has become famous because of the availability of a large amount of quantitative data. Each year, the so-called Groenlandse lijst was composed and distributed among the whaling entrepreneurs, containing relevant details about the activities of the past year. A broker from Westzaandam, Gerret van Sante, analysed these lists and published the results as his Alphabetische naam-lyst van alle de Groenlandsche en Straat-Davissche commandeurs in 1770.12 He added empty pages to the book to be used by the owner to add information for forthcoming years. Some book owners did just that, judging by the copies of the book that are available in various libraries. The whaling director represented all shareholders who jointly owned or hired the whaling vessel. Most ships were fluitschepen with a length of 110 to 120 Amsterdam feet.13 They were equipped with several measures to make the hull stronger to resist the pressure of the arctic ice. Most of these ships were built on private shipyards along the river Zaan, the main artery of the Zaanstreek. Ships were bought or hired from the stock or second-hand, privately or in auctions. In addition, the director was also responsible for the vleet, the collective name of the numerous tools for catching whales, for cutting the blubber and stowing it in barrels. A proper vleet also included five to seven whaleboats that were used in the actual hunt. On shore, the director was the most important man. On board, it was the commandeur, here referred to as captain, who was in full command. Captains hardly ever came from the locations where their ships were equipped. Many captains came from Den Helder and some nearby villages, the Wadden isles of Texel and Ameland, from the neighbourhood of Rotterdam, and especially from the German North Frisian isles of Föhr and Borkum. They often belonged to traditional commandeur families. Captains and directors often had longstanding relationships with one another.14 12

13 14

Gerret van Sante, Alphabetische naam-lyst van alle de Groenlandsche en Straat-Davissche commandeurs, die zedert het jaar 1700 op Groenland, en zedert het jaar 1719 op de StraatDavis, voor Holland en andere provincien, hebben gevaaren (Haarlem: Johannes Enschedé, 1770). One Amsterdam foot equals 28.3 cm. P. Dekker, De laatste bloeiperiode van de Nederlandse Arctische walvis- en robbevangst 1761–1775 (Zaltbommel: Europese bibliotheek, 1971); P. Dekker, “Föhrer Seeleute bei der niederländischen Walfangfahrt besonders im 18. Jahrhundert,” Nordfriesisches Jahrbuch

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Map 7.2

2

Locations mentioned in this chapter in and near the Dutch Republic (map ­showing modern borders and country names). Map made by Bert Brouwenstijn

The Whale Hunt and Its Risks

Whaling captains were responsible for navigation as well as for the hunt, assisted by a mate with regard to the prior, and by a handful of harpooners for the latter. The crew on board the ships ranged from thirty-eight to forty-six seamen, mainly boys and men from communities in which whaling was a major source of employment. A substantial part of the crew originated from the same areas as their captains and officers. This was also true for the Germans. During the eighteenth century, the annual employment in whaling dropped from approximately 8,500 to 5,000; after the Fourth Anglo Dutch War totals of 3,000 were no longer reached. The whaling season lasted from April to August or September; the Davis Strait season began one month earlier. As soon as the first whale was sighted, Neue Folge 14 (1978); P. Dekker, “Borkum, voor de historie van de walvisvaart een Westfries eiland,” It Beaken 41 (1979).

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the hunt began. Whaling could alternate between being an enervating and a boring activity if no whale was spotted for weeks or if the ship was enclosed by ice. Once a whale had been spotted and hit by a harpoon, this set in motion a process of all sorts of operations that could last many hours. In 1720, a former whaling captain, Cornelis Zorgdrager from Westzaandam, provided a lively description of this process in his book Bloeijende opkomst der aloude en hedendaagsche Groenlandsche visscherij (“Thriving emergence of ancient and current Greenland fishery”). A second edition followed in 1727 augmented with a section on whaling in Davis Strait; Zorgdrager’s account was reflected in almost all later publications on whaling.15 The average catch per ship fluctuated sharply per year. We know this thanks to Van Sante’s book. There were two absolute peaks regarding the catches per vessel during the eighteenth century: in 1714, with 11.9 whales per ship, and in 1769, with 7.4 whales. The average number of barrels of blubber per ship in those years differed greatly: no less than 350 in 1714 and only 168 in 1769. In twenty-five years during the eighteenth century, the average catch was below two whales per ship.16 One could never predict the outcome of a whaling voyage, and some contemporaries called whaling a lottery. Back home, the sailors were paid as soon as possible. The repair of the ship followed, after which it was laid up for the winter period or was chartered for a voyage to southern Europe or the West Indies. The blubber was refined in the numerous try houses, which were close to the locations where the ships had returned. Most try houses were on the outskirts of a city or village because of the smell and the risk of fires involved in the process. They were separate enterprises, although it was not uncommon for entrepreneurs who were involved in whale hunting to also invest in try houses. On average, a try house with two kettles employed eight men. In some townships in the Zaan-region, five or six try houses were in operation. Apart from processing the blubber, the whalebones had to be cleaned, with a portion of the whalebones boiled to extract glue. Due to the lack of data, it is difficult to make even an educated guess of the labour force involved in these small business units. The same is true for the whaling-related activities on the private shipyards, especially those along the river Zaan. Further employment opportunities arrived from the necessary maintenance and repair on whaling vessels. There is no exact information about the lifespan of eighteenth-century ships. Ships of 20 to 40 years old are 15 16

Cornelis G. Zorgdrager and Abraham Moubach, C. G. Zorgdragers bloeijende opkomst der aloude en hedendaagsche Groenlandsche visschery (The Hague: P. Van Thol en R.C. ­Alberts, 1727). De Jong, Geschiedenis van de oude, volume three, 146–148, 158–160.

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mentioned in auctions of second-hand whaling vessels, but these ages should not be taken as a standard. In addition, there were the whaleboats: there was always a demand for these boats, as a number of them would be lost on each trip. Nothing is known about the construction of the many iron and wooden parts and the ropes of the vleet. In whaling communities, the provisioning of the whaling ships ensured solid orders for victuals and drinks for many a supplier. In the areas where the directors lived, the ships were equipped and the whale oil was cooked, whaling was a vital part of the local economy. The same is true for the towns and villages where its seamen lived.17 Whaling was an important economic activity. Years on end, thousands of people were involved, even though the whole enterprise started shrinking from the 1730s onwards. This decline was especially strong after 1780; although financial results had nearly always been uncertain and unpredictable. For the participants on shore, there was one way to limit their financial risks: taking out insurance on their most valuable assets: the ship and the vleet. Whaling was always connected with stories about icebound ships and wrecks. True, the Arctic saw cold and stormy weather and featured huge ice floes and ice fields. But was whaling that risky? It was: during the period 1700– 1780 one or more ships did not return home each year, except for in the years 1744, 1745 and 1748, which saw no losses. In 1701 and 1746, the whaling industry suffered its greatest losses; at twelve and eleven vessels respectively. The year 1777 could be called a year of disaster as well. A total of seven Dutch ships, as well as seven from Hamburg and Bremen got stuck in the ice and were lost. After the Fourth Anglo Dutch War, nearly all ships completed their voyages, but their number had already decreased significantly by that time (from forty to seventy). Heavy losses, as those mentioned above, and publications by survivors of dramatic voyages with narrow escapes, in particular after 1777, give an impression of a trade filled with considerable distress and misery. One should, however, keep in mind that an more comprehensive overview of Dutch eighteenth century whaling and its safety yields a less gloomy picture of the safety of arctic navigation. Out of approximately 14,000 voyages to Spitsbergen and the Davis Strait during the eighteenth century, only 300 ended in disaster, which amounts to a little over 2 percent. It is unknown in what perspective this percentage ought to be placed, as similar figures are only available for Dutch East India shipping. Voyages to and from Asia took about twice as long as a whaling trip. Out of about 2,300 homeward-bound voyages, 107 ships were wrecked, a percentage of 4.5. Outward-bound, the percentage was

17 Lootsma, Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis, 59–62, 146–149; De Jong, Geschiedenis van de oude, volume one, 123–130; volume two, 102–123, 144–162.

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2. From about 2,900voyages 64East I­ndiamen were lost in total.18 In general, the East India Company did not take out insurance on its fleet. As we shall see, the directors of the Zaan-region were interested in insuring both their vessels and their vleets. 3

Insuring the Risks of Whaling

When the Noordse Compagnie monopolized Dutch whaling, neither the Compagnie as a whole, nor the separate Chambers that made up the Compagnie, would generally take out insurance on its ships. After it lost its monopoly in 1642, whaling ships were sporadically insured on the Amsterdam market. The practice of insuring had been introduced in Amsterdam in the mid-sixteenth century and went through a rapid expansion in the following decades.19 At first, only valuable cargoes were insured, as their margins were able to absorb the additional costs of the insurance. However, due to declining premium rates, it soon became worthwhile to also have bulk cargo insured.20 In a­ ddition, ­entire ships or parts of ships could be insured in Amsterdam.21 During the first decades of the seventeenth century, this city became the dominant insurance market in early modern Europe.22 The specific and high risks of whaling may have made underwriters more careful before writing an insurance policy on a 18 19

20

21

22

Jaap R. Bruijn, Femme S. Gaastra, and Ivo Schöffer, Dutch-Asiatic shipping in the 17th and 18th centuries. Volume one (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979) 67 and 82. Sabine C.P.J. Go, Marine insurance in the Netherlands 1600–1800. A comparative institutional approach (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2009); Spooner, Risks at sea; J.P. Vergouwen, De geschiedenis der makelaardij in assurantiën hier te lande tot 1813 (The Hague: Zuid-Hollandsche Uitgeverij Maatschappij, 1945). It is difficult to quantify the decline of insurance premiums, as archival sources are limited, but to give an indication, we can turn to Spooner, who states the rates for several periods of the month of June (the period with the lowest rates). In the late 1630s, rates to Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean were 8 to 9 percent, one century later these had dropped to 3 to 4 percent, three decades later these had further decreased to 2 to 2.5 percent. For Reval and Riga, there is a similar trend: from 2 to 4 percent (1630s), 1.25 to 2.25 percent in the 1730s and a mere 1 to 1.5 percent in the 1760s. See Spooner, Risks at sea, 56. Officially, the insured value was not to exceed 90 percent of the total value, ordinance of 31 January 1598, article 2; H. Noordkerk, Handvesten ofte privilegiën ende octroyen mitsgaders willekueren, costuimen, ordonanntiën en handelingen der stad Amsterdam. Five volumes (Amsterdam: Hendrik Van Waesberge, Salomon and Petrus Schouten, 1748), 653. Although by the second half of the eighteenth-century Amsterdam, as insurance center, faced fierce competition from other cities, most notably London, it was still considered the leading insurance market by many. For more on the emerging insurance market and in particular the institute of London, see for example: Charles Wright and C. Ernest Fayle, A History of Lloyd’s: From the founding of Lloyd’s coffee house to the present day (London: Macmillan, 1928).

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whaling ship. However, if an owner of a whaling ship wanted to insure the vessel or vleet, there was always an underwriter to accept the risks and the terms as of the second quarter of the seventeenth century, although, due to policy adopted by the Noordse Compagnie, this hardly occurred before 1642.23 As explained above, whalers were faced with numerous risks: natural ones, like storms, dangerous currents, drifting pack ice, freezing temperatures, as well as human risks, as presented by pirates and privateers (the risk of molest). The threat presented by privateers and pirates was particularly pertinent in the first half of the seventeenth century. After the Eighty Years’ War in 1648, the Dunkirk privateers were only a threat when France and the Dutch Republic were at war.24 Finally, aggressive actions by foreign whaling vessels posed ­another possible danger that whalers had to deal with.25 Whalers managed these various risks and their possible financial consequences in several ways. Just as merchants, whaling entrepreneurs would often simply reduce their risks by spreading their investments over a number of ships, rather than investing their entire capital in one ship. It was not uncommon for investors to own parts in two, three or more ships. The equipment of whaling ships could also be partially owned and the total value of the equipment was sometimes divided into as many as sixteen parts.26 Amsterdam underwriters were willing to insure both the parts as well as the entirety of whaling ships and equipment. In the Copy Policy Book of the Amsterdam-based insurance broker De Vos en Zoon, for instance, we find a number of insurance policies concerning whaling ships. In 1759, four Dutch ­vessels heading for the Davis Strait were insured for a total of 30,750 guilders. The premium rate was 4 percent.27 This rate was only for behouden varen, 23

24 25 26

27

Whaling ships were also included in the plans for establishing an insurance company in 1628. See Petrus Johannes Blok, “Het plan tot oprichting eener Compagnie van Assurantie,” Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde 21 (1900); Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche,” 14; Spooner, Risks at sea, 145–146; Go, Marine insurance; Vergouwen, Makelaardij in assurantiën; J.P. van Niekerk, The development of the principles of insurance law in the Netherlands from 1500–1800 ­( Johannesburg: Juta, 1998). Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche,” 10. De Jong, Geschiedenis van de oude, volume two, 102. Stadsarchief Amsterdam (municipal archives Amsterdam) (hereafter: saa), archive of ­Assurantiebezorgers De Vos en Zoon (hereafter: Archive of De Vos) archive number 557, inventory no. 24; Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche.” Even though many parts of Europe were involved in the Seven Years’ War at the time (1756–1763), Dutch vessels were considered “neutral,” which was reflected by the height of the insurance premium.

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meaning that the underwriters would only pay out any claims in case of a total loss. In 1760, Hendrik Brinkman insured his interests in the ship Jonge Juffrouw Anna Maria. He insured his 1/16th share in both the hull (with an insured value of 1,000 guilders) and the vleet (400 guilders). Here too, the premium was 4 percent.28 The premium percentage was remarkably stable during the course of the years the Policy Book relates to (1758–1760), regardless of whether the ships sailed to the Davis Strait or Greenland. The amount of insured value or the age of the vessel did not seem to have affected the premium rate either.29 The premium rate was probably only increased with a marked increase of the risk. Den Dooren De Jong and Lootsma mention a policy of 1779, in which a whaling ship was insured in two tiers: a 5 percent rate covered behouden varen, and an additional 5 percent covered the owner in case of other damages. Thus, the underwriter received a total of 10 percent in premiums.30 When a ship-owner or an owner of whaling equipment wanted to buy an insurance policy, they would commission a broker to draft the policy, negotiate the terms and, most importantly, find enough underwriters to underwrite the policy. The brokers were also responsible for collecting the premium and, in case of a calamity, they were usually the ones who handled the insurance claim and possible payment.31 Although the previous examples may have given the idea that premium rates were virtually fixed, this was not the case. In times of war or political turmoil, insurance rates could increase considerably, and even double in height. This was not only true for whaling ships, but also for marine ventures in general.32 An alternative to having their interests in whaling insured by private underwriters in Amsterdam emerged in the late seventeenth century: a mutual insurance contract. It seems that whalers from the Zaan-region in particular were interested in this construction. In 1677, twenty-seven owners of a total of thirty-eight whaling ships collaborated to establish a mutual insurance contract. When a participant lost his vessel, he would receive 100 guilders from the 28

saa; Archive of De Vos, archive number 557, inventory no. 24, 10 April 1760; Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De Zeeverzekering der Nederlandsch,” 25; Vergouwen, Makelaardij in assurantiën, 74–75. 29 saa; Archive of De Vos, archive number 557, inventory no. 24. A policy from 1768, held at the Scheepvaartmuseum (hereafter: Maritime Museum) in Amsterdam also states a 4 per cent premium rate, Maritime Museum, K-ii-455. Spooner refers to a percentage of 3½, Spooner, Risks at Sea, 145. 30 Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche,” 29. 31 Van Niekerk, The development of the principles; Spooner, Risks at sea; Go, Marine insurance. 32 Spooner, Risks at sea, 145–146; Go, Marine insurance; Jan Claesz ten Hoorn, Naeuw-keurig reys-boek: Bysonderlijk dienstig voor kooplieden, en reysende persoonen … (Amsterdam: Jan Ten Hoorn, 1679).

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other participants. Thus, an unfortunate owner would receive 2,600 guilders in case his ship was lost, an amount that would certainly not cover the actual loss. What is more, in case other ships were also lost, the unlucky owners had to contribute to the other compensations as well. This first mutual was apparently very unfortunate: three ships were lost or went missing. Thus, all members had to pay 300 guilders each to compensate their fellow-participants.33 There were other features in this construction that made its chances of longterm survival slim. For example, all ships were insured for the same value: a new ship with a value of, for example, 25,000 guilders would receive the same compensation as a ten-year-old vessel with a value of 5,000 guilders. Whatever the exact reasons, the mutual was discontinued and it was more than half a century before another text mentions a contract. In 1745 forty-nine participants presented themselves at the offices of Pieter Leur, a notary in Zaandam to sign the Contract van Assurantie (Insurance Contract) with a total value of 230,400 guilders. The contract consisted of fourteen articles and the nature and sophistication of the text suggests that there were other contracts that preceded this one. However, these seem to have been lost over time.34 As opposed to the 1677 contract, the maximum cover was set at 5,000 guilders per ship, even if several participants owned a ship. Equipment and the ships’ catches could not be insured, but the risks of fire or of being taken by pirates or privateers were included in the agreement. Three participants were named administrators of the contract; they could, for example, accept new participants.35 Interestingly, a stipulation was included in case of a dispute: conflicts would be settled by means of arbitration.36 The contract of 1677 was “closed”: no other participants could join the initial group and the signees were all from the Zaan-region. The participants of the 1745 contract were predominately, but not exclusively, from the Zaan-region and it was an “open” construction: new participants could join at any time. In fact, brokers received a commission of 0.5 percent if they signed up a new participant. Perhaps this possibility was added to counter potential competition from the commercial insurance market in Amsterdam.37

33 34 35 36 37

Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche,” 16–17. Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche,” 18. Gemeentearchief (municipal archives) Zaanstad (hereafter gaz), Oud Notarieel ­Archief Zaandam [OA-0020] (hereafter onaz), no. 5905/28, Contract van Asseurantie, 27 ­February 1745, art 9 and 10. gaz, onaz, no. 5905/28, Contract van Asseurantie, 27 February 1745, art 11. gaz, onaz, no. 5905/28, Contract van Asseurantie, 27 February 1745, art 13; Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche,” 16–19.

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The following year, a new contract was initiated, again authenticated by ­ ieter Leur and signed by fifty-one participants; thirteen of which did not come P from the Zaan-region. This contract concerned seventy ships in total and from this contract onwards, the minimum amount to be entered was 300 guilders. The average amount committed decreased in comparison to the contract of the previous year: from 4,702 to 4,165 guilders per participant. This may be an indication that the concept of mutual insurance had become more accepted, even by the entrepreneurs that were not among the early adopters of this financial innovation. The fact that in total 180 ships sailed to either Greenland or the Davis Strait that year, of which fifty-eight were from Zaandam and the surrounding area, also suggests that the contract had acquired an impressive “market share.”38 The contract of 1746 comprised seventeen clauses: the most important changes concerned the addition of a minimum participation of 300 guilders and an increased sophistication of the stipulations regarding the resolution of possible conflicts.39 In the renewed contract of the following year, the number of participants increased from fifty-one to sixty. The total value of the participations increased to an astounding 412,050 guilders.40 The year after, in 1748, an important change was made: the maximum entry per ship increased from 5,000 guilders to f 10,000.41 After a dip in 1748, the number of participants as well as the total value grew; the maximum value of participants totalled 1,067,670 guilders in 1755. With ninety-eight participants, this meant an average participation of almost 11,000 guilders per member. This was close to the maximum value to be entered, which was increased from f 10,000 to f 12,000 in 1755. Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma recorded 1762 as the year the maximum was set at f 12,000, but, in fact, this increase occurred several years earlier. The maximum amount that could be entered in the contract would remain at 12,000 guilders until the end of the mutual contracts in the Zaan.42 Although the total value of the ships insured decreased after 1755, the number of participants reached a zenith in 1767, when 153 owners signed the

38 39 40 41 42

gaz, onaz, no. 5906/11A, Contract, 15 February 1746; Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche,” 19. gaz, onaz, no. 5906/11A, Contract, 15 February 1746, art 2 and 11, 12, 13; Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche.” Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche,” 20–21. gaz, onaz, no. 5907/13, Contract van Asseurantie, 2 April 1748; Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche,” 21. gaz, onaz, no. 5910/5, Procuratie & Contract, 1 February 1755; Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche,” 21.

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­contract.43 By then the total value of the contract amounted to 991,095 guilders. Graph 7.1 shows the number of whaling vessels that departed from Dutch harbours to Greenland or the Davis Strait, as well as the development of the total value of the mutual insurance contracts between 1740 and 1779. Among the participants of the contracts, there were always a number of shipbuilders, whaling directors and merchants, mainly active in the Zaan-region and ­Amsterdam, but occasionally also in Haarlem, Alkmaar and Krimpen aan de Lek. After the alterations made to the text in 1746, it seems that no major changes were made in the clauses of the following contracts. The number and contents of the articles remained relatively stable. For a number of years, the contracts were seemingly effortlessly renewed by notary Pieter Leur and, after his demise, by notaries Gerrit Zwart and Albert Booker.44 Pieter Leur also drafted mutual insurance contracts for whalers’ equipment. For example, in 1751 a number of 200

1,200,000

180

1,000,000

160 140

800,000

120

600,000

100 80

400,000

60 40

200,000

20 0

Year 1744

1749 1754 1759 1764 1769 1774 1779 1784 Number of whaling ships Total Insured Value (guilders)

0

Graph 7.1 Development of Mutual Insurance Contracts in the Zaan-region and the number of departing Dutch whaling vessels. Sources: gaz, onaz, archives of notaries Leur, Zwart and Booker; Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche”; J. Feuerstein, De nakomelingen van Jan Walig 1600-2009, aangevuld tot 2012, by R. Walig, (unpublished), 59–74; Jur R. Leinenga, Arctische Walvisvangst in De Achttiende Eeuw: De Betekenis Van Straat Davis Als Vangstgebied (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1995), 183– 187

43 Leinenga, Arctische walvisvangst, 185, 187. 44 gaz, onaz, archives of notaries Leur, Booker and Zwart.

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owners of equipment signed a contract consisting of twelve articles. The maximum value accepted was f 6.400, the minimum 100 guilders.45 It was Booker who drew up the contract of 1777, which was not seen by Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma but which has come into our possession.46 In 1777, the signees went to the notary’s office over the course of a few days to enter their own names, the names of the vessel they (partially) owned, the name of the captain and the value of their part. The contract was signed by ninety-seven participants and carried a total insured value of 708,000 guilders. In case someone owned more than one part, a sum of his total interests would be added. From these entries it is clear that, in spite of the fact that participants from beyond the Zaan-region were welcomed, it was still principally a local affair. Several family names appear a number of times in the entries. Each participant wrote down the names of his own ships. Gerrit van Sante, for example, the author of the Alphabetische Naam-lyst of 1770, wrote down the names of ten ships of which he owned a part for a total of 8,350 guilders. Jacob van Sante owned twelve ship parts which amounted to a value of 7,300 guilders. Apart from Meijndert Noomen (for 1,700 guilders in total), we also find Klaas Thopas & Gerrit Noomen in the records (for 15,200 guilders in twelve ships). The participant with the largest investment is Claas Taan & Zoonen, with a total of 80,000 guilders. Taan entered six ships for the maximum entry of 12,000 guilders and one ship for 8,000 guilders. Taan was an important participant of the insurance contracts: in 1773 he insured five ships at ƒ 56,000. On the other end of the scale, we find Klaas Knots and Wieke Riedeman, who each participated for 600 guilders, both in one vessel. Almost 100 ships were included in the contract, on average owned by 3½ owners. The Asia, commanded by Oeble Oebles was owned and entered by no less than eleven participants. All in all, it seems that the mutual contracts attracted small investors as well as the “tycoons” of the eighteenth century, and locals as well as “outsiders.” The difference between the smallest and largest participation is considerable. Of the 120 ships that sailed North in 1777, a total of ninety-nine ships participated in the contract.47 The ninety-seven participants of this contract were not very fortunate – seven ships sank or were lost that year. Six of these ships can be traced back to the Contract van Assurantie; the seventh vessel probably did not belong to 45

gaz, onaz, no. 5908/60, Contract, 16 February 1751; Den Dooren de Jong and Lootsma, “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche,” 38. 46 J. Feuerstein, De nakomelingen van Jan Walig 1600–2009 (unpublished manuscript), 59–74. Mrs N. Buve-Kelderstein from Leiden was so kind to give us access to this manuscript. 47 Leinenga, Arctische Walvisvangst, 185–187.

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Table 7.1

Vessels lost in 1777, with their insured value in the contract.

Name of the ship

Commandeur (commander)

Anna Jonge Roggebloem Wilhelmina / Welmeende De Vrouwe Jacoba

Jeldert Jansz Groot Claes Keuken de Jonge Jacob Broertjes Roelof Meijer/Roelof Meeuw? Jacob Bremer Claes Jansz Castricum

f 12,000 f 12,000 f 12,000 f 3,700

Total Value

f 41,800

De Vrouw Wijva Jdr De Wisselvalligheijd

Value (as mentioned in the contract)

f 1,500 f 600

Source: J. Feuerstein, De nakomelingen van Jan Walig 1600–2009, aangevuld tot 2012, by R. Walig (unpublished), 59–74

the contract. The loss of these six ships meant a loss of 41,800 guilders for the participants of the mutual (see Table 7.1). The total loss of at least 41,800 guilders meant that each participants’ insurance premium for the year amounted to 5.9 percent.48 This percentage was considerably higher than the 4 percent charged by “commercial” underwriters on the Amsterdam market, even though it is difficult to make a comparison, as the commercial rate of 4 percent only covered total losses. After the contract of 1777, three more contracts followed, though this time the declining trend was distinct and irreversible. In 1778, the contract still had a total value of 623,100 guilders, but this plummeted to a mere 443,000 in the following year. In 1780, vessels and parts of ship with a total of only 419,000 guilders participated in the Contract van Assurantie. It would be the last contract of its kind – due to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, whaling came to a complete standstill. After the hostilities had ceased and whaling was resumed, it never recovered from the setback, both in terms of the number of ships participating, the capital involved, and the level of employment generated. Mutual insurance contracts disappeared altogether: whaling entrepreneurs wishing to hedge the risks of their industry and traders had to go to the commercial i­ nsurance markets in Amsterdam or Rotterdam to purchase insurance.

48

If the seventh vessel had also been insured through the mutual insurance contract, this percentage would of course have been higher.

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Whalers’ Mutual Insurance Contracts in a Comparative Perspective

When it came to the risks at sea – why did the whalers in the Zaan-region prefer to set up their own institutions to deal with the financial consequences in case of a disaster? Why did they not go to Amsterdam, as it was close by and the centre of the largest insurance market of Early Modern Europe. For the people from the Zaan-region, the so-called Zaankanters, the question was probably the other way round: why go to Amsterdam if they could solve the issue themselves? After all, they were able to finance the whale trade themselves. The additional step of setting up mutual insurance contracts may have been considered an obvious one. The participants knew one another and they were already commercially connected through the combined ownership of the ships. Mutuals were set up when there was a high degree of communication and cooperation between both ship owners at the industry level, as well as between commanders on the more operational level.49 The alternative, going to Amsterdam, may have been a bridge too far for many. They would have had to commission a local broker who would then contact his counterpart in Amsterdam to facilitate the deal. This probably added an additional 0.25 percent to the total cost of the insurance as a broker’s commission. In addition, commissioning an Amsterdam broker (and thus by-passing the additional commission) probably meant for many whalers from the Zaan-region that they would have to rely on the services of men they did not know or trust. Not being familiar with the intricate market in Amsterdam may have had its price: insurance rates on whaling routes were not published in the official price lists, the so-called Prijscouranten. Brokers were obliged by the municipality to compile and publish accurate lists of the prices of ­numerous commodities and services, including insurance. These lists are considered to have contributed significantly to the transparency of the Amsterdam ­insurance market – and its growth and success.50 As insurance rates for Greenland and the Davis Strait were not included in the lists, this segment of the market developed in a less transparent atmosphere. It meant that there was the risk of information asymmetry – of some parties being better informed than other parties.51 For the whalers from the Zaan, there was a real risk of paying too 49 Davids, “Zekerheidsregelingen in de scheepvaart,” 192–193. 50 Spooner, Risks at sea, 22; John J. McCusker, “The demise of distance: The business press and the origins of the information revolution in the early modern Atlantic world,” The American Historical Review 110, no. 2 (2005): 14; Vergouwen, Makelaardij in assurantiën; Go, Marine insurance, 82. 51 For more on the implications of information asymmetry, see G.A. Akerlof, “The market for lemons: Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 84 (1970).

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much for their insurance. Setting up mutual insurance contracts was probably the easiest measure to take for the entrepreneurs in the Zaan. Clearly, these contracts – at least for a certain period of time – met the needs of the whaling entrepreneurs in the Zaan-region. Mutual insurance constructions were not exclusive to whaling or to the Zaan area. As mentioned above, the owners of industrial mills were the first in the region to initiate a cooperative collaboration to manage the risk of fire. The first mill contract dates back to 1663 and included eight mills, which had increased to over a hundred mills by the next century. For certain types of mills, oil mills for example, more than 70 percent of all mills in the region were part of a mutual insurance contract.52 Outside the Zaan region, there were other cooperative institutions as well, such as the so-called Zeemansbuidels (Seafarer boxes). These may be among the oldest of mutuals we know of. Seafarer boxes were set up by seafarers and fishermen so that they were able to pay ransom money in case they were captured by privateers. They existed in several seafaring communities, in Holland but also in other regions of the Republic.53 Another example of mutual insurance contracts can be found in the city and province of Groningen, 200 kilometres north of Amsterdam, where Shippers’ guilds created Guild boxes. These Guild boxes, of which the oldest dates back to 1605, would pay an unfortunate ship-owner a set amount of a couple of hundred guilders. This amount did not represent the value of the loss – it seems it was merely intended to prevent the ship owner (who also commanded the ship) and his family from falling into poverty.54 There is a clear similarity here with the mutual insurances in the Zaan-region – neither the mill contracts nor the whaling mutuals covered the actual loss of the owners, usually they only covered part of it. Both the guild boxes in Groningen and the whaling contracts in the Zaan disappeared in the later part of the eighteenth century, but the milling contracts held out ­longer, perhaps because they fulfilled more than just a financial function. As Davids has shown, the contracts were not merely financial institutions, but also advanced the dissemination of technological innovations and of safety measures. In addition, as there was no millers’ guild in the Zaan-region to represent the

52 53 54

Karel Davids, “The transformation of an old industrial district: Firms, family, and mutuality in the Zaanstreek between 1840 and 1920,” Enterprise and Society 7, no. 3 (2006): 563. Hille van Dieren and W. Smit, De Buul, 400 jaar zeeverzekering op Terschelling (Urk: Smit & Wytzes, 1987). Sabine C.P.J. Go, “Mutual marine insurance in the province of Groningen, c. 1605–1770: A case of financial innovation,” International Journal of Maritime History xvii (2005).

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millers’ interests towards the authorities, this task instead performed by the insurance contracts.55 Unfortunately, we do not know whether the whaling insurance contracts fulfilled these same additional functions. There is an important difference between the milling and the whaling industry: the owners of the ships and parts of the ships formed the whaling contracts. However, these owners were not the ones actually sailing the vessels and hunting the whales. They were the entrepreneurs supplying the capital for the various whaling expeditions. The milling contracts were set up by the millers who not only (partially) owned the mills but also operated them. They had an interest in sharing information regarding safety measures or new technology with their fellow millers. I­ nnovation of whaling techniques or safety at sea was most likely discussed by the commandeurs, the captains, and to a lesser extent, their directors, rather than the investors of the ships. The milling contract fulfilled more functions than the ­whaling contract, which may be a reason why some milling contracts outlasted the whaling initiative by more than a century. Why, then, did the whaling insurance contract fully disappear in the beginning of the 1780s, in spite of a partial revival of the whaling industry after the fourth Anglo-Dutch war? This was most probably due to financial reasons. The most important advantage of mutual insurances was supposedly the cost: it was considered cheaper than commercial insurance.56 As members of a ­mutual insurance contract were, generally speaking, active in the same industry and originated from the same region, it was easier for them to assess the risks and to control fraud, keeping the costs of enforcement at a minimum. However, when the members of the contract of 1777 made up their accounts, they were faced with the loss of six ships, at a cost of 5.9 percent per participant. The alternative, buying insurance in Amsterdam, became an ever more interesting option. The Amsterdam market had the benefit that whaling entrepreneurs could have their entire interest insured, not merely up to a value of 12,000 guilders. Finally, the decreasing number of participants increased the risk for following years. In the early years of the development of these contracts, the 55 56

Davids, “The transformation of an old.” Although data are scarce, we can make a tentative comparison. If the owner of a whaling vessel bought an insurance policy in Amsterdam and paid a 4.5 percent premium for an insured value of 12,000 guilders, the cost would be at least f 540, to which the commission of the local broker would have to be added. (The underwriter would usually pay the commission for the insurance broker in Amsterdam). Even at this cost, they would only be covered for a total loss. When joining a mutual, the owners took a risk – they could be lucky when all ships returned safely or with minimal damage; Rudolph W. van Stolk, Onderlinge assurantie (Leiden: S.C. Van Doesburgh, 1891), 8.

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total insured value was approximately 200,000 guilders and there were less than fifty participants. The last contract, of 1780, still had a total insured value of more than 400,000 guilders. However, that was apparently not enough for the Z ­ aankanters to draw up a new contract when peace had returned. They had probably become accustomed to the security of size of the mutual contracts, consisting of approximately 100 participants and a total insured value of 700,000 or even 1 million guilders. Apparently, the amount of 400,000 guilders in 1780 was regarded less highly in terms of financial security than half that amount had been in 1745. 5 Conclusion Whaling was an important part of the economy and industrial structure of the Zaan-region in the early modern period. Hundreds of people were directly or indirectly employed in catching whales and processing or trading whale products. A few decades after the first whaling ships sailed north, the whaling entrepreneurs drew up their first mutual insurance contract. These contracts developed into meticulously drafted contracts, made official by a notary and signed by up to one hundred participants, including locals as well as entrepreneurs from beyond the region. The mutual contracts acquired a large “market share” – and were undoubtedly an important part of the institutional framework for the whaling industry in the area. Economically, they were part of the infrastructure that supported the local economy. Socially, they strengthened communication within the sector: as participants congregated for formal signings, they must have also exchanged news about the trade and hunt or possible technological innovations. In the Zaan-area there was, as J.P. Vergouwen put it, a “peculiar inclination to form economic collusions”.57 Perhaps this inclination became less prominent after the 1780s with the decline of the whaling industry, resulting in a decrease in cooperation. Karel Davids has looked at these collusions from an institutional perspective, considering the Zaan-region as an industrial district. He analysed the effects of two major transitions that took place in the period from 1840 until the First World War. In these seven decades, the region was confronted with a major change in energy base, as well as a shift in industrial structure. He concluded that the institutions that were based and had thrived on the concept of mutuality were not resilient enough to withstand these fundamental transitions. In the end, it was not mutuality but homo economicus that formed the region’s industrial structure and economic 57 Vergouwen, Makelaardij in assurantiën, 110–111.

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d­ evelopment. The discontinuation of the whaling mutual insurance contracts may well have been a precursor of the developments in the following centuries, which were analysed by Karel Davids: cooperative institutions proved unable to survive exogenous shocks. In the case of whaling, these shocks were not formed by a transition of energy base, but an increase in international competition, the emergence of substitute products and a decline in whale population that accelerated the disappearance of whaling insurance mutual contracts. Bibliography Akerlof, George. “The market for lemons: Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 84, no. 3 (1970): 488–500. Blok, Petrus Johannes. “Het plan tot oprichting eener Compagnie van Assurantie,” ­Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde 21 (1900): 1–160. Braam, Aris van. Bloei en verval van het economisch-sociale leven aan de Zaan in de 17de en 18de eeuw. Wormerveer: Meijer, 1958. Braam, Aris van. Opkomst van de Zaanse walvisvaart, 1610–1660, two volumes. Wormerveer: s.n., 1999–2000. Bruijn, J.R., and C.A. Davids. “Jonas vrij. De Nederlandse walvisvaart, in het bijzonder de Amsterdamse, in de jaren 1640–1664.” Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek 38 (1975): 141–178. Bruijn, Jaap R., Femme S. Gaastra, and Ivo Schöffer. Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Three volumes. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979–1989. Bruijn, Jaap R. “A small North Frisian island and the decline of the Dutch whaling trade c. 1780.” In Négoce, ports et oceans XVIe–XXe siècles. Mélanges offerts à Paul Butel, edited by S. Marzagalli and H. Bonin, 171–180. Bordeaux: Presses Univeritaires De Bordeaux, 2000. Davids, Karel. “Zekerheidsregelingen in de scheepvaart en het landtransport, 1500– 1800.” In Studies over zekerheidsarrangementen, risico’s, risicobestrijding en verzekeringen in Nederland vanaf de Middeleeuwen, edited by J. van Gerwen and M.H.D. van Leeuwen, 183–202. Amsterdam: Nederlandsch Economisch Historisch Archief, 1998. Davids, Karel. “The transformation of an old industrial district: Firms, family, and mutuality in the Zaanstreek between 1840 and 1920.” Enterprise and Society 7, no. 3 (2006): 550–580. Davids, Karel. “Windmills and the openness of knowledge: Technological innovation in a Dutch industrial district, the Zaanstreek c. 1600–1800.” Paper presented at the Society for the History of Technology Meeting. San Jose, California, usa, October 2001.

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Dekker, P. De laatste bloeiperiode van de Nederlandse Arctische walvis- en robbevangst 1761–1775. Zaltbommel: Europese bibliotheek, 1971. Dekker, P. “Föhrer Seeleute bei der niederländischen Walfangfahrt besonders im 18. Jahrhundert.” Nordfriesisches Jahrbuch Neue Folge 14 (1978): 113–160. Dekker, P. “Borkum, voor de historie van de walvisvaart een Westfries eiland.” It Beaken 41 (1979): 207–235. Den Dooren de Jong, E.L.G., and J. Lootsma. “De zeeverzekering der Nederlandsche walvischvangst 1612–1803.” Het Verzekerings-archief xvi (1935): 5–64. Dieren, H. van, and W. Smit. De Buul, 400 jaar zeeverzekering op Terschelling. Urk: Smit & Wytzes, 1987. Espine, Jacques Le Moine de l’, and Isaac le Long. Den koophandel van Amsterdam naar alle gewesten des werelds…. Volume one. Rotterdam: Ph Losel, J.D. Beman, H. Kentlink, J. Bosch, N. Smithof, J. Losel, and J. Burgvliet, 1753. Feuerstein, J. De nakomelingen van Jan Walig 1600–2009. Unpublished manuscript. Go, Sabine C.P.J. Marine insurance in the Netherlands 1600–1800. A comparative institutional approach. Amsterdam: Aksant, 2009. Go, Sabine C.P.J. “Mutual marine insurance in the province of Groningen, c. 1605–1770: A case of financial innovation.” International Journal of Maritime History xvii (2005): 123–149. Hacquebord, Louwrens. De Noordse Compagnie (1614–1642): Opkomst, bloei en ondergang. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2014. Honig, Gerrit Jan. Uit den gulden bijkorf: Genealogisch-historisch-economische studiën over Zaansche families. Koog Aan De Zaan: P. Out, 1952. Honig, J. Historische oudheid- en letterkundige studiën, two volumes. Zaandijk: J. Heijnis, 1866–1867. Hoorn, Jan Claesz ten. Naeuw-keurig reys-boek: Bysonderlijk dienstig voor kooplieden, en reysende persoonen …. Amsterdam: Jan Ten Hoorn, 1679. Jackson, G. The British whaling trade. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1978. Jong, C. de. Geschiedenis van de oude Nederlandse walvisvaart. Three volumes. Johannesburg/Pretoria: De Jong, 1972–1979. Leinenga, Jur R. Arctische walvisvangst in de achttiende eeuw: De betekenis van Straat Davis als vangstgebied. Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1995. Lesger, Clé. The rise of the Amsterdam market and information exchange: Merchants, commercial expansion and change in the spatial economy of the Low Countries, c.1550–1630. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Lootsma, S. Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der Nederlandsche walvischvaart (meer speciaal de Zaansche). Wormerveer: Meijer, 1937. McCusker, John J. “The demise of distance: The business press and the origins of the information revolution in the early modern Atlantic world.” The American Historical Review 110, no. 2 (2005): 295–321.

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Niekerk, J.P. van. The development of the principles of insurance law in the Netherlands from 1500–1800. Johannesburg: Juta, 1998. Noordkerk, H. Handvesten ofte privilegiën ende octroyen mitsgaders willekueren, costuimen, ordonanntiën en handelingen der stad Amsterdam. Five volumes. Amsterdam: Hendrik Van Waesberge, Salomon En Petrus Schouten, 1748. Prak, Maarten, and Lidewij Hesselink. “Stad van gevestigden, 1650–1730.” In Geschiedenis van Amsterdam. Volume ii-2. Zelfbewuste stadstaat 1650–1813, edited by Willem T.M. Frijhoff and Maarten Prak, 89–149. Amsterdam: sun, 2005. Sante, Gerret van. Alphabetische naam-lyst van alle de Groenlandsche en Straat-­ Davissche commandeurs, die zedert het jaar 1700 op Groenland, en zedert het jaar 1719 op de Straat-Davis, voor Holland en andere provincien, hebben gevaaren …. Haarlem: Johannes Enschedé, 1770. Schokkenbroek, Joost. Trying-out: An anatomy of Dutch whaling and sealing in the nineteenth century, 1815–1885. Amsterdam: Aksant, 2008. Spooner, Frank C. Risks at sea. Amsterdam insurance and maritime Europe, 1766–1780. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Stolk, R.W. van. Onderlinge assurantie. Leiden: S.C. Van Doesburgh, 1891. Tielhof, Milja van. The “mother of all trades”: The Baltic grain trade in Amsterdam from the late 16th to the early 19th century. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Vergouwen, J.P. De geschiedenis der makelaardij in assurantiën hier te lande tot 1813. The Hague: Zuid-Hollandsche Uitgeverij Maatschappij, 1945. Woude, Adrianus Maria van der. Het Noorderkwartier. Een regionaal historisch onderzoek in de demografische en economische geschiedenis van westelijk Nederland van de late middeleeuwen tot het begin van de negentiende eeuw. Wageningen: H. Veenman & Zonen N.V., 1972. Wright, Charles, and C. Ernest Fayle. A history of Lloyd’s: From the founding of Lloyd’s coffee house to the present day. London: Macmillan, 1928. Zorgdrager, C.G, and Abraham Moubach. C. G. Zorgdragers bloeijende opkomst der aloude en hedendaagsche Groenlandsche visschery. The Hague: P. van Thol en R.C. Alberts, 1727.

Chapter 8

Figuring Out Global and Local Relations: Cantonese Face-makers and their Sitters in the 18th Century Joost C.A. Schokkenbroek For two hundred years, the Dutch East India Company (voc) was instrumental in the development of relations between the Dutch Republic and many countries in the Persian Gulf and Asia – among which China.1 Numerous written and non-written sources related to the mutual histories of the Dutch Republic and China are gathered in archives or hang on museum walls and in storage areas. Based on these silent witnesses, entire bookcases worth of material has been written about the nature and extent of the bilateral contacts in the early modern era. In a more general sense, there seems to be an increasing interest in the clash of – or at least the contact between westerners and Chinese people. Customarily, studies on the co-existence of Europeans and non-­Europeans – and their cultural, social, political, commercial, and sexual contacts – seem to be focused primarily on these contacts within the geopolitical context of empires and globalization.2 1 This article is a revised and extended version of Joost C.A. Schokkenbroek, “Versteend verleden. Chinese portretbeeldjes in de collectie van het Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam,” Vormen uit vuur 23 (2008). I cordially thank Lea Edgar, Librarian & Archivist at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, for her assistance. 2 For the relation between sexuality and empire-building (in this case in particular British empire-building), see Ronald Hyam, Empire and sexuality: The British experience, third ed. (Manchester/New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992). Recent examples of studies with a strong emphasis on the dynamics of the macro and micro worlds of the global Dutch on various continents and their interactions with the Other can be found in Catia Antunes and Jos Gommans, eds., Exploring the Dutch Empire: Agents, networks and institutions, 1600–2000 (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). Other examples of studies with a focus on interactions between West and East, or between Europeans and non-Europeans, are presented in Francesca Trivellato, Leor Halevi, and Cátia Antunes, eds., Religion and trade: Cross-cultural exchanges in world history, 1000–1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Ian Barrow, The East India Company, 1600–1858: A short history with documents (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2017), is another recent example of, in this case, a monograph on primarily political and economic contacts between English/British and local communities in various parts of Asia – though he also discusses the interactions between the English and other Europeans. More enlightning for this article has been Lisa Hellman, Navigating the foreign quarters: Everyday life of the Swedish East India Company employees in Canton and Macao 1730–1830 (Stockholm:

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_010

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In this article, personal representations of the centuries-old relationship between various European countries and China will be discussed. Painted ­portraits of Chinese merchants can be found in various European museum collections. However, portraits on canvas of European merchants are rare in China. The artefacts in question are three-dimensional eighteenth-century portraits in Chinese clay, transported to the respective home countries of the sitters (the portraits’ subjects) during a time that European demand for artefacts and commodities from China was growing rapidly and eventually turned into a craze – Chinoiserie. A number of questions will be addressed. What do we know about the artists? Who were the sitters? What can we say about their professional and personal lives, and why did they end up in Canton? Research has shown that these artefacts are part of a larger world-wide inventory of ­thirty-eight sculptural portrait bustes and figurines (so far) in painted, unbaked clay, produced in Canton for various European sitters.3 The items not only bear witness to the individual histories of those who commisioned the Chinese ­artists in the first place, they also represent different episodes in the changing relations between the trading companies and the Chinese Empire. 1

Trading Contacts

The earliest contacts between the voc and China date back to the early ­seventeenth century.4 Between 1624 and 1662, trade was conducted via ­Formosa Stockholm University, 2015). Here, Hellman also quotes Jessica Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire: Freemasons and British Imperialism, 1717–1927 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007). Harland-Jacobs suggests otherness was emphasized in eighteenth century cultural links. She points out that these contacts should be understood as tensions between alterity and universalism. Here, she replaces these two terms by “othering” and “brothering” (20, 237). 3 When I wrote my article in 2008, thirty-one figurines were known to me. Thanks to recent research, we now have information about thirty-eight statuettes. See Irene B. Jacobs, “Onze Johannes: Op zoek naar de identiteit van een 18e-eeuws Chinees portretbeeld van klei,” Aziatische Kunst 44, no. 1 (March 2014). In her article, Jacobs categorizes the various figures based on posture, clothing, wig or absence thereof, etc. I use the terminology “sculptural ­portrait bustes and figurines,” as phrased by David Clarke, “Chitqua’s English adventure: An eighteenth century source for the study of China coast pidgin and early Chinese use of ­English,” Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 10, no. 1 (2005): 48. I thank Lisa Hellman for bringing this article to my attention. 4 For information about the contacts between the Dutch Republic and China during the voc era, see Femme S. Gaastra, De geschiedenis van de voc (Zutphen: Walburg Press, 1991), 78–81; my contributions regarding China in L. Akveld and E.J. Jacobs, eds., De kleurrijke wereld van de voc: Nationaal Jubileumboek voc 1602/2002 (Bussum: Thoth, 2002), Jan Parmentier, Oostende

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China, ca. 1664. Collection Het Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam, no. S.1034 (19) [kaart15]

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(present day Taiwan). After 1662, Chinese merchants used junks to transport their commodities from the coastal provinces directly to Batavia – the epicentre and place of rendez-vous for the voc in Asia. As of 1729, the voc developed direct shipping to and from China. Along the embankment of the Pearl River in Canton, a building was rented out to serve as factorij (office). Initially, voc servants stayed in Canton for a number of months – usually between October and mid-January. For the remainder of the year, the furniture was stored away and placed under the responsibility of the Chinese proprietor. After 1750, servants stayed in Canton year-round. The Dutch were not the only Westerners in town. English, Swedish, French, and Danish merchants – all employed by the various “national” trading ­companies – held offices in the same district, along the same river. In 1784, the first ship flying an American flag appeared on the Canton roadsted. One year later, the Americans opened a permanent office there. Rules for foreign traders in China were strictly enforced.5 Upon arrival near Macau, at the mouth of Pearl River, captains of foreign ships were required to announce their presence to Chinese custom officials. A pilot was then assigned to accompany the captain. Also, a so-called chop (a trading permit) was issued, allowing the captain to sail upstream. At the fortress of Bocca Tigris, captains were expected to show the chop to the Mandarin, the local authority. If this permit was considered legitimate, the Mandarin allowed the captain to sail further upstream, to Whampoa, about 22 kilometres south of Canton. Here, captains were forced to drop ­anchor – not only due to the shallow waters of the Pearl River, but also because they needed to pay their taxes, which were partly based on the size of the ship. At Whampoa, skippers maintained contacts with various Chinese middlemen such as the so-called comprador, an official in charge of the provisioning of food to foreign crew. They also had to deal with the hoppo, a high-ranking official responsible for the collection of taxes. Historian Paul Van Dyke calls them “customs superintendents.” The captain or the supercarga – the senior merchant on board – were also supposed to establish contacts in Whampoa with one of the few Hong-merchants, united in the so-called Co Hong as of 1760.6 & Co. Het verhaal van de Zuid-Nederlandse Oost-Indiëvaart 1715–1735 (Gent: Ludion, 2002), 89–93; J. van Campen, “Chinese bestellingen van Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 53, no. 1 (2005). 5 For an extensive treatise on the “Canton System,” see Paul A. Van Dyke, The Canton trade: Life and enterprise on the China coast, 1700–1845 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007), 163–176. 6 See among others: Piet Emmer and Jos Gommans, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld: De geschiedenis van Nederland overzee 1600–1800 (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, 2012), 411–412.

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European merchants were not allowed to have direct contacts with l­ocal merchants or government representatives in Canton. As such, the Hong-­ merchants, with their imperial mandate to trade with and on behalf of foreigners, were instrumental for the various Western trading companies. Not only were they responsible for the commercial activities of and regular payments by their European clients; they were also held accountable for their behaviour.7 Regulations were not only applied to European merchants by local authorities. In the case of the voc, servants were fairly limited in their actions by the rules set by the Heeren xvii – the Executive Board – as well. The Heeren xvii did not allow their servants to conduct trade via a Hong who also represented other Europeans. The voc wanted to prevent any company secrets to be revealed to competing parties. Subsequently, the most renowned and succesful Cantonese merchant houses were excluded from mediation on the company’s behalf. 2

Cut-throat Competition

At the end of the day, all Western companies strived for one thing: to gain the trust and favours of the tea merchants and the porcelain manufacturers.8 As European commodities frequently turned out to be too expensive for many Asian markets, a complex intra-Asiatic network arose in the first half of the seventeenth century. For the voc, China played a crucial role in this network. Dutch ships transported unminted precious metal to China – in particular silver bars. There, silk and tea were purchased. An important share of the silk was then transported to Deshima (Japan), where it was bartered for gold, copper, and less expensive silver. These metals were used to buy textiles in India, which were then shipped to the Dutch East Indies – in particular the Moluccas archipelago. Here, the company obtained the valuable spices nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, and mace – as well as pepper. In other words, the voc purchased commodities both for the European and the Asian markets, making use of the extensive trading networks the company had developed over time. The other European trading companies organized their businesses differently. Most importantly, they had their ships with silver sail directly to ­China. However, change came during the second half of the eighteenth century. More and more, the English East India Company (eic) developed into a ­major ­competitor for the Dutch. After 1760, so-called “country-traders” – English 7 See note 5. 8 Hellman, Navigating the foreign quarters, 232–271. She devotes a whole chapter to the importance of trust.

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­ rivate merchants who conducted their business autonomously within Asia – p ­imitated the Dutch intra-Asiatic trading system to such level of perfection that they took over various markets in due course. Like the Dutch, they obtained Chinese tea by bartering other Asian products. The advantage of this change in their business model is crystal clear: no longer did these private merchants have to wait for the eic ships to arrive from Europe with their holds filled with silver, enabling them to condut their trade much more efficiently and faster than ever before. On the other side of the spectrum, contrary to the voc, country traders did not wait to gather at one place of rendez-vous and leave as one in convoy. In the long run, the voc could not stay ahead of this strong double-headed competitor. Waiting for the other Dutch ships to convene at Batavia before setting sail to the Dutch Republic had a detrimental effect on the quality of the tea – which was already inferior to the tea the English had purchased. The Chinese tea trade was left to the English. A similar trend can be discerned for the porcelain trade. In the second half of the eighteenth century, European demand for Chinese porcelain dwindled considerably. The Dutch did not act as promptly as England and France in developing their domestic porcelain production. Here again, lack of vigilance and entrepreneurship led to a sharp decline in the Dutch presence in China. When France left Canton as well in 1802, the English ruled the waves of the China Sea – or at least the commercial hustle and bustle on the embankment of the Pearl River in Canton. 3

Clay Artists

The foreigner’s world in Canton was confined, as it stretched out over just a few blocks. There must have been a surplus of time – resulting in activities related to private trade (such as selling of wine to Chinese, for example), but also in endless boredom. As Lisa Hellman puts it: “They had much time to invest, but had to contend with both established notions of suitable leisure activities and with the restrictions placed upon them by the Chinese.”9 During their stay in Canton, a few dozen (but possibly hundreds) of representatives of Western trading companies sat for clay artists, known in English vernacular as ‘face-makers.’ These talented and refined artists created polychrome statues of unbaked clay. The whereabouts of their shops is not known, but chances are that after circa 1780 these artists could be found amidst a wide array of grog shops, ‘shops from caps,’ and ‘shops for silk cloth’– many of which were situated on Hog Lane. Hellman quotes a Swedish contemporary, Brelin, who visited Canton and notes: “In each and everyone of these houses there is an 9 Ibid., 210–211.

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open merchant’s or craftman’s shop.”10 This perception is corroborated by an account of a later date (1803), noting that “some streets [in the area of Canton where foreigners were allowed to engage in commerce with Chinese traders, David Clark] are entirely filled with painters and picture-shops.”11 We can safely assume that a fair number of these clay artists will have served this rather large clientele at one time. However, only two are known to us so far, because they signed some of their pieces. One of them signed under the name of Amoy Chinqua (Chinqua of Amoy, a port city in the southern part of the Fujian province). Chinqua was particularly active during the first few decades of the eighteenth century. We have no information about his whereabouts at that time.12 The earliest work bearing his signature is a large full-figure portrait of Joseph Collet (1673–1725), one of the most renowned servants of the eic.13 From 1717 until his death in 1725, Collet served as Governor of the St. George fortress in Madras, India. We have some background information on the large figure. Prior to his post in India, Collet sent a letter to his daughter Elizabeth on 14 December 1716. The letter contains a description of the portrait made earlier that year and is currently in the collection of The National Portrait Gallery in Londen: I also send by the Governor in requital for your Pictures a sort of Picture or Image of my Self. The lineaments and the Features are Esteem’d very just but the complexion is not quite so well hit; the proportions of my body and my habit is very exact. I commit it to you Custody till you see the originall.14 10 11

12

13 14

Ibid., 214. Whitley Papers, British Museum, Prints and Drawings Room – clipping headed “Journal of a Voyage in the Indian Seas,” given as from The Monthly Magazine, 1 July 530. This account might be part of a journal of a voyage in the ship Caroline in 1803. See David Clarke, “Chitqua’s English Adventure,” 49, note 3. In 2005, a clay figure dated 1719 and signed by Chinqua was auctioned off by Libert in Paris. The figure is depicted in the catalogue by A. and J. Speelman, Chinese works of art (London: A. & J. Speelman, 2008). For this information, I am indebted to curators Jan van Campen and Gijs van der Ham of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Two other early works are mentioned in Teresa Canepa, European scenes on Chinese art (London: Jorge Welsh Books, 2005), 103. One of these figures bears the signature “Amoy Chinqua 1719,” the other “Amoy Chinqua fecit 1720.” I am not aware of the current repository or repositories of these clay figures. This exceptionally high full-body portrait (height 84 centimetres) is signed by Chinqua and is part of the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London (no. npg 4005). See for a photograph Akveld and Jacobs, Kleurrijke wereld, 181. H. Dodwell, ed., The private letter books of Joseph Collet (London: Longmans, Green, 1933). Cited in D.S. Howard, A tale of three cities – Canton, Shanghai & Hong Kong: Three centuries of Sino-British trade in the decorative arts ([London]: Sotheby’s, [1997]). The quote can also be found in R.J. Charleston, “Chinese face-makers,” Antiques Magazine 73 (May 1958): 459.

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The oeuvre of the second face-maker is of more recent date. This Cantonese artist signed under various names – Tan-Che-Qua, Tan Chetqua – and is generally known as (Tan) Chitqua.15 The Swedish traveller Pehr Osbeck possibly refers to this artist in his published journal Dagbok Øfwer en Ostindisk Resa (Stockholm 1757; translated into English in 1771): In a Place like this, the famous Face-maker was at work, who makes men’s figures, mostly in miniature. Europeans often go to this man to be represented in the usual dress; and sometimes he hits them exceedingly well.16 Obviously, Chitqua was quite famous because of his accurate representation of the sitters. One of these sitters was the Englishman William Hickey ­(1749–1830), a lawyer who spent most of his years in India. In or around 1769 he came to Canton and visited a clay artist, possibly Chitqua. With a good sense of ­humour, Hickey describes his encounter with the famous face-maker as follows: There was a China man who took excellent likeness in clay, which he a­ fterwards coloured, and they were all together well executed. To this man’s shop, Pott and I went to see his performances. We found mr. ­Carnergie, surgeon of the ship Nottingham, sitting for his portrait, and complaining violently what damned ugly phiz [face] he was making. ­After repeating this several times, the artist lay down his tools and looking significantly at Carnergie, said, “Hy you handsome face no have got how can make,” and turning to Pott, he continued “Here can make handsome face, for too much ee handsome face have got.” Carnergie was offended at both observations, declaring he would not pay for or taking the model away. He kept his word, and the next time we called at the shop we saw Mr. Carnergie tucked up, hanging by a rope around the neck, to a beam, among several others. Enquiring the meaning of this, the performer with much anger answered, “All these have too much ee [sic] grand Ladrones, give me too much trouble, make handsome face, no pay, no take, so must ee hang up.” Bob and myself both sat and had good likeness taken, Bob in 15

16

For more on this artist, see Gentleman’s Magazine 41 (1771): 237–238. More recent and elaborate data can be found in Pat Hardy, “Chitqua (c.1728–1796),“ in Oxford Dictionary of N ­ ational Biography, eds. H.C.G. Matthew, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman (­Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). See also Pat Hardy, “New Research on Rare Clay Portrait Figure by Chitqua,” January 2013, http://www.britishportraits.org.uk/queries-­reviews/ research-papers/new-research-on-rare-clay-portrait-figure-by-chitqua/, a­ccessed 2 May 2018. Charleston, “Chinese face-makers,” 459.

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a midshipman’s uniform, in scarlet with buff facings and silver lace, being the Madras regimentals.17 The quote is lengthy, as it reveals a high level of self esteem and professional pride on the part of the Chinese artist: He is not shy in showing disrespect for the foreigner who does not appreciate his work. In the same year (1769) Chitqua arrived in London with the eic ship Horsedon. Soon, the “Father of English Potters” Josiah Wedgwood was informed about Chitqua’s arrival by his friend and business partner Thomas Bentley:18 A Chinese portrait modeller lately from Canton, one of those Artists that make the mandarin figures that are brought to England. […] He intends to stay here for some years, is in the Chinese dress, makes portraits (small busts in clay which he colours), and produces very striking likeness with great expedition.19 The face-maker even met King George iii and his spouse. In his study on artists and their patronage in England, W.H. Whitley quotes an unknown contemporary who refers to this visit: He [Chitqua] has been with the King and Queen, who were much pleased with him, and he is to take the portraits of the Royal Infantry. He has ten guineas a piece for his little portraits, which are very small.20 The addition “which are very small” leads me to believe that the unknown contemporary considered Chitqua’s pay substantial. In March 1771, after a stay of close to two years, Chitqua boarded the English Eastindiaman Grenville destined for China. Due to his uncommon behaviour and dress – at least in the perception of the crew – the artists did not receive the warm welcome bestowed upon him at earlier times. Shortly after departure, the poor fellow fell overboard and almost drowned. To spare him more 17 18 19 20

A. Spencer, ed., Memoirs of William Hickey, volume 1 (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1913), 227–228. Teresa Canepa, European scenes on Chinese art (London: Jorge Welsh Books, 2005) mentions Wedgewood as one of Chitqua’s sitters. Neither she nor I are familiar with the figure’s current whereabouts. Cited by Canepa, European Scenes, 106. See also A.J. Toppin, “Chitqua, The Chinese modeller, and Wang-Y-Tong, the Chinese boy,” Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle 2, no. 8 (1942): 149. W.H. Whitley, Artists and their friends in England, 1700–1799, Volume one (London: The Medici Society, 1928), 270.

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disgrace and humiliation, the captain put him on solid soil near Deal (in Kent, about 15 kilometres south of Ramsgate). Shaken, not stirred, Chitqua returned to London where he spent another year before finally departing for China in 1772. He died in 1796. The circumstances around his death are obscure: it is generally believed that he committed suicide by taking in poison.21 4

Collections Outside the Netherlands

The various quotations cited above seem to indicate that Cantonese clay artists must have produced rather large numbers of figures. Though the citations refer to English examples, a preliminary inventory shows that sitters with other nationalities – or at least serving other Western trading companies than the eic – were portrayed as well.22 The inventory consists of two parts. Based on the locations of the current repositories, we distinguish collections outside the Netherlands from collections in the Netherlands. The figures in collections outside the Netherlands were produced between 1710 and 1798. The Victoria & Albert Museum in London is in possession of what, so far, has turned out to be the oldest figure. Moreover, the small box that came with the figure has also been preserved. The full portrait represents an unknown gentleman. Based on the dress of the sitter, it is generally assumed that the clay figure dates from between 1710 and 1715.23 The clay f­ igure of J­ oseph Collet, mentioned above, is signed by Chinqua and dates from 1716.24 All other figures in English collections are of a later date. The Dorking and District ­Museum in Dorking, Surrey holds an unsigned statue of Henry ­Talbot ­(1700–1784), a merchant who made his fortune with his involvement in the China trade on behalf of the English East India Company.25 Two of the remaining statues attributed to Chitqua are in the collection of the London-based antiques dealer Jorge Welsh.26 One, a portrait of an unidentified man, has been 21 22 23 24 25 26

“Chitqua (Tan-Che-Qua) (circa 1728–1796), Chinese artist,” National Portrait Gallery, http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp04412/chitqua-tan-che-qua, ­accessed 31 May 2017. John Lennox, captain of the Anson (built in 1781, lost in 1807) transported two boxes with clay figures for private trade. G.A. Godden, Oriental export market porcelain and its influence on European wares (London: Granada, 1979), 78. Craig Clunas, “Moulding a physiognomy – A Chinese portrait figure,” V&A Album 3 (1984). See for an image Akveld and Jacobs, Kleurrijke wereld, 181. “The Country Estates,” Dorking Museum & Heritage Centre, https://www.dorkingmuseum .org.uk/the-country-estates/, accessed 7 June 2017. This means that Jorge Welsh possesses the earliest figure made by this artist – whose works so far has been dated second half of the eighteenth century. Possibly, Welsh mixes up the two names, intending to refer to Chinqua, not Chitqua.

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dated between approximately 1730–1745. The other one is widely considered to date from the second half of the eighteenth century. In the latter case, we arguably know who is represented, namely Louis Bernard Tribou (1741–1831), a French c­ aptain during the Napoleonic Wars. On 17 November 1797, Tribou was appointed ­commander of the port of Ostend in present day Flanders. Both figures are e­ xtensively described and photographed in a catalogue issued by Welsh ­regarding porcelain and other Chinese artefacts in his possession.27 Only a few of the figures produced by Chitqua during his stay in London (1769– 1772) have stood the test of time. We know of one instance at which the artist put a figure on display in the building of the Royal Academy in 1770.28 Another clay figure in sitting posture represents Dr Anthony Askew (1722–1774), who was a famous medical doctor, traveler, and bibliophile in his lifetime.29 Chitqua was one of his patients, so it is tempting to assume that the artist portrayed the doctor in return for his sevices. The statue is currently located in the library of the Royal College of Physicians in London. Likewise, the famous actor David Garrick (1717–1779), who was the manager of the equally famous Drury Lane Theatre in London from 1747 on, was portrayed in clay by Chitqua as well.30 The instances cited above are all signed. In addition, a number of other figures are also attributed to Chitqua. One portrays a man on a sofa holding a book. We are uncertain about its current whereabouts.31 A second one is a full-body portrait of Thomas Todd (born 1726), now in the collections of the Museum of London. Todd posed around 1770. He started his professional life as a salt merchant, after which he he practiced as a pharmacist. During Chitqua’s stay in London, Todd ran a tea shop on 70 Fleet Street, fairly close to the Strand, where the Chinese artist had moved to from Fleet Street.32 Finally, we need to incorporate in this overview of figures in English holdings an artefact that, in any case, was in the collection of antique dealer Nicholas Grindley in London in 2001. Unfortunately, we do not know the name of the sitter.33 In addition to England, clay figures have been traced in the United States, Denmark, Flanders and Norway. The extensive and impressive China 27 Canepa, European Scenes, 100–109. 28 We do not know the identity of the sitter nor the current whareabouts of the artefact. 29 An image of this figure is printed in Carl L. Crossman, The decorative arts of the China trade (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1991), 311, illustration 184. 30 Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Every look speaks: Portraits of David Garrick (Bath: Holbourne Museum of Art, 2003), 70. 31 Depicted in David Piper, “A Chinese artist in England,” Country Life, 18 July 1952, 198, ­illustration 3. 32 Richard Todd, in discussion with the author, 2 June 2008. Thomas Todd’s nephew was great grandfather of Richard Todd, owner of the figure since 1962. 33 Jan van Campen in discussion with the author.

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collections at Peabody Essex Museum (pem) in Salem, Massachusetts, hold no fewer than four figures.34 The earliest one is signed “AMOY, CHIN QUA FEC 1717.” The identity of the sitter, portrayed by Chinqua of Amoy in Western dress, has not yet been determined. The same is true for the second figure in the pem-­collection. This artefact is unsigned and is dated 1730–1735. In his description of the refined clay figure, William Sargent – curator of the Asian collections at the time – mentions its plausible provenance. The figure is supposed to originate from the English Pyke family and was at one point added to the private collection of Chinese porcelain figurines amassed by Pamela Cunningham ­Copeland between 1937 and 2000. Isaac Pyke was a captain of an English Eastindiaman. Thereafter he served as Governor of St. Helens for five years. Upon his return to England, Pyke moved to Greenwich. Sargent suggests that the sitter might very well be Pyke himself. The third figure dates from about 1744. The sitter is Thomas Hall (1692–1748). Hall has served the eic. In 1744, Hall potentially reached the zenith of his ­career as supercarga on bord the Hardwick ànd as member of the English Council in Canton. Of particular interest is the composition of the figure – not the more or less stereotypical standing pose, but reclining, actually lying down on a bed with a red matrass.35 The fourth clay figure represents Daniel Sage. This ­captain from Salem, Massachusetts, posed standing up for an unknown facemaker in Canton late in 1798.36 Recently, another early work by Chinqua came up for auction. In all likelihood, the figure is linked to a merchant employed – or at least commissioned –by the EIC. On its pedestal, this extraordinarily fine, polychrome artefact bears the signature “AMOY CHINQUA FECIT 1719.”37 Clay figures have been retraced in Denmark as well. The National Museet in Copenhagen holds no fewer thans six pieces. They represent officers of the Cronprintz Christian, the first ship of the Danish East India Company that sailed to Canton.38 The Dutchman Pieter van de Hurk was first supercarga 34

W.R. Sargent, The Copeland Collection: Chinese and Japanese ceramic figures (Salem: ­ eabody Museum of Salem, 1991), 22–23 and 108–111. P 35 I am much obliged to Bill Sargent for the information regarding the figures signed in 1717 and those dated around 1744. 36 I express my gratitude to Kate Hanson at Peabody Essex Museum, as she has provided information about Daniel Sage. 37 Speelman, Chinese works, 140. In the exhibition catalogue, Speelman suggests a connection between the figure and a portrait by P. Trampon in the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, dated 1711. Sitter for this portrait was the merchant, captain and writer Robert Knowx (1641–1720), one of Daniel Defoe’s sources of inspiration for his Robinson Crusoe (first published in 1719). 38 See for a description of the figures T. Clemmensen and M.B. Mackeprang, Kina og Danmark 1600–1950: Kinafart og Kinamode (Kopenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1980), 108 ff.

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on board.39 All other sitters are Danes. Second supercarga Peter Mule holds a small booklet in his right hand. This detail provides information about the date of these figures, as the caption on its cover reads “Forferdiget udi Canton i China Ao 1731” (manufactured in Canton in China anno 1731). These clay figures were fabricated as souvenirs for King Fredrik V of Denmark, the most important financial supporter of this first expedition to China under the Danish flag. Today, all six are still part of the Royal Collections in the National Museet. The Danish East India Company had more servants who obviously took a liking in having themselves portrayed not on canvas or paper, but in clay. Zacharias Allewelt, a Dutchman from the Southern Netherlands, came in service of the Danish Company shortly after 1730. Allewelt made his first voyage to China in 1734 as supercarga on board the Sleswig. Two years later, in 1736, he ­commanded the Kongen af Danmark – this time as captain. During one of these two voyages, he sat for an unknown face-maker in Canton who created a large portrait of him.40 A second clay portrait of Zacharias Allewelt has been found in the collections of the Aust-Agder Museet in Arendal, part of presentday Norway. However, in the eighteenth century, Arendal was part of the Danish kingdom. Moreover, this museum holds the statuette representing a certain Peter Holter. A private collection in Flanders holds a clay figure of captain Guillaume de Brouwer. De Brouwer first left for China in the service of the East India ­Company based in Ostend. Later, from 1730 onwards, he worked for the Danish Company. In 1734 and 1736, De Brouwer was deployed as captain of the Sleswig, the same ship that brought Flanders-born Zacharias Allewelt to China in 1734 as supercarga. De Brouwers sat for his face-maker in Canton in 1731.41 5

Collections in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, there are four public repositories where Canton-made clay figures can be found. The Zeeuws Museum in Middelburg holds three of these. One of the figures is supposed to represent Jacon Nebbens, who was supercarga on the coast of Coromandel (India) in 1746. So far, no link between him and China has been established – hence the uncertainty about the attribution. A second clay figure concerns Petrus Gerardus Dobbelaar. Dobbelaar, born in 39 40 41

A supercarga is concerned with the care for the cargo. An image of Allewelt’s large portrait bust can be found in Akveld and Jacobs, Kleurrijke wereld, 156–157. For an image of the clay figure of De Brouwer Parmentier, see Oostende & Co, 132.

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the Dutch East Indies, set up office as an attorney in Batavia in 1722. Here again, we did not find connections between him and Canton. According to information provided by both the Zeeuws Museum and a catalogue p ­ ublished in 1986 at the occassion of an exhibit in Delft, the third item possibly represents a c­ ertain captain Meertens and is dated around the middle of the eighteenth c­ entury.42 Research into voc-databases has shown that no captain Meertens was in ­service with the company. However, a captain Jan Martens is mentioned in these sources. Martens sailed twice for the Zeeland Chamber of the voc – with the Rotterdam between 1749 and 1752, and with the Standvastigheid between 1754 and 1756. Taking into account the relation between Martens, ­Zeeland and the present location of the figure, we suggest that not Meertens but Martens is represented here. However, none of the sources refer to Canton as one of the ships’ destinations (or China for that matter).43 The same exhibition catalogue mentions a clay figure in the collection of the ­Amsterdam ­Museum. Johannes Jacob van Harpen (1761–1792) was the sitter. Van Harpen was captain-­lieutenant in the service of the voc. In the night of 22 March 1792 he fell overboard at Cape of Good Hope and drowned.44 The collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam holds two figures, attributed to Chitqua.45 One figure is made of porcelain – not unbaked clay – representing a mother carrying a child on her arm. These two factors make this figure a rather non-stereotypical and hence peculiar one. The other item is a clay figure in full of a young man in a chair. According to the museum, the artefact possibly represents Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest (1739–1801). In 1790, Van Braam arrived in Canton, having been appointed director of the voc-office. He had been to Canton before: between 1758 en 1773, Van Braam made three voyages to China in the service of the company.46 The age of the 42

43

44

45 46

R. Wassing-Visser and M.P. Wolff, Met andere ogen: 400 Jaar afbeeldingen van Europeanen door verre volken (Delft: Volkenkundig Museum Nusantara, 1986), 62–68. I express my gratitude to curator Hesther van der Donk at the Zeeuws Museum for providing information about the three clay figures. Standvastigheid (1743), voc site, https://www.vocsite.nl/schepen/detail.html?id=10996, accessed 2 May 2018. J.R. Bruijn, F.S. Gaastra, I. Schöffer and E.S. van Eyck van Heslinga, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th centuries, three volumes (The Hague : Nijhoff, 1979–1989). Rotterdam, Volume two: 524–525; Volume three: 402–403. Standvastigheid, Volume two: 550–551. According to sources related to voc-shipping, the following Dutch Eastindiamen were present near the Cape of Good Hope at that time: the packet Faam, captain Hidde Bok (outward-bound voyage) and Mentor, captain Antonie van Rijn (homeward-bound voyage). See J.R. Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, Volume two: 752–753; Volume three: 558–559. The wooden figure with mother and child (no. BK-NM-10883) has no maritime connection. Hence it will not be included in the overview in the Annex. Van Campen, “Chinese bestellingen,” 19.

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sitter is difficult to estimate, not just in this case, but in all cases presented here. However, it seems safe to assume that the model may have been aproximately twenty-five years of age. If we are dealing with a portrait of Van Braam, the figure can be dated to around 1764. The fourth public repository in the Netherlands is Het Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam. Here, two clay figures are currently part of a semi-permanent exhibit on Dutch shipping and trade in the Golden Age. One figure represents voc-captain Jacob van Dam, the other Jacobus Ariesz Arkenbout (see Figures 8.1 and 8.2).47 Not much is known about Jacob van Dam. So far, we have found only one voyage he has made as captain. In 1753, Van Dam left for the Dutch East Indies on board the 850-tonne voc-ship Pasgeld for the Chamber of Zeeland. At the time of departure, Van Dam held the rank of first mate (eerste waak). A crew of no less than 250 men accompanied him. Captain Josias Ruts died during the outward-bound crossing between Cape of Good Hope and Batavia. As he was the ­highest-ranking officer on board, Van Dam was appointed to take over the helm as relief captain. On 15 May 1754, Pasgeld arrived in Batavia. In 1762, the ship was discharged from service and sold. Regrettably, we do not know much more about the ship’s biography, nor about Van Dam and his relation to Canton.48 When Van Dam sailed the high seas, the voc still had ample chances to make profits in the tea, silk, and porcelain trade. Much changed over the course of the eighteenth century. Jacobus Ariesz Arkenbout, the other “sitter,” who is depicted – standing- in Illustration 8.2, made his career in commercially less profitable years. At the time of his arrival at Canton, the English had managed to gain control not only of the local trade, but of the European markets as well – mostly at the expense of the voc. Contrary to Van Dam, we know quite a bit about Arkenbout. He was born on 19 January 1766 in Enkhuizen as the son of voc-captain Arie Pieterszoon Arkenbout and Catherina Melchers Hardekos.49 Prior to Jacob’s birth, his 47

48

49

See about these figures J.C.A. Schokkenbroek, “Achttiende-eeuws portretbeeldje van klei verworven!” Zeemagazijn 30, no. 1 (2004): 6; Idem, “Kleibeeldje voc-schipper Jacob van Dam in eigendom verworven!,” Zeemagazijn 30, no. 3 (2004): 7; G.C. Arkenbout and A.A. Arkenbout, Arkenbout op zee. Leden van een bekende familie op Voorne-Putten in dienst van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie en de Nederlandse Marine, 1721–1834 (Bernisse: Stichting Streekhistorie Voorne-Putten en Rozenburg, 2001). See, among others, Jaap R. Bruijn, Schippers van de de voc in de achttiende eeuw aan de wal en op zee (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 2008), 85. Bruijn has doubts concerning the attribution, as no evidence of his presence in Canton has been found. My attribution is based on information shared by the former owner. Images of two of the voc-ships Arie Arkenbout sailed on – as steward’s mate (botteliersmaat) on Popkensburg in 1743 and as captain on De Vrouwe Petronella between 1­ 763–1765 – are represented in the collection of Het Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam. See also Bruijn, Schippers van de voc, 33.

186

Schokkenbroek

Figure 8.1 Figure, ca. 1754. Jacob van Dam (?), captain, first mate for the voc. Collection Het Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam, no. 2004.5707. Photo by bart lahr

Figure 8.2 Clay figure, ca. 1792. During his stay in Canton, voc-commander Jacobus Arieszoon Arkenbout (1766–1834) sat for an unidentified Chinese facemaker. Collection Het Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam, no. 2003.1378. Photo by bart lahr

Figuring Out Global and Local Relations

187

­father served as master on Vrouwe Petronella. In 1779, at the age of thirteen, Jacobus signed up for service with the voc as hoogloper (ship’s boy) with seven guilders as his monthly pay.50 A few years later, in 1783, he left for his second voyage, this time in the rank of constabelsmaat (gunner’s mate). His monthly pay had doubled to fourteen guilders. Between October 1787 and November 1789, Arkenbout was involved in the intra-Asiatic trade, paying visits to Malakka and Bengal – among other places. In 1790, he returned to his home country. On 24 August 1792, Arkenbout sailed on board the voc-ship Rosenburg (Chamber Zeeland) from Batavia to China under command of captain ­Roelof Bengtson. At that time, he held the military position of lieutenant with a monthly wage of 32 guilders. Upon his arrival at Macau he found moored the 1,150-tonne Eastindiaman Zeeland (built in 1783) under the command of Albert Tjerksz, who was ill at the time. Both ships had been seriously beaten by heavy storms. On 28 September, captain Tjerksz died. A relief master needed to be appointed. Arkenbout was the most senior officer present, so fate had it that he was formally appointed voc-captain one month later at the young age of 26. On 3 December 1792, Zeeland, under command of Arkenbout, left China for the Netherlands, with a crew of 114.51 However, the ship would never arrive, as it ran aground near Cape of Good Hope on 20 May 1793. Badly damaged, the vessel was sold, but a large portion of the valuable cargo and precious personal belongings could be saved. Amidst these personal belongings were a few items directly related to Arkenbout – the clay figure, made some time between September and late November 1792, but also some pieces of a Chinese porcelain dinner set, adorned with Arkenbouts family crest. Forced to stay in Africa, Arkenbout made the best of the situation by marrying twenty-year-old Aletta Petronella de Waal, the eldest daughter of the wealthy Johannes de Waal. At long last, the young marrried couple arrived in Texel in August 1794. Arkenbout made one more voyage in service of the voc, when he was appointed captain of the Nieuwland. Destined for China, Arkenbout stranded near Plymouth. War had broken out in January 1795, entitling the English to confiscate ship and crew. Considered a good prize, the Nieuwland was auctioned off in January 1796 and sold for £9,800.52 After his return from imprisonment in 50 A ship’s boy (hoogloper) sets and takes in the sails high up in the rigging. 51 Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, Volume three, 564–565. 52 For more information about the Nieuwland and other voc-ships confiscated by the English, see E.S. van Eyck van Heslinga, Van Compagnie naar koopvaardij. De ­scheepvaartverbindingen van de Bataafse republiek met de koloniën in Azië 1795–1806 ­(Amsterdam: Bataafsche Leeuw, 1988), 34–35, 45, 194n; J.C.A. Schokkenbroek, “voc-beker in collectie,” 5.

188

Schokkenbroek

England, Arkenbout left the company’s service to start a second career – this time with the navy. After an eventful life, Arkenbout retired from the Royal Dutch Navy on 1 January 1831 with the high rank of Onder-Equipagemeester (assistant to the director of the yard and head of the police) at the important navy yard in Medemblik, earning a staggering 1,500 guilders per month.53 He died at the age of 68 on 25 December 1834. His only (adopted) child, Petronella Constantina, had died already in 1829 at the age of 37. Aletta Petronella de Waal died two years after her husband, on 4 January 1837. 6 Conclusion This study pretends to be not much more than a first overview of threedimensional renderings in polychromed clay of westerners by Cantonese artists. So far, only two names of these clay artists – also called face-makers – have surfaced: Amoy Chinqua and Chitqua. Globally, at least thirty-eight figures have been traced. Five of these are signed by Chinqua, with seven attributed to Chitqua.54 Regrettably, most figures are not signed. Historical research, but in particular analyses of pigments, the materials used, and the various stylistic characteristics may eventually reveal whether or not other clay artists were involved in the production of these figures as well. We know a bit more about the sitters. Throughout the century covered by the figures (circa 1710 to 1798) these sitters seem to have represented the top layer of their respective societies. The backgrounds of sitters of English birth are the most diverse: several governors of overseas territories, a member of the English Council in Canton, supercargas, tea-merchants, but also medical doctors (including a pharmacist), and a famous actor were portrayed – some in Asia, some in London. So far, only one statue could be arguably linked to a Frenchman – captain Tribou of the ­Napoleonic navy. Likewise, only one figure with an American identity (Salembased captain Daniel Sage) has surfaced. 53

54

In 1825, the well-educated and experienced first mate of a Dutch whale ship received a monthly wage of 90 guilders. In this case, we should add some extra revenues from gratifications. Still, the difference is very substantial. J.C.A. Schokkenbroek, Trying-out: An anatomy of Dutch whaling and sealing in the nineteenth century, 1815–1885 (Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers, 2008), 316. It is not always apparent in the literature whether reference is made to one figure or to various ones. In the catalogue European scenes, 103, Teresa Capena mentions that at one time a figure must have been around made and signed by Amoy Chinqua in 1719, whereas William Sargent refers to a figure dated 1720. William Sargent, e-mail message to author, 6 September 2007.

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The six figures of the officers of the Danish Eastindiaman Cronprintz Christian in the Danish Royal collections form an extraordinary ensemble for various reasons: they all posed during the same voyage, thus enabling us to date these pieces rather accurately. In all likelihood they all sat for the same artist in Canton – and all are portrayed in clothing reminiscent of Chinese fashion, while most other sitters are represented in their western dress. In the case of the figures in four Dutch museum collections, only one can be identified beyond reasonable doubt as representing voc-captain Arkenbout. It should be small wonder that only the top layer of society is represented. It was the prerogrative of the highest-ranking company officials to gain temporary access to or be permitted to reside in Canton. Furthermore, the negatively interpreted reference to the price Chitqua managed to fetch for his “small figures” indicates that these figures were not cheap – certainly not in London, and possibly equally expensive in the artists’ hometown in China. We are left in the dark as to the sitters’ precise motives to pose. The mere fact that the six Danish figurines were placed in the Royal Collections suggests a keen sense for publicity and gift economy amongst the officers (the figures were donated to their benefactor), and an equally keen interest amongst members of the royal family to acknowledge their historic voyage (establishing direct contact with the Chinese Empire). Most, if not all, other sitters must have been motivated by pride, striving for status, and an interest in Chinese art – a craze that conquered many European societies during the eighteenth century. What more sublime example of highly personalized Chinoiserie could there be than showing your friends and colleagues a three-dimensional portrait? Bibliography Akveld, Leo M., and E. M Jacobs, eds. De kleurrijke wereld van de VOC: Nationaal jubileumboek VOC 1602/2002. Bussum: Thoth, 2002. Antunes, Catia, and Jos Gommans, eds. Exploring the Dutch Empire: Agents, networks and institutions, 1600–2000. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. Antunes, Catia, Leor Halevi, and Francesca Trivellato, eds. Religion and trade: Crosscultural exchanges in world history, 1000–1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Arkenbout, G.C., and A.A. Arkenbout. Arkenbout op zee. Leden van een bekende familie op Voorne-Putten in dienst van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie en de Nederlandse Marine, 1721–1834. Bernisse: Stichting Streekhistorie Voorne-Putten en Rozenburg, 2001. Barrow, Ian. The East India Company, 1600–1858: A Short History with Documents. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2017.

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Bruijn, J.R., F.S. Gaastra, I. Schöffer, and E.S. Eyck van Heslinga. Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th centuries. Three volumes. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1979–1989. Bruijn, J.R., F.S. Gaastra, I. Schöffer, and E.S. Eyck van Heslinga. Schippers van de de VOC in de achttiende eeuw aan de wal en op zee. Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 2008. Campen, J. van. “Chinese bestellingen van Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest.” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 53, no. 1 (2005): 18–41. Canepa, Teresa. European scenes on Chinese art. London: Jorge Welsh Books, 2005. Charleston, R.J. “Chinese face-makers.” Antiques Magazine 73 (May 1958): 459–461. Clarke, David. “Chitqua’s English adventure: An eighteenth century source for the study of China coast pidgin and early Chinese use of English.” Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 10, no. 1 (2005): 47–58. Clemmensen, T., and M.B. Mackeprang. Kina og Danmark 1600–1950: Kinafart og Kinamode. Kopenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1980. Clunas, Craig. “Moulding a physiognomy – A Chinese portrait figure.” V&A Album 3 (1984): 46–51. Crossman, Carl L. The decorative arts of the China trade. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1991. Dodwell, H., ed. The private letter books of Joseph Collet. London: Longmans, Green, 1933. Dyke, Paul A. van. The Canton trade: Life and enterprise on the China coast, 1700–1845. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007. Emmer, Piet, and Jos Gommans. Rijk aan de rand van de wereld. De geschiedenis van Nederland overzee. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, 2012. Eyck van Heslinga, E.S. van. Van Compagnie naar koopvaardij. De scheepvaartverbindingen van de Bataafse republiek met de koloniën in Azië 1795–1806. Amsterdam: Bataafsche Leeuw, 1988. Gaastra, F.S. De geschiedenis van de VOC. Zutphen: Walburg Press, 1991. Godden, G.A. Oriental export market porcelain and its influence on European wares. London: Granada, 1979. Hardy, Pat. “Chitqua (c.1728–1796).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ­edited by H.C.G. Matthew, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: Oxford ­University Press, 2014. Harland-Jacobs, Jessica. Builders of Empire: Freemasons and British Imperialism, 1­ 717–1927. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Hellman, Lisa. Navigating the foreign quarters. Everyday life of the Swedish East India Company employees in Canton and Macao 1730–1830. Stockholm: Stockholm University, 2015. Howard, D.S. A tale of three cities – Canton, Shanghai & Hong Kong: Three centuries of Sino-British trade in the decorative arts. [London]: Sotheby’s, [1997].

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Hyam, Ronald. Empire and sexuality. The British experience. Third ed. Manchester/New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992. Jacobs, Irene B. “Onze Johannes. Op zoek naar de identiteit van een 18e-eeuws Chinees portretbeeld van klei.” Aziatische Kunst 44, no. 1 (2014): 3–14. Parmentier, Jan. Oostende & Co. Het verhaal van de Zuid-Nederlandse Oost-Indiëvaart 1715–1735. Gent: Ludion, 2002. Sargent, W.R. The Copeland Collection: Chinese and Japanese ceramic figures. Salem: Peabody Museum of Salem, 1991. Schokkenbroek, J.C.A. “VOC-beker in collectie.” Zeemagazijn 20, no. 3 (1994): 5. Schokkenbroek, J.C.A. “Achttiende-eeuws portretbeeldje van klei verworven!” Zeemagazijn 30, no. 1 (2004a): 6. Schokkenbroek, J.C.A. “Kleibeeldje VOC-schipper Jacob van Dam in eigendom verworven!.” Zeemagazijn 30, no. 3 (2004b): 7. Schokkenbroek, J.C.A. Trying-out. An Anatomy of Dutch Whaling and Sealing in the Nienteenth Century, 1815–1885. Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers, 2008a. Schokkenbroek, J.C.A. “Versteend verleden. Chinese portretbeeldjes in de collectie van het Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam.” Vormen uit vuur 23 (2008b): 2–13. Shawe-Taylor, Desmond. Every look speaks: Portraits of David Garrick. Bath: Holburne Museum of Art, 2003. Speelman, A., and J. Speelman. Chinese works of art. London: A. & J. Speelman, 2008. Spencer, A., ed. Memoirs of William Hickey. Four volumes. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1913–1925. Toppin, A.J. “Chitqua, The Chinese Modeller, and Wang-Y-Tong, the Chinese Boy.” Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle 2, no. 8 (1942): 149–152. Wassing-Visser, R., and M.P. Wolff. Met andere ogen: 400 Jaar afbeeldingen van Europeanen door verre volken. Delft: Volkenkundig Museum Nusantara, 1986. Whitley, W.H. Artists and their friends in England, 1700–1799. London: The Medici ­Society, 1928.

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Annex 8.1 Overview of Chinese clay figures, 1710–1792. Year

Maker

Sitter

Collection

01

circa 1710–1715

N.S.

Not identified

02

Circa 1715

Victoria & Albert Museum, Londen Currently ­unknown; in the past with mrs. Sybil Weaver

03

1716

Chinqua

04

1717

Chinqua

05 06

1719 1719

Chinqua Chinqua

Not identified Not identified (possibly Robert Knox 1641–1720)

07 08

1720 1723

Chinqua ?

09

1728–1730

?

Not identified Ewout van Dishoeck van Domburg (1678–1744) Henry Talbot (1700–1784)

10

Circa 1730

?

Not identified

11 12

1730–1740 1731 (1727?)

? N.S.

13

1731

N.S.

14

1731

N.S.

Not identified Guillaume ­(Willem Philips) de Brouwer, captain Ostend Company Peter Mule ­(1693–1749), ­second supercarga Hans Christian Ølgod

15

1731

N.S.

Edward Harrison (­ 1674–1732), governor of Madras

Joseph Collet (1673–1725), governor of Madras Not identified

Joachim Severin Bonsack, third supercarga

National ­Portrait Gallery, Londen Peabody ­Essex Museum, ­Salem, MA (VS) Unknown Unknown ­(auction at Libert, Paris, 10 June 2005; auction at A.J. Speelman, ­London 2008) Unknown Unknown Dorking and District ­ Museum, Dorking Victoria & Albert Museum, Londen Private collection Private collection

Nationalmuseet, Kopenhagen Nationalmuseet, Kopenhagen Nationalmuseet, Kopenhagen

Figuring Out Global and Local Relations

Inventory number FE.32 & A-1981 ?

Height (cm) including piedstal 29.5 ?

NPG 4005 E82754

84 35.6

193

Literature (see notes for full citation) Clunas, “Moulding a physiognomy,” 47–51 Irene B. Jacobs, “Onze Johannes. Op zoek naar de identiteit van een 18eeeuws Chinees portretbeeld van klei,” Aziatische kunst, jaargang 44, nr. 1 (maart 2014), 3–14; 4–5 Akveld and Jacobs (eds), Kleurrijke wereld, 181 Canepa, European Scenes, 103

? ?

? 33–34

Canepa, European Scenes, 103 Canepa, European Scenes, 103

? ?

27.7 ?

Canepa, European Scenes, 103. Jacobs, “Onze Johannes,” 4–5

?

?

Jacobs, “Onze Johannes,” 4–5

?

?

Jacobs, “Onze Johannes,”4–5

? ?

? ?

Jacobs, “Onze ­Johannes,” 4–5 Parmentier, Oostende & Co, 132; Clemmensen, Kina og Danmark, 120

?

41

Clemmensen, Kina og Danmark, 111

?

35.3

Clemmensen, Kina og Danmark, 159

?

36

Clemmensen, Kina og Danmark, 113

194

Schokkenbroek

Annex 8.1 Overview of Chinese clay figures, 1710–1792 (cont.) Year

Maker

Sitter

Collection

16

1731

N.S.

Nationalmuseet, Kopenhagen

17

1731

N.S.

18 19

1731 or 1741 1730–1735

? N.S.

Michael Tønder (1692– 1755), ­captain Danish East India Company Pieter van Hurk (1697– 1775), first supercarga Fredrik Zimmer (1702–1774) Isaac Pyke(?)

20

1730–1745

Chinqua (A.T.)

21

1733–1738

N.S.

22

1735–1742

23

Circa 1744

N.S.

24

1725–1749

N.S.

25

Circa 1750

N.S.

26

Circa 1750

N.S.

27

1751

?

28

Circa 1754

N.S.

29

Circa 1760

N.S.

Nationalmuseet, Kopenhagen Private collection Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (VS) Colin Campbell, 1686–1757) Jorge Welsh ­Oriental (?), founding father and Porcelain & Works director of the Swedish East of Art, Londen India Company Zacharias Allewelt (1682– Handels- og 1744), captain, mate, super- Søfartsmuseet carga for the Danish East Kronborg, India Company Helsingør Zacharias Allewelt Aust-Agder Museet, Arendal Thomas Hall (1692–1748), Peabody Essex supercarga and council mem- Museum, Salem ber Canton Jacob Nebbens, supercarga Zeeuws Museum, Coromandel coast (India), Middelburg 1746 Petrus Gerardus Dobbelaar, Zeeuws Museum, lawyer in Batavia in 1722 and Middelburg 1727 Jan Martens, captain for the Zeeuws Museum, Dutch East India Company Middelburg Jacob Beckman Nationalmuseet, Kopenhagen Jacob van Dam (?), captain, Het Scheepvaart first mate for the Dutch East Museum, India Company Amsterdam Peter Holter (died 1762) Aust-Agder Museet, Arendal

Figuring Out Global and Local Relations

Inventory number

Height (cm) including piedstal

195

Literature (see notes for full citation)

?

39

Clemmensen, Kina og Danmark, 108

?

32

Clemmensen, Kina og Danmark, 109

? AE85238

? 27 (cap excluded)

Jacobs, “Onze ­Johannes,” 4–5 Sargent, Copeland ­Collection, 108–111

?

?

?

?

48

?

Canepa, European Scenes, 100–104

Akveld and Jacobs (eds), Kleurrijke wereld, 156–157

Jacobs, “Onze Johannes,” 4–5

AE86368

32.5 (width)

Jacobs, “Onze Johannes,” 4–5

M 62-50

25

Wassing-Visser, Met andere ogen, 66; Jacobs, “Onze Johannes,” 4–5

G 2239

28.5

Wassing-Visser, Met andere ogen, 64, 66; Jacobs, “Onze Johannes,” 4–5

G 2240

36.5

Wassing-Visser, Met andere ogen, 64, 67

?

40

Clemmensen, Kina og Danmark, 186

2004.5707

37

Schokkenbroek, “Kleibeeldje VOCschipper,” 7

?

?

Canepa, European Scenes, 103

196

Schokkenbroek

Annex 8.1 Overview of Chinese clay figures, 1710–1792 (cont.) Year

Maker

Sitter

Collection

30

Circa 1765–1775

Chitqua (A.T.)

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

31

1769

Chitqua (A.T.)

32

Circa 1770

Chitqua (A.T.)

Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest (?) (1739–1801), merchant Dr Anthony Askew (1722– 1779), medical doctor, traveller, bibliophile David Garrick (1717–1779), actor

33

Circa 1770

Chitqua (A.T.)

Thomas Todd (1726- ), pharmacist, teashop keeper

Offered for auction at Sotheby’s London, 14 May 2008, lot nr. 627). Currently in the Museum of London.

34

Circa 1775

Chitqua (A.T.)

35

ca. 1775–1780

Chitqua (A.T.)

Not identified (mother with child) Louis Bernard Tribou (?) ­(1741–1831), captain

36

Circa 1790

N.S.

37

1792

N.S.

38

1798

N.S.

N.S. = not signed. A.T. = attributed to.

Royal College of Physicians, Londen Possibly in possession of Nicholas Grindley

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Jorge Welsh Oriental Porcelain & Works of Art, Londen Johannes Jacobus van Harpen Amsterdam Museum (1761–1792), captainlieutenant for the Dutch East India Company Jacobus Ariesz Arkenbout Het Scheepvaart (1766–1834) Museum, Amsterdam Daniel Sage Peabody Essex Museum, Salem

m

Figuring Out Global and Local Relations

Inventory number

Height (cm) including piedstal

197

Literature (see notes for full citation)

BK-1976-49

35.5

J. van Campen, “Chinese bestellingen,” Bulletin RM, 19–41

X302

33

Canepa, European Scenes, 106; Jacobs, “Onze Johannes,” 4–5

?

?

–

40

?

22

Every Look Speaks: Portraits of David Garrick. Exhibition catalogue, The Holbourne Museum of Art (Bath 2003), 70; Canepa, European Scenes, 106 Pat Hardy, “New research on rare clay portrait figure by Chitqua,” paper given January 2013. See: http:// www.britishportraits.org.uk/queriesreviews/research-papers/new -research-on-rare -clay-portrait-figure -by-chitqua/. Accessed 6 June 2017 Canepa, European Scenes, 106

–

41

Canepa, European Scenes, 105–109

B.A. 2433

47

Wassing-Visser, Met andere ogen, 65, 67; Jacobs, “Onze ­Johannes,” 4–5

2003.1378

43

Schokkenbroek, “Achttiende-eeuws portretbeeldje,” 6

981028.1

41.1

Kate Hanson, e-mail message to author, 17 and 18 September 2007

Part 4 Chains of Profit, Chains of Labour

∵

Chapter 9

Chasing the Delfland: Slave Revolts, Enslavement, and (Private) voc Networks in Early Modern Asia Matthias van Rossum A strange scene, in the dead of night. Two slaves lower a writing drawer from a window at the stern of a ship. There is chaos on deck. The sound of breaking bottles and people shouting in different languages. Guns are fired and sailors are jumping into the water.1 The chaos was caused by a revolt. On 14 February 1743, a group of almost forty men and women took control of the deck of the Dutch East India Company fluyt Delfland, anchored just a few miles from the Banda islands. The account of Constable Christiaan Rits from Danzig, almost one year after the event, still shows something of the impact of this sudden uprising.2 Sleeping in the weapons store, he was woken up when “three of the crew walked into the room, very upset”.3 “What is going on”, Rits asked. The sailors replied “that the Buginese are calling amok, and that they had wounded the three of them”. Rits ordered his helpers “to get the half-pikes in order to arm themselves”.4 Everything developed quickly from there. Someone shouted “for gun powder from the window of the cabin”. A rope was lowered. Rits attached “four powder horns” to the rope. As the rope was brought up by the “people who were in the cabin”, he witnessed a “sailor falling in the water from the back of the poop deck, crying for help to save him from drowning”.5 Asking him “what can be done”, the sailor replied, nothing, “the ship has already been [taken] over and the crew has fled to the forecastle”.6 The crew started abandoning the ship. The ship’s tender was brought below the stern. It was in the middle of this chaos that bookkeeper Livinius Maarschalk ordered two slaves to lower his little drawer into the vessel.7 The boat must have been quite full, manned with 54 crew members and three 1 Nationaal Archief, The Hague [hereafter, NA], Archief van de voc 1.04.02 [hereafter, voc], inventory number 9408, case number 24. 2 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Declaration by Rits et al. (6 January 1744). 3 Weapons store: de constabelskamer. 4 Constabelsmaats are the helpers (boys) of the constabel. 5 Poop deck: campagnedek; here de kampanje. 6 Forecastle: de bak. 7 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Rits et al. (6 January 1744) and Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_011

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slaves. They did not wait long to flee the chaotic scene. Leaving the Delfland behind, the group steered their vessel to the islands, only arriving at the island of Pulau Ay at eleven o’clock in the morning.8 This chapter investigates the remarkable story of the enslaved and the crew on board the voc ship Delfland, early in the year of 1743. The case of the Delfland offers an interesting view of shipboard life under the Dutch East India Company, while at the same time providing an insight into the world of slavery and the (private) slave trade in Southeast Asia, problematizing some of the dominant characterizations of Asian slavery. Historiography tends to conceptualize slavery in Asia as shaped by its urban and debt-related characteristics.9 Slavery in Asia has even been labelled as a relatively “mild” or “benign” form of slavery.10 An important argument that resonates within this perspective is the lack of evidence for slave resistance, in terms of the small number of known examples of slave revolts and marooning.11 Cases such as the revolt on the Delfland undermine this narrative, and point to the need to study the history of slavery, trade, and resistance from a different perspective. The case of the Delfland recounts several aspects of voc history, placing the history of enslavement and slave trade right at the heart of a voc universe revolving around private trade networks, illegal undertakings, and troublesome shipboard relations. First, as was already noted by the highest voc authorities in Batavia at the time of the case, no slaves were supposed to be on board.12 8 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Napper et al. (26 June 1743) and letter Pieter Reael to Batavia (29 April 1743). 9 A. Reid and J. Brewster, eds., Slavery, bondage and dependency in Southeast Asia (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1983); P. Boomgaard, “Human capital, slavery and low rates of economic and population growth in Indonesia, 1600–1910”, Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies 24, no. 2 (2003); G. Campbell, “Slavery in the Indian Ocean world”, in The Routledge History of Slavery, eds. G. Heuman and T. Burnard (New York: Routledge, 2011). For a more elaborate discussion, see M. van Rossum, Kleurrijke tragiek. De geschiedenis van slavernij in Azië onder de voc (Hilversum: Verloren, 2015); Linda Mbeki and Matthias van Rossum, “Private slave trade in the Dutch Indian Ocean world: A study into the networks and backgrounds of the slavers and the enslaved in South Asia and South Africa”, Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies 38, no. 1 (2017). 10 E. Jones, Wives, slaves and concubines. A history of the female underclass in Dutch Asia (Illinois: Northern Illinois Press, 2010), 144. 11 M. Vink, “‘The world’s oldest trade’: Dutch slavery and slave trade in the Indian Ocean”, Journal of World History 14, no. 2 (2003); R. Ross, Cape of torments: Slavery and resistance in South Africa (London: Routledge, 1983), 3–5. Kate Ekama points to the dominant character of this line of argument in literature in her chapter “Just deserters: Runaway slaves from the voc cape, c. 1700–1800”, in Desertion in the early modern world, eds. M. van Rossum and Jeannette Kamp (London: Bloomsbury, 2016). 12 This was noted in Van Rossum, Kleurrijke tragiek.

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As the enslaved were not part of the official company cargo, the case of the Delfland is illustrative of the widespread practices of private slave trading by officers and other crew members of voc ships. Second, the accounts and ­interrogations before the Court of Justice of Batavia provide several interesting indications about the background of the slavers and their networks, linking the practices of slave trade from ship to shore. Third, the events on the Delfland – not only the revolt, but also earlier decisions to deviate from company orders – constituted a crisis in shipboard command and provide an interesting case for understanding shipboard hierarchies in relation to private interests in the context of the voc. Fourth, the revolt itself, as well as its aftermath, indicates an interesting contrast between the coordinated violence of the core group of the rebels and the escape of some others with the European crew. The accounts of the revolt thus provide a wealth of information on the conditions of slavery and patterns of categorization and differentiation. 1

“To kill all the Europeans of the ship”

The revolt was carried out in a very strategic manner. It must have been around one o’clock in the morning;13 most of the crew were asleep, and even some of the members of the crew on duty appear to have been resting.14 The mate in charge of the watch seems to have been attacked and killed first. Boatswain Brouwer stated in Batavia that he “heard the mate on watch fall as he had been standing on the lookout together with the commander, after which the commander walked to the back of the ship”. It seems the rebels attacked Commander Stam, who claimed “that his eyes and head were wounded, and he fell from the half-deck”.15 The slaves immediately advanced, killing at least the surgeon, the cook, his mate, and possibly other crew members. Attacking the officers on deck, the slave rebels effectively cut through the lines of command 13

The exact time is not clear, but Rits, Hofman, and De Wilde stated that it was between four and six glasen (between midnight and two o’clock); Napper et al. stated it was in the first hours of the hondewagt (starting at midnight), with the prinsen quartier on watch, while the graaf maurits quartier was sleeping. Maarschalk claimed at one o’clock in the night, and Brouwer stated “with two glasen into the hondewagt”, meaning between one and two o’clock in the night. 14 The crew of the Delfland seems to have been organized in a two watch system (instead of three). J. Harger, “Antwoord over de bouwinge der Schepen, met betrekking tot de gezondheid en ’t goed der zeevarenden”, Verhandelingen uitgegeven door het Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen te Vlissingen x (Middelburg: Pieter Gillisen, 1784): 487. 15 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744).

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on the ship. The crew retreated to the forecastle, up to the poop deck, into the masts, and below deck, escaping for example to the constable’s room. The commanding officers retreated into the cabin. Soon the forecastle was overrun, and the revolting slaves captured weapons that may have been stored there. By then, only small and fragmented cores of resistance against the slaves remained, led by petty officers such as Constable Rits. As the deck and forecastle had been lost, the crew abandoned the ship and escaped on the tender. An attempt to retake the ship through an attack on the forecastle failed, and the Buginese slaves had effectively taken over the Delfland.16 The perspective of the enslaved on the Delfland is only provided in the testimonies of slaves that do not seem to have been part of the core of the Buginese rebels. Initially, the slaves brought before the Court of Justice of Batavia chose to answer in ways that emphasized that they had not participated in and were not aware of the revolt. Datang, for example, claimed that “he was sleeping in the room of his master” (Commander Gerrit Stam), at the time the revolt erupted. Trimpo claimed he had been ill, but heard “that three of the bought slaves had run amok”, after which he found “the mate lying dead on deck, just as the surgeon and the cook”. Datang claimed he only came out “with the first daylight”. From here onwards, however, differences appear in the statements provided during the interrogations, and these statements start to indicate that the uprising was collective and coordinated. Datang disputed the narrative of Trimpo, saying “in his face that he was also guilty of the amok and subsequent killing, with the addition that one of the Buginese, named Batjo, had even told him, just as he [Trimpo] had testified himself, that he had wounded his master with a knife”.17 Sierie remained silent, but both he and Trimpo did claim that Mina and Sara were not to blame, as “Mina was in her masters’ cabin and Sara was with the boatswain on the forecastle”.18 A few days later, in the session aimed to result in a sworn confirmation of their testimonies, Trimpo started to elaborate on his initial declaration, stating that “he wounded the commander with a knife while he was sleeping on deck”. He claimed he “was ordered and appointed to do so by the Buginese, explaining that one Jamat and Joost were the principal initiators and leaders of the amok”. “All Buginese took part in the amok”, Trimpo continued, “for the reason that the Buginese were beaten while they were put to work and that they did not receive sufficient food”. Furthermore, now returning the accusations, he pointed out that Datang “had thrown bottles to the crew in the [small] boat 16 This is a summary of the events based on various accounts. 17 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Datang et al. (11 January 1744). 18 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Datang et al. (11 January 1744). Original: onder de bak.

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and had armed himself with a cutlass, while the Buginese were armed with pistols, cutlasses and guns”.19 Datang denied these allegations, and “argued that the Buginese never trusted him as they were not at all of his nation [landaard], but that he did throw some empty bottles under threat of being killed”.20 Some of this was confirmed by the interrogations of Christiaan Rits, Jan Hofman, and Dirk de Wilde. Sailor De Wilde claimed that “while he sat in the mast, he had seen that Datang was armed with a cutlass” – a zijdgeweir. Together with Rits and Hofman, he “recognized Trimpo for the biggest of amok makers”. They claimed Mina “always carried bottles for the killers and falling on her knees she begged the Buginese with much drama to kill the Europeans”. Sara, “on the contrary, was innocent and had asked to be allowed to remain with the Europeans”.21 Corporal Petrus Prins and several sailors also declared that they had seen Datang, Trimpo, and Sierie “armed with cutlasses, knives, and pistols” and that Mina “was an important instigator [encouraging] the Buginese to kill the Europeans”.22 The prosecutor now requested, and was permitted, to interrogate Datang, Sierie, and Mina by means of torture.23 Brought to the torture chamber, Datang testified “that one of the Buginese had given him a cutlass to help him kill the Hollanders, but that he did not want to agree to this”. Later in this interrogation, perhaps under more physical force, he declared “that they [the Buginese] had started the attack [and] that he had dealt a blow to the cook’s mate in his neck with a piece of wood”. The cook’s mate “fell forward into the kitchen”. After “they mastered the guns”, Datang testified, “he killed the cook with a cutlass”.24 Brought in during Sierie’s interrogation under torture, Trimpo accused him to have been “standing on the forecastle with a pike, and at that time had said he did not want to stay with the Hollanders any longer and that he was willing to help to kill them”. Sierie denied everything, despite the continuous use of force.25 Mina was only threatened with the use of force under interrogation, but claimed “that she was locked in the cabin and that once the murder and 19 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Datang et al. (15 January 1744). 20 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Datang et al. (15 January 1744). The original of “nation” here is landaard. 21 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Rits et al. (6 January 1744). 22 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Prins et al. (22 January 1744). Petrus Prins was interrogated together with the sailors Willem Brouwer, Hendrik Bierman, Anthonij van den Broeke, and Jan Vos. 23 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Eis ad torturam (4 February 1744). 24 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Datang (13 February 1744). 25 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Sierie (13 February 1744). Sierie was placed in the torture chamber, which seems to have been upstairs (in the attic) in the city hall of Batavia. He was bound to the palije with his arms to the back and hauled up for three minutes. After this, a weight was attached to his left toe for five minutes.

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everything was over the cabin was broken open by the Buginese, and that only then she came out”.26 In the interrogation under torture, the issue of the planning or plotting of the revolt was right back on the table. Sierie now accused Trimpo of “having asked him where the gunpowder was”. He had “answered him that he did not know”.27 Datang stated that “two days before [the uprising], the Buginese, twenty in total, had voted to kill all the Europeans on the ship”. He “had agreed with this for the reason that the Buginese had threatened to kill him if he would not participate”. Once the uprising started, Datang confessed, he had joined in the killing of the cook and his mate, because “he did not want to stay with the Hollanders any longer”.28 2

Departing from Batavia

The revolt leads to a number of questions. What, for example, were so many slaves doing on this voc ship? The voyage to Banda undertaken by the Delfland was not a slaving voyage, although this does not mean that the Delfland could not have easily been employed as a slaving ship. On the contrary, the usage of these ships had a high degree of flexibility. The Delfland was a regular fluyt. It was built in Delft in 1717 and was average in size, with a capacity of 600 tons.29 It had long been used for intercontinental voyages, but was increasingly used for intra-Asiatic destinations from the mid-1730s onwards. One of its first intraAsiatic voyages was in 1734, when it was sent from Batavia via the Cape of Good Hope to Madagascar “with money and goods worth a value of 29,637 guilders for the purchase of slaves”.30 In 1735, it was reported that the “slaver Delfland was in desolate condition as a result of the death of various ship’s officers, and stranded at Cochin on the return voyage from Madagascar”.31 The slaves were brought from Cochin to Padang, but an outbreak of smallpox had caused the death of 168 of the 283 slaves. The surviving slaves were brought “to the mine 8” 26 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Mina (14 February 1744). 27 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Sierie (13 February 1744). 28 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Datang (13 February 1744). 29 F.S. Gaastra, Dutch-Asiatic shipping, 1602–1795. dans. https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-xat53r6. Also available at: http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/das, accessed 2 May 2018. Ship ID (das): 3210.7. 30 W.Ph. Coolhaas, J. van Goor, J.E. Schooneveld-Oosterling, H.K. s’Jacob, eds., Generale Missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal en Raden aan Heren xvii der Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, Volume ix (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1988), 593. 31 Generale Missiven, Volume ix, 643.

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of the Silida mines in Sumatra.32 As with all other voc vessels, the Delfland was used for bulk transport, no matter whether this was human or other cargo. In 1742, the ship was to transport a large group of Ambonese soldiers, but it could just as easily transport spices or rice.33 When needed, the interior of the ship was simply adapted for a new purpose by carpenters. So what had happened before Banda? If this was not a slaving voyage, then who were these Buginese slaves, how did they come to take over the Delfland, and who were the slaves later testifying before court? This part of the story starts on 17 December 1743. The ship Delfland was anchored in the Bay of Batavia, awaiting departure.34 On board the ship were 72 crew members and only a few slaves.35 Most of the people on the ship, both sailors and slaves, had boarded recently. The officers of the Delfland testified before the Court of Justice that “several slaves were received on board in order to be brought over to Banda” shortly before the departure of the ship from Batavia. Datang, referred to as originating from Udjung Pandang (Makassar), for example, declared that he was a “slave of the commander Gerrit Stam” and that he had “departed with his master” from Batavia.36 The first mate, Gerrit Stam, declared that he had already “found three [slaves] on board when he arrived” on the Delfland, sometime in November or December.37 These three other slaves were said to have been taken on board by captain Christiaen Duijff, although they were not necessarily his own slaves. One of these three, Trimpo, declared he “was sent with the ship Delfland in order to be sold in Banda”.38 Trimpo, alias “Poesie”, originated from a place referred to varyingly as Tanjaij, Tanagij or Janjoij. According to the court records he was the “slave of the deceased captain of the army Jan van Oosten”.39 After a long career with the voc, arriving in Asia as a soldier in 1718, and an active role in 32 33 34

Generale Missiven, Volume ix, 658. Generale Missiven, Volume x, 809, 1016, 1022. W.Ph. Coolhaas, J. van Goor, J.E. Schooneveld-Oosterling, H.K. s’Jacob, eds., Generale Missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal en Raden aan Heren xvii der Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, Volume x (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 2004), 1022; Boekhouder-Generaal Batavia, Huygens-ING (2008–2013), http://bgb.huygens.knaw.nl/. bgb-id: 7713 and 7683; Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia [hereafter, anri], voc, Dagregisters Batavia, no. 2573, fos 715– 717. 35 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Testimony of Napper et al. (26 June 1743). 36 NA, voc, 9408, 24, Datang et al. (11 January 1744). 37 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744). 38 NA, voc, 9408, 24, Datang et al. (11 January 1744). 39 Tanjaij: NA, voc, 9408, 24, Datang et al. (11 January 1744). Tanagij: Idem, Rits et al. (6 January 1744), see confirmation of this testimony (13 January 1744). Janjoij: NA, voc, 9047, case number 11. The full name of Van Oosten is provided in NA, voc, 9047, 11.

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the repressions that were part of the “Chinese massacre” in 1740, Van Oosten died in the armhuys (almshouse) of Batavia in October 1741, only six weeks after he had retired there.40 It remains unclear who owned Trimpo at the time of the departure of the Delfland; the inheritors, the Orphan Chamber or others. It becomes clear from the testimonies, however, that together with the two ­other slaves, Trimpo was transported as an order (bestelling) to Banda for which the transport was commissioned from Duijff.41 The other two slaves may have been Cassie from Makassar and Papoe from Papoea.42 It is likely that Sierie (from Toerong or Toerang), the slave of bookkeeper Livinus Maarschalk, was also brought on board in Batavia.43 Most of the crew was assigned to the Delfland in the days and weeks before departure. Captain Christiaan Duijff from The Hague was placed in command of the ship early in October 1742, soon after its arrival from Semarang.44 In little over three years, Duijff had commanded the vessels Haaften, Wolverdijxhorn, Keetel, and Beekvliet. Just before he was assigned to the Delfland, he had been stationed in Batavia on the flagship Phenix. This was an administrative arrangement for maritime personnel temporarily employed in and around Batavia, its port, and the work islands in the bay.45 Bookkeeper Livinius Maarschalk was transferred from his duty in the “logie” of Batavia around the same time.46 ­Other officers and petty officers followed in the period from mid-October to mid-December. Second Mate Matthijs Soeteblom of Rotterdam was transferred on 17 October 1742.47 Constable Christiaan Rits from Danzig seems to 40

For his career: NA, voc, 5712, fo. 233 (scan 245) and fos 257–258. anri, voc, 2571, fo. 746. L. Blussé, Visible cities: Canton, Nagasaki, and Batavia and the coming of the Americans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 41 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744). 42 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Prosecution against Maarschalk, Stam, Soeteblom and Brouwer (3 March 1744) article 95. 43 NA, voc, 9408, 24, Datang et al. (11 January 1744). 44 NA, voc, 6096, scans 28–29. The salary administration for Duijff indicates two months wages on the Delfland prior to December 1742. The Defland arrived from Semarang on 6 October 1742 according to the Dagregisters and on 10 October 1742 according to the Boekhouder-Generaal Batavia, anri, voc, 2573, fo. 529; bgb-id 7507. 45 Lodewijk Wagenaar, Het eiland Onrust bij Batavia als onderdeel van het voc-scheepsbedrijf in de 17de en 18de eeuw (Amsterdam: Amsterdam Historisch Museum, 1990); Matthias van Rossum, Werkers van de wereld. Globalisering, arbeid en interculturele ontmoetingen tussen Aziatische en Europese zeelieden in dienst van de voc, 1600–1800 (Hilversum: Verloren, 2014); M. van Rossum, “Dutch East India Company in Asia, 1595–1811”, in A global history of convicts and penal colonies convict voyages, ed. C. Anderson (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 157–181. 46 NA, voc, 12865, scans 400–401. 47 NA, voc, 14741, scans 28–29.

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have been assigned to the Delfland in November, after a voyage along the coast of Java on the Slot Kronenburg.48 Some members of the crew had just arrived (back) in Asia, such as Joachim Blom from Bergen op Zoom and Arij Tertolen from Delft, who both sailed from the Republic on the Scheijbeek in May 1742 and were assigned to the Delfland on 29 November 1742.49 Arij had been working for the voc as a sailor since 1723, but had only been promoted to petty officer ranks on his last voyage. Enlisted as a gunner in the Republic, he was placed on the Delfland as schiemansmaat to later rise to the position of quartermaster during the voyage.50 The Delfland was ordered to sail via Cheribon to Tegal, then to Banda and back to Batavia. The order was given to “load as much rice in the ship as it could possibly transport”.51 The ship was to bring the rice to Banda and r­eturn to ­Batavia with nutmeg (see map 9.1).52 The voyage turned out differently. On the route between Cheribon and Tegal, captain Duijff passed away, and First Mate Gerrit Stam was placed in command of the ship as his replacement.53 The ship arrived in Tegal as scheduled, where it stayed for around a week.54 The “voyage to Banda was continued after they had loaded rice”, but once at sea the officers started to deviate from the company orders.55 Rather than a direct voyage to the Banda islands, the ship first set sail to South Sulawesi, where it anchored at Bantaeng (Bonthain). 3

Leaking Ports and Shipboard Hierarchies

The stop at Bantaeng was, of course, one of the major issues before the Court of Justice in Batavia. Why had the Delfland visited Bantaeng on its way to Banda? The officers explained their decision with the argument that it had been necessary for ship repairs, but their claims were dubious. Acting Commander Gerrit 48 NA, voc, 6119, scans 122–123. The Slot Kronenburg departed from Batavia to Surabaya, and Semarang in June 1742, and returned in Batavia on 19 November 1742. bgb-id 11240 and 11241; anri, voc, 2573, fo. 637. 49 NA, voc, 12994, scans 102–103, 138–139. 50 NA, voc, 13927, scans 232–232; 13944, scans 178–179; 13954, scans 130–131; 12994, scans 138– 139. A schiemansmaat was the helper (mate) of the schieman, a petty officer in charge of the ropes and a mast. 51 anri, voc, 2573, fo. 715. 52 Generale Missiven, Volume x,1022. 53 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744). 54 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Stibel (6 March 1743) mentions that Gerrit Stam remained on shore to take care of the rice for eight days in a row. 55 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Prins et al. (22 January 1744).

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The journey of the Delfland (map showing modern country borders and names). Map made by Bert Brouwenstijn

Stam stated “that there was leakage from the ports”. Soeteblom, who was the highest ranking mate under acting Commander Stam, claimed there was “severe leakage from the ports”. Bookkeeper Maarschalk emphasized his administrative role, declaring that “according to what he was told by the commander and mate there was leakage from the ports through which the rice was loaded”. Challenging the need to stop at Bantaeng, the fiscal pointed out during the later interrogations in Batavia that there was “no further danger of sinking”. Maarschalk simply stated “he could not say anything in response to this”. Stam

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argued that the water leakage “was so severe that they had to scoop out the water between decks, but without the danger of sinking”. Soeteblom pointed out “that a danger of sinking could have developed if the rice had become wet”.56 Boatswain David Brouwer, who was interrogated in the same session as officers Stam, Maarschalk, and Soeteblom, distanced himself from the testimonies of his superiors. He testified that there was a leakage, “but that it was of no 56 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744).

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importance” and could be countered “with a mop”. His line of argument went even further. Whereas the three officers declared that “the caulking had been necessary”, or in the case of Maarschalk, “having heard” this was necessary, Brouwer openly opposed these claims by “saying [that] it had been unnecessary, but that he had no knowledge of the intended stop at Bontain”.57 His views on the leakage were supported by the rest of the crew.58 Constable Rits and the sailors Jan Hofman and Dirk de Wilde testified that there had been “a little trickling [seijvering] of no importance, which could be dried with a mop”.59 Corporal Petrus Prins and the sailors Willem Brouwer, Hendrik Bierman, Anthonij van den Broeke, and Jan Vos also pointed out “that the leakage was of such little importance that they were continuously able to keep the deck dry with a mop”, but argued that it was “the half-deck officers [referring to the group of officers in command of the ship] who agreed amongst each other to sail to this place and to do so under the pretext that a lot of water came in through the gates”.60 The fiscal concluded that “the crew members [scheepsvrienden] declared unanimously that the stop at Bantaeng was unnecessary”. Soeteblom responded that “the crew members could say whatever they like”.61 Indeed there seems to have been little need to stop at Bantaeng. Two details strengthen the version of the petty officers and sailors who testified before the Court of Justice in Batavia or before the Governor in Banda. First, there had been no need to use the ship’s pumps more than once per day, even according to the testimonies of the commanding officers. Maarschalk and Soeteblom stated that the crew pumped once a day, Stam said “once daily, but sometimes not at all”. Brouwer claimed they pumped only “every other two or four days”. As several crew members were needed to operate the pumps, the officers knew their answers to this question could be easily verified. The fiscal concluded in his prosecution against Stam, Maarschalk, Soeteblom, and Brouwer that this was sufficient evidence there was no need to repair the ship in Bantaeng, as “it was well known how on many such ships the crew, while they encountered storms and dangers that were much longer than the voyage mentioned here,

57 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744). 58 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744). 59 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Rits et al. (6 January 1744). 60 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Prins et al. (22 January 1744). Others supported this, such as constabelsmaat Marcus Stibel, who testified on Banda that the leakage had not been more than a little siepering, a dribble, from the cooks and stewards ports. He also pointed out that the water “could easily be cleared away with mops”. NA, voc, 9408, 24. Stibel (6 March 1743). 61 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744).

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had to pump day and night in order to keep the ship afloat, and by doing so have completed their journey safely”.62 The second element that weakened the case of the officers was the fact that there had been no ship’s council (scheepsraad) organized to discuss the decision. Such a council of commanding and petty officers was mandatory in situations involving danger to the ship and crew, or deviations from the route and company orders. Commanding Officer Stam defended this choice by saying that “the officers from the back had decided this with each other, thinking this was sufficient”. He referred to the commanding officers, arguing there was no need to include the deck or petty officers in the decision, as would have been the case with a ship’s council. Maarschalk, Soeteblom, and Brouwer tried to evade the issue, by simply answering they “did not know”.63 Pieter Reael, who, as governor of Banda, started inquiries soon after the revolt, reporting back to Batavia in a letter on 29 April 1743, fulminated against such an attitude from officers. He wondered: what I should say with regard to this matter, other than what I have experienced myself? When the officers from the back [of the ship] are in agreement, they normally care only little about the boatswain, schieman or steward, who however are part of the scheepsraad, yes, I have even heard them say, what do the deck [or petty] officers have to do with this if it is an order from our honourable gentlemen.64 This highlights the interesting position of boatswain Brouwer. Being the highest ranking petty officer, he was involved in the running of the ship. This may also have been the reason why he was interrogated together with the commanding officers Stam, Soeteblom, and Maarschalk. Brouwer, however, was not part of the officer core, and accordingly not formally involved in their decisions. Before the Court of Justice of Batavia he stated that he “was not aware of the reasons” that there had not been a ship’s council. Pieter Reael pointed out, however, that he should nevertheless have confronted his superiors, reminding

62 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Prosecution against Maarschalk, Stam, Soeteblom, and Brouwer (3 March 1744) article 19. 63 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744). The reference in the testimony of Napper et al. that “the six officers had decided without prior meeting” [or consultation] to sail to Bantaeng is puzzling. It remains unclear who is the sixth officer referred to here. NA, voc, 1.04.02, 9408, 24. Napper et al. (26 June 1743). 64 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Letter from Pieter Reael to Batavia (29 April 1743). The last part of this quote is difficult to translate – it states: “wat hebben die deksofficieren daermede te doen schoon het een positive ordre is van onse loffelijke betaeldsheeren”.

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them of their responsibilities and the orders of the company “not to stop at any other place than their destination”.65 4

Private Slave Trade

The stop at Bantaeng is highly interesting. Anchored at Bantaeng, the ship started to buzz with activity. While the ports were checked and caulked, the tender was used to bring rice and slaves from shore to the Delfland. The enslaved were transported as captives. Marcus Stibel testified that “around forty slaves of both sexes and heavily chained at both the neck and hands with bamboesen were brought on board, and that one was pierced through his hand with a spear”.66 Corporal Prins declared that “all were brought on board heavily chained with iron or bamboesen”.67 Gerrit Stam claimed that the slaves were brought on board “chained with bamboesen and also unchained”. Boatswain Brouwer explained that “all the male slaves were brought on board chained with bamboesen”.68 It seemed no secret that the decision to visit Bantaeng was motivated by the opportunities for private trade. The officers bought large quantities of rice and dozens of slaves in South Sulawesi in order to transport this cargo to the Banda islands, where both were crucial import commodities for this highly specialized, slave-based planter-economy. In his interrogation of the officers, the fiscal asked them explicitly “whether they should not confess that the stop at Bantijn was only done to safely undertake their private smuggle and in that manner seek a vile and unpermitted profit with human flesh”. Boatswain Brouwer declared “that he thought nothing else”. The three officers, of course, denied the charges. The officers did admit to the fact that they had bought five lasts of rice and some slaves. The quantity of rice is more or less undisputed in the different testimonies of sailors, petty officers, and officers.69 After the revolt, the number of slaves, of course, was a much more sensitive issue and led to contrasting claims in the various testimonies. Interrogated in Batavia, the officers d­ ownplayed 65 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Letter Pieter Reael to Batavia (29 April 1743). 66 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Stibel (6 March 1743). Bamboesen presumably refers to a kind of bamboo rope. 67 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Prins et al. (22 January 1744). 68 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744). 69 Stam, Soeteblom, and Maarschalk claimed to have bought 5 lasts of rice for 32 rijksdaalders per last – Soeteblom claims not to have known the price. Napper and others estimated that the officers had bought 4 to 5 last. NA, voc, 9408, 24.

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their own role in the embarkation of slaves. Maarschalk admitted only to buying three boys and two “little girls of ten to eleven years old”. Soeteblom claimed he bought two male slaves. Stam stated that together the officers only bought seven boys and two girls in total.70 The officers also gave low estimates for the total number of slaves brought on board, ranging from twenty (Soeteblom) to thirty (Stam). Maarschalk claimed twenty-three slaves were taken on board in Bantaeng. Stam argued at least six had been bought by the oppermeester or first surgeon.71 The testimonies of the officers are not very credible. The petty officers and sailors consistently estimated the number of slaves as being higher. Rits and others claimed a total of 38 slaves, who “all belonged to the [commanding] officers from the back of the ship, except three little girls and a small boy who were bought by the boatswain and schieman in the aforementioned place”. Prins and others estimated thirty-eight or thirty-nine slaves. They too claimed all belonged to the commanding officers, except “three ­female slaves and a child”, bought by the boatswain and schieman. Boatswain Brouwer referred to a total of forty slaves. This number is also mentioned in the testimonies of Stibel, Napper and others. Brouwer confessed to having bought three girls and a little boy, while Napper stated he had been involved in buying “two boys who he confesses were in his name, but bought for the account of the third mate (derdewaak) Jan Vinckhuijsen”. The consensus of sailors and deck officers that some thirty-eight to forty slaves were bought seems convincing, but two details complicate possible conclusions. First, the differences in the estimates of the numbers of men and women. Rits and others claim there were “seven girls, both small and large” (out of thirty-eight). Prins and others claimed there were eight female slaves (out of thirty-eight or thirty-nine). Stibel, Napper and others, however, come to a different ratio, testifying to a total of thirty-five or thirty-six men (out of forty), making the number of women only four or five. Second, in the interrogation of the five slaves who were brought before the court after the revolt, a much lower total is mentioned. The male slaves Datang, Trimpo, and Sieree, and the female slaves Mina and Sara state that there were “to their estimate 30 slaves, both small and large”.72 70 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744). 71 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744). As there is no complete muster roll for this voyage, the name of the oppermeester remains unknown. There was a second surgeon (ondermeester) on board, Hendrik van der Salm from The Hague. 72 The differences in the estimates are striking. Were the enslaved not able to count, or estimate, the size of the group of slaves brought on board, or were they just referring to the number of men? Or were the petty officers and sailors overstating the number of

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Enslavement, War and voc Networks

The interrogations and statements before the Court of Justice of Batavia focused on the specificities of the acts of the officers and crew of the Delfland, portraying the event as an incident. Far from a spectacular exception, however, the case of the Delfland is illustrative of the more structural patterns of private slave trading within the realm of the Dutch East India Company. Private slave trading by officers and other crew members employed on voc ships was widespread.73 The size of this circuit of private trading via voc ships has been estimated at as many as 200,000 slaves throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.74 Experienced officers therefore must have had knowledge about the places that could be of interest with regard to buying and selling slaves. For Commanding Officer Stam and bookkeeper Livinius Maarschalk, this knowledge probably stemmed from first-hand experience, as they had both served extensive periods in the Banda islands in the 1730s. The two commanding officers of the Delfland may even have known each other from this period. In 1737, for example, Stam served in Banda as a schieman and later a second mate, employed on the vessels of the settlements, while Maarschalk worked as a writer in Castle Nassau.75 In these positions, they must have witnessed the provisioning trade in slaves and rice to Banda, noticing perhaps not only the role of local private slave traders that operated with their own vessels, but also that of (petty) officers and crews working on voc ships. These (petty) officers were not the only actors profiting from the possibilities offered by the slave trade. From the testimonies of Napper and others, as well as from those of the officers, it becomes clear that local voc servants played a pivotal role in the slave trade in Bantaeng. Responding to the interrogation by the fiscal, the petty officers Jan de Werelt, Rijnier Mastogh, Jan van der Kuijp, and Arij Tertolen declared on 18 December 1743 that “all slaves were bought on Bantaeng [from] the resident[,] the head surgeon, and sergeant there”.76 In the slaves, perhaps as part of a strategy to blame the disaster of the slave uprising on the officers? 73 Mbeki and Van Rossum, “Private slave trade”. 74 Matthias van Rossum, “‘Vervloekte goudzugt’: De voc, slavenhandel en slavernij in Azië”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 12, no. 4 (2015): 52. 75 NA, voc, 11610, scan 457. Stam served as a onderstuurman for 32 guilders per month; Maarschalk as a guarnizoenschrijver for 10 guilders. 76 This information was provided in response to a speciale gedane afvraging – a specific request for additional information by the fiscal – during the (sworn) confirmation of the provided testimony. The time between the testimony (26 June) and confirmation (18 December) was notably long. It is uncertain whether the answer refers to one person – a sergeant who is also resident (opperhooft) and surgeon – or to multiple persons – a sergeant and a surgeon. NA, voc, 9408, 24. Napper et al. (26 June 1743).

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interrogation of the officers of the Delfland in January 1744, the fiscal repeated his question with the exact same phrase, asking “whether all of the slaves bought by the accused in Bantaeng were bought from the resident[,] the head surgeon, and sergeant there”.77 Stam and Brouwer plainly answered with “yes”. Maarschalk answered that “he bought his [slaves] from the commissioner who was there to collect the tiende [tenth] of the rice, as well as the sergeant, and that he does not know about the others”. Soeteblom stated “that he could not say this with certainty, but that he saw various blacks on the beach and that he bought his slaves also from black [persons]”.78 So what can we conclude about the possible suppliers of slaves that are mentioned in these statements? Little information is available for the possible non-European slave merchants referred to by Soeteblom. As he is the only one referring to local “black” merchants, it remains uncertain whether this was an attempt to cover the tracks of local European voc workers, or that there had indeed been different groups of slave sellers in Bantaeng. The European figures can, by contrast, be identified with reasonable precision. The “sergeant” referred to was Andries Postelijn from Zierikzee, sergeant and head of the voc post at Bantaeng. Together with Corporal Zelgen Laurens Wilsen from Aalborg, he was in charge of this small post, with only sixteen soldiers under his command.79 The second figure mentioned, the “commissioner”, was in charge of collecting the rice obligations claimed by the voc. This seems the responsibility of the highest resident in the region, in the case of Bantaeng, the head of the voc post in Bulukumba or someone sent by him. In this period, Bulukumba and Bantaeng were commanded by bookkeeper Willem Camerling from Vlissingen. The last figure, the “surgeon”, is more difficult to trace, as there was no “head surgeon” at either post. For Bulukumba, however, a second surgeon was recorded in the administration, Franciscus Clausen from Paterborn.80 It is interesting to note that all of these voc servants carved out regional careers with strong local ties. Camerling started as a young sailor in 1726 and worked in Sulawesi from 1731 onwards. He would end up as prosecutor (fiscal) at the Court of Justice in Makassar, and had a widespread social and political network in Sulawesi.81 Postelijn, Wilsen, and Claasen all started out as soldiers. Their careers were somewhat more modest, but all three of them remained in or near Makassar for the rest of their lives. Wilsen was married to Geertruijda 77

Here too, there is no punctuation (comma) between opperhooft and opperchirurg. NA, voc, 1.04.02, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744). 78 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744). 79 NA, voc, 5190, scan 698–699; 5191, scan 766–767. He signed his will as “Selgen L:s Wielse”. 80 NA, voc, 5190, scan 696–697; 5191, scan 764–765. 81 A.J.P. Raat, The life of Governor Joan Gideon Loten (1710–1789). A personal history of a Dutch virtuoso (unpublished PhD thesis, Leiden University, 2010), 29.

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Fransz from Makassar, a daughter of Dain Sittie “from Boegies” (meaning she was Buginese), and became a vrijburger (free burgher) in 1744.82 Clausen was married to Elisabeth from Maccassar. In the will he drafted shortly before he died in 1765, he named her his universal heir, and left his daughter Johanna Gratia a substantial amount of money (one hundred rijksdaalders) and the slaves Danda from “Mangarij” and Ispasia “from Boegies”.83 Postelijn worked in Sulawesi from 1738 onwards and died in the village of Vlaardingen, near the Castle Rotterdam, in 1754.84 There is more than one scenario that could provide a viable explanation for where the slaves in Bantaeng came from, and how they arrived there. Different modes of enslavement existed throughout Southeast Asia, effecting relations of bondage in very specific ways. Local systems of bondage, aiming at immobilizing or tying down people socially and spatially to their community, polity, ruler or land, existed side by side with global systems of commodified slavery, having mobilizing effects in coerced and controlled ways, often through long-distance displacement.85 The slaves brought on board the Delfland had clearly entered the globalizing circuits of the long-distance slave trade. The conditions under which they were brought on board, however, seem to indicate that their enslavement had not occurred through more individualized routes of enslavement such as processes of indebtedness, conviction or social expulsion. The slaves were “brought on board chained and also remained bonded in such a manner until they had left the Bantaeng roadstead”, as the fiscal summarized the testimonies of the interrogated crew members. This indicated, as concluded by the fiscal, “that all of them had been stolen or robbed people”.86 The officers, of course, claimed that they “were not aware whether they were robbed or stolen”. The exception was Stam, who testified that he “believed that they had been stolen, but” – he added explicitly – “that they had paid [for] them”.87 Enslavement through war, robbery or other forms of violent 82 NA, voc, 5891, scan 144; NA, voc, 6858, scan 1235. Vrijburgers were voc subjects who had been given independence to live in voc territories. 83 NA, voc, 6870, scans 143–145; 12908, scans 312–313. 84 NA, voc, 5773, scan 194. 85 For this point, see Matthias van Rossum, “Connecting global slavery and local bondage: Rethinking slavery in early modern Asia”, Introduction of International Workshop “Slave trade in the Indian Ocean and Indonesian Archipelago worlds (16th to 19th Century): New research, results and comparisons” (International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, 9–10 November 2016), and paper at “Enslavement in the Indian Ocean World” (Linnaeus University, Kalmar, 8–9 September 2017), submitted for publication. 86 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Prosecution against Maarschalk, Stam, Soeteblom, and Brouwer (3 March 1744) article 38. 87 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744).

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conflict was the most likely entry route in the case of the group of slaves taken on board the Delfland. Wars and private trading networks played a crucial role in linking the voc world and the networks of enslavement and the slave trade in (South) ­Sulawesi. At the local level, the voc exercised only formal control over South Sulawesi districts such as Bantaeng, focusing on maintaining a limited number of military posts and levying rice taxes. It has been noted that “these areas remained an important factor within the arena of Sulawesian politics, with [voc ally] Bone and the local chiefs holding real power”.88 Local conflicts may have been a factor in the enslavement of people, as both in voc and Southeast Asian warfare, it was accepted practice “to raid enemy villages”. Amongst the Bugis, this strategy was regarded as an effective way “to deny their enemy the ability to continue the war by seizing their food, animals, and people”.89 Enslavement was not necessarily restricted to the local level, however, ­especially since warfare had spread throughout Sulawesi in the years preceding the uprising on the Delfland. In the second half of the 1730s, tensions between a Wajorese nobleman and the voc ally Bone developed into a regional war. An attack on the voc stronghold of Makassar and the Bone court in 1739 was responded to with a large military campaign led by governor Smout. From here, war continued to spread throughout the region.90 Although the voc concluded in 1742 that the last of the rebels (referred to here as uitgewekenen – fugitives) had subjected themselves to the voc and were resettled close to the castle of Makassar, the unrest between different polities in Sulawesi would continue for years.91 These conflicts resulted in the enslavement of captives, both by Sulawesi armies and by voc expeditions. It seems no coincidence, for example, that after the return of the 1740 expedition under Smout, slaves were auctioned off by the voc to European and Chinese citizens.92 A year earlier, before the large 1739 campaign in response to the attack on Makassar, smaller military actions were undertaken by the voc. In April of that year, for example, local officials reported to Batavia that “a small fleet had been deployed to the village Soreang, which adhered to Wajo, in order to 88 89 90 91 92

G. Knaap and H. Sutherland, Monsoon traders: Ships, skippers and commodities in eighteenth-century Makassar (Leiden: kitlv Press, 2004), 14. Leonard Y. Andaya, “Nature of war and peace among the Bugis–Makassar people”, South East Asia Research 12 (2004): 72. Knaap and Sutherland, Monsoon traders, 13–15. Generale Missiven, Volume x, 871. voc slave auction in Makassar: NA, voc, 1.04.02, 8214, scan 579–581. References to war and peace in 1740: Generale Missiven, Volume x, 484. anri, voc, 989, fos 1038–1056.

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destroy it, and bring in the ships lying there”. The ships were “sold by public auction”.93 Such expeditions seem to have been an impulse for the enslavement and export of prisoners of war as well. This led to a much harder form of slave trading, resulting in increased resistance and revolts. Not long after the expedition to Soreang, for example, a revolt broke out on the voc ship Haaksburg. The incident was silenced quite effectively, and as a result almost nothing is known about it. There is only a brief reference stemming from May 1739, reporting that the ship was delayed because of an incident. Later that year, authorities corresponded on the need to avoid a legal procedure. The uprising was now described as “a turmoil” (rumoer) instigated by a group of slaves that were claimed to be (privately) sent over from Makassar to Batavia by Governor Adriaan Hendrik Smout and Secretary Cornelis Jan Bogaard. Smout was not to be prosecuted as “in these troublesome times he could not be missed from that government, and [since] he had been performing military functions before he may not have had knowledge of the orders and placards against the transport and sale of Makassar slaves”.94 The wars on Sulawesi were clearly a source of enslavement, but what could have been the direct connection between these conflicts, the post holders and other voc employees in Bantaeng or Bulukumba? Due to the lack of evidence about these activities, one can only speculate here, but it seems that the voc employees identified by the Delfland crew could easily have tapped into sources of enslavement at both local and regional levels. There were, for example, direct links between Makassar and the South Sulawesi posts. Not long after it was reported that the last rebels had been subjugated by the voc, in the middle of 1742, Corporal Wilsen travelled from his post in Bantaeng to his residence in Makassar, and back again to his post. He was in Makassar on 11 November 1742, signing a will together with his wife “in the house of the testators in the settlement Vlaardingen in Makassar”.95 He was registered in his post in South Sulawesi again in 1743. Did he bring back captured Buginese rebels from Makassar in order to sell them as slaves in Bantaeng? Another possibility lies in the more structural involvement of local voc officials in the practices of enslavement and the slave trade. The scandal that would develop around George Beens, who fled the Indies in 1749 to avoid accusations and legal procedures for “shocking atrocities”, is illustrative of the opportunities outposts such as Bantaeng and Bulukumba offered to local voc personnel. Beens owned his own vessel, and was reported to export some 180 .

93 Generale Missiven, Volume x, 265. 94 Generale Missiven, Volume x, 390. 95 NA, voc, 6858, scan 1235.

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to 200 slaves to Batavia per year. This in itself was not much of an issue for the company. Problems arose only because he was also (illegally) trading in the monopoly commodity opium, used false documents for his slave trade, and risked public order in his district through brutal extortion and enslavement practices. Jean Michel Aubert recounted that Beens handed out extraordinary high fines, for example for passing his ship without greeting or for not visiting his parties. Those who did not pay, or were not able to pay, were either enslaved with their families or forced to capture others as slaves.96 The practices of Beens were not an isolated case, however, and it is important to note that his reign was not far removed in time from that of the people who were possibly involved in supplying slaves to the Delfland. The experienced Willem Camerling was the direct predecessor of Beens as the resident of Bulukumba and Bantaeng. Beens arrived in Batavia as assistant bookkeeper in 1743 and was appointed to relieve Camerling in Bulukumba in 1744. Working under the patronage of Governor Joan Gideon Loten, the successor to Smout in Makassar, Beens was promoted to junior merchant in 1745. Together with others, such as his interpreter Frans Fransz, he maintained his tyrannical regime organized around private trade and profit until 1749. After overstepping their position by attacking local princes, Governor Loten was forced to take action. Beens fled and Fransz was imprisoned. Willem Camerling, who meanwhile had risen to a position in the Council of Makassar, was close to this network. He was a relative of Fransz and possibly helped him escape from prison in 1750. Fransz went on as an outlaw, but was killed after robbing the Dutch vessel Rust en Werk with more than 200 Boutonese. After the death of Fransz, letters were found indicating that Camerling had sent him slaves, victuals, and ammunition.97 A last alternative may well have been that slaves did not arrive via Makassar, but that local officials, such as Camerling and Postelijn – in a similar fashion to Beens although more low-profile – created networks of enslavement and a slave trade of their own. 6

A Revolt and Its Aftermath

The group of Buginese slaves taken on board at Bantaeng formed the core of the revolt on the Delfland while it was lying offshore at Banda. This also de96 Raat, Joan Gideon Loten, 25–26. 97 Raat, Joan Gideon Loten, 24–33. The aftermath of the case of Beens and Fransz led to a large-scale legal conflict between the network of Camerling and the later governor of Makassar, Van Clootwijk.

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termined the plans for further steps once the ship had been taken over. Nine Europeans were left on the Delfland.98 They “were discovered, having hidden themselves here and there”.99 Five of them were wounded, and two died shortly after.100 Datang described that “after the Buginese had conquered the ship, they had kept the constable and the other Europeans alive in order to bring the ship to shore safely, threatening to kill them all if they did not comply”.101 The Europeans confirmed the threat, but specified that they were ordered “to bring the ship to the place where they were bought or where there were Buginese”.102 The Buginese threatened to murder them if they were to “bring them on shore with Europeans”.103 The Europeans “made sail” and “cruised back and forth at sea for thirteen days and nights in the expectation that the [small] boat [with escaped crew members] would have arrived on Banda, reported what happened and that they would bring help”.104 When this appeared “fruitless”, they had dropped anchor at “some islands” that the sailors called the “Tarnimmerse Eijlanden”, possibly referring to Tanimbar, east of Timor.105 In what seems to have been the first night they were anchored there, “three small Soloreese vessels had approached the ship, trying to cut the anchor rope”. Rits recounts that “this had almost succeeded, when the Buginese prevented this and chased away these seafarers”. After two weeks, “again a vessel with an estimated crew of thirty men showed up with presumably the intention to plunder the ship”. This vessel “also had to return without any result”.106 The Buginese now urged the Europeans to cut the anchor ropes and leave, but the winds drove the ship back, forcing them to leave it. Two Europeans, and two male and two female slaves were left on the ship. The sailors Hendrik Bierman and Jan Vos, together with the four slaves, waited on the Delfland for another two months until they were found, and “a Company panchalang came with a crew that brought the ship back to Banda”.107 98

Survivors of this group were Constable Christiaan Rits, sailors Jan Hofman and Dirk de Wilde, Corporal Petrus Prins, and sailors Willem Brouwer, Hendrik Bierman, Anthonij van den Broeke, and Jan Vos. NA, voc, 9408, 24. Rits et al. (6 January 1744); Prins et al. (22 January 1744). 99 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Rits et al. (6 January 1744). 100 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Rits et al. (6 January 1744); Prins et al. (22 January 1744). 101 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Datang (13 February 1744). 102 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Prins et al. (22 January 1744). 103 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Rits et al. (6 January 1744). 104 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Prins et al. (22 January 1744). 105 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Rits et al. (6 January 1744); Session Court of Justice, Batavia (10 March 1744). 106 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Rits et al. (6 January 1744). 107 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Prins et al. (22 January 1744).

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The rest of the group continued, sailing north on three small vessels. During this voyage, at least one of the slaves taken on board in Batavia escaped the vessels. Inland burger Jacob Andriesse declared to the officer and wharf master Adriaan Versteegh that “when he was on the Island Groot Kaij […] he heard from the people living there that a male person had arrived swimming, without these people being able to tell him where he belonged, but they assumed that he was a Makassar, since he was reasonably white”. The man reportedly had said he would rather stay there and serve as a slave then to be sold. Andriesse thought he must be “a boy of the still absent ship Delfland”.108 The rest of the group continued, arriving after nine days at the island “Malemokka” [Manawoka], just southeast of Ceram. Christiaan Rits recalled: that as inhabitants there told them that they were not far from Banda anymore, the Buginese had tried to kill them [the Europeans], being the cause for them to flee into the settlement with the five of them, where they were told that they were close to Seeram and that there were two sloops that belonged at home in Banda, and the inhabitants had brought them separately to Seram thinking they would be rewarded for this, [and] they were brought with the five of them to Banda in a sloop of the Company which was there.109 After the Europeans had escaped, the Buginese parted ways from the other slaves. Datang and Trimpo declared that “they were abandoned by the Buginese, who were nevertheless here and there caught by the Bandanese, and killed”.110 In contrast to the account of Trimpo, however, the Buginese managed to hold out much longer. The Buginese had travelled, perhaps along the southern coast of Ceram, in the direction of Ambon. Four Buginese were caught near Urimesing, on Leytimor, Ambon. Anthonij de Soijsa, of the village of Missamive, and Andries Tempessij, orangkaij [chief] of the village of Oeriemesseng, received a reward for capturing them (opvangloon). The slaves were placed “between a larger number” of other slaves on three vessels on the beach of “Missamive”.111 A year later, “another 21 heads with three vessels” were detected. They were suspected to “have had the intention to go to their land Makassar”, but due to counter-winds and “inexperience with these coasts”, they “had driven behind the corner of Nussauwe [Nussaniwe]”. A voc regiment was 108 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Versteegh (18 May 1743). 109 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Rits et al. (6 January 1744). 110 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Datang et al. (11 January 1744). 111 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Soijsa and Tempessij (23 August 1743).

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deployed to capture the seventeen men and five women. In their attack, they killed everyone, except for “three small slaves, two men and a Papoa girl”, and one “who was able to flee, but was brought to the Castle by inlanders a short while later”.112 7

A World to be Uncovered

The revolt of the Buginese on the Delfland was a clear response to the hard system of commodified slavery and the channels created by private voc networks to profit from this. The Buginese slaves effectively organized resistance through a coordinated attack, possibly relying on previously acquired military skills. The case of the Delfland also indicates how new lines of differentiation and solidarity were forged in this world of commodified slavery. These were directly reflected in the situation on board the ship when the revolt broke out. The slaves owned by (petty) officers were located in or near their quarters: in the master’s cabin, or on the forecastle. This seems not necessarily the case for slaves taken along “on order”, as these could sometimes remain in the officers’ quarters, but were also housed on deck. The large group of Buginese slaves bought in Bantaeng were brought on board in chains, but released on the high seas, and seem to have enjoyed reasonable freedom of movement on deck and possibly in the forecastle. The officers’ quarters must have been off limits for them. The enslaved themselves clearly differentiated between different groups of slaves, categorizing them according to their status of belonging as well as their origin. In the testimonies of the slaves embarked in Batavia, the difference recurs between those who were travelling with their master and those who were transported (individually) on order. The Buginese slaves embarked as a group formed a third category, referred to as people who were bought. Ethnic identities, such as Buginese and Makassar, were also emphasized before the court, possibly strengthening attempts to distance the prosecuted slaves from the Buginese core group of rebels. Across these lines of differentiation, however, the enslaved on board the Delfland clearly interacted with each other, as the discussions, inquiries, and threats in preparation to the revolt indicate. We will never know the exact backgrounds of the slaves taken on board by the officers of the Delfland in South Sulawesi, nor the routes they travelled or the slavers and middlemen involved. The writing drawer that was so hastily rescued from the ship in the middle of the revolt might have provided some of the answers. Maarschalk claimed this drawer contained “Companies papers”, 112 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Steinmetz (27 September 1744).

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but it seems the voc documentation did not reach Banda with the escaping crew and was only recovered when the Delfland was brought back from Tanimbar. It was more likely that the drawer contained his “own books”. We can imagine that these books may have contained documentation or notes on the slave trade carried out in Bantaeng.113 As the writing drawer remains closed, we can only rely on what other sources tell us about the history of the Delfland, its crew, and the enslaved. The voices, especially those from the fragments in the records of the Court of Justice of Batavia, provide a rich picture of voc networks, life on board ships, and slavery in Southeast Asia in the first half of the eighteenth century. Company personnel, especially higher ranking functionaries such as officers and post holders, were actively engaged in private slave trading and even enslavement. The networks of these voc officials covered different parts of the chain through which enslaved people were moved around maritime Asia. It was not only officers and other crew members of voc ships who were crucial in transporting slaves from one port to another, either on their own account or as part of an order (bestelling). In places of arrival, officials working on land also seem to have been crucial in providing slaves for export, either through tapping into routes of enslavement from Asian or voc sources, as highlighted by the possible role of Corporal Wilsen, or by creating regimes of exploitation and enslavement themselves, as George Beens and his companions did in the Bulukumba district. The structural reign of private interest stimulated the adaptation and use of the hierarchical voc structures for personal purposes, and even led to the creation of new commercial and power structures, supporting, altering, and eroding voc institutions. This occurred not only at the top of the voc pyramid, but throughout the organization. It included small, everyday transgressions and large-scale organized private trade networks organized around strategic political alliances. Although the conflicts fought by high-ranking officials attracted the most attention, the implication of the Delfland case is that much of the private slave trade seems to have involved mid-level functionaries, in smaller outposts and on board voc ships. Although petty officers tried to join in with the slave trading opportunities, the private trade interests could heighten hierarchical conflicts on board, with officers taking decisions that not only deviated from voc orders, but even endangered the safety of the ship and crew by embarking captives of war as slaves. In slave exporting districts, the private interests of officers, post holders, and regents could have even larger disruptive effects, leading to practices of violence and enslavement. 113 NA, voc, 9408, 24. Maarschalk et al. (20 and 22 January 1744).

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Bibliography Andaya, Leonard Y. “Nature of war and peace among the Bugis–Makassar people”. South East Asia Research 12 (2004): 53–80. Blussé, L. Visible cities: Canton, Nagasaki, and Batavia and the coming of the Americans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. Boomgaard, P. “Human capital, slavery and low rates of economic and population growth in Indonesia, 1600–1910”. Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and PostSlave Studies 24 (2003): 83–96. Campbell, G. “Slavery in the Indian Ocean world”. The Routledge History of Slavery, edited by G. Heuman and T. Burnard, 52–63. New York: Routledge, 2011. Coolhaas, W.Ph., J. van Goor, J.E. Schooneveld-Oosterling, and H.K. s’Jacob, eds. Generale missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal en Raden aan Heren XVII der Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie. Fourteen volumes. The Hague: Martinus Nijhof, 1960–2007. Ekama, K. “Just deserters: Runaway slaves from the VOC Cape, c. 1700–1800”. Desertion in the early modern world, edited by M. van Rossum and Jeannette Kamp, 161–184. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. Harger, J. “Antwoord over de bouwinge der Schepen, met betrekking tot de gezondheid en ’t goed der zeevarenden”. Verhandelingen uitgegeven door het Zeeuwsch Genoot­ schap der Wetenschappen te Vlissingen X (1784): 313–496. Jones, E. Wives, slaves and concubines. A history of the female underclass in Dutch Asia. Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010. Knaap, G., and H. Sutherland. Monsoon traders: Ships, skippers and commodities in eighteenth-century Makassar. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004. Mbeki, Linda, and Matthias van Rossum. “Private slave trade in the Dutch Indian Ocean world: a study into the networks and backgrounds of the slavers and the enslaved in South Asia and South Africa“. Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies 38 (2017): 95–116. Raat, A.J.P. The life of Governor Joan Gideon Loten (1710–1789). A personal history of a Dutch virtuoso. Unpublished PhD-thesis: Leiden University, 2010. Reid, A., and J. Brewster. eds. Slavery, bondage and dependency in Southeast Asia. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1983. Ross, R. Cape of torments: Slavery and resistance in South Africa. London: Routledge, 1983. Rossum, M. van. “Dutch East India Company in Asia, 1595–1811”. A global history of convicts and penal colonies convict voyages, edited by C. Anderson, 157–181. London: Bloomsbury, 2018. Rossum, M. van. Kleurrijke tragiek. De geschiedenis van slavernij in Azië onder de VOC. Hilversum: Verloren, 2015a.

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Rossum, M. van. “‘Vervloekte goudzugt’: De VOC, slavenhandel en slavernij in Azië”. Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 12, no. 4 (2015b): 29–57. Rossum, M. van. Werkers van de wereld. Globalisering, arbeid en interculturele ontmoetingen tussen Aziatische en Europese zeelieden in dienst van de VOC, 1600–1800. Hilversum: Verloren, 2014. Vink, M. “‘The world’s oldest trade’: Dutch slavery and slave trade in the Indian Ocean”. Journal of World History 14, no. 2 (2003): 131–177. Wagenaar, Lodewijk. Het eiland Onrust bij Batavia als onderdeel van het VOC-scheepsbedrijf in de 17de en 18de eeuw. Amsterdam: Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 1990.

Chapter 10

“With the Power of Language and the Force of Reason”: An Amsterdam Banker’s Fight for Slave Owners’ Compensation Pepijn Brandon and Karin Lurvink On 1 September 1857 the prominent Amsterdam commercial banker and member of the Dutch Senate Albrecht Frederik Insinger sent a long letter to the Dutch Minister for the Colonies. Writing in the name of his company ­Insinger & Co., he protested “with the power of language and the force of reason” against the latest proposal to abolish slavery in the Dutch West Indies. In the letter Insinger and his associates demanded in particular the revision of the compensation clauses for slaveholders.1 Prolonged discussions over the question of how much money slave owners would receive as reparations for their losses in “human property” were among the main reasons why it took the Dutch government more than ten years to steer through Parliament a law emancipating slaves in the Dutch West Indies. That was despite the examples of other European nations which had been quicker to secure abolition, and in the face of growing sensitivity even among sections of the elites to the injustice of slavery as an institution.2 Although by 1857 Insinger and his associates had 1 Stadsarchief Amsterdam [hereafter: saa], Collection Insinger & Co. No. 1445, “Notulen-Boek der Negotiatie ten laste Plantage Zeezigt”, 1 September 1857, “Copy van een brief aan Z Excellentie den Minister van Kolonien”. 2 The course of the discussions is described in painstaking detail in Jozef Prabhudass Siwpersad, De Nederlandse regering en de afschaffing van de Surinaamse slavernij (1833–1863) (Groningen: Boema’s Boekhuis, 1979). For the general slowness with which anti-slavery opinion took hold among “governments and the elites from which they were drawn”, see Robin Blackburn, The American crucible. Slavery, emancipation and human rights (London/New York: Verso, 2011), 311. This of course is not at all to say that there was an automatic association with anti-slavery sentiments among ordinary people in Europe. In fact the Dutch case seems a perfect illustration of the opposite for as Blackburn notes, slavery became one of many focal points in the contest “within each social layer … between rival notions of the social order and of the relationships between classes and status groups” Ibid: 345. What is clear, however, is that there was a sharp distinction between the more radical Abolitionist sentiments that arose out of slave revolts and popular movements and the much more guarded and compromising nature of the anti-slavery opinions that gradually became common ground among liberal sections of the upper classes. Robin Blackburn, The overthrow of

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_012

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already lost the argument on the desirability of slavery itself, still they were successful in their lobby for generous compensation, especially for owners of cotton plantations. Eventually, as owners of over 1,200 slaves emancipated in 1863, Albrecht Frederik Insinger, a number his family members, and their company would receive 359,100 guilders in compensation, ranking them among the largest beneficiaries of Dutch abolition.3 The excruciatingly slow pace of the Dutch abolition process has long puzzled historians. Why were the Dutch, whose actual economic interests in the West Indies had been in relative decline since the late eighteenth century, so much later than other European states in ending their direct involvement in slavery?4 Authors have mentioned as explanatory factors both the reluctance of Dutch policy makers, in the dire economic circumstances of the late ­eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to attack any major vested interest and the conservative and elite nature of Dutch abolitionism. Furthermore, they have pointed to the fear among the highest political circles for the ­future of the colonies, as well as to the prevalence of racial prejudice.5 However, one ­important group of actors had been almost completely overlooked; the influential individuals who actively fought for the interests of the slaveholders in the run-up to the final abolition of slavery. Perhaps, this follows from Piet E ­ mmer’s insistence that unlike in Britain, no West-India lobby emerged as a powerful ­political pressure group to influence Dutch debate.6 Emmer’s assertion has been challenged for the eighteenth century and the turn of the ­nineteenth century, but has been questioned hardly at all for the years l­eading up to

3

4

5

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colonial slavery, 1776–1848 (London: Vero, 1988) and Seymour Drescher, Abolition. A history of slavery and anti-slavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Leo Balai, Geschiedenis van de Amsterdamse slavenhandel. Over de belangen van Amsterdamse regenten bij de trans-Atlantische slavenhandel (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2013), 141. A general overview of the development of Insinger & Co.’s interest in Surinamese plantations can be found in Joost Jonker, “Roeien tegen de stroom, 1813–1860. De geschiedenis van Insinger & Co, Volume 2”, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 96 (2004): 141–145. Gert Oostindie, ed., Fifty years later. Antislavery, capitalism and modernity in the Dutch orbit (Leiden: kitlv Press, 1995). See in particular Seymour Drescher’s wide-ranging comparative essay that opens the volume: “The long goodbye. Dutch capitalism and antislavery in comparative perspective”, in Ibid., 25–66. Angelie Sens, “Dutch antislavery attitudes in a decline-ridden society, 1750–1815”, in Ibid., 89–104; Maarten Kuitenbrouwer, “The Dutch case of antislavery. Late Abolitions and elitist Abolitionism”, in Ibid., 67–88; Siwpersad, Nederlandse regering; Maartje Janse, “‘Holland as a little England’? British anti-slavery missionaries and continental abolitionist movements in the mid nineteenth century”, Past and Present 229, no. 1 (2015): 123–160. P.C. Emmer, De Nederlandse slavenhandel 1500–1850 (Amsterdam/Antwerpen: De Arbeiderspers, 2003), 190.

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1863.7 This chapter looks at Albrecht Frederik Insinger’s slaveholders’ ­lobby which sought first to halt the process of emancipation and, when that failed, to ­influence how it was enacted. It shows that there was ­vociferous ­opposition by powerful and interested individuals and reveals how this contributed to the slow pace and moderate nature of abolition in the Dutch colonies. Furthermore, the chapter provides some insight into the networks of financiers and plantation owners who continued their active economic involvement in slavery well into the nineteenth century.8 Such opposition does not of course in itself explain why those individuals found such a willing ear among policy makers. In fact each of the other factors mentioned earlier, such as the general climate of conservatism, racially motivated fears for the future of the colonies, and the weakness of the anti-slavery movement, must have accounted for it to a great extent. But to ignore those who actively sought to stall, sabotage, or subvert emancipation makes the slow abolition in the Netherlands appear to be a crime without perpetrators, and that has considerably hampered our understanding of the event. 1

Entrepreneurial Slaveholders Facing Nineteenth-century Challenges

Reluctance to deal with pro-slavery voices during the immediate pre-­ Emancipation period is not unique to Dutch historiography. The continued existence of powerful interest groups defending slavery during the nineteenth century sits uneasily with a narrative of abolitionism as the unstoppable triumph of Western humanitarianism. Cases where the defence of slavery ­clearly retained strong traction among the ruling strata of society, such as the us South, have traditionally been explained as the result of backward-looking attitudes among marginalized elite groups, paternalism towards the slaves themselves, and an attachment to out-dated economic views.9 More recently, 7 Balai, Amsterdamse slavenhandel; Henk den Heijer, “A public and private Dutch West India Interest”, in Dutch Atlantic connections, 1680–1800. Linking empires, bridging borders, eds. Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2014); Pepijn Brandon, “‘Shrewd ­sirens of humanity’. The changing shape of pro-slavery arguments in the Netherlands (1789– 1814)”, Revista Almanack 14 (2016): 3–26. 8 This is an important topic in the nwo research project “Slaves, Commodities and Logistics” of which Karel Davids is one of the coordinators and in which both authors of this text have worked as post-doctoral researchers. 9 Although in his case not linked to a narrative of Western humanitarian triumph, the contrast between the “backward looking” planter-class and modernizing industrial capitalists was

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however, nineteenth-century advocates of slavery have come under greater scrutiny. Historians have recognized that from a global perspective the nineteenth century cannot be seen as an “end-phase” of slavery but rather should be studied as a “second slavery”. They have pointed out that the new wave of expansion of slavery that came connected to industrialization and the growth of the world market means that many defenders of slavery were not marginal figures but highly respected within their communities.10 The views of many of them were not paternalist and traditionalist but were in fact bent on innovation and expansion.11 Albrecht Frederik Insinger, known to his family as “Fritz”, fits well into that category. His attitude to economic matters was far from traditionalist, for as Joost Jonker noticed, “he did not lack courage” in developing business strategies and searching for new markets. When Insinger & Co. suffered hard times in the middle of the nineteenth century that was probably more the result of the general state of the Dutch economy at that time which affected other important commercial houses equally, than of a lack of entrepreneurial spirit.12 Even as a plantation owner, in answer to declining profitability, Insinger was ready to innovate with the introduction of ­machines and experimentation with new crop variants, and was bent on rationalizing plantation management.13 It is true that in political terms Insinger was a staunch conservative but despite his difficulties in adjusting to the more liberal 10 11

12 13

drawn starkly by Eugene D. Genovese, The political economy of slavery. Studies in the economy and society of the slave South (New York: Vintage Books, 1965) 28–29. On the notion of a “second slavery” of the nineteenth century, see Javier Laviña and ­Michael Zeuske, eds., The second slavery: Mass slaveries and modernity in the Americas and in the Atlantic Basin (Zürich/Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2014). William Kauffman Scarborough, Masters of the Big House. Elite slaveholders of the midnineteenth-century South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003). Of late, this argument has been picked up in the context of the emergence of the “New History of Capitalism”. Examples of studies focusing on slaveholders’ attitudes and modes of operation are Walter Johnson, River of dark dreams. Slavery and Empire in the cotton kingdom (Cambridge, MA and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013) and ­Calvin Schermerhorn, The business of slavery and the rise of American capitalism, 1815–1860 (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2015). Two good non-US examples are Dale Tomich, “The wealth of Empire. Francisco Arango y Parreño, political economy, and the Second Slavery in Cuba”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 45, no. 1 (2003) and Patricia Hagler Minter, “‘The state of slavery’. Sommerset, The Slave, Grace, and the rise of pro-slavery and anti-slavery constitutionalism in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world”, Slavery & Abolition 36, no. 4 (2015). Jonker, “Insinger & Co”, 154. Ibid., 145, and Alex van Stipriaan, Surinaams contrast: roofbouw en overleven in een Caraibische plantage-economie, 1750–1863 (Leiden: kitlv Uitgeverij, 1993), 191. An example of experimentation with new crop-variants can be found in saa, Collection Insinger & Co., No. 1445, “Notulen-Boek der Negotiatie ten laste Plantage Zeezigt”, 19 January 1831.

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­ olitical climate after 1848 he continued to operate as a respected politician on p the local, provincial, and national level until at least the late 1850s.14 Insinger lost his seat in the Senate in 1859 as a result of a liberal campaign against his re-election, but the background of that campaign seems to have been not his active anti-abolitionism but his opposition to further liberalization of trade.15 The origins of the involvement of Insinger & Co. in West Indian slavery lay in the late-eighteenth century boom in plantation loans. Dutch financiers ­invested over 80 million guilders in “negotiation funds”, which were mortgages meant primarily for Suriname but also to a lesser extent for the smaller Dutch colonies Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice (later British Guyana), and the English and Danish West Indies.16 The financial crisis of 1772–1773 ended the feverish influx of capital into Suriname but did not lead to as complete a collapse of the system of plantation mortgages as has sometimes been suggested.17 Alex van Stipriaan has shown that involvement in loans for Suriname remained profitable for those investors who held on to their investments, and ­particularly for many of the merchant-bankers who operated as directors of the negotiation funds and used outstanding debts to gain control of the commission trade in colonial goods. Many of the negotiation funds were converted into societies of ownership, which transformed bond-holders into share-holders receiving dividends; and made plantation owners of the directors of the negotiation funds.18 That was the process that converted Insinger & Co. from financiers to large plantation-owners. Herman Albrecht Insinger, the father of Albrecht Frederik Insinger, had decided to enter the business of ­negotiation-loans well after the early-1770s peak. In 1779, Insinger & Co. became co-directors of the 14

15

16 17 18

In 1848 the Dutch Constitution was revised by Johan Rudolf Thorbecke to turn the Netherlands into a liberal-constitutional monarchy. Looking back at the end of his life, ­Insinger stressed that he received “the friendship and respect of the majority of my fellow Senators, who often granted me the honour of appearing as President or Vice-President in the sections”. Insinger’s own memoirs might not be the best evidence for that, but looking back to the 1870s they do show with what ease he moved through the highest circles of Dutch society. saa, Collection Insinger & Co., No. 2304, “‘Herinneringen uit mijn levensloop’: Autobiografische aantekeningen door A.F. Insinger, 1871”, 69. Ibid., 71–72. Insinger mentions too his negative views on the extension of the right to vote beyond a narrow circle of property-holders as a potential bone of contention, but in an anti-Semitical outburst blames his fall from grace primarily on the influence of journalists writing for a “Jew paper”, by which he meant the Amsterdamsche Handelsblad. Johannes Petrus van de Voort, De Westindische plantages van 1720 tot 1795. Financiën en handel (Eindhoven: Drukkerij De Witte, 1973), 216. Ibid, and P.C. Emmer, “Capitalism mistaken? The economic decline of Suriname and the plantation loans, 1773–1850; a rehabilitation”, Itinerario 20, no. 1 (1996). Alex van Stipriaan, “Debunking debts. Image and reality of a colonial crisis. Suriname at the end of the 18th century”, Itinerario 19, no. 1 (1995): 81.

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Berewout-loan, administering a capital of f 500,000 invested in plantations in the Danish West Indies. In 1787 the Biesterbos-loan was added and transferred to a share-holding society with a capital of f 360,000 invested in six plantations in Suriname and Berbice.19 The firm invested or administered numerous other loans, bringing to forty the total number of plantations that Insinger & Co. were involved in between the 1770s and the 1860s. As Joost Jonker underlined, that “proves their prominent position in this branch”.20 The Biesterbos-loan especially shows the continued potential for profitability of plantation-loans. Between 1790 and 1813 the f 360,000 divided over 360 equal shares of f 1,000 generated a cumulative dividend of f 375,000, allowing the investors to regain the principal in full. At the end of that period Insinger & Co. sold five of the six plantations covered by the fund, paying out an extra 75 per cent to the shareholders.21 When Albrecht Frederik Insinger and his brother Jacob Herman took over the firm after 1813 it was situated “just below the top of the Amsterdam world of trade”.22 Albrecht Frederik further strengthened his position by marrying Wilhelmina Borski, daughter of another prominent Amsterdam banker with investments in Suriname. The firm retained a number of plantations and even provided new mortgages, concentrating on plantations producing cotton and coffee. The largest plantations under its administration were Anna Catharina and Zeezigt, each employing 350–400 slaves in the production of cotton. Between 1830–1843 Anna Catharina showed a yearly profit of f 10,000, part of which was invested in the introduction of new types of cotton and a steampowered machine in 1840.23 However, declining cotton prices on the Amsterdam market and continuous difficulties in maintaining the slave force after loopholes were closed in the external slave trade to Suriname in the late 1820s negatively influenced profitability. As a result, Zeezigt’s financial prospects remained particularly troublesome so that from the 1850s onwards it is likely that the hope of their owners for large sums of compensation per slave at the time of Emancipation became an important motive not to sell off plantations that were operating unprofitably.24 Insinger & Co.’s investments did not escape the combined pressures of crop-diseases, the drop in cotton prices, and shortages in forced-labour ­supply 19 20 21 22 23 24

Van de Voort, Westindische plantages, 271–272. Jonker, “Insinger & Co”, 141. Ibid., 142. Ibid., 136. Van Stipriaan, Surinaams contrast, 191. Jonker, “Insinger & Co”, 145.

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as a result of the abolition of the slave trade by the Dutch government in 1814. Nevertheless, the Insingers did not conform to the then popular stereotype of uninterested absentee owners who were passive in the face of decline. Their correspondence and the minutes of meetings of the board of directors of a number of plantation funds testify to the level of detail at which they involved themselves in the daily management of their slave investments. Two of their key concerns were to increase average productivity per enslaved labourer and to rationalize the employment of the entire slave force under their control. For that purpose they meticulously tracked the demography, production levels and estimated value of their plantations, as is clear from a set of notes from the mid-1830s the content of which is summarized in Tables 10.1 and 10.2. Among other things the table shows the important differences in the estimates made in Suriname of the value of plantations there, where there was a long history of over-pricing in order to boost the potential for raising loans; and estimates made in the Netherlands where financiers had become much more careful ­after the fiasco of the early 1770s.25 Clearly, for Insinger & Co. it was imperative to have a realistic view of the value and future potential of their assets.

Table 10.1 Size, type, and estimated value of several plantations Insinger & Co. 1828-1839.

Plantation

Product

Anna Catharina Jagtlust Nieuwe Grond Wederzorg Nyd & Spyt Zoelen Resolutie / Hollwyk Visserzorg

Cotton Coffee Coffee Coffee Coffee Sugar Sugar and coffee

Number of slaves

Estimated value Estimated value in Suriname ( f ) in Europe ( f )

360–364 259–264 140 211-244 160 143 359–390

197,205 103,334 60–70,000 100–105,000 125,000 146,284

140,000 100,000 80,000 80–90,000 160,000

263

167,180

105,000

Source: saa, Collection Insinger & Co., No. 1429, “Stukken betreffende de berekening van het rendement van de plantage Hamburg met het oog op de kwalitatieve en kwantitatieve omvang van het aantal slaven, 1828–1839”

25

Van Stipriaan, Surinaams contrast, 217.

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With the Power of Language and the Force of Reason Table 10.2 Productivity of selected plantations Insinger & Co. 1828-1839.

Plantation

Product

Zeezigt Anna Catharina Badestein Nieuwe Grond Wederzorg Jagtlust

Cotton Cotton Cotton Coffee Coffee Coffee

Average Number of years Average yearly on which ­average production ­ roduction per p (pounds) is based slave (pounds) 11 6 6 20 7 5

99,530 88,493 69,415 46,300 40,930 37,800

240 250 200 335 190 145

Source: saa, Collection Insinger & Co., No. 1429, “Stukken betreffende de berekening van het rendement van de plantage Hamburg met het oog op de kwalitatieve en kwantitatieve omvang van het aantal slaven, 1828–1839”

One of the main reasons for owners to monitor the performance of the v­ arious plantations was to be able to sell off the less profitable ones and where possible concentrate as many slaves as needed on the most promising grounds. However, underhand purchases of slaves and ­forcing the slaves ­already owned by the Insingers to move between plantations became ­increasingly difficult. The 1814 ban on the African slave trade by the Dutch had been a ­precondition for the return of the Dutch West Indian colonies after British o­ ccupation during the Napoleonic Wars, but the Dutch government ­deliberately kept open a loophole through its inter-Caribbean trade. ­However, when they were forced to tighten enforcement of the ban in 1827 the slave population in Suriname began to decline. The abolition of slavery in nearby ­British Guyana in 1833 substantially increased the possibility of mass flight in the border-­regions and so put even more pressure on Dutch slave owners and the Dutch colonial government. Using the opportunities that British and French Abolition provided, slaves mounted increasingly successful resistance against individual sales within Suriname. The slaves particularly resented such sales because they tore families apart. Sometimes they even successfully resisted collective ­transfers or sales between plantations.26 In the face of such ­restrictions and resistance the directors in Amsterdam actively explored various options for buying and selling slaves. One was to pursue the purchase of ­individuals or of small groups of families regardless of the legal barriers and the resentment it caused among the enslaved. In a 1835 letter from ­Amsterdam Thym Verhoeven of plantation Hamburg was asked to buy twelve to fifteen men. 26

Van Stipriaan, Surinaams contrast, 107–113 and 389–392.

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The letter stated explicitly that Verhoeven, “knowing best which type of men are most needed on the plantation”, should attend the sale in person. However, only in August 1839 did Verhoeven succeed in buying five “negroes” for a price of f 3,450; and the directors complained that they received no statement about their ages and capacities.27 The alternative to the individual buying and selling of slaves was to transfer entire slave-forces en masse. In the early to mid-1840s the directors in Amsterdam engaged in a long discussion as to whether there might be an advantageous way to sell the 300–400 slaves of the ailing plantation Zeezigt. Given the potential for resistance against such a large forced transfer, even the Minister of Colonial Affairs, J.C. Baud, spoke out on the ­matter.28 Fearing that owners of Surinamese plantations would be reluctant to buy, the directors advised sale by public auction in Amsterdam of the entire plantation including its slaves.29 In the end that did not happen and it is likely that Insinger & Co. decided to hold on to the large slave force at Zeezigt in the 1850s, speculating on future compensation which for 450 slaves in the end amounted to the considerable sum of f 135,000.30 It is clear that in all such deliberations the well-being of the slaves was of no importance at all to the directors in Amsterdam. In tracking the physical conditions of the slaves and determining their employment, the Insingers and their companions considered them only as economic assets, not as human beings. That helps to explain how they could tolerate gruesome abuses on plantations in which they were investing without apparent effect on their overall policy. A particularly striking example is that of the slave-overseer Thomas Sevenoaks on the coffee plantation Wederzorg, who sexually abused eighteen mostly under-aged slave girls over a period of twelve or thirteen years, before he was convicted by a Surinamese court for causing “disorder”. The court fined Sevenoaks f 64.51 and banned him from working on the plantation.31 The In­ singers retained their shares in Wederzorg until 1863. Behind the growing restrictions on buying and selling slaves, which Insinger & Co. tried as much as possible to circumvent, loomed a still larger danger: the mounting international pressure for full abolition. In the early 1850s Albrecht 27

saa, Collection Insinger & Co., no. 1429, “Stukken betreffende de berekening van het rendement van de plantage Hamburg met het oog op de kwalitatieve en kwantitatieve ­omvang van het aantal slaven, 1828–1839”, separate note dated 18 June 1835 and further. 28 saa, Collection Insinger & Co., no. 1445, “Notulen-Boek der Negotiatie Plantage Zeezigt”, discussions d.d. January 1846. 29 Ibid. 30 Van Stipriaan, Surinaams contrast, 239. 31 saa, Collection Insinger & Co., no. 1419, “Arrest van het gerechtshof in Suriname contra Th. Sevenoaks”, 1841.

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Frederik Insinger took careful note of the consequences of emancipation in the British and French colonies. In the British case especially his view of postabolition economic and social developments was bleak: The capitalists in Europe continued to keep money – immigrants were brought in at large costs from Africa, Madeira, India and elsewhere. … The most distinguished names made the papers and the plantations of the richest were sold after bankruptcy. The harvests decline, the ­labouring masses become lazy and unbound. It is to be expected that most ­plantations will be abandoned.32 With economic measures to restore the profitability of his slave-related investments increasingly ineffective and abolition becoming a concrete prospect, Insinger turned to politics to get as much out of his insecure human property as he possibly could. 2

Abolition Proposals

The decree of 1848 for the immediate abolition of slavery in the French colonies put emancipation on the Dutch parliamentary agenda. On the small ­Caribbean island of St. Martin, which was half French and half Dutch, it even resulted in a successful slave uprising in which the 1,000–1,200 slaves held liberated themselves. Although the Dutch authorities managed with considerable violence to suppress a similar uprising on the island of St. Eustatius, the writing was on the wall. On 15 May 1848 J.C. Rijk, the Minister for Colonial Affairs, sent out a memorandum warning that “stubbornly holding on to the principle of slavery as it still exists in Suriname is dangerous to the highest degree”. A moderate, calm, and top-down process of abolition would be the only alternative to violent self-emancipation by the slaves.33 However, it took another fifteen years, an abortive proposal to amortise slavery by freeing only new-born children (1851), an official Investigative Committee that drew up a proposal for a law (1853–1857), and four further draft laws (October 1858, April 1860, September 1860, and November 1861) before the final Emancipation Act was passed.34 32

saa, Collection Insinger & Co., no. 1458, “Stukken … aangaande slavernij in Brits-Guyana en de Franse kolonieën”, note “British Guyana: Imigration loan”, 1850. 33 Siwpersad, Nederlandse regering, 156–157. 34 Ibid., 209ff.

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One remarkable feature of the parliamentary debates that accompanied such a tortuous trajectory is that both sides, the officials working on the various abolition proposals and the advocates of the slaveholders’ case, were ­largely in agreement over the principles behind the two most hotly contested of the items on the agenda. First, they shared the same negative perception of the prospects of maintaining labour discipline among the formerly enslaved that we have already seen Insinger expressing on the basis of the experience of ­British Guyana. Much of the discussion therefore revolved around the question of how best to guarantee the continuity of colonial production, using means such as the organized immigration of indentured labourers from Asia and the introduction of a long period of “intermediate” forms of forced labour for liberated ex-slaves. Characteristic of the official attitude was the State Committee’s recommendation not to refer to abolition as “emancipation” which they advised on the ground that the negro understands this word as a licence to spend his time in laziness according to his own intent and without regular labour, to follow his base desires and to choose to live outside the limits of civilised society and settle in the forests.35 Second, after an initial suggestion in 1848 of expropriation without full compensation, every proposal that followed started from the premise that the plantation owners should receive generous indemnities. The main discussions were about the questions of how compensation should be divided over different categories of owners and whether it should be paid by the Dutch state or by the formerly enslaved themselves through additional forced labour.36 The 1853 Investigative Committee summed up the consensus in four “principles”: 1. No emancipation by the state without prior compensation for the masters; 2. As far as possible, repayment to the state by the emancipated of the costs of their liberation and social settlement [as free citizens]; 3. The competency of the legislature to determine how the latter precondition should be met; 4. The competency, even an obligation on the legislature to make sure, “that the abolition of slavery will be beneficial to the demands of r­eligion, 35

National Archive The Hague [from here: NA], Collection Brugmans, no. 5, “Memorie van Toelichting”, 12. Eventually, the Dutch government settled on a period of ten years of forced labour (“apprenticeship”) for the formerly enslaved. 36 Siwpersad, Nederlandse regering, 272–274.

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c­ ivilization, and material well-being or, if the decision be for expropriation by the state that such expropriation be truly generally advantageous.37 Needless to say those “principles” were a good starting point from which the slaveholders could argue their case for a form of abolition that corresponded as closely as possible with their interests. Petitions and memoranda designed to influence the decision-making process in the interest of the slaveholders came from three directions. One very vocal group consisted of owners based in Suriname and their friends in the colonial administration. A second group, based in Amsterdam, was led by G.C. Bosch Reitz and R. le Chevalier, prominent absentee owners. The third group, they too based in Amsterdam, was led by Insinger & Co. and included connected plantation financiers such as S.P. Labouchère, W. Borski, and the firm Kerkhoven & Couthino. A petition from 1862 contained the signatures of thirty-six Amsterdam-based owners from both the second and the third groups.38 While warnings of the potentially dire consequences for the Surinamese economy and the continuity of labour-supply of “reckless” abolition proposals played an important role in the slaveholders’ opposition, the main concrete question around which many of their requests and memoranda revolved was the amount of compensation paid per liberated slave. In a certain sense that shows that after the French abolition of 1848 many slaveholders had accepted that emancipation, though perhaps not desirable for them personally, had at last become inevitable. Furthermore, as we have seen in the case of Insinger’s plantation Zeezigt, there might also have been an element of cynical calculation at play. For as we have seen, once the principle of compensation had been firmly established, even unprofitable plantations might be retained as speculations on the future compensation amounts. Of course, the success of that strategy depended to a large extent on the ability of planters to influence the political decision-making process in their favour. A great asset for them in their political strategy was that successive colonial ministers and their staff tended to treat Amsterdam-based slave-investors in particular not as adversaries whose opposition had to be overcome but as the pre-eminent experts on both the futures both of the enslaved and the economies of the West-Indian colonies. 37 38

NA, Collection Brugmans, no. 133, “Memorie van Toelichting”, 2. NA, Collection Brugmans, no. 140, “Copie-Adres aan de Tweede Kamer van te Amsterdam gevestigde belanghebbenden bij Surinaamsche plantages”, 26 June 1862. It would be interesting to see whether the grouping of signatories under the various petitions ­represented different economic interests or ideological alignments, but in this research we have ­focused only on those petitions drawn up or signed by Insinger & Co.

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Insinger’s status as both interested party and “expert” on Suriname determined the tone of the letter that Insinger & Co. wrote on 20 November 1855 to Charles Ferdinand Pahud, the Minister of Colonial Affairs. The pretext was the progress made by the Investigative Committee in drafting a concrete proposal for abolition. The letter went on to mention a sharply differentiated compensation amount for slaves depending on whether they were working in households or on cotton, coffee, or sugar plantations. Considering emancipation first and foremost as an act of expropriation of property, the logical basis for compensation in the eyes of the committee was obviously the price of the slaves. Since individual slave-sales had become so much rarer, the committee resorted to using the total average sale prices of whole plantations including their slave forces as the basis for calculation. However, on sugar plantations the costs of machinery and other investments were much higher than on most cotton plantations, leading to large price differences among different types of plantations. Being heavily invested in cotton, Insinger & Co. opposed that reasoning most emphatically. Rather patronizingly, their letter began by saying that the directors had waited “impatiently” for the results of the State Committee’s investigation and had read the Committee’s report “with keen interest”. With “surprise and concern” they had learned that the amount of compensation for the expropriation of slaves working on cotton plantations was significantly lower than that for slaves on other types of plantations. They found the reasoning behind the different compensation categories “reprehensible”. “Values can differ slightly, but not much”, they wrote.39 They therefore urged the minister: to give attention to our considerations … when different categories are proposed, that [the compensation for] cotton plantations and negroes, if they are not equalized with coffee or cacao plantations and negroes, should at least follow these [compensation] amounts immediately and be set only slightly lower.40 The first actual law proposal after the State Committee’s research was finished was introduced under the new Minister of Colonial Affairs Pieter Mijer and was presented to Parliament in July 1857.41 The explanans of the proposal explicitly acknowledged the objections of owners of plantations that did not grow sugar but maintained compensation based on plantation types.42 In M ­ ijer’s 39

saa, Insinger & Co., No. 1445, “Notulen-Boek der Negotiatie ten laste plantage Zeezigt”, Copy letter to Minister of Colonial Affairs, 20 November 1855. 40 Ibid. 41 Siwpersad, Nederlandse regering, 228. 42 Ibid., 229; NA, Collection Brugmans, no. 134, “Memorie van Toelichting”, no. 5, 2.

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­ roposal, male and female slaves on sugar plantations were valued alike at p f 500 each while slaves on cotton plantations were valued at only f 200 a head. Insinger & Co. complained again, this time in a letter to Mijer of September 1857.43 “Why make a distinction between them and other plantation negroes?” They repeated their arguments from their letter of 1855, because they feared that their earlier letter had never been read by Mijer nor perhaps even seen by him despite a detailed account of the contents given both in person and in a yet earlier letter addressed to him. Apart from their personal authority as “experts” on Surinamese affairs, the Insingers also drew on their studies of abolition as it had been enacted by other European nations. The legislation in France, they said, “has not made a distinction in plantation types”44 so they expressed the hope that the minister would change Article 3 of the proposal “in such a way that the notion of national integrity shall not be defiled when it comes to the cotton planter in the colony of Suriname”.45 That plea was not Insinger’s final response to Mijer’s proposal nor was it the last effort to change it. On 16 February 1858 Insinger & Co. and other plantation owners sent an official request to Parliament. They argued again that their interests would be adversely affected by the proposed compensation based on a differentiated valuation of the slaves instead of the actual amount of “­damage” to their property.46 That approach proved fruitful when a ­Parliamentary ­Committee investigating the draft law referred to “one of the incoming r­ equests” arguing against the proposed differentiated compensation, citing the example of “slaves of the large cotton plantation Zeezigt”.47 3

Finding a Willing Ear: Successes of Insinger’s Lobby

Mijer’s proposal did not make it through Parliament. In 1858 Jan Jacob ­Rochussen succeeded Mijer as the Minister of Colonial Affairs and between 43

NA, Collection Brugmans, No. 133, “Afschaffing van slavernij in West-Indië, ontwerp van wet, Zitting Tweede Kamer 1856–1857, Gewijzigde Redactie van Art. 3, Ontwerp A”; saa, Insinger & Co., no. 1445, “Notulen-Boek der Negotiatie ten laste plantage Zeezigt”, Copy letter to the Minister of Colonial Affairs, 1 September 1857. 44 saa, Insinger & Co., no. 1445, “Notulen-Boek der Negotiatie ten laste plantage Zeezigt”, Copy letter to the Minister of Colonial Affairs, 1 September 1857. 45 Ibid. 46 “Verslagen uitgebragt door de Commissie voor de Verzoekschriften”, Zitting Tweede Kamer 1857–1858, 16 februari 1858, 341. URL: www.statengeneraaldigitaal.nl, accessed 21 June 2017. 47 NA, Collection Brugmans, No. 136, “Voorloopig Verslag van de commissie van rapporteurs uit de Tweede Kamer over de op de 17 juli 1857 ingediende wetsontwerpen tot afschaffing der slavernij in Nederlandsch West-Indië”, 15.

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1858–1860 he would oversee the drafting of three proposals for the text of the Emancipation Act, none of which was accepted.48 Rochussen finished his first proposal in October 1858 with content that differed somewhat from Meijer’s proposal. For instance, Rochussen proposed to establish a colonial bank in Suriname to assist in the payment of compensation. Slave owners would receive two thirds of their compensation in bank shares and only one third in cash.49 The compensation categories based on plantation type were maintained in the proposal, although the compensation amounts were split between the value of the slaves and the value of the plantations and grounds.50 Owners of sugar plantations would receive f 375 per slave and an additional f 125 per slave if the plantation buildings and grounds were sold to the state. Owners of coffee or cocoa plantations would receive f 260 and f 65 respectively, owners of cotton plantations f 200 and f 40.51 Rochussen stated explicitly that he had proposed changes to the compensation clauses in response to complaints from owners of plantations that did not grow sugar.52 It did not take long before Insinger & Co. registered their protests at Rochussen’s proposal. On 2 December 1858 and again on 23 February 1859 the Dutch Parliament received objections from parties with interests in the plantations of Suriname, Insinger & Co. among them. For their part, despite the concessions made on their behalf, they expressed their “incomprehension” that the new proposal still contained the “unjust”, “unsystematic”, and “unfair” difference in compensation amounts based on plantation type. With a great show of pathos they claimed that “of all people involved” in the Emancipation their own interest had been “pushed furthest to the background”.53 If the proposal were to be accepted, they argued, Parliament “would not undo the blatant injustice” done to the cotton plantation owners, but “extend it over the whole colony”.54 Cotton slaves were “stronger and healthier than [slaves] on other plantations” and their owners should therefore receive correspondingly more compensation. If not, it would be “an injustice that has taken place neither

48 Siwpersad, Nederlandse regering, 228, 244–255. 49 Ibid., 245–246; NA, Collection Brugmans, no. 134, “Wetsontwerpen tot afschafing der slavernij”, proposal October 1858, article 29. 50 NA, Collection Brugmans, no. 134, “Explanans”, 2. 51 NA, Collection Brugmans, no. 134, Proposal October 1858, article 4 and 5. 52 NA, Collection Brugmans, no. 134, “Explanans”, 2. 53 They conveniently overlooked the interests of the enslaved who had by now waited for more than a decade for the long-promised Emancipation decree. 54 saa, Collection Insinger & Co, no. 1445, “Notulen-Boek der Negotiatie ten laste plantage Zeezigt”, Copy letter to the States General, 2 December 1858.

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in France, nor in England”.55 In addition to the continuing complaints about sums of compensation the petitioners considered payment in bank shares “unjust”. Showing their lack of faith in the continued solvency of the prospected Colonial Bank they argued that such a measure would be an effective reduction of the compensation by two thirds.56 Albrecht Frederik Insinger used his seat in the Senate to give the written complaints of Insinger & Co. more weight. Just as in his company’s letter he underlined that the case of the slave owners was fundamentally a matter of justice. In a speech on 29 December 1858 he argued that since slave owners were to see their property “expropriated”, compensation should “not be meagre, nor be described as a favour”. Secondly he objected too to the partial payment in bank shares because “their value is so hard to determine”. Thirdly he opposed the “differentiation of the values of the negroes” based on the types of crops they cultivated, arguing that the compensation Britain and France had paid to their slave owners was “fairer and more reasonable”.57 Perhaps the most interesting part of his speech, however, was its peroration. Insinger ended by arguing for both a tranquil transition to a post-slavery order and the compensation of the former slave owners, two objectives that the government and the opposition shared. According to him those were not two separate matters. Compensation, he said, was a precondition for a peaceful transition, since expropriation without full financial compensation would dangerously damage the standing of white property owners in the colony: I should like to express my concern to the Government that, in the event of a great change in the state of the colony, proper protection of persons and property ought not to be neglected, and in particular I aim at the moral power which in later times the Authority tries to relinquish. … I end with my reassurance at the Minister’s statement, stated on other grounds that his Excellency wants to ensure “that the white people do not do harm, but should not suffer any harm either”.58 As a result of such a barrage of criticism Rochussen decided to withdraw his first proposal. Interestingly enough however, it seems that by that time the 55

Ibid; Also see “Verslagen uitgebragt door de Commissie voor de Verzoekschriften”, Zitting Tweede Kamer 1858–1859, 23 februari 1859, 526. URL: www.statengeneraaldigitaal.nl, accessed 21 June 2017. 56 Ibid. 57 Speech A.F. Insinger, Zitting Eerste Kamer 1858–1859, 29 December 1858, 120–121. URL: www.statengeneraaldigitaal.nl, accessed 1 August 2017. 58 Ibid.

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main motive for Insinger’s continued lobbying efforts was not to slow down the abolition process. Rather, the main aim had become to ensure that emancipation would occur sooner rather than later, provided it happened under conditions as favourable as possible to the slaveholders. On 9 May 1859, during a discussion on the abolition of slavery in the East Indies which was brought into effect the next year, Insinger suddenly seemed very compassionate for the enslaved in the West-Indies. Their “miserable fate” had become “even more difficult” after the endless extension of the years of insecurity in which they had been living. He therefore urged the minister to bring about a swift end to slavery in Suriname, which he said would “ensure the prosperity of the black population”. Of course, as always the precondition was that the minister should not neglect “the security and prosperity of our countrymen living in the West and living in the motherland”.59 Rochussen presented his second proposal in April 1860 by which time In­ singer had lost his seat in the Senate, although his efforts and complaints would pay off in the end. “Serious concerns” about the proposed Colonial Bank and payments in bank shares were listed in the new proposal as important grounds for the withdrawal of its predecessor.60 In his second proposal Rochussen omitted both and significantly increased the amount of compensation per slave.61 Plantation owners would receive f 300 for any slave working on coffee, cotton, or rice plantations and f 450 for each slave on sugar plantations.62 However that proposal too was not passed because it said nothing about how to solve the expected labour shortages after the abolition of slavery.63 Rochussen’s third proposal, dated September 1860, therefore contained an addendum on labour immigration.64 The amount of compensation per slave was to be slightly reduced but the difference between compensation for slaves per type of plantations was maintained.65 Again the proposal was not accepted.66 At last, on 9 July 1862 the Dutch Parliament accepted the fourth and final proposal, written by the new Minister of Colonial Affairs James Loudon.67 As witness to the success of the long lobby waged by Insinger and other slave 59

Speech A.F. Insinger, Zitting Eerste Kamer 1858–1859, 6 mei 1859, 188. URL: www.statengeneraaldigitaal.nl, accessed 31 July 2017. 60 NA, Collection Brugmans, No. 136, “Zitting Tweede Kamer 1861–1862, Explanans”, no. 4, 3. 61 Siwpersad, Nederlandse regering, 252. 62 NA, Collection Brugmans, No. 136, “Zitting Tweede Kamer 1861–1862, Explanans”, no. 4, 3. 63 Siwpersad, Nederlandse regering, 253. 64 Ibid. 65 NA, Collection Brugmans, No. 136, “Zitting Tweede Kamer 1861–1862, Explanans”, no. 4, 4. 66 Siwpersad, Nederlandse regering, 254. 67 Ibid., 255.

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owners on non-sugar plantations, the compensation categories were absent from Loudon’s proposal. Plantation owners would receive f 300 – and that not in bank shares – for each liberated slave irrespective of the type of plantation he or she had worked on and to be paid within three months after slavery was abolished.68 All the same, despite their obvious successes Insinger & Co. still joined the protest of thirty-six Amsterdam owners who alleged “that f 300 per slave head can hardly be called compensation, and even when considered an allowance may be considered low when put next to the losses that Surinamese agriculture will suffer due to the abolition of slavery”.69 This time, their efforts were not rewarded. In hindsight, the most striking aspect of that petition is the high-handed tone in which the undersigned reminded the addressees that until very recently the Dutch government itself had actually encouraged possession of slaves rather than treating it as reprehensible. However outlandish it might seem today that the slaveholders framed their vigorous defence of self-interest as a struggle for justice, the weight borne by the compensation question in the long-drawn abolition process proves how much traction owners’ arguments continued to have in Dutch politics right up to the moment of emancipation. 4 Conclusions Emancipation of the slaves in the Dutch colonies in the West Indies was slow, and conservative in both its underlying principles and its execution. Although it was heavily weighted in favour of the former slave owners their role in influencing the process has remained largely unacknowledged. As a representative of the Amsterdam banking house Insinger & Co., Albrecht Frederik Insinger was one of the prominent anti-Abolitionists who lobbied for the interests of planters and investors. He waged a sustained campaign to raise the amount of compensation for cotton and coffee planters in particular by writing letters to Ministers of Colonial Affairs, making speeches in the Senate, and setting up joint petitions with other prominent slaveholders. Between 1848 and 1863 the exact formulation of the compensation clauses and the means to guarantee continued production on the plantations formed the two crucial questions 68 69

NA, Collection Brugmans, No. 136, “Zitting Tweede Kamer 1861–1862, Explanans”, no. 4, 10–12, and “Ontwerp Emancipatie Wet in W.I. 26-11-1861”. NA, Collection Brugmans, No. 136, “Copie-Adres aan de Tweede Kamer van te Amsterdam gevestigde belanghebbenden bij Surinaamsche plantages in zake de bij het wetsontwerp tot opheffing der slavernij voorgestelde schadevergoeding voor de eigenaars der slaven”, 26 June 1862, 3.

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on which the failure of successive abolition proposals hinged. The efforts of Albrecht Frederik Insinger and the other Suriname and Amsterdam planters helped to keep those matters on the parliamentary agenda, thereby actively prolonging the already snail-paced emancipation process. Albrecht Frederik Insinger does not conform to the comforting stereotype of nineteenth-century anti-abolitionists as backward-looking, economically traditionalist and marginalized figures. The involvement of Insinger & Co. in slavery in fact dated from after the peak in plantation loans of the early 1770s and skilful management of plantation funds by Herman Albrecht and later Albrecht Frederik and his brother Jacob Herman allowed the firm to expand their involvement in Surinamese plantations well into the nineteenth century. Crop-diseases, declining cotton prices and the effects of the abolition of the slave-trade seriously affected the performance of many plantations especially in the final three decades of Dutch involvement in slavery in its West Indian colonies. However, Insinger & Co. remained deeply involved in the daily management of their possessions and of the slaves, introducing new machinery and trying to bring greater efficiency to the employment of slave forces. Their entrepreneurial outlook fits well with the image of nineteenth-century planters in places like the Deep South of the us as assertive and modernizing capitalists. Politically too, Insinger was far from a marginal figure, not even when it came to the question of slavery where the currents were increasingly against him. As Siwpersad had already noted in the 1970s one reason why slaveholders’ opposition to actual abolition proposals was so successful in stalling emancipation and diluting its effects was that the officials in charge of the process agreed with them on key principles and treated them as preeminent experts on the subject. That might also help explain one of the most morally charged aspects of Insinger’s campaign, namely the successful reframing of it as a fight for “justice” for that most unlikely group ever to claim historic victimhood; the expropriated slave owners. Bibliography Balai, Leo. Geschiedenis van de Amsterdamse slavenhandel. Over de belangen van Amsterdamse regenten bij de trans-Atlantische slavenhandel. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2013. Blackburn, Robin. The overthrow of colonial slavery, 1776–1848. London: Verso, 1988. Blackburn, Robin. The American crucible. Slavery, emancipation and human rights. London/New York: Verso, 2011.

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Brandon, Pepijn. “‘Shrewd sirens of humanity’. The changing shape of pro-slavery arguments in the Netherlands (1789–1814)”. Revista Almanack 14 (2016): 3–26. Drescher, Seymour. “The long goodbye. Dutch capitalism and antislavery in comparative perspective”. In Fifty years later. Antislavery, capitalism and modernity in the Dutch orbit, edited by Gert Oostindie, 25–66. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1995. Drescher, Seymour. Abolition. A history of slavery and anti-slavery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Emmer, P.C “Capitalism mistaken? The economic decline of Suriname and the plantation loans, 1773–1850: A rehabilitation”. Itinerario, 20, no. 1 (1996): 11–18. Emmer, P.C.. De Nederlandse slavenhandel 1500–1850. Amsterdam/Antwerpen: De Arbeiderspers, 2003. Genovese, Eugene D. The political economy of slavery. Studies in the economy and society of the slave South. New York: Vintage Books, 1965. Hagler Minter, Patricia. “‘The state of slavery’. Sommerset, The Slave, Grace, and the rise of pro-slavery and anti-slavery constitutionalism in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world”. Slavery & Abolition 36, no. 4 (2015): 603–617. Heijer, Henk den. “A public and private Dutch West India Interest”. In Dutch Atlantic connections, 1680–1800. Linking empires, bridging borders, edited by Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman, 159–182. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2014. Janse, Maartje. “‘Holland as a little England’? British anti-slavery missionaries and continental abolitionist movements in the mid nineteenth century”. Past and Present, 229, no. 1 (2015): 123–160. Johnson, Walter. River of dark dreams. Slavery and Empire in the cotton kingdom. Cambridge, MA/London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013. Jonker, Joost. “Roeien tegen de stroom, 1813–1860. De geschiedenis van Insinger & Co”, Jaarboek Amstelodamum 96 (2004): 135–155. Kuitenbrouwer, Maarten. “The Dutch case of antislavery. Late Abolitions and elitist Abolitionism”. In Fifty years later. Antislavery, capitalism and modernity in the Dutch orbit, edited by Gert Oostindie, 67–88. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1995. Laviña, Javier, and Michael Zeuske, eds. The second slavery: Mass slaveries and modernity in the Americas and in the Atlantic Basin. Zürich/Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2014. Oostindie, Gert, ed. Fifty years later. Antislavery, capitalism and modernity in the Dutch orbit. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1995. Scarborough, William Kauffman. Masters of the Big House. Elite slaveholders of the midnineteenth-century South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003. Schermerhorn, Calvin. The business of slavery and the rise of American capitalism, 1815–1860. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2015. Sens, Angelie. “Dutch antislavery attitudes in a decline-ridden society, 1750–1815”. In Fifty years later. Antislavery, capitalism and modernity in the Dutch orbit, edited by Gert Oostindie, 89–104. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1995.

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Siwpersad, Jozef Prabhudass. De Nederlandse regering en de afschaffing van de Surinaamse slavernij (1833–1863). Groningen: Boema’s Boekhuis, 1979. Stipriaan, Alex van. Surinaams contrast: roofbouw en overleven in een Caraibische p­ lantage-economie, 1750–1863. Leiden KITLV Uitgeverij: 1993. Stipriaan, Alex van. “Debunking debts. Image and reality of a colonial crisis. Suriname at the end of the 18th century”. Itinerario 19, no. 1 (1995): 69–84. Tomich, Dale. “The wealth of Empire. Francisco Arango y Parreño, political economy, and the Second Slavery in Cuba”. Comparative Studies in Society and History 45, no. 1 (2003): 4–28. Voort, Johannes Petrus van de. De Westindische plantages van 1720 tot 1795. Financiën en handel. Eindhoven: Drukkerij De Witte, 1973.

Chapter 11

Up and Down the Chain: Sugar Refiners’ Responses to Changing Food Regimes Ulbe Bosma Over recent decades, the global commodity trade has become the arena for a declining number of transnational corporations. This concentration began in the 1970s and 1980s in the wake of the two oil crises, when the world was still compartmentalized into capitalist and socialist economies and their dependencies.1 The World Trade Organization (wto) agreements and biotechnological innovations of the past 25 years ushered in respectively an opening up of markets and – in a merging of food and energy sectors – huge carbohydrate conglomerates. The number of transnational companies that dominated the global commodity trade diminished further during these years, although some new transnational commodity giants did emerge in various corners of the world. The Birla group in India is an example, with 120,000 employees worldwide, and which in the case of sugar, owns the entire chain from fertilizers to ethanol for fuel.2 The implications of the present configuration of global capitalism are immense. In the past, food policies were quintessentially national, as governments had a distinct interest in preventing famines and concomitant social unrest. Today, transnational corporations control food systems and spend huge amounts of money to lobby governments in order to protect their interests.3 Although the wto agreements ended some of the protectionist policies, most notably those of the EU, the global sugar market continues to be one of the most distorted commodity markets, in which powerful producer associations and state interests have always been intimately linked. It is a world of trusts, syndicates, and geopolitics. It is also a story about the dynamics of commodity chains, which connect the basic resources needed to grow cane, via the mills, the refiners, and the retailers, to the consumers. Through the work 1 Raúl H. Green, “La evolución de la economía internacional y la estrategia de las multinacionales alimentarias,” Desarrollo Económico 29 (1990). 2 Ulbe Bosma, The sugar plantation in India and Indonesia: Industrial production, 1770–2010 (New York etc.: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 249. 3 Tim Lang and Michael Heasman, Food wars. The global battle for mouths, minds and markets (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 145.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_013

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of Wallerstein and Hopkins as well as Gereffi, we have come to understand these commodity chains as arenas, where successive segments of the chain compete for their share of the profits.4 In the history of sugar, the refiners are usually the dominant segment, and they moved up the chain, combining the processing of cane, beet, corn, and chemical sweeteners, but in some cases also down the chain, becoming involved in the production of beverages or in retail. When the Cuban Fanjul brothers were expelled from their plantations in Cuba, for example, they developed new ones in Florida to expand their firm into a corporation with refineries in ten different countries. In the 1870s, Klaus Spreckels built a sugar empire with plantations in Hawaii, refineries in California, and his own shipping company. The French sugar trader Sucres et Denrées developed from a trader in Cuban sugar in the early days of Fidel Castro, into the current diversified sugar enterprise with plantations from Brazil to Vietnam. Another famous refining company, Tate & Lyle, controlled the entire sugar chain, including the molasses trade in the 1960s, but is now withdrawing into the lucrative niche of artificial sweeteners. Despite these dynamics and ongoing corporate mergers, some of the most famous commodity traders and agro-industrial concerns are family businesses. The Birlas, the Fanjul brothers, Tate & Lyle, and Sucres et Denrées are family concerns, a format that is conducive to preserving their most valued company secrets and to fast growth, as profits can be kept in the company. In the case of sugar, the roots of this concentration of the global commodity trade into a few hands can be found in the mid-nineteenth century. The conditions under which these enterprises operated obviously changed profoundly in the subsequent century and a half, however. As Harriet Friedman and Philip McMichael have argued, since 1870 the global economy has gone through different “food regimes,” which Friedman defines as follows: “Food regimes have been shaped by (unequal) relations among states, capitalist enterprises, and people, who migrated, bought, sold, and reshaped cultures of farming and eating within large, indeed, global constellations of power and property.”5 The historiographical value of the concept of food regimes is that it links commodity chains with historical geopolitical shifts. Friedman and McMichael 4 See Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein, “Commodity chains in the world-­ economy prior to 1800,” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 10, no. 1 (1986); Gary Gereffi, “The organization of buyer-driven global commodity chains: How U.S. retailers shape overseas production networks,” in Commodity chains and global capitalism, eds. Gary Gereffi and Miguel Korzeniewicz (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994). 5 Harriet Friedmann, “From colonialism to green capitalism: Social movements and emergence of food regimes,” in New directions in the sociology of global development, eds. Frederick H. Buttel and Philip D. McMichael (Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2005), 228.

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distinguish three food regimes. The first covered the period of imperialist globalization from 1870 to 1914, and was followed by a period of chaos and collapse during the Depression years and the First World War. The second coincided with the Trente Glorieuses from 1947 to 1973, followed by a decade of restructuring in the wake of the two oil crises, and the third food regime was shaped by the wto. Although in the case of cane sugar one could argue that there was already a food regime before 1870, this does not diminish the value of the periodization, as it offers us a lens through which we can explain the changing sugar commodity chains, focus on what the role of the states was, and examine how global capitalism developed and established the resilience and flexibility of capitalist enterprise. Through this lens we can make sense of the operations of the sugar giants, and of how they succeeded in controlling parts of or sometimes even the entire sugar chain. This also pertains to how these corporations responded to health, ecological, and social concerns. Friedmann has pointed out in this respect that a corporate-environmental food regime may emerge in the coming years, shaped as an elite set of food chains that connect smallholder and environmentally-friendly production with the wealthier and politically conscious consumers, while most of the market will be occupied by cheap bulk food chains relentlessly exploiting the countryside.6 The fact that Tate & Lyle recently acquired a fair trade label for its sugar produced in Belize, wonderfully illustrates this trend, as I will argue at the end of this article. The big businesses of sugar are major actors that not only survived the successive food regimes over the past century and a half, but in many ways were ­instrumental in shaping them, which is not that surprising considering the scale on which they operated. In fact, sugar gave rise to the first agro-industrial food system, and its role in global capitalism has been to supply cheap calories. Alternative small-scale production systems for relatively raw sugars certainly survived, such as gur production in India and the panelas in Latin America. They even reached out to a broader consumer market through advertising campaigns marketing their products as being healthier and more nutritious than the industrially refined alternatives, but these sweeteners are not part of the global sugar commodity chains.7 The global chains developed through a different trajectory: first inexorably linked to the histories of Atlantic slavery (the triangular trade) and subsequently to the hegemonic trade policies of Britain and the US, as well as the protectionist policies of European beet sugar producing states. 6 See Friedmann, “From colonialism to green capitalism.” 7 http://food.ndtv.com/health/15-jaggery-benefits-ever-wondered-why-our-elders-end-ameal-with-gur-1270883, accessed 7 August 2017; http://www.solalter.com/-La-filiere-SucreComplet-de-Canne-.html, accessed 7 August 2017.

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The geopolitics of sugar in the nineteenth century was, not surprisingly, made up by the British, French, German, Russian, Habsburg, and US colonial or imperial interests. Since these empires have mostly disappeared, the sugar corporations that had been attached to them had to reorient, and they usually did so by shifting the costs of their restructuring to society at large, which enabled them to move up the chain acquiring plantations, or down the chain into food production and retail. The refiners were the best positioned to move, for the simple reason that they had their contacts and strategic knowledge about ­sugar physics and chemistry. 1

The Sugar Commodity Chain

Companies involved in the trade and processing of sugar have shown a remarkable resilience to the successive food regime changes of the past 150 years. In fact, the sugar sector stayed comparatively independent from the general trend of merging into wholesale commodity traders, more so than cotton or coffee traders for example. As a possible explanation, I would suggest that sugar – apart from being closely linked to national food policies right up to the early years of the twenty-first century – has been an international commodity that has involved precocious production methods for a very long time. For more than a millennium, sugar has been consumed thousands of miles from where it was produced. More than two thousand years ago, sugar was already an agro-industrial product in parts of India, both rural and urban in character. This can be explained by the fact that the first step of the cane processing has to be carried out in the immediate vicinity of the field, because if cane is not pressed and the syrup boiled within forty-eight hours of cutting, most of its sucrose content will be fermented. What also furthered the first processing of cane on the spot is that crude sugar is much less voluminous than cane, and can be transported to specialized refineries that take out more of the impurities. In India, the oldest centre of white sugar production, the crude sugar was a rural product (the above-mentioned gur) that could be sold on local markets to urban manufacturers, who cleansed the sugar crystals of most of the non-sucrose particles and further traded their refined sugar throughout Central Asia. Whereas in India the raw sugar was boiled in the immediate vicinity of the field and refined by nearby urban manufacturers, in the European production process the rural-urban nexus was a maritime and capitalist one. The Atlantic sugar plantation system that originated in the Mediterranean region was dominated by merchant houses that not only directed the trade, but also

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f­inanced production and designated the sites for cultivation and processing. Precisely because of that, sugar has been considered as constitutive of the birth of capitalism.8 From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, the plantations cleansed the sugar mass just enough to enable its transport across the Atlantic to the refineries that were based in European port cities. As early as in the 1650s, there were already fifty refineries in London, and in the century that followed, hundreds of them appeared in Amsterdam, Hamburg, and along the Loire.9 Although over time plantations did produce cleaner sugar, refining continued to be carried out in Europe and later on in the United States, Japan, and China; in any case, near the consumers. Throughout history, traders and refiners occupied the central segment of the commodity chain of the cultivation, trade, processing, and marketing of sugar. As a rule, they possessed better market information and had better access to the political decision-making process than the other actors in the chain. There is one exception to this rule, namely that of the British sugar planters in the West Indies. They managed to control the British market via their own agents, and were moreover absentee planters whose interests were well-represented in British Parliament.10 This explains their successful resistance against the abolition of slavery during precisely the fifty years between the earliest British petitions against the slave trade in 1783 and emancipation within the British Empire. The West Indies planters were capable of shoring up sugar prices for a very long time until British industrial interest in lower food prices broke their power. However, even the West Indies cane millers were strongly discouraged from upgrading the sugar themselves, through high import duties on refined sugar brought into Britain. Vying for their share of the added value of the commodity chain, the millers and refiners had diverging interests. In this struggle, the millers were the junior partners, having to work via intermediaries who could connect them to the refiners that controlled the consumer markets. Even the United Java Sugar Producers (Vereenigde Java-suiker Producenten), still had to rely on a group of powerful Chinese, Japanese, and British trading houses for the marketing of their product throughout South and East Asia,

8 9 10

See Jason Moore, “Nature and the transition from feudalism to capitalism,” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 26, no. 2 (2003). Anthony Hugill, Sugar and all that… A history of Tate & Lyle (London: Gentry Books, 1978), 27; Robert Louis Stein, The French sugar business in the eighteenth century (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press), 136, 141. See Richard B. Sheridan, “The Molasses Act and the market strategy of the British sugar planters,” The Journal of Economic History 17, no. 1 (1957).

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a­ lthough they were the world’s second largest cane sugar producer in the early twentieth century and had control over their sugar storage and shipping.11 During the course of the nineteenth century, both the sugar mills and the refineries became exponentially more capital intensive. Increasing amounts of capital sunk in the mills and intensifying struggles over land and labour, combined with constantly declining world market sugar prices, forced the mills to forge syndicates to protect their investments. Meanwhile, the secular decline of sugar prices forced refiners to look for economies of scale. Their operations moved to another scalar level when sugar became first an increasingly important part of the daily diet of industrial labour, and then a cheap ingredient of industrially manufactured food that had begun to replace many home-made foodstuffs by the early twentieth century.12 During the Second World War, large quantities of sugar went into the rations of soldiers. Back at home, women were mobilized to keep the economy and war industry going and were not supposed to spend much time on meal preparation.13 Massive advertising helped to make industrial food socially acceptable, and liquid invert sugars were generously added to these foodstuffs because of their powerful preserving qualities. Moreover, sugar is cheap and gives producers of sweetened products enormous profit margins.14 These developments also further shifted the sugar commodity chain towards a consumer-driven one, to use the typology of Gereffi.15 While sugar had already been subject to government regulations and duty systems in the age of mercantilism, the ascendency of beet sugar in Europe in the early nineteenth century added an entirely new and much more comprehensive chapter to the role of governments in sugar capitalism. Beet sugar cultivation was seen by Continental European governments as a means to help their wheat producing regions overcome the severe agricultural crisis caused by the influx of cheap wheat from the New World. The beet sugar industry of Continental Europe in turn was not only successful in convincing governments to create protected markets, but also to subsidize its exports. The result was a progressive compartmentalization of the sugar production chains over the course of the nineteenth century, roughly consisting of Continental Europe, 11

G.Roger Knight, “Exogenous colonialism: Java sugar between Nippon and Taikoo before and during the Interwar Depression, c. 1920–1940,” Modern Asian Studies 44 (2010). 12 Ben Richardson, Sugar (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015), 26. 13 Richardson, Sugar, 27. See also April Merleaux, Sugar and civilization: American Empire and the cultural politics of sweetness (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015). 14 Richardson, Sugar, 33. 15 See Gereffi, “The organization of buyer-driven global commodity chains.”

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the British Empire, and the US with its colonial or semi-colonial dependencies. As long as producers stayed within their respective compartments, the sugar regime – a regime in the sense of how McMichael and Friedmann define a food regime – was more or less stable. However, producers, and Europe’s beet cartels in particular, permanently transgressed their compartment causing regular crises and a particularly severe market glut in 1884. Britain tried to play the role of arbiter to the best of its ability, by from 1864 onwards organizing a number of successive conferences and conventions to fix the boundaries between cane and beet sugar. This eventually resulted in the Brussels Convention of 1902, which reined in the dumping of European beet sugar on the global market. An important outcome of this convention was that it stopped the dumping of beet sugar on the newly emerging Asian markets, from which the sugar industry in Java benefited in particular. This international agreement expired during the First World War, however, and a new ferocious competition emerged between Cuba, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands Indies, leading to the collapse of the global sugar market in 1931. In the course of the 1930s, this compartmentalized regime was back on its feet, with India replacing Indonesia as the largest industrial sugar producer in Asia, and Taiwan instead of Java becoming the main supplier for Japan. This regime of two imperial sugar domains (the British and the US) and one beet sugar domain lasted until the 1970s, when Britain became a member of the eec. In the next sections, we will take a closer look at the sugar regime that existed for almost a century, by focusing on the role of the US and British refiners in shaping this regime. 2 The US Sugar Trusts In the early nineteenth century, refineries in the US were still spread across different locations – Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and New Orleans – but in the course of that century the centre of gravity shifted to New York, and it became a centre dominated by a single firm.16 This happened as a concomitant of the industrialization of the sugar refining process, which until the midnineteenth century was still a highly artisanal and time consuming process. The increased capital intensity of this manufacture brought about a concentration of the refining capacity into the hands of a small number of producers. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, the big sugar trusts emerged, 16

Paul L. Vogt, The sugar refining industry in the United States: Its development and present condition (Philadelphia: Pub. for the University, 1908), 9.

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comprising both cane and beet sugar and including a string of newly acquired dependencies (Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii, and the Dominican Republic). The intense connection between US imperial policies and sugar interests, backed up by Wall Street banks, were amply discussed by Ayala in his The American Sugar Kingdom.17 The nexus between US imperialism and the sugar trusts is epitomized by two industrialists of German descent: Klaus Spreckels and Henry Osborne Havemeyer. To begin with the latter, he was a grandson of a German sugar baker who had migrated to New York where he became the first in a dynasty of sugar refiners. At that time, sugar refining was still an artisanal affair with the secrets of sugar boiling being passed down from one generation to the next. The third generation of Havemeyers in the US rose to prominence in the early 1880s, when the industrialization of the refineries had resulted in excess capacity. This forced the firms on America’s east coast to negotiate among themselves a cap on their output. The result of these arrangements was the formation in 1887 of the Sugar Refineries Company, under Henry Osborne Havemeyer’s leadership. Known in public as the Sugar Trust, it brought together seventeen of the twenty-three refineries in the US under its wing. Of the many food trusts that emerged in the United States in these years, this was probably the most successful one. For Havemeyer, it entailed the additional personal bonus of having New York for him alone as a refiner. The economic muscle of the Sugar Trust, or the American Sugar Refining Company as it was named in 1891, can be gauged from the fact that it was one of the twelve companies setting the Dow Jones Average at that time. It was, however, also subject to government investigations into breaches of anti-trust legislation for more than thirty years. In response to these threats and to escape from a government-imposed break up of his cartel, Havemeyer positioned his sugar as a brand rather than a commodity, and to that end he introduced Domino sugar cubes as a trademark in 1900. When competitors emulated the example, Havemeyer took a new step by wrapping his sugar cubes in paper.18 By that time, Domino’s market share was already sinking: falling from 72 per cent in 1910, to 24 per cent in 1921, at least this was the case according to the company’s own statement. Whatever the veracity of this account may have been, it apparently succeeded in discontinuing the attempts by the American government to break up this company. 17 18

César J. Ayala, American sugar kingdom: The plantation economy of the Spanish Caribbean, 1898–1934 (University of North Carolina Press, 2009). http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/domino-sugar-corporation -history/, accessed 24 July 2017.

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While Havemeyer had managed to create a near monopoly on America’s east coast, defying anti-trust legislation, on the west coast of the US, another sugar empire emerged under the leadership of the originally poor German immigrant, Klaus Spreckels. Prior to his ascendency as a sugar magnate, he had made a modest fortune as a beer brewer. During the American Civil War, when sugar production in the US main sugar belt of Louisiana was in disarray, he started sugar refining in California using Philippine sugar and applying ­German refining technology. Through his California Sugar Refinery he amassed a fortune within a few years, which enabled him to seize the opportunity of the reciprocal treaty with Hawaii in 1875 in order to go up the chain. He purchased 40,000 acres of land on one of its islands, which would be the beginning of his immense sugar empire in the Pacific. With his own shipping company, he tied these estates – as well as those of other sugar producers on these islands – to his factory in California.19 In the course of the 1880s, Spreckels broadened the basis of his enterprise to beet sugar, a diversification that was part of his two-front battle both with his cane suppliers in Hawaii and with the sugar trust of Havemeyer, who aspired to the hegemony for the entire of the US. In 1887, Spreckels visited a beet sugar factory in Germany, brought seedlings back to California, and built a factory in Watsonville; the largest sugar plant in the United States at that time. His daring initiative was supported a few years later by the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890, which put a bounty on domestically produced sugar and waived tariffs on the import of seedlings and equipment.20 In 1892, Spreckels and Havemeyer ended their feud by accepting a division of the US market between East and West. As Burnley put it in his history of American captains of industry that appeared in 1901: “Mr. Henry Osborne Havemeyer is the king of the Eastern forces, and Mr. Claus [sic] Spreckels is the monarch of the Western battalions.”21 In the 1890s, the two American sugar magnates joined forces to undo the partial abolition of the sugar import tariffs by the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894, and were successful when the Dingley Act (1897) re-introduced the tariff on imported sugar. 19

20 21

Uwe Spiekermann, “Claus Spreckels: Robber baron and sugar king.” In Immigrant entrepreneurship: German-American business biographies, 1720 to the present, volume two, ed. ­William J. Hausman. German Historical Institute. http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship .org/entry.php?rec=5, accessed 30 May 2013. Thomas J. Osborne, “Claus Spreckels and The Oxnard brothers: Pioneer developers of ­California’s beet sugar industry, 1890–1900,” Southern California Quarterly 54, no. 2 (1972): 119. James Burnley, Millionaires and kings of enterprise; the marvellous careers of some Americans who pluck, foresight, and energy have made themselves masters in the fields of industry and finance (London etc.: J.B. Lippincott, 1901), 212.

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Spreckels immediately seized the opportunity offered by this new ­tariff regime, to establish an immense beet sugar complex in California’s Salinas valley.22 Sugar in the United States had become the story of severe competition among sugar refiners, first leading to cartelization and then to successful lobbies for closing the American market to foreign imports. American refiners furthered the emergence of its beet sugar industry in late nineteenth century, and were at the vanguard of the imperial pursuits of the US. In the early twentieth century, Cuba, Hawaii, and the Philippines were respectively the first, third, and fourth largest cane sugar producers in the world, and they all produced for the American market; the number two, the Netherlands Indies, sold to the Asian markets.23 The sugar refiners played a crucial role in the integration of newly acquired possessions in the American market, and in the case of Hawaii, sugar interests explain its annexation by the United States in 1898. In fact, the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 – in combination with the already existing reciprocal treaty with Hawaii and with the US-Spanish Treaty of 1891, which lowered duties of Cuban sugar to the United States – brought about an expansion of sugar refining companies towards these territories. Havemeyer began to invest in Cuba in the 1890s, and in 1906 formed the Cuban American Sugar company to centralize the management of its five “centrals” (factories) on this island. The Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico followed suit as the theatres of Havemeyer’s expansion.24 One year after the adoption of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909, which gave Philippine sugar free entry to the United States, the son of the founder the Havemeyer empire, Horace Havemeyer, opened a factory in Mindoro that was constructed on more than 22,000 hectares of land. Havemeyer had bought this estate from the government, which had disowned its previous owners, the friars, as part of its policies to redistribute large idle landholdings among landless peasants. This digression from land reform was decried in Washington as an “auctioning off of the Philippines.”25 Actually, the Philippines were too large to be fully controlled by American refining interests and local capital, and local bourgeoisies continued to be powerful actors. The situation in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and even the relatively small island of Puerto Rico was no different. The stories of Spreckels and Havemeyer demonstrate the intimate connection between American geopolitics and the shaping of the US sugar interests. 22 23 24 25

Osborne, “Claus Spreckels,” 120–121. Carol A. MacLennan, Sovereign sugar: Industry and environment in Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014), Annex 3. César, J. Ayala, American sugar kingdom, 107–119. See Volker Schult, “The San Jose sugar hacienda,” Philippine Studies 39, no. 4 (1991).

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The Havemeyer and Spreckels families continued to be prominent refiners until in 1963, when the latter sold their shares to the American Sugar Refining Company of the Havemeyers, who in turn sold their property in 1969, which was renamed Amstar one year later.26 3

British Refiners in the West Indies

Henry Tate, after whom the Tate Gallery in London is named, was the creator of the sugar giant Tate (later on Tate & Lyle), which for a few decades in the twentieth century would dominate the construction and planning of sugar factories, cane milling, molasses trade, sugar refining, and the marketing of sugar within the British Commonwealth. This company’s expansion into sugar milling was facilitated when the British Empire and later Commonwealth relinquished its free trade regime during the Depression years and embarked on shaping an imperial economic space. By the 1960s, Tate & Lyle controlled two thirds of the British refining capacity, served an equal share of the British market, and was refining 30 per cent of Canadian sugar. It had plants throughout the West Indies and Africa, and controlled the global molasses trade.27 The only notable prominent rival in Britain and the British West Indies was Booker, a company established in 1835 and the owner of most of the sugar plantations in British Guyana. This firm gained notoriety for its exploitation of indentured workers, and fame for its literary Booker Prize. Tate & Lyle is a company that has its roots in Liverpool. Henry Tate, born in 1819, was a grocer who owned six shops at the age of forty, when he decided to enter the business of refining at a time when it had become clear that small scale artisanal refineries had no future. In 1875, he signed a contract with David Martineau, a great name in sugar technology, which gave him access to patents to produce sugar in small cubes rather than conical sugar leaves.28 Tate & Lyle, the company that emerged in 1921 as a result of a merger, became the most powerful sugar refining company in the British Commonwealth, with deep pockets thanks to its protected position during the First World War. Tate & Lyle managed to obtain a dominant position in the sugar industries of Jamaica

26 27 28

http://www.spreckelssugar.com, accessed 7 August 2017. George, L. Backford, “The Eeonomics of agricultural resource use and development in plantation economies,” Social and Economic Studies 18, 4 (1969): 331. Philippe Chalmin, The making of a sugar giant. Tate & Lyle 1859–1989 (Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990), 75.

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and Trinidad at the end of the Great Depression in 1937. The two islands had already gone through a process of concentration of sugar factories after the sugar crisis of 1884, but suffered again badly during the Depression years. In Jamaica, Tate & Lyle expedited the already ongoing concentration of sugar milling and forged a dominant position through its daughter company, the West Indian Sugar Company (wisco); the owner of the large Frome Central that started milling in 1939, replacing seven smaller factories.29 In these years, Jamaica’s acreage under cane increased tenfold and the yield per acre also increased considerably thanks to the introduction of improved cane varieties.30 By the 1960s, wisco controlled a third of the Island’s production, and through its shipping company handled 56 per cent of Jamaica’s sugar exports.31 For Tate & Lyle’s vertically integrated company, it was the profits made in Great Britain that mattered, which led in Jamaica to increasingly marginal lands being taken into production and to Jamaica’s countryside sliding into monoculture.32 Most of the cane came from large landholdings belonging to wisco, but an increasing number of smallholders also produced cane for the factories. Sugar was an important source of rural labour for tens of thousands of families. However, the diminishing quality of cane and ageing milling equipment turned Jamaica from one of the cheapest producers in the 1920s to the most expensive one in the British Commonwealth by the 1960s.33 This was only sustainable thanks to the British government shielding its Commonwealth sugar producers from outside competition after the 1940s; a protection that was reiterated when the British West Indies became independent in 1962. This also allowed Tate & Lyle to pay wages that were strictly speaking not competitive, and to cover losses in Jamaica by generous profits elsewhere in the chain.34 However, by the late 1960s British membership of the eec was pending and loomed large over the Commonwealth’s protective sugar policies. In Trinidad, Tate & Lyle had gained an even more dominant position in ­sugar production than in Jamaica. Through its daughter company Caroni, it controlled 80 per cent of the island’s milling capacity and 60 per cent of the t­ otal cane harvest, plus all the sugar storage and shipping off the island by 1967.35 Caroni covered 29,000 hectares, of which 8,000 were given out to small farm29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Richard M. Auty, “Caribbean sugar factory size and survival,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 66, no. 1 (1976): 80. Carl Henry Fe, “Better must come: Sugar and Jamaica in the 20th Century,” Social and Economic Studies 33, no. 4 (1984): 5. Backford, “The economics of agricultural resource use,” 323. Fe, “Better must come,” 32. Fe, “Better must come,” 13–14; Chalmin, The making of a sugar giant, 326. Auty, “Caribbean sugar factory size and survival,” 87. Backford, “The economics,” 331.

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ers.36 In the same way as wisco in Jamaica, Caroni succeeded in containing labour unrest by raising wages, and it was able to do so thanks to the assistance of the metropolitan Trades Union Congress in creating a negotiating framework with local labour.37 Moreover, Trinidad’s government – whose prime minister from 1956 to 1981 was Eric Williams, the author of the famous thesis on the end of slavery – understood very well that the protected position of Trinidad’s sugar on the British market was predicated on Tate & Lyle’s presence in the island. However, similar to Jamaica, from 1965 onwards the labour productivity of Caroni stagnated, and this troubled the relationship between the sugar giant and the Caribbean island. For Tate & Lyle, field mechanization, and the introduction of cane mowers in particular, was the best and cheapest way to increase labour productivity. However, pressure on the governments of Jamaica and Trinidad to go along with a trade-off between higher wages and reduced employment were sharply criticized by these islands’ politicians, union leaders, journalists, and intellectuals. The firm was accused, for example, of barely investing in keeping its factories in Jamaica up to date, of working with a largely expatriate management, and of accruing the profits in Britain downstream of the chain.38 Despite these protests, in 1969 Tate & Lyle pressured the government of Jamaica into compliance to ensure that it could start mechanization of the fieldwork. In Trinidad, mechanization also went ahead. What may have strengthened the hand of Tate & Lyle in these two cases was the pending accession to the eec, which would tear down the protective wall around sugar production in the British Commonwealth. Moreover, the company had other locations from where it could draw its cane sugar. Belize, for example, had proved to be a more pliable partner with regard to mechanization. In the early 1950s, the British government and the Belize government had decided to embark upon highly mechanized sugar production to improve the country’s trade balance, which was in serious deficit.39 The Tate & Lyle purchase and expansion of one factory and the ­construction of a second one were under the condition of a ten-year tax holiday.40

36

In the 1950s, Caroni bought two of the remaining factories and in 1957 wisco (the Tate & Lyle subsidiary based in Jamaica) obtained the majority of the shares in Ste. Madeleine, rather silently, and in 1962 Tate & Lyle transferred Ste. Madeleine from wisco to Caroni. Chalmin, The making of a sugar giant, 354–355. 37 Chalmin, The making of a sugar giant, 357. 38 Fe, “Better must come,” 30–31. 39 Chalmin, The making of a sugar giant, 367. 40 Ibid., 368.

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Tate & Lyle was a highly solvent company that was capable of finding greener pastures as soon as profitability in any of its activities declined. By the mid1960s, the company was already moving downstream in the sugar chain. Since 1951 it had become engaged in the shipping of liquids, but in 1965, the company completed a major deal by taking over United Molasses, and through that acquired half of the world’s molasses trade. From there, Tate & Lyle moved to other liquids (fats). By the end of the 1960s, the company had become far less dependent on its Caribbean operations than the other British sugar producer, Booker McConnell, which controlled 80 per cent of the sugar production of Guyana in the 1960s, and obtained half of its turnover from its Caribbean sugar division and its holdings in Africa.41 In the case of Tate & Lyle, only ten per cent of its turnover came from the West Indies, and the profits from this division were apparently negligible as Table 11.1 shows.42 We cannot be certain that the presentation in Table 1 is not an underestimation of the importance of the West Indies and Belize operations for Tate & Lyle. It is for example interesting to see that the most profitable division of this company was shipping, therefore it was obviously a matter of setting prices within the chain. Moreover, it is important to note that the World Bank observed in 1975 that the considerable vertical integration of Tate & Lyle “makes it conceivable that the profits will be concentrated at the end of the chain.”43 The wording is intriguing, as only in 1986, Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein would publish their famous article on commodity chains.44 At any rate, governments located at the upper parts of the commodity chain are usually in a weak position, because the transnational corporations distribute agricultural risks over different countries and preferably over different commodities (e.g., beet, cane, and corn). Since the modern plantation conglomerates usually made up such a substantial element of the national income of the countries where they were based, and the West Indies were a case in point, they could make or break governments. The latter could threaten to nationalize the factories and the land, but the sugar companies were in possession of the expertise, whereas the land was usually obtained cheaply at the time that it was still abundantly available. Because of the political tensions and declining profitability in Jamaica and Trinidad, Tate & Lyle was already mentally detaching itself from its West Indies 41 42

Backford, “The economics of agricultural resource use,” 329. George L. Beckford and Cherita Girvan, “The dynamics of growth and the nature of metropolitan plantation enterprise,” Social and Economic Studies 19, no. 4 (1970). 43 Chalmin, The making of a sugar giant, 375. 44 See Hopkins and Wallerstein, “Commodity chains.”

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Sugar Refiners’ Responses to Changing Food Regimes Table 11.1 The Tate & Lyle Group: turnover and profit, 1968. Activity

Raw sugar production West Indies and British Honduras

Turnover £ 000

Profit £ 000

20,669

98

127,166 18,672 6,064

3,121 3,691 402

Molasses trading, storage and distribution

36,835

1,923

Shipping

11,652

3,820

9,708 2,484

313 53

233,250

13,421

Refining and distribution United Kingdom Canada Africa

Engineering and miscellaneous United Kingdom Overseas Total

Source: Beckford and Girvan, “The Dynamics,” p. 545

property. It had been in a good negotiating position to enforce mechanization, and it was in an even better position to make the best of its withdrawal, which it could present as a concession to the island’s nationalism. In 1971, the government of Jamaica bought the lands owned by wisco, but the company was allowed to phase out its use under a highly attractive lease arrangement. A few years later, the government of Jamaica opened negotiations with Tate & Lyle to acquire its factories as well. The company board was divided on the issue, but decided to sell, as wisco barely contributed to its profits anymore and would have probably turned into a loss maker in the subsequent years.45 In Trinidad, it was expected that Caroni could continue its already highly mechanized operations, and the government of Eric Williams was not in favour of further nationalization. Here, the negotiations resulted in an arrangement that made Tate & Lyle the minority owner, but with the management still in the company’s hands.46 Nevertheless, in 1976 the company had completely withdrawn from 45 Hugill, Sugar and all that, 222. 46 Chalmin, The making of a sugar giant, 515.

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Caroni, and just in time, because after that profits began to dwindle. In general, Tate & Lyle was moreover duly compensated for the nationalizations.47 And so was Booker, as a matter of fact. In the same year, 1976, Booker’s property was nationalized, under perhaps even more generous conditions: the firm received the market value of its assets, to be paid by the government of Guyana over twenty years at a six per cent interest rate.48 Booker reinvested this compensation wisely, to become the largest wholesale food company in the United Kingdom. According to Horace Campbell, the well-known Caribbean scholar and global justice activist: “Many sources in Jamaica suggest that the companies needed the money to help their enterprises in other parts of the world, e.g. South ­Africa where production of sugar is more profitable and they can get black slave labourers.”49 While considerable sums were involved in the nationalization of the West Indies properties, they were still not that ­substantial compared with the total turnover of Tate & Lyle. Moreover, the acquisition of the ­Illovo factories in South Africa took place in 1969, before the nationalizations in the West Indies. Perhaps the Illovo factories were bought in anticipation of a retreat from the West Indies, but they were abandoned in 1977, because the association with Apartheid generated bad publicity. Moreover, the general trend was one of a withdrawal from the plantations in the Global South. Between 1965 and 1980, Tate & Lyle sold its sugar plantations and refineries in Jamaica, Trinidad, Nigeria, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, although it sometimes kept minority shares and maintained management contracts as well as diversifying into a consultancy role in newly independent countries under the name of Tate & Lyle Technical Services.50 As an exception to this rule, Tate & Lyle remained in Belize as the factory owner. As the purchase of the United Molasses signalled, this company was setting its eyes on activities downstream in the sugar chain. Here, profound changes would take place from the 1970s onwards. 4

The Reconfigurations of the European and Global Markets

Campbell was probably not correct in his observation that the nationalization enabled Tate & Lyle to find more profitable ventures. That Tate & Lyle and 47 Chalmin, The making of a sugar giant, 527. 48 http://www.guyana.org/features/postindependence/chapter3.html, accessed 21 July 2017. 49 Horace Campbell, “Jamaica: The myth of economic development and racial tranquility,” The Black Scholar 4, no. 5 (1973): 21. 50 Barbara Dinham and Colin Hines, Agribusiness in Africa: A study of the impact of big business on Africa’s food and agricultural production (London: Earth Resources Research, 1983), 171–172.

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Booker gave up their West Indies possessions relatively easily was mainly because of dwindling profits. They used their strong position to squeeze a decent departure bonus from the governments, and thus the people, of the West Indies. Moreover, they still retained control over the operations on these islands and were the gatekeepers for the newly nationalized plantations to the ­European market. They successfully ensured that this access continued after Britain’s accession to the European Economic Community. As a result of the accession negotiations, the Commonwealth Sugar Exporters Association (csea) was allowed to export to the European market in return for which the Confédération Internationale des Betteraviers Européens (cibe) obtained the concession that its constituency could freely export its beet sugar outside the eec. It was just shifting the solution to the world market, entailing the tremendous risk of uncontrolled overproduction and dumping. In the early 1970s, however, sugar prices stood at high levels, and these risks were not yet imminent. Two years later, in 1976, the Lomé Convention gave acp (African, C ­ aribbean, and Pacific) countries access to the European market, which only further added to overproduction. This again was only to the advantage of Tate & Lyle, because as Richardson explains, an agreement was forged with former British colonies – including Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana, Jamaica, and Swaziland – to import a fixed amount of sugar to be refined by Tate & Lyle that could be sold at the higher internal market prices of the eec.51 These successes came after Tate & Lyle suffered severe defeats in its attempts to become a major player on the European continent. In a rather secretive way, it had tried to obtain large swath of the French sugar industry, but this scheme imploded, and by 1980 Tate & Lyle had been more or less evicted from raw sugar producing in Continental Europe. The eec and its successor the EU were in full control of the European sugar market, and highly protective of the beet sugar industry. This would deal a second blow to Tate & Lyle’s attempts to become a major producer on the ­European continent. This case pertained to the development of high-fructose corn syrup; a revolutionary development that was set in motion after two Japanese scientists discovered in 1966 how to convert glucose (made from grains) into fructose. When the price of sugar soared in 1974, interest in this product grew, and in 1979 Coca-Cola in the US started to replace sugar with high-fructose corn syrup (hfcs). The starch and glucose industry became an important chain towards very different items, such as paper, textiles, and sugar. In Europe, Tate & Lyle in collaboration with the Dutch firm Koninklijke 51 Chalmin, The making of a sugar giant, 474; Ben Richardson, Sugar, 73.

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Scholten Honig started to produce hcfs in Tilbury (Essex, UK).52 However, the European Commission effectively killed this industry in 1977, by levying a tax on the production of hcfs, which was high enough to raise its price above that of beet sugar. The fact that the European Commission effectively protected continental beet sugar interests induced Tate & Lyle to look for a foothold in the United States, which was less restrictive with regard to chemical sweeteners. Tate & Lyle obtained a golden opportunity to gain this foothold in the course of the 1980s, in the wake of the shake-up of global commodity traders and producers. In the early 1980s, the global commodity markets were heavily depressed by low commodity prices, and many commodity traders and processers suffered severe losses, falling prey to the Wall Street banks.53 On their part, financial institutions saw a new, potentially immensely profitable field opening up in insuring against market volatility, the so-called “futures.” As a result, by the late 1980s the highly oligopolistic commodity trade was being financed by ten to fifteen banks in New York, Frankfurt, London, Geneva, and Tokyo. Since then, the major commodity traders have been following by ­satellite everything that is relevant regarding the harvests, and coupling this with the information systems of the banks of which they are subsidiaries.54 The sugar sector was part of this general trend of merging and linking up to the banking sector, but apparently less so than other commodity sectors. Although ­Amstar, the most important US sugar producer, was sold to Merrill Lynch in 1986, its ownership returned to another global sugar producer as it was obtained at “a bargain price” … by Tate & Lyle in 1988. Within its American acquisition, Tate & Lyle developed a division for artificial sweeteners and non-sweet sugars. As part of its further specialization in this field, Tate & Lyle sold its US sugar division in 2001 to the Florida company American Sugar Refining (asr), which retained the right to use Tate & Lyle’s brand names.55 asr is co-owned by a Florida sugar cooperative, and the Florida Crystals Corporation owned by the Fanjul brothers; Lebanese immigrants to Cuba, who became wealthy plantation owners and fled to Florida in 1959, starting again and building a new sugar empire taking over the Gulf 52 53 54 55

http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-41136649.html, accessed 2 May 2018. http://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/30/business/goldman-sachs-buys-big-commoditydealer.html, accessed 21 July 2017. Frederick F. Clairmonte and John H. Cavanagh, “World commodities trade: Changing role of giant trading companies,” Economic and Political Weekly 23, no. 42 (1988): 2156. “Tate & Lyle Sugars/American sugar refining: Corporate profile,” http://agritrade.cta.int/ Agriculture/Commodities/Sugar/Tate-Lyle-American-Sugar-Refining-corporate-profile, accessed 23 July 2017.

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and ­Western Company in 1984, and acquiring through these purchases massive interests in the Dominican Republic as well. With that, the Fanjul brothers became the owners of the Dominican plantations that were notorious for their slave-like conditions. It presently claims to be the largest vertically-integrated sugar company in the world, producing six million tons of refined sugar per year with refineries in ten different countries.56 It again testifies to the uniquely dynamic, but also family-based character of the world’s “haute sucre.” Another example of such a family firm is Sucres et Denrées (sucden), which controlled 15 per cent of the global sugar market in 2016 and is active in a range of food products. sucden was founded in 1952 as a sugar trader and became a crucial international operator in 1959, when it started to act as a broker for Cuban sugar in 1959, helping Castro to find new markets in ­Japan and North Africa. The company maintained long-term connections with regimes that were not friends of the United States. After failed attempts at a diversification into cocoa, sucden has been forced back into sugar by the banks that kept the firm afloat. Today it is the most important broker of ­Russian sugar, but has also expanded into Southeast Asian and Brazilian sugar cane fields.57 In 2014, it initiated a joint venture in Vietnam for a large sugar plantation.58 This purchase of plantations was somewhat against the grain, however, because the increasingly oligopolistic conditions made it less imperative for the commodity giants to control production in the field. As Van der Ploeg has argued, food empires do not necessarily directly control the actual production and processing, because farmers cannot sell “independently from the circuits controlled by the different food empires.”59 As we have seen, Tate & Lyle gave up their plantations in the West Indies without relinquishing control over the chain. Transnational food companies are perfectly happy to deal with smallholders, particularly if this adds to the value of one of their brands. In 2008, Tate & Lyle sugar produced in Belize was granted the “fair trade” label, enabling the company to sell its granulated retail sugar as fair trade.60 The caveat was 56 57 58 59 60

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/with-acquisition-tate-lyle-palm-beach -county-owned-sugar-giant-goes-global/TGRQM0n6p8ugAQjKgROl7M/, accessed 23 July 2017. http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/compagnie-financi%C3%A8resucres-et-denr%C3%A9es-s-a-history/, accessed 23 July 2017. http://www.pressreader.com/cambodia/the-phnom-penh-post/20101014/2816553664 31767, accessed 23 July 2017. Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, “The peasantries of the twenty-first century: The commoditisation debate revisited,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 37, no. 1 (2010): 18. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7260211.stm, accessed 9 August 2017.

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that all the sugar that went into other products was still produced without the social and ecological guarantees belonging to this label. This was an excellent deal for Tate & Lyle, in which the additional operational costs of the Belize cane fields were only a fraction of the company’s turnover, whereas the right to advertise itself as a fair trade company in almost every shop in Britain was an immense bonus.61 It also subscribes to Friedmann’s observation of a bifurcation of the commodity chains to respond to the desires of critical consumers in rich countries. Obtaining the fair trade label was part of Tate & Lyle’s broader strategy to position itself in the more exclusive and high-technology sectors of the consumer market. This was, of course, further strengthened by the fundamental change in the tariff regime of the EU after 2005. Driven by the wto negotiations and in response to a case brought forward by Brazil, Australia, and Thailand, the EU decided in 2005 to demolish the tariff wall that had protected sugar prices in Europe and maintained the idiosyncrasy of allowing European sugar to be dumped on the world market while granting import quotas to the least developed countries. There was moreover a strong interest within the EU to lower sugar prices in order to help foodstuff industries that used sugar as an ingredient. In fact, the EU became convinced that a product with relatively little added value compared with other food stuffs was not worth an escalation of trade conflicts.62 Further, the deconstruction of tariff walls and rearrangement of the quota regime for European beet sugar producers, which had 150 years of history, offered an excellent opportunity for the EU to see the weaker producers eliminated while enhancing the global position of the stronger ones. It also offered a strategic opportunity to solidify the position on the European market of some acp countries that were already aligned with European sugar interests. Driven by the new EU policies, beet sugar refiners started to co-refine cane sugar, which they could do at lower production costs, as they charged the capital costs to their beet sugar operations.63 Already powerful companies, such as the German Südzucker and the French Tereos, aggressively expanded in the Global South through diversification into cane sugar.64 Südzucker, the largest beet sugar company in the EU and rooted in cooperative beet farming in southern Germany, started to import raw Mauritian sugar in 2008, partly 61 Backford, “The economics of agricultural resource use,” 327. 62 Richardson, Sugar, 74–75. 63 “Tate & Lyle Sugars/American sugar refining: Corporate profile,” http://agritrade.cta.int/ Agriculture/Commodities/Sugar/Tate-Lyle-American-Sugar-Refining-corporate-profile, accessed 23 July 2017. 64 Ben Richardson, “Restructuring the eu-acp sugar regime: Out of the strong there came forth sweetness,” Review of International Political Economy 16, no. 4 (2009): 674.

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to compensate for the quotas it had to surrender under the European sugar policies.65 Tereos, the cooperative owned by 12,000 French sugar beet producers (who alternate their beets with cereals), became the sole sugar producer in Réunion in 2010. Tereos also moved into Brazilian sugar production – in partnership with sucden – and through its daughter company Syral, it obtained a position in the starch-based glucose fructose industry by taking over factories from Tate & Lyle.66 That Tate & Lyle sold five of its starch-based glucose factories in Europe to Syral was also a direct consequence of the restructuring of the EU sugar sector in favour of beet sugar. Tate & Lyle’s withdrawal from the starch-based production of glucose fructose syrups, in which it had become a market leader in E ­ urope, can be explained by that fact that the company was rooted in the British Empire and had no position in the continental beet sugar industry. The growth prospects for its glucose fructose syrups were modest, since their ­application was limited under EU regulations aimed at protecting the beet sugar sector.67 Three years later, Tate & Lyle sold its m ­ olasses distribution branch, which marked the end of its historic role as a British sugar ­giant. These disinvestments provided the company, however, with the capital to further specialize in artificial sweeteners.68 This market is a booming and extremely lucrative one, which is easy to understand since today’s zero calorie beverages are just water with less than a drop of highly concentrated chemical substances. Another logical component of Tate & Lyle is its involvement in the production of stevia, having its own brand of Tasteva.69 5 Conclusion From its earliest stages in European history, the power of sugar as a driver of global capitalism resided with the metropolitan refineries dictating the quality of the sugar that plantations higher up the chain had to deliver. This dominant

65

“Südzucker: Corporate profile,” http://agritrade.cta.int/Agriculture/Commodities/Sugar/ Suedzucker-corporate-profile, accessed 23 July 2017. 66 “Tereos:  Corporate  profile,” http://agritrade.cta.int/Agriculture/Commodities/Sugar/ Tereos-corporate-profile, accessed 10 August 2017. 67 https://www.lesechos.fr/10/05/2007/LesEchos/19915-102-ECH_tate---lyle-vend-5-usines -au-sucrier-francais-tereos.htm, accessed 10 August 2017. 68 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/tate-amp-lyle-sells-molasses -unit-2143999.html, accessed 10 August 2017. 69 Richardson, Sugar, 36.

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position was rooted in the deep history of European sugar as a plantation crop based on enslaved labour. Over the course of the first food regime (1870–1914), the business histories of the American sugar refiners were intimately linked to US empire building, both as beneficiaries and as active agents in imperialist pursuits. Although the US never dominated local sugar production in its dependencies, its refineries were in control of the chain, shoring up their position by cartelization, by investing both in cane and beet, and by transforming their commodity into a brand. The British imperial sugar history of late colonialism started with the demise of the power of the West Indies planters and the ascendency of Tate & Lyle, the country’s most prominent refiner, which became an integrated sugar enterprise. Like Henry Osborne Havemeyer and Klaus Spreckels in the US, Henry Tate made his fortune at the time the refining business lost its artisanal character to become big industry. Tate & Lyle greatly benefited from British endeavours to build an imperial or commonwealth economy, with a division of tasks in which the dominions produced the commodities and Britain the manufacturers. Tate & Lyle brilliantly survived British decolonization and its accession to the eec through spatial diversification, but its attempts to obtain a position in the beet sugar industry of the European continent failed. Its turn to the US in the 1980s and its specialization in sugar technology shows the resilience of the old sugar regime that protected European beet sugar. The 2005 rearrangement of the European sugar market further pushed Tate & Lyle in the direction of becoming a nutritional specialist, and to advertise itself as a company “helping with low calorie solutions.” What this history shows is that the sugar sector was relatively less affected by the concentration of commodity trade and the emergence of the foodenergy giants, because the key players in the commodity chain, the refiners, could move in different directions along the chain. Moreover, they were capable of restructuring themselves at the expense of the taxpayer through their intimate connections with governments. By moving down the chain towards the retailing of sugar, a company like Tate & Lyle – that was part of a fading British Commonwealth – could align itself with fair trade and ­environment-friendly cultivation methods. This did not entail much of a sacrifice, because in the highly skewed commodity chain, the upper part only takes a fraction of the added value. Transnational corporations can therefore handsomely afford to pay more to the agricultural end of the chain to curry favour with politically conscious consumers. The overwhelming bulk of cane sugar is, however, produced under appalling conditions and inserted in abundance in almost every foodstuff filling the supermarket shelves around the globe.

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Bibliography Auty, Richard M. “Caribbean sugar factory size and survival.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 66, no. 1 (1976): 76–88. Ayala, César J. American sugar kingdom: The plantation economy of the Spanish Caribbean, 1898–1934. University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Backford, George L. “The economics of agricultural resource use and development in plantation economies.” Social and Economic Studies 18, no. 4 (1969): 321–347. Backford, George L., and Cherita Girvan. “The dynamics of growth and the nature of metropolitan plantation enterprise.” Social and Economic Studies 19, no. 4 (1970): 435–465. Bosma, Ulbe. The sugar plantation in India and Indonesia: Industrial production, 1770– 2010. New York etc.: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Burnley, James. Millionaires and kings of enterprise: The marvellous careers of some Americans who pluck, foresight, and energy have made themselves masters in the fields of industry and finance. London etc.: J.B. Lippincott, 1901. Campbell, Horace. “Jamaica: The myth of economic development and racial tranquility.” The Black Scholar 4, no. 5 (1973): 16–23. Chalmin, Philippe. The making of a sugar giant. Tate & Lyle 1859–1989. Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1990. Clairmonte, Frederick F., and John H. Cavanagh. “World commodities trade: Changing role of giant trading companies.” Economic and Political Weekly 23, no. 42 (1988): 2153–2157. Dinham, Barbara, and Colin Hines. Agribusiness in Africa, A study of the impact of big business on Africa’s food and agricultural production. London: Earth Resources Research, 1983. Fe, Carl Henry. “Better must come: Sugar and Jamaica in the 20th century.” Social and Economic Studies 33, no. 4 (1984): 1–49. Friedmann, Harriet. “From colonialism to green capitalism: Social movements and emergence of food regimes.” In New directions in the sociology of global development, edited by Frederick H. Buttel and Philip D. McMichael, 227–264. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2005. Gereffi, Gary. “The organization of buyer-driven global commodity chains: How U.S. retailers shape overseas production networks.” In Commodity chains and global capitalism, edited by Gary Gereffi, and Miguel Korzeniewicz, 95–122. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994. Green, Raúl H. “La evolución de la economía internacional y la estrategia de las multinacionales alimentarias.” Desarrollo Económico 29, no. 116 (1990): 507–528. Hopkins, Terence K., and Immanuel Wallerstein. “Commodity chains in the worldeconomy prior to 1800.” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 10, no. 1 (1986): 57–70.

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Hugill, Anthony. Sugar and all that… A history of Tate & Lyle. London: Gentry Books, 1978. Knight, G. Roger. “Exogenous colonialism: Java sugar between Nippon and Taikoo before and during the Interwar Depression, c. 1920–1940.” Modern Asian Studies 44 (2010): 477–515. Lang, Tim, and Michael Heasman. Food wars. The global battle for mouths, minds and markets. London and New York: Routledge, 2004. MacLennan, Carol A. Sovereign sugar: Industry and environment in Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014. Merleaux, April. Sugar and civilization: American Empire and the cultural politics of sweetness. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Moore, Jason. “Nature and the transition from feudalism to capitalism.” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 26, no. 2 (2003): 97–172. Osborne, Thomas J. “Claus Spreckels and the Oxnard brothers: Pioneer developers of California’s beet sugar industry, 1890–1900.” Southern California Quarterly 54, no. 2 (1972): 117–125. Van der Ploeg, Jan Douwe. “The peasantries of the twenty-first century: The commoditisation debate revisited.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 37, no. 1 (2010): 1–30. Richardson, Ben. “Restructuring the EU-ACP sugar regime: Out of the strong there came forth sweetness.” Review of International Political Economy 16, no. 4 (2009): 673–697. Richardson, Ben. Sugar. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015. Schult, Volker. “The San Jose sugar hacienda.” Philippine Studies 39, no. 4 (1991): 458–474. Sheridan, Richard B. “The Molasses Act and the market strategy of the British sugar planters.” The Journal of Economic History 17, no. 1 (1957): 62–83. Spiekermann, Uwe. “Claus Spreckels: Robber baron and sugar king.” In Immigrant entrepreneurship: German-American business biographies, 1720 to the present, volume 2, edited by William J. Hausman. German Historical Institute. http://www .immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=5 Stein, Robert Louis. The French sugar business in the eighteenth century. Baton Rouge & London: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. Vogt, Paul. L. The sugar refining industry in the United States: Its development and present condition. Philadelphia: Pub. for the University, 1908.

part 5 Humans and their Natural Environment

∵

Chapter 12

Enlightened Ideas in Commemoration Books of the 1825 Zuiderzee Flood in the Netherlands Petra J.E.M. van Dam and Harm Pieters In the Netherlands, a variety of flood commemoration literature has existed since the Middle Ages. The so-called flood commemoration books developed out of other genres during the eighteenth century and contributed to the formation of a flood culture in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century.1 Flood commemoration books contained descriptions of the events during inundations, but also included tragic stories of victims, miracles of survival, and stories about heroes. In addition, they dealt with the perceived causes of the flood and measures to be taken in order to prevent floods in the future. Flood commemoration books could be journalistic, sensational, or educational to varying degrees. They were a special kind of commemoration book and as such were important media in the collective memory formation of floods. Commemoration books contained extensive descriptions of disasters including earthquakes, city fires and floods, and other memorable events like special comets passing by or calves born with two heads, and they were published shortly after the events. Apart from books, other media such as pamphlets, chronicles, newspapers, sermons, theatre plays, novels, and poetry also contributed to memory formation about such events. Authors of flood commemoration books used other memory documents, for instance newspapers, as sources. In turn, the commemoration books served as sources for the other media, such as childrens’ books or novels with religious messages. Regarding the contents, commemoration books shared similarities with pamphlets and chronicles, but differed as to their format and depth. They covered a much larger area than pamphlets or chronicles and were more voluminous. Their production took longer than pamphlets, often more than a year. Chronicles were of much wider scope and contained descriptions of all types of historical events, often focusing on earlier floods. Commemoration books specifically dedicated to floods only emerged as a genre in the course of the eighteenth century. Their content focused on one particular flood and offered 1 The authors thank the editors of this volume and Adam Sundberg for very thoughtful comments.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_014

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more space for all sorts of details. One might say this was the start a specific genre, a genre that lasted well into the twentieth century, the flood commemoration book.2 Recent work in historical disaster scholarship has demonstrated the significance of storytelling as a coping strategy for societies that suffered the impact of natural disasters.3 Rethinking and retelling stories about shocks, disruptions, and extreme circumstances contributes to sharing and digesting emotions, giving them a place in personal memories and collective memories. Discussing causes of floods and prevention policies reduces feelings of insecurity and promotes resilience after the flood. As a result, flood commemoration books can be considered elements of the “amphibious culture” of the Netherlands, a culture that shaped how people coped with extreme events and engaged with water, both in daily life and during natural disasters.4 In this chapter, we investigate the authors and narratives of three important commemoration books of the 1825 flood, one of the largest and deadliest coastal floods of the nineteenth century. We analyse the way authors reported the flood: the way they presented the drama of the stories, how they interpreted the meaning of the flood, and in particular, how they approached transcendental or religious issues. The larger issue we want to address is to what extent these narratives revealed Enlightened ideas and if so, how they contributed to changes in flood memory formation. In this way, we add to a deeper understanding of very important long-term changes. 1 Historiography The flood at issue took place on 3, 4, and 5 February 1825. It affected large areas of the provinces of Friesland and Overijssel, and smaller parts of the Wadden 2 H. D. Pieters, “Herinneringscultuur van overstromingsrampen: Gedenkboeken van overstromingen van 1775, 1776 en 1825 in het Zuiderzeegebied,” Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 21, no. 1/2 (2012). Many predecessors of the commemoration book are referred to in the large collection of flood descriptions in M.K.E. Gottschalk, Stormvloeden en rivieroverstromingen in Nederland 1400–1700, three volumes (Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp., 1971–1977). 3 M. Kempe, “‘Mind the next flood!’ Memories of natural disasters in Northern Germany from the sixteenth century to the present,” The Medieval History Journal 10, nos. 1–2 (2007); G. Bankoff, “The ‘English Lowlands’ and the North Sea Basin system: A history of shared risk,” Environment and History 19 (2013). 4 T. Bosch, “Natuur en cultuur. Modernisering van hulpverlening na catastrofale overstromingen in de Nederlandse Delta, 1740–1861,” Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 21, nos. 1–2 (2012), 46; P.J.E.M. van Dam, “An amphibious culture. Coping with floods in the Netherlands,” in Local places, global processes, eds. P. Coates, D. Moon, and P. Warde (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2016).

Enlightened Ideas in Commemoration Books

Map 12.1

277

Areas flooded by the storm surge of 3–5 February 1825. After Zeiler, “De vergeten watersnood”.

islands, the provinces of Utrecht and Holland, and of the islands in the southwestern region belonging to Holland and Zeeland (see map 12.1). Although the flood affected a vast expanse of the Flemish, Danish and German coastline, in the Netherlands, a relatively modest number of 379 lives were lost.5 5 J. van Malde, Historische stormvloedstanden. Rapport 2003.08.1 (s.l.: Rijkswaterstaat, rikz, 2003), 71; F.D. Zeiler, “1825: De 'vergeten' watersnood,” Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 16, no. 1 (2007): 20, map.

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Some of the most important accounts of the floods came from commemoration books. Three of the largest and most significant works covered varying parts of the Netherlands. Johannes Beijer wrote a commemoration book ­entitled Commemoration book of the Dutch flood of February 1825.6 At 800 pages, it was by far the largest book and although it had a strong focus on Holland and Gelderland, it covered all flooded regions. The title of the book by Nicolaas Swart, Historical account of the severe flood on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of February 1825, that affected a large part of our Fatherland, suggests that the book of some 400 pages dealt with the whole of the Netherlands.7 Only half of the book surveyed areas outside Holland and Amsterdam, however. The third author, Jacob van Leeuwen, wrote a book of 320 pages dealing with the province of Friesland, Historical account of the floods and the inundations in the province of Friesland: which occurred in Gleaning Month [February] mdcccxxv.8 No scholarly national survey exists that focuses on the 1825 flood or its historiography, but several regional flood studies detail its effects on a more ­restricted spatial scale. In his study of Overijssel, F. Zeiler emphasized that this flood was regarded as the largest “flood of the century” by contemporaries. In that respect, it was comparable to the status of the 1953 flood in the twentieth century. In 1953 a large part of the Southwestern Netherlands was flooded, and about 2,000 lives were lost.9 F. Wieringa published a compelling account of the  flood in the region of Waterland, situated in Noord-Holland just north of the IJ.10 All these works resuscitated interest in the 1825 flood. Toon Bosch has proposed interpreting all flood texts as elements of a national flood culture that existed in the nineteenth century and contributed to developing Dutch national identity. Royal tours of flooded areas became important elements of this flood culture, such as the visit of King William i to regions flooded by the Zuiderzee in 1825 and of King William iii to regions flooded by the rivers Meuse and Rhine in 1855 and 1861. Paintings and prints of these royal 6 7 8 9 10

J. C. Beijer, Gedenkboek van Neerlands watersnood in Feburarij 1825 (The Hague: J. Immerzeel Jr., 1826). N. Swart, Historisch tafereel van den zwaren watersnood op den 3den, 4den en 5den Februarij 1825 een groot deel van ons Vaderland hebbende getroffen (Amsterdam: Schalekamp & Van de Grampel, 1826). J. van Leeuwen, Geschiedkundig tafereel van den watervloed en de overstroomingen in de provincie Vriesland: Voorgevallen in Sprokkelmaand mdcccxxv (Leeuwarden: G.T.N. Suringar, 1826). Zeiler, “1825: De ‘vergeten’ watersnood,” 19–26; F.D. Zeiler, “Ter Pelkwijk en het ‘vaderlandsch gevoel’,” in Overijssels watersnood. Een heruitgave van het verslag van de ramp van 1825 (Zwolle: Stichting IJsselacademie, 2002). F. Wieringa, Watersnood in Waterland. De ramp van 1825 (Edam: Vrienden van de Hondsbossche, 2010).

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visits publicized the events and became iconic representations of the relationship between king and subject.11 Memory studies offer a valuable new perspective on the relationship between flood history and the development of national identity. H. Pieters ­began the comparative study of flood commemoration books starting with the floods of 1775, 1776 and 1825. He argues that the new genre of commemoration books increased in popularity after 1775 and drew on significant connections to preexisting genres of flood texts like pamphlets, chronicles, and books of general history. The goal of this new genre was typical of the Enlightenment. Commemoration books were aimed at educating the readers and at instructing them how to behave in times of flood. G. Boomsma and P. van Dam investigated occasional poetry about the 1825 flood. They addressed issues of memory and charity and explained the motives of individuals for contributing to flood relief. They traced several Enlightenment ideas in the poems written by donors, and emphasized communal responsibility for disaster aid and recovery.12 A broad international literature currently exists employing textual sources to uncover the relationship between knowledge and memory production in the aftermath of disasters. In his study on natural disasters in the Alps, C. Rohr developed a cultural-historical model to describe the perception of events of this kind. Other studies, for example, focused on the build-up of knowledge through repetitive river floods or the role of memory in knowledge building about sea defence.13 Mental strategies for coping with disasters changed over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the E ­ nlightenment influenced much of this transition. In her study on the seventeenth- and ­eighteenth-century dike culture of the Marsh region in Schleswig-Holstein, M.L. Allemeyer makes a distinction between four different answers to the question: How safe are our dikes? The more Enlightened or technological-­optimistic 11 12

13

T. Bosch, “Nijmegen en zijn ‘gryze Stroomgod,’ Hoogwater, strenge vorst en calamiteuze watersnoden, 1781–1861,” Jaarboek Numaga 56 (2009). Pieters, “Herinneringscultuur van overstromingsrampen,” 48–57; A. Soetaert also followed a memory approach, using more types of sources to study the floods of 1409, 1571 and 1740, but concentrated on one city, Namur in French Belgium: “’Pour servir de mémoire à la postérité’: Herinneringscultuur en overstromingen in het vroegmoderne ­Namen,” Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 22, no. 2 (2013); G.R. Boomsma and P.J.E.M. van Dam, “‘Voor de ongelukkigen van de watersnood’: Historisch onderzoek naar de d­ onorsmotieven bij watersnoden in de negentiende eeuw,” Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 24, no. 1 (2015); G. Poliwoda, Aus Katastrophen lernen: Sachsen im Kampf gegen die Fluten der Elbe 1784 bis 1845 (Cologne, etc.: Böhlau, 2007). C. Rohr, Extreme Naturereignisse im Ostalpenraum: Naturerfahrung im Spätmittelalter und am Beginn der Neuzeit (Cologne, etc.: Böhlau, 2007); Poliwoda, Aus Katastrophen lernen; Kempe, “Mind the next flood.”

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one that gains prominence in the late eighteenth century is that the dike can protect us as long as mankind cares enough about the maintenance of the dike.14 This has also been described as an appeal to coastal communities to undertake action to influence nature and to protect themselves from the dangers of the sea. From this perspective, a storm surge or flood happened when human changes to nature did not fit into God’s order of nature. Sundberg also contributed an important study on Enlightened and other ideas in flood literature, distinguishing several strands of discourses, including religious, technological and administrative ones.15 J. Buisman studied disasters to measure the penetration of Enlightened ideas into Dutch narratives constructed about these events. In his study, the focus is on the authors of publications on disasters.16 His conclusions mirror the consensus view that it is too simple to state that scientific theories simply substituted religious narratives.17 One may summarize the above by stating that flood coping strategies shifted along a spectrum away from traditional-religious perspectives towards strategies with more diversified and perspectives based on reason and science. R. Esser and M. Meijer Drees, in their introduction to the special issue of the journal Dutch Crossing devoted to natural disasters, mentioned that there is as yet no overarching, operational theory for systematically studying how people apply coping strategies and narratives to come to terms with catastrophes. We propose that devising such a theory should also include the making of narratives, in our case the production of commemoration books.18 For 1825 we expect that we can identify Enlightened ideas in flood reporting strategies, the presentation and drama of flood narratives, in the interpretive meaning assigned to the flood, and in particular the way authors approached transcendental or religious issues. In this chapter we pose two sets of questions about the commemoration books. Who were the authors and how did they work? What was the choice of motives (short stories or anecdotes) in the ­narratives? What was their attitude to God and to science? In answering these 14 15 16 17 18

M.L. Allemeyer, “Kein Land ohne Deich…!:” Lebenswelten einer Küstengesellschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006). A. Sundberg, “Claiming the past: History, memory, and innovation following the Christmas Flood of 1717,” Environmental History 20, no. 2 (2015). J.W. Buisman, Tussen vroomheid en Verlichting. Een cultuurhistorisch perspectief en –­sociologisch onderzoek naar enkele aspecten van de Verlichting in Nederland (1755–1810) (Vleuten: J.W. Buisman, 1992). F. Mauelshagen, “Disaster and political culture in Germany since 1500,” in Natural disasters, cultural responses, eds. C. Mauch and C. Pfister (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2009), 61. R. Esser and M. Meijer Drees, “Coping with crisis: An introduction,” Dutch Crossing 40 (2016): 93–96.

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questions, we will demonstrate that commemoration books served as important vehicles for Enlightened memory production about the flood. The first part of this chapter describes and analyses the authorship of the selected 1825 commemoration books. It opens with short biographical notes on the authors and explores how the books fit into the oeuvre of the authors and how the authors worked. In the second part, we analyse the narratives. We focus on the religious and scientific frames authors used to interpret the floods. 2

The Authors: Life and Oeuvre

Jacob van Leeuwen (1787–1857) was the author of Geschiedkundig tafereel van den watervloed en de overstroomingen in de provincie Vriesland. He was born in the small town of Nieuwkoop in the province of Holland. His father, Cornelis van Leeuwen, was the mayor of Nieuwkoop and a large landowner. Jacob van Leeuwen intended to become a minister in the local Remonstrant Church. He received preparatory secondary education in Nieuwkoop, and in the large ­cities of Leiden and Hoorn, and then registered at the Remonstrant seminary in Amsterdam. In 1811, however, he was forced to leave the seminary when the difficult socio-economic circumstances caused by Napoleonic policies in the Netherlands left both his parents and the seminary without sufficient funding to complete his training. Van Leeuwen moved to the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands to become the private teacher of the children of Ambrosius Aijso van Boelens, the president of the juridical court of the town of Heerenveen.19 This was the start of a long-lasting administrative-juridical career in Friesland. He began as assistant-registrar at the juridical court of the town of Leeuwarden and ended as first registrar of the newly created provincial court of Friesland in Leeuwarden.20 Once settled in Friesland, Van Leeuwen developed a lively interest in the history of Friesland. This interest was intensified after writing the 1825 commemoration book, the more so because he integrated studies on previous floods in Friesland into the book. The most important of these books was by A.S. Gabbema.21 Gabbema was appointed as chronicler of Friesland in 1659 and collected sources on the history of Friesland. 19

W. Eekhoff, “Levensberigt van Jacob van Leeuwen,” Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde (1858). 20 “Jacob van Leeuwen,” in Repertorium van ambtsdragers en ambtenaren 1428–1861, http://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/Repertorium/app/personen/957, accessed 22 January 2013. 21 S.A. Gabbema, Nederlandsche watervloeden, of nauwkeurige beschrijvingen van alle ­watervloeden voorgevallen ... nabuirige landen (Gouda: T. Guberleth, 1703).

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He was one of the first authors who used primary sources for his writing about the flood history of Friesland. The strong regional focus of the book by Van Leeuwen is explained at least in part by the fact that Friesland was the new patria of the author. Although he was born in Holland, after his first appointment as a teacher in Heerenveen in 1811, Van Leeuwen never left Friesland. He was among the founding members of the Frisian Society for History, Archaeology, and Linguistics (Friesch genootschap voor geschied-, oudheid- en taalkunde) founded in 1827. He was also an active member of the local department of the Society for Public Welfare, the “Nut” (Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen). The Nut was an organization founded in 1784, which aimed to educate and enlighten ordinary citizens in the Netherlands. It founded schools and its members participated in public debates through publication in public media like journals. As such the Nut was a central element of the Dutch Enlightenment. Across the Netherlands several departments of the Nut were founded, mostly chaired by local politicians, lawyers and doctors.22 Because of his work at the court and his active participation in the department of the Nut, he was a well-known member of the bourgeois elite of Friesland. In 1840, he was appointed as the first provincial archivist and started collecting documentary sources and old prints from different institutions in Friesland. These activities eventually led to the opening of the Provincial Library of Friesland (Provinciale Bibliotheek van Friesland) in 1852. From 1850 on he was also the provincial librarian. The functions of archivist and librarian were both volunteer jobs executed in addition to his function at the court in Leeuwarden.23 Nicolaas Swart (1779–1846) was the author of the commemoration book ­Historisch tafereel van den zwaren watersnood etc. It dealt with the 1825 flood in Noord-Holland. Swart was born in the Frisian town of Oostermeer and went to the Latin School in the city of Franeker. He followed a similar professional path to other members of his family and enrolled as a student of medicine at the University of Groningen in 1796. He switched studies to theology, however, and joined the Remonstrant Church. He received training at the Remonstrant seminary in Amsterdam and then served as a minister in the cities of Gouda and Leiden. From 1808 until his death, Swart held a position as a Remonstrant 22 23

W.W. Mijnhardt and A.J. Wichers, Om het algemeen volksgeluk: Twee eeuwen particulier initiatief 1784–1984 (Edam: Maatschappij tot het Nut van ’t Algemeen, 1984). Eekhof, “Levensberigt,” 218, and “Mr. J. van Leeuwen,” Biographisch woordenboek der Noorden Zuidnederlandsche letterkunde, eds. J.G. Frederiks and F. Jos. van den Branden (Amsterdam: 1888–1891). http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/bran038biog01_01/bran038biog01_01_2466. php, accessed 4 April 2018; J. Frieswijk, J. Huizinga, L. Jansma, and Y. Kuiper, Geschiedenis van Friesland 1750–1995 (Amsterdam: Boom, 1998).

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minister in Amsterdam. He was a member of the national board of the Nut for a period of twenty-five years. Swart published an extensive oeuvre on several subjects, including a study about the history of Amsterdam, although most works were on pedagogy.24 He published his 1825 flood account during his time in Amsterdam. Swart’s personal ties with Noord-Holland explains his regional approach. Johan Coenrad Beijer (1786–1866) published a commemoration book on the 1825 flood entitled Gedenkboek van Neerlands watersnood in Feburarij 1825 that covered all of the flooded territories around the Zuiderzee, particularly Holland and Gelderland. Very little information exists about his education and his choice of study is unknown.25 He was born in Schiedam and started his career in Delft in 1814, where he became a lecturer at the recently established Artillery and Military Engineering School. Initially, he taught Dutch language and literature and later also geography. While in Delft, he found time to publish his account of the 1825 flood. When the school in Delft was closed in 1828 following the foundation of the new Royal Military Academy in Breda, Beijer moved to Breda and continued teaching there. Unfortunately for him, formal complaints about his work as a lecturer were raised. Personal issues including an unhappy marriage and financial problems possibly contributed to his difficult situation. In July 1839, Beijer was forced to leave the academy. After his involuntary retirement, Beijer moved to The Hague where he lived the rest of his life. Apart from teaching and writing, Beijer was also active as a painter.26 Beijer authored several schoolbooks during his lifetime, mostly concerning geography and the Dutch language.27 In 1820, he published the Handleiding tot den Nederlandsen stijl. Of Volledige Aanwijzing Ter Vervaardiging Van Schriftelijke Opstellen Voor Nederlanders, Zoo in Het Algemeen (Handbook of Dutch style). This was a successful publication, as testified by the multiple editions. Beijer wrote this book for his cadets at the Artillery and Military E ­ ngineering School in Delft, whose training included Dutch spelling, grammar, and literature. The book was intended to improve the rhetorical skills of his cadets. After the first sections on spelling and grammar, subsequent sections present24

N. Swart, De oude van den Binnen-Amstel, of beschouwing van de zeden, gebruiken, enz. der hoofdstad (Amsterdam: Beijerinck & Willemsz., 1819). 25 “Johannes Coenraad Beyer,” Biographisch portaal, http://www.biografischportaal.nl /persoon/32193084, accessed 3 July 2017. 26 M.H.W. Aalders, Tussen kazerne en universiteit. De discussie over opvoeding en onderwijs aan de Koninklijke Militaire Academie te Breda in de negentiende eeuw (Nijmegen: gni, 1997), 99–100. 27 “Johan Coenraad Beyer,” in Biographisch woordenboek der Noord- en Zuidnederlandsche letterkunde, 64.

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ed several types of speech and different rhetorical models of argumentation.28 The book received praise from reviewers, so Beijer edited an abridged edition in 1823 for more general educational purposes.29 Other books in Beijer’s oeuvre seem to have followed the same publishing sequence. In 1828, he published a book on geography aimed at students in military schools. After his retirement in the 1840s, Beijer published works on geography for more general educational purposes. Beijer’s flood account had a broader geographic scope than those by Nicolaas Swart or Jacob van Leeuwen. He intended to write a survey of all territories impacted by the flood, although he devoted most of his attention to Holland and Gelderland. His wider orientation may be explained by a combination of facts and circumstances. He lived outside the flooded parts of the country, so his personal, emotional distance to the disaster was greater than in the two other cases. Also, he was the only professional lecturer working at an i­ nstitute of higher education and he was trained in two relevant professional disciplines, Dutch language and geography. All of this may have given him a larger, more nationally orientated mental framework than the other two, who p ­ roduced studies with a strong regional orientation. 3

Authors Doing Research

Beyond the personal backgrounds of Beijer, Swart, and Van Leeuwen, other characteristics of the authorship of the three commemoration books are of interest. How did the authors carry out their research? What sort of documents did they have and how did they acquire them? Did they also carry out research in person in an active way, for example by holding interviews with selected people or conducting on-site inspections? The authors used several types of documents as sources of information. Newspaper articles were important, whether self-collected articles or otherwise. The collection of newspapers issued by the publisher Holtkamp from the Frisian town of Sneek, for instance, was an important source for both Swart and

28 29

J. Noordegraaf, “Tussen oordeel en formulering. Ontleding anno 1820,” in: Reisgidsen vol Belluno’s en blauwbaarden: Opstellen over S. Vestdijk en anderen aangeboden aan Dr. H.A. Wage, ed. N. van Drunen (Leiden: Vakgroep Nederlandse Taal- & Letterkunde, 1976). Nieuwe bijdragen ter bevordering van het onderwijs en de opvoeding voornamelijk met betrekking tot de lagere scholen in de Vereenigde Nederlanden voor den jare 1821, (Leiden: ­David du Mortier en Zoon, 1830–1873): 573.

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Beijer.30 This first overview of the flood events was published in May 1825.31 The anonymous editor had collected and summarized all the newspaper reports concerning the flood in Friesland in the months of February, March, and April 1825. At only 0.50 Dutch guilders, this booklet provided a cheap alternative compared to other commemoration books, which sold for between 2.50 and 4 Dutch guilders. The narratives in this booklet concentrated on heroic stories of rescue operations all over Friesland. At the end of the booklet, the editor added a text on “the five best methods to purify the water and the flooded lands.” For a readership consisting of Frisian farmers whose clean water sources were polluted by the muddy and salty floodwater, this addendum would have provided practical advice for those who needed to drain floodwater as soon as possible. Both Swart and Beijer used the Holtkamp publication for the Frisian parts of their books. Beijer stated in his introduction that, among others, Holtkamp’s information helped him to speed up the research and publish more quickly.32 To his great frustration Beijer did not receive the official government sources and reports that he hoped to use prior to publication. Subscription lists for the commemoration books also indicate the three ­authors intended to reference each other’s books. These lists consisted of names of people who had ordered the book in advance.33 Swart is on the subscription list for Van Leeuwen’s book. Both Van Leeuwen and Swart are found on the subscription list for Beijer’s work. The authors probably wanted to use the publications of the other authors for their own purposes. However, this strategy proved to be unsuccessful since Swart’s book was published earlier than Van Leeuwen’s work and Beijer’s book only came out a year after the others. They also collected information from failed and unpublished books. In his introduction, Beijer states that he received sources on the flood from Portielje and Allart, who had collected these reports, but had not used them to publish commemoration books.34 Gerrit Portielje, a publisher located in Amsterdam, announced a publication about the floods in Noord-Holland, under the title 30 Beijer, Gedenkboek, vii. 31 Beknopt verslag van Vrieslands watersnood in februarij 1825, benevens een aanhangsel, middelen aanwijzende ter verbetering van bedorven water en overstroomd land (Sneek: F. Holtkamp, 1825). 32 Swart, Historisch tafereel, viii, 266–304. 33 The subscription list was a marketing tool for publishers to show that renowned members of the local government, nobility or even members of the royal family purchased a specific book. The subscription list also presented an opportunity to position one’s name among those of well-known citizens. In this specific case, the subscriber would find his name on a list presenting people who were willing to spend money for the relief of flood victims. 34 Beijer, Gedenkboek, iii.

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Noord-Hollandsch Waternood on 10 February 1825 in the Haarlem newspaper, the Opregte Haarlemsche Courant. The Weduwe Allart was a publisher in Leeuwarden.35 One might expect that the authors would also refer to historical surveys of floods and commemoration books of older floods to place the 1825 flood in historical perspective. For instance, the recent flood survey by N. Muyt might have provided useful historical context. However, this book is not quoted by any of the authors.36 Rather, the three authors referenced older commemoration books. For example, Swart mentions J. Hering’s Bespiegeling over Neêrlandsch waternood in his introduction. The book covered the 1775 and 1776 floods in the Zuiderzee area, focusing on the city of Amsterdam.37 As chief editor, ­Hering collected information on these events through the regular ­communication channels of the Amsterdam newspaper the Amsterdamsche Courant. Swart explicitly condemned Hering’s book for its tastelessness and injudiciousness, but he used the second part of the work containing the sources.38 ­Official ­reports from public authorities formed an important potential source of ­information for the authors as well, but access to this official d­ ocumentation was not guaranteed. The national Department of Water Management, for example, had b­ egun a tradition of compiling reports on floods. The oldest know ­examples are reports concerning the storms of 1806 and 1808.39 In his ­introduction, Beijer claims that he expected to receive official reports on the flood events from this Department, but apparently this never happened. Beijer remains rather vague and does not inform the reader why he did not get access to (all) sources.40 In addition to written documentation, authors sought first-hand information. Refugees provided one important source of information. In 1825, Swart 35

Allart’s collection of sources may have been related to the initiative by the Frisian ­reverend H.W.C.A. Visser, who passed away before he could finish his book on the flood, according to advertisements in the Frisian newspaper, Leeuwarder Courant, 18 and 22 ­February 1825. 36 N. Muyt, Geschied- en aardrijkskundige beschrijving van het Koningrijk der Nederlanden, benevens de geschiedenis der watervloeden en overstroomingen in hetzelve, aanvang nemende met den Cimbrischen of Kimberschen vloed tot op den tegenwoordigen tijd (­Zaltbommel: Johannes Noman, 1824). 37 J.H. Hering, Bespiegeling over Neêrlandsch waternood, tusschen den 14den en 15den nov. mdcclxxv. Two volumes (Amsterdam: Lovering & Allart, 1776). 38 Swart, Historisch tafereel, vii. 39 The Hague, National Archives (Hereafter: NA), Inspecteurs Waterstaat vóór 1850, 2.16.06, no. 232. 40 Beijer, Gedenkboek, i–vii. In NA, Department of Water Management no traces have been found of any correspondence between Beijer and the Department.

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­actually observed refugees pouring into his city as they were crossing the IJ from Waterland to Amsterdam.41 Van Leeuwen, who resided in Leeuwarden, may have had a similar experience. Although his hometown was not flooded, the city housed refugees from the flooded parts of Friesland. Whether or not they actually spoke with these people is not stated in the books, but it seems very likely considering the circumstances and Van Leeuwen’s interests. Of the three authors, only Van Leeuwen travelled through the flooded area of Friesland. He did not undertake his travels immediately after the flood in February. Rather, he waited until May, probably because travel conditions improved, as they did every year. In winter, rainwater flooded most low-lying polders and many minor roads. Drier conditions in the spring and the employment of windmills helped to drain the lands of this excess water.42 Van Leeuwen acquired firsthand accounts from victims and other witnesses, and produced descriptions of what he could observe from the areas still flooded in May. The book contains several traces of his research, such as his observations of the low-lying lands near the city of Lemmer that should be filled with grazing cattle during this time of year. Instead, Van Leeuwen observed the grasslands covered with crusts or black mud.43 In summary, the authors used several kinds of documents, including newspaper articles, accounts of earlier floods, documentation collected for unpublished commemoration books, and books on the flood by authors who ­happened to publish earlier. The two authors who had a more regional approach for their books, Swart and Van Leeuwen, had the opportunity to meet refugees and collect personal accounts. Yet only Van Leeuwen conducted research in the region outside his town of residence, so he seems to have spent more energy on his research. Evaluating the research methods of the authors, one may conclude that the use of several differing sets of written documentation probably contributed to the quality of their studies, as did their critical selection of the sources. This reinforces the status of the authors as professional writers. Yet, the relatively small amount of first-hand accounts and personal experience with the flooded areas, outside those where the authors happened to live, is remarkable. We presume that the need to publish soon after the disaster took place was great and maybe the high costs of time-consuming traveling also formed an impediment for research expeditions.

41 Swart, Historisch tafereel, 84. 42 Van Leeuwen, Geschiedkundig tafereel, 61. 43 Van Leeuwen, Geschiedkundig tafereel, 278.

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Disaster Narratives

In reporting on the devastating impacts of the flood, each of the authors constructed narratives to frame and explain the disasters. All three authors imparted specific meanings to the flood that could be transcendental, be it religious or not, or scientifically grounded. We consider two motives of the narratives, Gods intentions with regard to the flood and its causes, and stories about miracles, heroes and public authorities. The religious significance attached to the Zuiderzee flood was considerable. Several religious arguments can be distinguished in the discussions. The providential interpretation of the flood as a punishment of God had survived since the middle ages, but was no longer dominant by the nineteenth century and received little attention in the commemoration books. The English reverend A.S. Thelwall (1795–1863), who happened to live in the area prone to flooding in 1825, was the lone proponent of this interpretation. He was involved in the Dutch Reveil Movement that propagated a revival of Christian values.44 Thelwall interpreted the flood as the judgement of God for the sins of the Dutch people. One of the sins was the perception of flood as caused by natural causes.45 Swart gave a response in a sermon.46 He argued against the flood as a divine punishment. If the flood really was a punishment, God would have considered who in particular would deserve this. In other words, among the victims there should be a distinction between the sinners and the virtuous. The flood struck everyone, however, so it was not a punishment. Beijer agreed with this argumentation and added that one should not be so arrogant to think that one could understand God’s intentions.47 Van Leeuwen seemed not to address this issue directly. None of the authors adhere to the traditional religious view on this issue. The 1825 books reveal several new views on the meaning of floods, which one may interpret as Enlightened: More emphasize on how the disaster offered 44

A.S. Thelwall, Keert u tot Hem die slaat. Eene Christelijke opwekking aan de Nederlandsers; bij gelegenheid van de tegenwoordige overstroomingen/ na honderd jaar opnieuw uitgegeven en van een historische toelichting voorzien door J.C. Rullman. (Amsterdam: P. den Hengst & Zoon, 1825). 45 A. Kagchelland and M. Kagchelland, Van dompers en verlichten. Een onderzoek naar de confrontatie tussen het vroege protestantse Réveil en de Verlichting in Nederland (1815–1826) (Leiden: Eburon, 2009), 589–665; F. van Lieburg, Opwekking van de natie: Het protestantse Réveil in Nederland (Hilversum: Verloren, 2012). 46 N. Swart, “Mengelwerk. Leerrede over het ongepaste der bepaling van Gods oogmerken, wanneer hij een volk met rampen bezoekt, en het Christelijk gebruik, van de nu onlangs bij ons geledene, tot stichting en troost, te maken,” Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen (1825). 47 Beijer, Gedenkboek, 213–214.

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the people the opportunity to help each other, a new humanistic ideal, rather than on how the disaster was or was not a token of Gods wrath, which was the providential interpretation. Disasters, according to this important strand of religious discourse, were opportunities to strengthen religious virtue and practice Christian charity. In his book Swart presented the argument, that, although we lost in the material sense, we have gained in the immaterial, helping each other, adding: “We see that the main command of Christianity shines brilliantly in this disaster.”48 Beijer spoke of individuals who were enemies before the flood, but after the flood they turned to each other, helped each other and prayed together for peace with God and nature.49 Van Leeuwen likewise offered several examples of human kindness and the way individuals helped each other. A pregnant woman was saved by her neighbours and gave birth to a child on the boat that saved her.50 Another Enlightened religious strand is the idea that the flood showed God’s mercy. Considering nature’s power and the potential for greater destruction, if God had not protected his nation there would have been far more v­ ictims.51 Beijer provides numerous examples to support this view in his commemoration book. The people of the village of Katwoude in Noord-Holland, for ­instance, thanked God for saving the sea dike protecting their village.52 ­Further north, thanks to God and their own tireless efforts, the people of the town of ­Enkhuizen prevented their city from total devastation.53 In both the cities of Enkhuizen and Medemblik, God weakened the strong winds so the cities survived.54 This argument could also be connected to the previous a­ rgument of religious virtues and Christian charity. Those people spared the greatest ­devastation have even more motivation to help the victims. According to ­Beijer, because God had saved the inhabitants of Amsterdam, they felt g­ reater duty to help less fortunate fellow citizens in Waterland.55 The same principle ­applied to the inhabitants of the town of Monnickendam who housed refugees from Waterland and thanked God for being used as His tool to do so.56 By saving people, God gave them the opportunity to practice their Christian 48 Swart, Historisch tafereel, iii: “Het hoofgebod van het Christendom zien wij in deze ramp heerlijk uitblinken,” Swart, Historisch tafereel, 18. 49 Beijer, Gedenkboek, 33. 50 Van Leeuwen, Geschiedkundig tafereel,78. 51 Beijer, Gedenkboek, 55. 52 Ibid., 379. 53 Ibid., 400. 54 Ibid., 411. 55 Ibid., 269. 56 Ibid., 320.

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virtues. This argument about God’s mercy is an example of Enlightened religious ideas. Van Leeuwen likewise provided several comparable examples and lines of reasoning in his commemoration book. People who survived a flood were able to perform miracles afterwards, in the sense that God gave them the strength to do so.57 Beyond their religious meaning, floods also served as opportunities to promote other Enlightenment views, including rational explanations for disasters. In his introduction, Van Leeuwen explains that over the last few centuries land had gradually disappeared. In particular, the stretches of land situated outside the main dikes that formed an extra protective barrier against the waves had been eroded. Furthermore, the flood occurred in combination with spring tide and the two months before the actual flood were stormy.58 He compares these kinds of rational explanations of the flood and its consequences with less ­rational explanations that are apparently not to be believed, such as the ­popular story that the flood had been caused by an earthquake. There were no earthquakes as he states, but people heard noises and even felt tremblings. These were caused by the large stones in the cover of the dikes that were ­loosened by the flood. The supposed earthquake was not felt in Friesland but was felt in the other provinces. Also, Swart reports that earthquakes and strange water movements were seen by some.59 Concerning warnings for floods the authors favoured natural events rather than divine signals. Van Leeuwen states that the weather is the best indicator for an upcoming flood.60 Although authors of commemoration books favoured rational and natural causes as explanatory factors for flooding rather than divine causation, this reasoning did not disregard God entirely. Behind their narrative the E ­ nlighted view stands that God is responsible for the Creation, including natural d­ isasters, the first cause, so to say. However, the reasoning relegated God to a s­ econdary causal factor for the flood. This mental attitude was the result of a long-term mental development, as we explained in the introduction by ­referring to the studies of M.L. Allemeyer and others. Stories of miracles and heroic r­ escues would seem to fit awkwardly into commemoration books that privilege ­rational, natural disaster causation. Miracles occur as an act of “­special providence” when God suspended the ordinary functioning of nature. The disaster narratives of the 1825 flood contain great stories about miracles and heroes. What positions do authors take towards such stories and in p ­ articular how do they describe the 57 Van Leeuwen, Geschiedkundig tafereel, 186. 58 Ibid., ix, 4. 59 Swart, Historisch tafereel, 30. 60 Van Leeuwen, Geschiedkundig tafereel, 4–7.

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reactions of science and public authorities to the stories? Fortunately, newspapers published independent accounts of these miraculous events. On 18 March 1825, a short article in the Leeuwarder Courant reported on a fresh water well found on a small floating peat island in the flooded village of Munnekeburen. It provided enough water to keep everyone alive until they were saved.61 M. van Marum (1750–1837), the secretary of the Holland scholarly society (Hollandse Maatschappij der Wetenschappen) likely read this ­article and sent a letter to J.G. Verstolk van Stoelen, special Commissioner of the King in Friesland. A small committee investigated the miracle and concluded that the story of the well was part of the superstitious beliefs of people during dangerous confrontations with disasters.62 The report on the miraculous well issued by the Hollandse Maatschappij der Wetenschappen in 1825, was integrated as an annex by Van Leeuwen to his account of the flood of 1825.63 He reported on the commission of enquiry and referred to a much inflated “urban legend” about the well published in the newspaper the Leeuwarder Courant. Importantly, Van Leeuwen dismissed the story and chose the more scholarly, Enlightened position towards the miracle, relying on scientific investigation. Another great story deals with the hero Harmen Jans Groen, a fisherman from the small town of Vierhuis in the province of Friesland, who saved fifty people in his home town with his small boat.64 The story of Groen was doubted from the start, some eyewitnesses even claimed that Groen only wanted to save himself.65 The authorities quickly chose to defend the narrative of Groen as a hero and the Nut department in the Frisian capital of Leeuwarden started to collect money to support him. They investigated the rumours and complaints about Groen and in their report, written by department member C. Robidé van der Aa, they supported Groen’s narrative.66 According to Van Leeuwen, the commission in Leeuwarden received around 2000 guilders 61 62

Leeuwarder Courant, 18 March 1825. Leeuwarden, Tresoar, Archive Provinciaal Bestuur Friesland, no. 3904 (1825). Although the well of Munnekeburen was demystified by the scientific report, this does not necessarily imply that the narrative of this report became dominant over the initial narrative. In late nineteenth-century travel books on Friesland one can find the story of this miracle without the scientific explanation. J. Hepkema, Historische wandelingen door Friesland 1894–1917: Eenvoudige memoires en bemerkingen langs straten en wegen voor landgenoot en vreemdeling (Leeuwarden: De Tille, 1970), 530–531. 63 Van Leeuwen, Geschiedkundig tafereel, Annex B, 104. 64 Beijer, Gedenkboek, 686. 65 A. de Jong, Tusken Tsjûkemar en it Nannewiid: Geschiedenis van de dorpen Rohel, Rotsterhaule en Sint Johannesga (Joure: Werkgroep Historie Sint Johannesga, 1996), 31–32. 66 C.P.E. Robidé van der Aa, Hulde aan Harmen Jans Groen, visscher te Vierhuis (Leeuwarden: G.T.N. Suringar, 1825).

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explicitly ­donated for Groen. The king bestowed a silver tobacco box on Groen and an unknown lady from Rotterdam donated a golden ring.67 Van Leeuwen mentions the Groen controversy, but does not take a strong position in this debate. He simply refers to the pamphlet by Robidé van der Aa reproducing his findings. ­Nevertheless, Van Leeuwen feels that the controversy has prevented other h ­ eroes or heroic stories from coming forward. The names of these unknown heroes have already disappeared because of that as he writes.68 Beijer celebrates the story by putting an engraving showing Groen in action at the frontispiece of his book and presenting the story in the same way as the other authors.69 Yet another heroic story is that of the College Zeemanshoop. It was a kind of workers union for seamen, founded in 1822.70 During the flood, the shippers of this union had been very active in rescuing people from the flooded lands across the IJ River, north of Amsterdam. Captain Pakes and three others from the College Zeemanshoop received a medal from the King.71 Swarts not only recounts this heroic story, he even dedicates his book to the College Zeemanshoop. In the introduction, he compares the heroic acts by the College with the heroic acts of the Prince of Orange during the Battle of Waterloo.72 The third kind of motive we investigate is the role of public authorities and the Royal Family. Swart glorifies the roles of the mayor of Amsterdam, the governor of Noord-Holland, and the Prince of Orange. The mayor of ­Amsterdam, D.W. Elias (1758–1828), coordinated the rescue operations from the city. Elias organized the housing of refugees from Noord-Holland within the city of ­Amsterdam and took some supplementary measures, like ordering the bakeries in the city to produce more bread for the refugees. On 5 February, the ­governor of Noord-Holland, A.W.N. van Tets van Goudriaan (1771–1837) arrived in ­Amsterdam and crossed the IJ River to see the flooded lands himself. He stayed in Amsterdam for several days to coordinate rescue operations and to plan reparation of the broken dike section near Durgerdam. The Prince of ­Orange, the later King Willem ii (reigned 1840–49), visited Amsterdam on 13 and 14 F­ ebruary 1825. His stay in the capital included visits to the flood refugees.

67 Van Leeuwen, Geschiedkundig tafereel, 214. 68 Ibid., 128. 69 Beijer, Gedenkboek, 686. 70 College Zeemanshoop still exists. Its office is in Amsterdam and it has developed several cultural and educational goals: www.zeemanshoop.nl, accessed 18 August 2017. 71 Swart, Historisch tafereel, iv. 72 Ibid., i–ii.

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On one of these occasions, the prince became the Godfather for a child who was about to be born.73 Beijer reinforces the stories as presented by Swart. He praises the mayor of Amsterdam because the city had prepared well for such a disaster. He credits the governor of Noord-Holland for visiting the flooded areas already on the second day of the flood. Beijer admires his decisiveness.74 In addition, King ­William i (reigned 1814/15–1840) is prominent in the text, namely in the passages where Beijer summarizes the money collected for the victims. Here he incorporates a number of Royal Decrees issued by the king concerning the national collection of money and the recovery of dikes and other infrastructure.75 Van Leeuwen provides a similar story for Friesland. He comments very positively on the special commissioner sent to Friesland by the King after the flood. He praises this commissioner, Baron J.G. Verstolk van Stoelen (1776–1845), for his resolute policies to quickly repair the dikes.76 In each of these narratives, the authors shared what may be called an ­Enlightened approach. Curious stories were not taken for granted, but submitted to thorough investigation and, in the absence of evidence, eventually discounted. Yet, the authors also promoted other stories, in particular heroic tales like those of Groen or the College Zeemanshoop. These stories served the important function of portraying examples of good behaviour. The same applies to accounts of public functionaries. The mayor, the governor, the commissioner, the Prince, and the King behaved responsibly, they showed concern for the people, they acted swiftly and they took effective measures. The stories r­ einforce the Enlightened view that people must act with selflessly for the ­public good. 5 Conclusion In the context of their personal lives and in their scholarship, the authors of the investigated three commemoration books of the Zuiderzee Flood of 1825 73

The Prince visited the Nieuwezijds Heeren Logement (The Lords Hotel at the Nieuwezijds Canal), the barracks of Oranje Nassau and the Aalmoezeniershuis (Almoners orphanage). Van Leeuwen, Geschiedkundig tafereel, 226–228; B. Wouda, Watervluchtelingen verzord en verguisd. Hulpverlening in Bunschoten, Eemdijk en Spakenburg na de overstroming van Eemland in 1916 (Spakenburg: Bertus Wouda, 2016), 69–81. 74 Beijer, Gedenkboek, 266–278, 304. 75 Beijer, Gedenkboek, 740–749. 76 Van Leeuwen, Geschiedkundig tafereel, 222–225. The research for this study was carried out by Harm Pieters and financed by VU Amsterdam and the Nieuw Land Erfgoedcentrum, Lelystad.

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all showed traits of typical well-educated nineteenth-century bourgeois men, ­adhering to Enlightened norms and values. They held prominent positions within Dutch society. Nicolaas Swart was a minister, Johan Beijer a lecturer, and Jacob van Leeuwen a court registrar. Van Leeuwen pursued intellectual ­hobbies in addition to his job. The other two were board members of the ­Society for Public Welfare, the Nut (Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen), which was the embodiment of progressive Enlightened values. All three were trained writers, but in all cases the commemoration book was not typical of the oeuvre of the author. None had any prior experience in flood description and only Swart had some experience with writing a historical study. Rather than attempts at professional scholarship, flood commemoration books may be seen as an i­ntellectual pastime fitting the Enlightened bourgeois lifestyle. The authors’ narrative choices reveal their Enlightened positions and attitudes. They adhered to the more Enlightened religious view of the merciful God ­acting only at a distance. They explained that floods were the result of ­natural phenomena and not providential expressions of divine wrath. The ­authors criticized the most fanciful stories and grounded their critiques in scientific research. Yet, they included some stories, in particular stories of heroism and virtuous governance, because they promoted virtuous citizenship. The main moral message of the commemoration books is that people must help each other. The religious version of this message is that God has created a universe which includes natural disasters like floods, in order to give people the opportunity to do so. In this way commemoration books contributed to the creation of Enlightened flood memories in the Netherlands. Disaster is, ­according to the authors, a chance, a most optimistic stance, befitting the bourgeois elite who was in control of the (natural) world. Bibliography Beknopt verslag van Vrieslands watersnood, in februarij 1825; benevens eenaanhangsel, middelen aanwijzende ter verbetering van bedorven water en overstroomd land. Sneek: F. Holtkamp, 1825. Nieuwe bijdragen ter bevordering van het onderwijs en de opvoeding voornamelijk met betrekking tot de lagere scholen in de Vereenigde Nederlanden voor den jare 1821. Leiden: David Du Mortier en Zoon, 1830–1873. Aa, C.P.E. Robidé van der. Hulde aan Harmen Jans Groen, visscher te Vierhuis. Leeuwarden: G.T.N. Suringar, 1825. Aalders, M.H.W. Tussen kazerne en universiteit: De discussie over opvoeding en onderwijs aan de Koninklijke Militaire Academie te Breda in de negentiende eeuw. Nijmegen: GNI, 1997.

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Allemeyer, M.L. Kein Land ohne Deich…! Lebenswelten einer Küstengesellschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006. Bankoff, G. “The ‘English Lowlands’ and the North Sea Basin system: A history of shared risk.” Environment and History 19 (2013): 3–37. Beijer, J.C. Gedenkboek van Neerlands watersnood in Feburarij 1825. The Hague: J. Immerzeel Jr., 1826. Boomsma, G.T., and P.J.E.M. van Dam. “‘Voor de ongelukkigen van de watersnood’: Historisch onderzoek naar de donormotieven bij watersnoden in de negentiende eeuw.” Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 24, no. 2 (2015): 24–37. Bosch, T. “Natuur en cultuur: Modernisering van hulpverlening na catastrofale overstromingen in de Nederlandse Delta, 1740–1861.” Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 21, nos. 1–2 (2012): 39–47. Bosch, T. “Nijmegen en zijn ‘gryze stroomgod’. Hoog water, strenge vorst en calamiteuze watersnoden 1781–1861.” Jaarboek Numaga 56 (2009): 33–53. Branden, F. J. van den, and J.G. Frederiks. Biographisch woordenboek der Noord- en Zuidnederlandsche letterkunde. Amsterdam: L.J. Veen, 1888–1891. Buisman, J.W. Tussen vroomheid en Verlichting: Een cultuurhistorisch en –sociologisch onderzoek naar enkele aspecten van de Verlichting in Nederland 1755–1810. Vleuten: J.W. Buisman, 1992. Dam, P.J.E.M. van. “An amphibious culture: Coping with floods in the Netherlands.” In Local places, global processes: Histories of environmental change in Britain and beyond, edited by P. Coates, D. Moon, and P. Warde, 78–93. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2016. Eekhoff, W. “Levensberigt van Jacob van Leeuwen.” Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde (1858): 218–242. Esser, R., and M. Meijer Drees. “Coping with crisis: An introduction.” Dutch Crossing 40 (2016): 93–96. Frieswijk, J., J. Huizinga, L. Jansma, and Y. Kuiper. Geschiedenis van Friesland 1750–1995. Amsterdam: Boom, 1998. Gabbema, S.A. Nederlandsche watervloeden, of nauwkeurige beschrijvingen van alle ­watervloeden voorgevallen ... nabuirige landen. Gouda: T. Guberleth, 1703. Gottschalk, M.K.E. Stormvloeden en rivieroverstromingen in Nederland 1400–1700. Three volumes. Assen: Van Gorcum & Comp, 1971–1977. Hepkema, J. Historische wandelingen door Friesland 1894–1917: Eenvoudige memoires en bemerkingen langs straten en wegen voor landgenoot en vreemdeling. Leeuwarden: De Tille, 1970. Hering, J.H. Bespiegeling over Neêrlandsch waternood, tusschen den 14den en 15den nov. MDCCLXXV. Amsterdam: Lovering & Allart, 1776. Jong, A. de. Tusken Tsjûkemar en it Nannewiid: Geschiedenis van de dorpen Rohel, Rotsterhaule en Sint Johannesga. Joure: Werkgroep Historie Sint Johannesga, ­ 1996.

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Kagchelland, A., and M. Kagchelland. Van dompers en verlichten: Een onderzoek naar de confrontatie tussen het vroege protestantse Réveil en de Verlichting in Nederland 1815–1826. Leiden: Eburon, 2009. Kempe, M. “‘Mind the next flood!’ Memories of natural disasters in Northern Germany from the sixteenth century to the present.” The Medieval History Journal 10, nos. 1–2 (2007): 327–354. Leeuwen, J. van. Geschiedkundig tafereel van den watervloed en de overstroomingen in de provincie Vriesland; voorgevallen in sprokkelmaand 1825, met eene beschrijving van derzelver gevolgen voor dat gewest. Leeuwarden: G.T.N. Suringar, 1826. Lieburg, F. van. Opwekking van de natie: Het protestantse Réveil in Nederland. Hilversum: Verloren, 2012. Malde, J. van. Historische stormvloedstanden. Delft: Rijkswaterstaat, Rijksinstituut voor Kust en Zee, 2003. Mauelshagen, F. “Disaster and political culture in Germany since 1500.” In Natural disasters, cultural responses, edited by C. Mauch and C. Pfister, 41–75. Lanham: ­Lexington Books, 2009. Mijnhardt, W.W. and A.J. Wichers. Om het algemeen volksgeluk. Twee eeuwen particulier initiatief 1784–1984. Edam: Maatschappij tot het Nut van ’t Algemeen, 1984. Molhuysen, P.C. and P.J. Blok, eds. Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek. ­Volume 10. Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff, 1937. Muyt, N. Geschied- en aardrijkskundige beschrijving van het Koningrijk der Nederlanden, benevens de geschiedenis der watervloeden en overstroomingen in hetzelve, aanvang nemende met den Cimbrischen of Kimberschen vloed tot op den tegenwoordigen tijd. Zaltbommel: Johannes Noman, 1824. Noordegraaf, J. “Tussen oordeel en formulering. Ontleding anno 1820.” In Reisgidsen vol Belluno’s en blauwbaarden: Opstellen over S. Vestdijk en anderen aangeboden aan Dr. H.A. Wage. Edited by N. van Drunen, 104–113. Leiden: Vakgroep Nederlandse Taal & Letterkunde, 1976. Pieters, H.D. “Herinneringscultuur van overstromingsrampen. Gedenkboeken van overstromingen van 1775, 1776 en 1825 in het Zuiderzeegebied.” Tijdschrift voor W ­ aterstaatsgeschiedenis 21, nos. 1–2 (2012): 58–68. Poliwoda, G. Aus Katastrophen lernen: Sachsen im Kampf gegen die Fluten der Elbe 1784 bis 1845. Cologne, etc.: Böhlau, 2007. Rohr, C. Extreme Naturereignisse im Ostalpenraum: Naturerfahrung im Spätmittelalter und am Beginn der Neuzeit. Cologne, etc.: Böhlau, 2007. Soetaert, A. “‘Pour servir de mémoire à la postérité’, Herinneringscultuur en overstromingen in het vroegmoderne Namen.” Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 22, no. 2 (2013): 45–56. Sundberg, A. “Claiming the past: History, memory, and innovation following the ­Christmas Flood of 1717.” Environmental History 20, no. 2 (2015): 238–261.

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Swart, N. De oude van den Binnen-Amstel, of beschouwing van de zeden, gebruiken, enz. der hoofdstad. Amsterdam: Beijerinck & Willemsz., 1819. Swart, N. Historisch tafereel van den zwaren watersnood, op den 3den 4den en 5den ­Februarij 1825, een groot deel van ons vaderland hebbende getroffen. Amsterdam: Schalekamp & Van de Grampel, 1826. Swart, N. “Mengelwerk. Leerrede over het ongepaste der bepaling van Gods ­oogmerken, wanneer hij een volk met rampen bezoekt, en het Christelijk gebruik, van de nu onlangs bij ons geledene, tot stichting en troost, te maken.” Vaderlandsche l­ etteroefeningen (1825): 201–215. Thelwall, A.S. Keert u tot Hem die slaat. Eene Christelijke Opwekking aan de Nederlanders; bij gelegenheid van de tegenwoordige overstroomingen / na honderd jaar opnieuw uitgegeven en van een historische toelichting voorzien door J.C. Rullmann. ­Amsterdam: P. den Hengst & Zoon, 1825. Wieringa, F. Watersnood in Waterland: de ramp van 1825. Edam: Vrienden van de Hondsbossche, 2010. Wouda, B. Watervluchtelingen verzorgd én verguisd. Hulpverlening in Bunschoten, Eemdijk en Spakenburg na de overstroming van Eemland in 1916. Spakenburg: Bertus Wouda, 2016. Zeiler, F.D. “1825: De ‘vergeten’ watersnood.” Tijdschrift voor Waterstaatsgeschiedenis 16, no. 1 (2007): 19–26. Zeiler, F.D. “Ter Pelkwijk en het ‘Vaderlandsch gevoel’.” In Overijssels watersnood. Een heruitgave van het verslag van de ramp van 1825, edited by J. ter Pelkwijk, vi–xxii. Zwolle: Stichting IJsselacademie, 2002.

Chapter 13

Secret and Stillborn: A Dutch Fiscal Bill from 1947 to Protect Both Nature and Monuments on Dutch Estates Wybren Verstegen Since the nineteenth century, the ideal of protecting nature and monuments was on the rise in many countries in the Western World, and the Netherlands was no exception. During the twentieth century, one of the pressing ­questions that had to be answered was whether this protection was best served by ­direct government intervention, by handing the terrains and buildings over to ­foundations and associations such as the English National Trust, or that the issue could best be left to the owners. In the literature, the option of l­eaving ­natural protection to the owners of estates has generally been judged n ­ egatively. Hupke especially, writing about Germany, and Bess, writing about France, ­argued that private ownership proved to be detrimental for the p ­ reservation of nature on estates in the long run.1 Moreover, the English e­ xample (the National Trust) proved that running estates through a foundation could function well.2 During the first half of the twentieth century, the Dutch government opted for the third possibility. Although it was theoretically possible to confiscate private property for the sake of the protection of nature, the government – in practice- restrained to do so.3 This article examines the consequences of this choice for the long-term development of nature protection. Most studies on the history of the protection of nature focus on the preservation and conservation of “wild” or, in the case of the Americas, “unspoiled” nature. The US, with its large national parks, remains our main point of r­ eference. 1 Klaus Dieter Hupke, Naturschutz: Ein kritischer Ansatz (Heidelberg: Springer 2015), 53–55; Michael Bess, The light-green society. Ecology and technological modernity in France, ­1960–2000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 265. 2 James Ramsay Montagu Butler, Lord Lothian (Philip Kerr) 1882–1940 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1960); Merlin Waterson and Samantha Wyndham, The National trust. The First Hundred years (London: bbc Books, 1995); John Gaze and Len Clark, Figures in a Landscape. A history of the National Trust (Frome, Somerset: Barrie and Jenkins, 1988). 3 This happened only once before 1949. See Jacob Warmolt Keiser, Overheidszorg voor het n­ atuurschoon (Rotterdam: W.L. & J. Brusse, 1949), 46.

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Landed estates remain a somewhat neglected subject.4 In Western Europe, however, nature conservation on (old noble) estates had been at least as important, partly because there are so many of them, but also from an ideological point of view. Estates are the perfect example of places where “nature contains, though often unnoticed, an extraordinary amount of human history”.5 They are also good examples of pastoral nature in which humans, agriculture, and nature visibly interacted. Nowadays, many of these estates are indeed run by foundations, associations, or government institutions but immediately after the Second World War around two- thirds of them were in all likelihood still private property.6 Ten years ago, in 2007, this was less than one- fifth.7 After the First World War, rising wages and higher taxes put the profitable management of such estates under severe pressure. The Second World War made things worse. The International Castle Research Institute (founded in 1948) made it clear in 1953 that in most countries the preservation of private heritage sites became very hard after the Second World War.8 This was especially the case in countries where extensive war damage went hand- in- hand with higher taxes to finance war and reconstruction, as was the case in ­Germany and the Netherlands. This article illustrates how after 1945 governments in both countries tried to stop the demise of castles and estates without buying the owners out. As compensation for this support by the government, in Germany as well as in the Netherlands, the owners were obliged or at least encouraged to open their property to tourists; a development that grew in ­importance after the war. 1

Nature and Scenery

Before elaborating on the subject of post-war policies, we should realise that before the “green wave” of the 1960s, discussion about the protection of estates and nature had a strong aesthetic focus. This would only gradually change after 4 Bernhard Gissibl, Sabine Höhler, and Patrick Kupper, eds., Civilizing nature. National Parks in global historical perspective (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012). 5 Raymond Williams, quoted in Willam Cronon, “Introduction,” Uncommon ground. Rethinking the human place in nature, ed. William Cronon (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1996), 25. 6 Landgoederen en wandelterreinen in Nederland (The Hague: Koninklijke Nederlandse Toeristenbond anwb, 1946). 7 Compendium voor de leefomgeving, Omvang en openstelling van natuurterreinen, 2007, http://www.clo.nl/indicatoren/nl128203-openstelling-natuurgebieden, accessed 2 May 2018. 8 “Institut International des Chateaux,” in Nederlandse Kastelenstiching, Jaarverslag 8 (Wijk bij Duurstede: nks, 1953) 6–7.

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the war. For that reason, an important Interbellum law protecting the trees and forests on estates in the Netherlands was called The Nature Scenery Act (1928) was created- thereby implicitly paying tribute to the American Natural Park Service with its focus on the beauty of protected landscapes.9 The modern reader may also not be too surprised to find news about the implementation of this law in Dutch newspapers in the outdoor sports section. Though tourism was not yet flourishing, Davids has noted that from ca. 1900 onwards recreational possibilities were already seen as important to the creation of strong public support for nature conservation.10 This Nature Scenery Act gave the owner the option of paying substantially reduced taxes, especially on his or her inheritance, on condition that the estate was kept intact for at least a generation (twenty-five years). In practice, the aesthetic aspects of nature preservation were mixed with the aim of protecting historical sites and buildings, or, in short, monuments. It was not a coincidence that the name of the first Dutch organization to protect nature was Natuurmonumenten (Natural Monuments), as monuments and nature were both conceptualized as the remains from premodern times as heritage, to use the modern word. In the feverish discussions on how and why nature and monuments should be protected, the arguments for the preservation of both became closely intertwined. In 1923, a heritage organisation, De Hollandsche Molen (The Dutch Windmill), despite its primary focus on historic buildings also raised its voice against the disappearance of beautiful estates.11 The small estate of Mildenburgh in the southern province of Zeeland provides another illuminating example of this mixture. It could claim protection under the Nature Scenery Act on the grounds that it offered a beautiful view of the archaeological remains of a famous medieval castle.12 In a similar vein, a 1925 amendment to a law granting tax exemptions for owners of parks, hinted at the possibility of giving these owners further financial privileges if they would not only open up their parks for the public but would open up their art collections as well.13 In a speech given in 1929, the Dutch secretary of Finance, Dirk Jan de Geer (1929–1933), stated in one sentence that 9 10 11 12 13

Simon Wybren Verstegen, “The Nature Scenery Act of 1928 in the Netherlands,” Forest History Today 21 nos. 1–2 (2016), 6. Karel Davids, “Lage landen, verre horizonten. De verbinding van natuur, landschap en ‘Nederlandse’ identiteit in internationaal perspectief,” Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 121, no. 4 (2006): 607, 614–615. Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, evening edition, 21 September 1923. Nationaal Archief (Dutch National Archives, hereafter: NA), Archief van de Directie van de Landbouw, Afdeling Domeinen, Staatsbosbeheer en Cultuurtechnische aangelegenheden 1898–1941. 2.11.03, no. 1012, file 305, “Mildenburg en ’t Reigersnest”. Johannes Offerhaus, De wet op de personeele belasting (Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1925), 141.

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the ­government was of the opinion that both a law to protect monuments and a law protecting nature should be forthcoming.14 Therefore, the idea that nature and monuments should be protected under a common law was not as farfetched as one might think. It would take many years before such laws were turned into reality. The Dutch law protecting monuments of historic and artistic value came into being in 1961.15 A law to protect nature in general (not just the scenery on e­ states) was not even passed until 1967.16 The financial troubles of estate owners, however, which dated from the First World War, were much older. Though the Dutch remained neutral during this war, taxes had to be raised to pay for armed neutrality. Until 1928 no exceptions were made for the owners of estates.17 After the Nature Scenery Act was put into practice in that year, complaints about taxation did not stop. In 1937, these complaints were formulated explicitly in an important article on the desperate situation of castle owners, which will be examined in the next section. Landowners had to wait until after the S­ econd World War until an initiative was launched to extend the Nature Scenery Act.18 Shortly after the Second World War, in 1947, an initiative was launched to ­extend the Nature Scenery Act.19 This proposal perfectly illustrates the conceptual merging of the protection of nature and culture which Davids noticed in (Western) Europe in the twentieth century.20 In a country with more than one thousand estates, bringing the two aspects of nature and monuments ­under one umbrella could make protection more transparent, thorough, and, bureaucratically speaking, efficient for both owners and government.21 This law was never passed. The remainder of this chapter will examine why this 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21

Simon Wybren Verstegen, Vrije wandeling. Het parlement, de fiscus en de bescherming van het particuliere Nederlandse natuurschoon tussen 1924–1995 (Groningen: Historia Agriculturae, 2017), 134. Monuments and Historic Buildings Act (Wet houdende voorzieningen in het belang van monumenten van geschiedenis en kunst). Nature Conservation Act (Natuurbeschermingswet). See also Marijke van Schendelen, “De strijd om Arcadië: Natuur en landschap als domei­nen van ruimtelijke ordening,” in Landschap in meervoud. Perspectieven op het Nederlandse landschap in de 20e/21e eeuw, eds. Jan Kolen and Ton Lemaire (Utrecht: Jan van Arkel, 1999). Eugene Octave Marie van Nispen tot Sevenaer, “De nood onzer kasteelen,” Oudheidkundig Jaarboek. Vierde serie van het Bulletin van den Nederlandschen Oudheidkundigen Bond 6 (1937): 51–58. NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007. A serious problem concerning this dossier is that most of the letters are unsigned copies, meaning that some of the authors remain unknown. Davids, “Lage landen, verre horizonten,” 611–612. Landgoederen en wandelterreinen.

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law was proposed shortly after the war; who initiated it; if the law might have functioned in an age of mass tourism; and what financial, forestry, and heritage experts thought about it. Secondly, it investigates whether the proposed solution to the problem of conservation was strictly “Dutch” or if it was akin to solutions proposed in surrounding countries in which castle owners after the war found themselves in comparable circumstances. For practical reasons, we will focus on the comparison with Germany because both in Germany and the Netherlands the War had equally disastrous effects on heritage preservation. Many castles were damaged or completely destroyed by warfare, in the German case, more specifically, by what the German Vereinigung zur Erhaltung deutscher Burgen called the “unselige Bombenkrieg”.22 The question of why the initiative was stillborn in the Netherlands is not so clear, as information is lacking. However, what an international perspective can do is to help us elucidate that Dutch ideas on the subject were not unique, but similar to developments elsewhere. 2

Emergencies in the 1930s, Aggravated by the Second World War

In the aforementioned 1937 article about “the desperate situation of our castles” the nobleman Eugene van Nispen tot Sevenaer (1895- 1957), an art historian who was also director of the State Service for the Protection of Monuments, stated that taxes on wealth should be lowered considerably. These included taxes on furniture, staff, immobile property, and especially inheritance. One can imagine that for estates the level of the inheritance tax is decisive for the  probability of passing the property on from one generation to the next. In the mid-1920s the progressive inheritance tax was three times higher than before the First World War. Until 1878, children had not even been required to pay inheritance tax at all.23 Taxes on the property values were raised during the First World War to pay for the defence of the country.24 Higher taxes could force estate owners or their descendants to sell the castle (the monument) or parts of the estate (the nature). Dividing up the estate and selling parts of it 22 23

24

Rudolf Esterer, “Wiederaufbau und Denkmalpflege,” Der Burgwart 44 (May 1955): 7–8. Simon Wybren Verstegen, “Een der dragelijkste middelen. De politieke discussies in de Tweede Kamer over de belastingen op het recht van successie 1817–1878.” In Doel en middel. Aspecten van financieel overheidsbeleid in de Nederlanden van de zestiende eeuw tot heden, eds. W. Fritschy, J.K.T. Postma, and J. Roelevink (Amsterdam: neha, 1995); Jacobus Petrus Sprenger van Eyk and Bernhard Jan de Leeuw, De wetgeving op het recht van successie van overgang en van schenking (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1930), 951–952, 1019. Van Nispen tot Sevenaer, “De nood onzer kasteelen,” 55.

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could, at best, delay the problem for a generation but of course offered no solution in the long run. Van Nispen tot Sevenaer gave interesting reasons why the natural surroundings of castles are beautiful and should be preserved. He opted for a solution which first and foremost emphasized the social setting of castles. His idea was not to save the castle as such, but the owner as well as the ensemble; house, park, forests, and farmland, including the people living and depending on the estate. In fact, Van Nispen wanted to protect the old patriarchal and rustic relations between lords and tenants. Tourism might interfere with these relations if the old owners would be forced to leave their estates. Tenants would be surprised and curious to see the new and “artificial” interest tourists would take in the landscape. In his opinion, one should not be eager for this development. Van Nispen explicitly disliked the idea that castles or estate owners should depend on tourism. Therefore, in his view, the owner had to be given the opportunity to stay “at home” and run the place on his or her own account without government support or outside visitors. An owner surely would prefer this above anything else as he or she was acquainted with the house, the trees, the old tracks, and the neighbouring cottages. Paying visitors were not yet conceptualised as saviours of the estates and Van Nispen specifically did not want to see castles as museums.25 He wrote that transferring ownership to a foundation offered no solution for most castles. Only the few famous ones could be preserved in this way, and they would probably just keep the castle and alienate the estate. That the castle would be bought by “nouveau riches” was a horror for this nobleman of old stock, as they were not the right kind of people for this task, “as the history of France had shown”.26 Van Nispen was especially concerned that people who had earned their fortunes illegally during the First World War (war profiteers) would buy old castles. Another problem for the traditional estate owner was that a more rational exploitation of the estate was doomed because this would involve “modern” ways of forest exploitation with no respect for old growth trees. The only way out, according to Van Nispen, was a large tax reduction by the government. This should consist of a decreased tax on inheritance and staff, tax exemptions on wealth, and tax deduction on costly repairs on buildings, waterworks and parks, etc. The owner, however, should only get this beneficial treatment if he or she kept the nucleus of his or her property (the castle and its immediate surroundings) intact, landmarks of interest such as mills and old farmlands around villages. Van Nispen asked for special attention for the protection of old farmlands in 25 Ibid., 51 and 55. 26 Ibid., 53. They were geen geëigende kasteelheren: “no proper lords of the castle.”

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the neighbourhood of castles because they deliver the most spectacular views of the “mass of trees” (i.e. the forests surrounding the estate). In this proposal, landscape, trees, monuments, and old fashioned social relations could be protected together in all their glory, holding modern times at bay. Van Nispen tot Sevenaer wrote his proposal shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, which would aggravate the situation. In a 1955 booklet titled “Castles in Need” about the worrisome condition of castles in the ­Netherlands (containing a summary in French, English and German) we can read that at least thirty rather famous Dutch castles had been destroyed or severely damaged. This happened during operations such as “Market Garden” and other battles and bombings in the east and south of the country, where many castles were situated and most battles took place during the liberation of the country.27 Owners had to move and were robbed of their belongings. Other estates were severely damaged by massive deforestation by the occupying German forces, or by desperate people simply looking for firewood.28 3

The Institute for the Maintenance of Castles in the Netherlands

One of the most interesting scenes in the movie 84 Charing Cross Road is when (shortly after the Second World War) an antique bookseller named Frank visits an old English large estate because the owner is obliged to sell his ­tremendous collection of antique books as a result of his financial problems, including high taxes. The English state suffered from a severe shortage of money during and after the Second World War. The new Labour Government tried to mend the deficits by increasing taxes. This was not an exclusively English ­phenomenon. Dutch taxes soared and the inheritance tax more than doubled after the ­Second World War.29 The owners of castles held no privileges in this ­respect. One of the ways the Dutch government tried to cope with its financial 27

28 29

P.J. Droog, P.H. Pelser, and A.I.J.M. Schellart, Kastelen in Nood (Amsterdam: Bezige Bij, 1955). See also the many remarkable photographs of damaged castles in M. Bakker, K ­ astelen in oorlogstijd. Geschiedenis en restauratie van Nederlandse kastelen en buitenplaatsen tijdens en na de Tweede Wereldoorlog (unpublished Master thesis Utrecht University, ­August 2010); Elyze Storms-Smeets, “Verloren erfgoed. De destructie van landhuizen, ­buitenplaatsen en landgoederen in de twintigste eeuw,” in Huis en habitus. Over kastelen, buitenplaatsen en notabele levensvormen, eds. Conrad Gietman et al. (Hilversum: ­Verloren, 2017), 414–415. Droog, Pelser, and Schellart, Kastelen in Nood, caption of the photographs opposite pages 33 and 64; Verstegen, Vrije Wandeling, 61 and 92. For a comparison see note 14 and Staatsblad, 6 June 1947.

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­ roblems was by confiscating all properties in the Netherlands belonging to p Germans and former collaborators, including factories, firms, shares, horses, bank accounts, furniture, ships, entire islands, stamp collections, farms and farmland, copyrights, buildings, and estates and castles.30 For the management of some kinds of confiscated property, the state created special foundations. There was a foundation for Dutch art collections, one for diamonds, one for horses, for yachts, and for castles.31 The latter was called the Institute for the Maintenance of Castles in the Netherlands.32 Its task was to deal with the few dozen confiscated castles, mansions, and estates which were formerly owned by Germans or Dutch collaborators who had been part of the Dutch National Socialist Movement.33 One of the first problems the Institute had to cope with was the preservation of the estates in toto, as the state threatened to sell farms and other profitable parts of the confiscated properties to earn some “quick money”.34 Meanwhile, an important social change created new opportunities to preserve these castles: the coming of mass tourism, which was despised by Van Nispen in the Interbellum. Now it suddenly became a possible raison d’être for the confiscated castles. The influential Royal Dutch Touring Club wrote in March 1946: “Of course everybody wants to know if the activities of the Institute for the Maintenance of Castles in the Netherlands opens up the possibility to visit more castles than ever, thanks to these confiscations”.35 A couple of years later, the Institute itself even lauded the coming of television as it could show the public the beauty of the castles.36 Soon this Institute threw its nets far wider than former German-owned properties, and although there were some rival foundations, it pretended to speak for the whole nation. In this context, civil servants in 1946 came up with a new law to safeguard the Dutch castles. Of great importance for our analysis is that the initiative came from the government itself, as it was the government who had created the Institute in the first place. The letter in which the law concerning the protection of monuments and estates was announced, started 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Johan Willem Friso Wielenga, West-Duitsland: Partner uit noodzaak. Nederland en de Bondsrepubliek 1949- 1955 (Utrecht: Aula, 1989), 414–421. Inventaris van het archief van het hoofdkantoor van het Nederlandse Beheersinstituut (nbi), 1944, 1945- 1967 (1979) (The Hague: NA, 1996), 11. This is the official translation of the Nederlandse Kastelen Stiching as used in the English summary of the study by Droog, Pelser, Schellart, Kastelen in Nood, 88. Marieke Oprel, “(On)eigenlijk onteigend?,” Kasteelkatern Nederlandse Kastelenstichting 37 (2012): 4–7. Nederlandse Kastelenstichting, Jaarverslag 3 (Wijk bij Duurstede: nks, 1948), 4. anwb, De Kampioen 61, no. 3 (1946): 9–11. Nederlandse Kastelenstichting, Jaarverslag 8, 8.

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with relisting old complaints put in a new perspective.37 We should realise that since the end of the Second World War, tax issues for Dutch castle owners had become even worse. The main reason was that the government, in its desperate search for money, had placed an extra tax on all property which had risen in value during the war.38 The normal extra tax rate on the added value was ­fifty percent. When people had grown wealthier through black market activities during the war, the tax could be as high as ninety percent of the added v­ alue. It is clear that as almost everything had risen in value during the war, owners of estates, castles, monuments, and art collections were heavily afflicted.39 This is why the Institute for the Maintenance of Castles in the Netherlands sounded the alarm. Again, the idea was that the owners could stay and they themselves could exploit their property. The proposal was rather simple and repeated the solution formulated in 1937: lower tax rates. As was the case with the Nature Scenery Act, the idea was to give owners of monumental buildings the same tax exemptions as the owners of estates if they would promise to keep the monument intact and in good condition for twenty-five years. But the proposal added a stipulation that Van Nispen had left out when he mentioned the Nature Scenery Act in 1937. If the monument opened its doors to the public, the tax rate would be decreased further. As the castle-owners in most cases would be owners of an estate as well, possibly already protected by the Nature Scenery Act, the operation should be not too difficult. The main idea was to make it possible for the owners of castles to keep on living on their own estate. Neither the state, nor anyone else besides speculators in real estate, was in a position to buy out the owners to keep the estate and castle safe for future generations. This new law was called the Fiscal Law concerning Monuments and Nature Scenery.40 Correspondence about the draft shows that it was not clearly f­ormulated. One of the makers called it a hodgepodge (brouwsel in Dutch).41 The official who had to deal with the proposal, possibly P.J. van de Velde, asked a dozen ­experts for comments on 4 November 1946. Interestingly, Van de Velde asked his advisers to be very discrete with this text. It should be kept secret,

37

NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007, Letter of 4 November 1946. 38 The untranslatable Dutch term is Vermogensaanwasdeling. 39 L.J. Schiethart, “Enkele opmerkingen met betrekking tot de vermogensaanwasbelasting in verband met boschbezit ,” Tijdschrift der Nederlandsche Heidemaatschappij 58 (1947): 105. 40 Dutch: Fiscale Monumenten- en Natuurschoonwet. 41 NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007, Letter 21 January 1947.

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“­otherwise I will be in trouble”. Unfortunately, he does not explain why.42 He does mention that three days later, on 7 November 1946, a meeting would be held at the ­department of education to discuss things. The dossier of the proposal does not give any hints about the meeting, but it contains a couple of interesting commentaries on the proposal, mostly written in 1947. 4

The Hodgepodge

The proposal that was sent around for discussion in November 1946 contained many clauses, twenty-three in total, but most of them outline specific problems concerning taxes.43 The most interesting and relevant clauses are the numbers one to five which follow the opening statement saying that the law aims at the protection of monuments and estates. Clause one starts with a definition of a monument. A monument is a piece of real estate of at least thirty years old, considered to be worth protecting because of its beauty, its scientific or historical value, or its characteristics. The adjective “monumental” might also be applied to the centre of old cities or old picturesque villages. An estate is any piece of property worth preserving in the interest of nature protection or nature scenery. The second clause states that receiving such a qualification depends on the advice of a special commission which was working under the auspices of both the newly formed Department of Education, Art, and Sciences and the Department of Finance. The status of protected property depended on the extent to which the property was open to the public. The third clause tells us that owners of monuments and estates, when asking for tax exemptions, should address both departments and would require each department to give its consent. Clause four explains when and why this status could be removed. It could be the wish of the owner. It could also be a decision of both departments if the owner in some way or another damaged the historical or scenic properties of the buildings or the estate; by felling too many trees for instance. A third reason might be that the public was no longer able to visit the monument or the estate. Clause five explains that if the owner of an estate promises to keep the estate intact for twenty-five years, the taxable value of the estate would be lowered to the market value as a complete and intact piece of landed property 42 43

NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007. His colleague Six van Hillegom also talked about the “secret draft” of this law. NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007. A date is missing on this document as well as in its explanation. It should be remarked, however, that the proposal is completely worded in official terms, ready to be presented to parliament.

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instead of the real market value of the individual pieces of land and buildings that made up the estate. This last clause was more or less the nucleus of the whole arrangement. It was the same construction that the government had used in the Nature Scenery act of 1928, but now it ­explicitly applied to complete estates, including historical buildings (i.e. castles). E ­ xperience showed that, especially in areas close to cities or villages, the prices of small parcels of real estates were considerably higher than those of a complete estate. They were (and are) more valuable because at the outskirts of the cities real estate was fit for building expensive villas. Property taxes were based on these high values.44 In the explanation of the proposal, the author states that it was created to extend the Nature Scenery Act to historical buildings, including their h ­ istorical furniture, if the building would be opened up to the public. Another e­ xtension concerned nature. The Nature Scenery Act of 1928 focussed on ­forests and trees. Under the new law, owners of heathlands, ponds, and other “­natural” terrains could also apply for this special status. During the Interbellum, it was argued that these kinds of terrains were not really worth protecting. This was ­especially argued by Edo Bergsma, the influential chair of the Royal Dutch Touring Club.45 Therefore, the notion of widening protection to such new ­natural terrains was really new. One could say, this new law was a kind of ­Nature Scenery Act 2.0. 5

Adolph Staring’s Comments on the Proposal in the Winter of 1946–1947

In the winter of 1946–1947, the director of the Institute for the Maintenance of Castles in the Netherlands, Adolph Staring (1890- 1980) wrote a comment on the proposal.46 Staring was very critical about it, as predicted by the drafters of the hodgepodge. Staring’s remarks came down to the following points. He did not like the idea that the law asked for simply another commission, as there 44 45 46

Verslag van de vergadering van 14 September 1926 in het Koloniaal Instituut te Amsterdam (The Hague: anwb, 1926). “Een belangrijke rede,” Tijdschrift der Nederlandsche Heidemaatschappij 40, no. 9 (1928): 307. NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007, remarks written in December 1946 or January 1947. See his biography on: Rudolf Erik Otto Ekkart, “Staring, Adolph (1890–1980),” in Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland. http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/bwn1880-2000/lemmata/bwn2/staring, accessed 2 May 2018.

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were already two advisory boards involved; for nature conservation and monuments, respectively. On the other hand, the two operating advisory boards did not understand each other’s expertise, as one knew all about monuments and the other about trees and forests. Staring was fearful of infighting between departments and advisory-boards, which would be counter-productive and could demoralize owners. Moreover, he was concerned about the protection of nature reserves. The law should be more specific about the prerogatives of the owners. Owners of estates could take either too much or too little responsibility if there were no clear directives. What should happen if someone were to buy the monumental buildings but wanted to get rid of the estate or viceversa?47 One of his last complaints was that the proposal itself was limited to private persons who intended to live at their castle or monumental building. The break with the complaints of Van Nispen before the Second World War is clear: why not create a clause to make it much easier to donate castles and estates to municipalities, foundations, or limited companies who exploited family estates? Indeed, it seems that the proposal was not well thought out. Staring’s ­remarks fell on fertile ground. After a meeting with the experts involved, his remarks were accepted and his comments were forwarded to the two departments in January 1947, where they remained for a while.48 What was pressing to the Institute for the Maintenance of Castles in the Netherlands, probably was not as pressing to the department of Finance in this difficult year; economic reconstruction slowed down due to the harsh winter of 1946–1947, and the lack of coal, food, and other resources. It was the year that the Marshall Plan came to the rescue and the Dutch government became ever more involved in the costly colonial war in Indonesia. Moreover, while the reparation of churches, government buildings, and houses was deemed a priority, preserving castles simply was not.49 6

Second Round: Autumn 1947

Another round of interesting remarks started on 18 September 1947. J.K. van der Haagen, deputy of the Foundation of Art Collections for the Department 47 48 49

See also the annual report of the Institute: Nederlandse Kastelenstichting, Jaarverslag 2 (Wijk bij Duurstede: nks, 1947), 4. NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007, Letter 21 January 1947. Dirk van Laanen, “Aangehouden zorg: Rijksdiensten voor de monumenten 1939–1947,” Jaarboek Monumentenzorg (Zwolle: Waanders, 1995), 27.

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of Education, Arts, and Sciences, wrote a letter to Herman Schuttevaêr of the Department of Finance, who was a specialist in matters concerning the Nature Scenery Act.50 Among many others things, Van der Haagen wanted to expand upon what should be considered “scenery”. Before the war, scenery was about forests and trees. Van der Haagen wanted to talk about scenery and the protection of nature per se; not just trees and forests as was the focus of the Nature Scenery Act. He rejected the idea that the preamble of the law should mention the protection of “unspoiled” nature. It would be in contradiction with the way nature was protected in the Netherlands, as unspoiled nature did not really exist. Dutch nature was managed.51 Moreover, the new law should explicitly state that owners should preserve their forests, and trees would not be felled without the consent of his department, just as was the case in the Nature Scenery Act.52 He repeated the recommendations already made by Staring that the state should facilitate the transfer of estates and castles to foundations because that was the safest way to preserve them for the future. One of the earliest examples of a foundation running an estate in the post-war era was the Twickel Foundation (1953), aimed at protecting (by far) the biggest private estate in the Netherlands, which was about 3,100 hectares or 7,750 acres. The idea that owners should be encouraged to stay on their properties, the starting point of the whole debate in the thirties, seemed to be no longer of much importance. What is striking is that Van der Haagen, an expert on art collections, commented on issues concerning nature while another comment, by Pieter van Tienhoven, director of Nature Monuments, was not about nature, but about monumental buildings. The two subjects were indeed strongly related, and the remarks of Adolph Staring notwithstanding, one could be an expert in both fields. Van Tienhoven remarked that the clause in the proposal stating that monumental buildings should be at least thirty years old was not very useful, because some interesting buildings were not that old and even younger buildings could be characteristic for villages. He mentioned, a little sarcastically, that if one would only include historic windmills of thirty years and older – and if any building is characteristic for the traditional Dutch landscape, it is the windmill – just a few owners would be eligible. Van Tienhoven, however, 50 51 52

See for instance his article about the Nature Scenery Act. Herman Schuttevaêr, “Een kwart eeuw fiscale bescherming van natuurschoon,” Weekblad voor voor Privaatrecht, Notariaat en registratie 84, nos 4335–4336 (1953): 1–2. NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007, Letter 18 September 1947. See also Henny van der Windt, En dan: wat is natuur nog in dit land. Natuurbescherming in Nederland 1880–1990 (Amsterdam/Meppel: 1995). NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007. Letter from Mr. J.K. Van de Velde to H. Schuttevaêr, 18 September 1957.

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was rather positive about the proposal: “If the law should come about, we could be satisfied, for the time being”.53 Interesting remarks were made by Frits Bakker Schut, who was in charge of the National Planning Bureau. He held a rather complicated line of thought.54 He warned that a period of twenty-five years might be problematic because that is the time most commercial tree-species need to become full-grown. That implied that felling and replanting were needed just at the time when an estate reached its time limit of twenty-five years and the owner could finally cash his exploitation. But if an owner would do so, he or she would be disqualified for tax reductions. On many estates forests had been felled in the last year of the war and were now (i.e. in 1947) being replanted on a massive scale to make up for the damage. In about twenty-five years all these owners would be in trouble if they were to harvest the trees, because a large-scale harvest contradicted the stipulation of the Nature Scenery Act. If they preferred a higher income to a tax reduction, they could withdraw their estate from the list of protected areas. Bakker Schut showed himself a good planner in another respect. He foresaw that the nation might need a lot of space for tourism in twenty-five years’ time, when incomes were to rise. So, if owners of estates withdrew their property from the Nature Scenery Act because they wanted to reap the full harvest of their planting schemes, there would be a tremendous shortage of public space for recreation within the time span of a generation. Nevertheless, he supported the proposal. With these comments, the whole issue made a complete turnabout from the proposition of Nispen in 1937, who tried to prevent “artificial” tourism from becoming the financial backbone of castles and estates. 7

The Case of Germany

In 1955, a second study appeared about the problematic position of Dutch castles, again written by the Institute for the Maintenance of Castles in the Netherlands. Its aim was to influence parliament to support the goals of the Institute.55 It did not only repeat the lamentations of earlier studies, but also put the whole issue into a European context. Many countries, including Belgium, 53 54 55

NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007, Letter 5 November 1947. NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007, Letter 3 November 1947. The publication had already been announced in the annual report of the Institute in 1953 but the publication was delayed. Nederlandse Kastelen Stichting, Jaarverslag 8, 7 and Nederlandse Kastelen Stichting, Jaarverslag 9 (Wijk bij Duurstede: nks, 1954): 1–2.

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Germany, France, Great Britain, Luxemburg, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria found a place in this comparison. It is clear that the proposals of the Institute to create an enhanced Nature Scenery Act were not an isolated phenomenon. Some elements are comparable internationally. In France, for instance, a 1930 law concerning natural monuments and monumental buildings included the possibility to create a protected zone around historical buildings. The owner was not allowed to sell the property without government consent.56 The English solution was that owners hand over their property to the National Trust, but were allowed stay in their homes.57 The most interesting case for a comparison with the Dutch situation was provided by Germany because in both countries castles suffered greatly in the war and the proposed solutions encompassed the entire estate, not just the buildings. To get the new Bundesrepublik on its feet, taxes like the Sofortshilfaufgabe (1949) and the Lastenausgleich (1952) were installed to help the millions of displaced people in the country.58 The Lastenausgleich was a tax on property intended to compensate people who had lost their belongings, or saw it severely damaged, due to the Second World War. Deferred payment of the taxes for castle owners proved no solution, just a delay. One of the ways castle owners used to pay these taxes was the same as in England and the Netherlands: valuable castle inventories were sold. Therefore, the German government decided that owners of castles could get a tax reduction of forty percent on the inheritance tax and the Lastenausgleich if their real estate was of cultural value. The owner could be completely exempt from paying these taxes if he accepted control of the cultural valuables among his belongings. Creating a form of regulated accessibility to the public was another precondition. A restriction that was absent in the Netherlands, was that owners had to prove that maintenance costs were higher than the income the property generated. This included the income from farms and forests, signifying an approach that included the entire estate. Moreover, and again this came close to the Dutch proposal, a time schedule was involved, though it differed from the Dutch one. The property should at least be owned by the same family for the last twenty years.59 Just as was the case in the Netherlands a few years after the war, the rise of tourism became visible in Germany and was seen as a hopeful development by the owners of castles, as a way of securing private ­cultural property. In 1955, Der Burgwart published two lists.60 One contained 56 57 58 59 60

Droog, Pelser, and Schellart, Kastelen in Nood, 63. Ibid., 65. Also see the literature mentioned in note 2. Ibid., 59–62. Ibid., 71. Der Burgwart 44 (1955): 20–21.

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German castles which were opened to the public as public facilities, like museum and libraries, “to profit from tax exemptions”. The other list was about castles which were used for recreational purposes like hotels and youth hostels, “to profit from the rising tide of tourism”. We can conclude that the governments in the two neighbouring countries, in the same circumstances, looked in the same direction, i.e. tax privileges and tourist stimulation, to protect castles and estates after the Second World War. An explanation as to why these arrangements were put into practice in G ­ ermany might be that a thriving association for the preservation of the many castles in the country, the Vereinigung zur Erhaltung deutscher Burgen, already existed in 1899. The Dutch Institute for the Maintenance of Castles had just been founded and was still operating on the basis of a limited number of confiscated properties.61 8 Stillborn The positive feedback on the Dutch proposal during the second round of ­comments in 1947 did not result in the proposal being turned into law. In 1950, the most pressing aspects concerning the protection of castles and other monuments were tackled in a temporary law.62 The issue of the monumental buildings on estates was thereby more or less taken care of. A very practical reason why the proposal went into oblivion, though nowhere stated explicitly, was that many Dutch estates using the Nature Scenery Act did not have a monumental building as their nucleus and therefore were not in need of such a law. Furthermore, the National Forestry Service did not wait for the slow process of law making to protect nature. The service found ways to work around some of the boundaries of the Nature Scenery Act to protect natural terrains by stretching the definitions of trees or forests. Coppice bordering fields could be protected, as could trees bordering canals, or rooted in front of old farms.63 The most important reason was that in the aforementioned dossier, another proposal was made by the head of the Section of Nature and Landscape ­Protection of the Department of Education Art and Sciences. Should one not

61 62 63

Droog, Pelser and Schellart, Kastelen in Nood, 62. Max Potano, “Een lange weg. De totstandkoming van de monumentenwet,” Jaarboek M ­ onumentenzorg (1997): 96. Simon Wybren Verstegen, “Natuurschoonwetkaarten gered en nu via internet te raadplegen,” Caert Thresoor 31, no. 3 (2012): 77–78.

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ask the o­ wners of estates first?64 What did they think about the Nature Scenery Act? Did it work? Did it satisfy them? What should be done? Thus, an enquiry was made in 1948 which led to a massive and unexpected output of questions, comments and recommendations by estate owners. The whole process took many years to evaluate.65 In the long run, this led to further tax reductions for estate owners, in 1951 and again in 1956. One would expect that after 1950 the link between the protection of castles and the Nature Scenery Act would have been broken, But in the aforementioned little book “Castles in Need” of 1955 the idea that monuments should be protected under the same regime as nature on estates, was once more proposed by the Institute for the Maintenance of Castles in the Netherlands. It was a useless gesture, though.66 9 Conclusions Discussing the protection of nature on landed estates in its historical context almost unavoidably involved discussions about monumental mansions and castles, which are in many cases (but not always) the heart of an ensemble of buildings, parks, and forests. Nowadays, protection of this kind of heritage is very hard without some kind of government support. Handing the estates over to foundations or governments seems the obvious thing to do, but history shows there were different paths. Part of the problem of the maintenance of estates was caused by the same governments that wanted to protect them. Warfare and post-war reconstruction made higher tax levels necessary, but threatened the future of estates. Comparing the Dutch and G ­ erman cases proved to be useful. In both countries the Second World War caused a lot of damage and financial troubles for the owners of castles and estates. These problems could not be resolved by subsidizing heritage because shortly after the war funds were lacking. Though ultimately the German and Dutch governments took a different path, it is worth noticing that in both countries similar solutions were proposed: lowering taxes for properties of natural and cultural value, opening estates and castles up to the public by the owners as a p ­ recondition for 64 65 66

NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 6007. Nota Uitvoering Natuurschoonwet. NA, Archief van de afdeling oudheidkunde en natuurbescherming en voorgangers, 2.14.73, no. 3245. A summary of the results can be found in Verstegen, Vrije Wandeling, 99–101. Droog, Pelser, and Schellart, Kastelen in Nood, 77.

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tax-cuts, and creating a time constraint to make legislation work for a suitable period. Tax privileges were an easy way out for both the governments and the estate owners and prevented the alienation of the property. This, however, was accomplished only when the Dutch and German governments introduced a carrot and stick approach. Higher taxes could be avoided if castle owners were ready to bow their heads for a new phenomenon: the “artificial” interest of the modern tourist and the “mass consumption of heritage”, which broke up the old parochial networks in the countryside. Bibliography Inventaris van het archief van het hoofdkantoor van het Nederlandse Beheersinstituut (NBI), 1944, 1945–1967 (1979). The Hague: NA, 1996. Landgoederen en wandelterreinen in Nederland. The Hague: ANWB, 1946. Verslag van de vergadering van 14 september 1926 in het Koloniaal Instituut te Amsterdam. The Hague: ANWB 1926. Bakker, M. Kastelen in oorlogstijd. Geschiedenis en restauratie van Nederlandse kastelen en buitenplaatsen tijdens en na de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Unpublished Master thesis. Utrecht University, August 2010. Bess, Michael. The light-green society. Ecology and technological modernity in France, 1960–2000. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Butler, James Ramsay Montagu. Lord Lothian (Philip Kerr) 1882–1940. New York: St. ­Martin’s Press 1960. Cronon, William, ed. Uncommon ground. Rethinking the human place in Nature. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1996. Davids, Karel. “Lage landen, verre horizonten. De verbinding van natuur, landschap en ‘Nederlandse’ identiteit in internationaal perspectief.” Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 121, no. 4 (2006): 605–620. Droog, P.J., P.H. Pelser, and A.I.J.M. Schellart. Kastelen in Nood. Amsterdam: Bezige Bij, 1955. Gaze, John, and Clark, Len. Figures in a landscape. A history of the National Trust. Frome, Somerset: Barrie and Jenkins, 1988. Gissibl, Berhnard, Sabine Höhler, and Patrick Kupper, eds. Civilizing nature. National Parks in global historical perspective. New York: Berghahn Books, 2012. Hupke, Klaus Dieter. Naturschutz: Ein kritischer Ansatz. Heidelberg: Springer, 2015. Keiser, Jacob Warmolt. Overheidszorg voor het natuurschoon. Rotterdam: W.L. & J. Brusse, 1949.

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Laanen, Dirk van. “Aangehouden zorg: Rijksdiensten voor de monumenten 1939–1947,” Jaarboek Monumentenzorg (1995): 9–31. Nispen tot Sevenaer, Eugene Octave Marie van. “De nood onzer kasteelen.” Oudheidkundig Jaarboek. Vierde serie van het Bulletin van den Nederlandschen Oudheidkundigen Bond 6 (1937): 51–58. Offerhaus, Johannes. De wet op de personeele belasting. Zwolle: Tjeenk Willink, 1925. Oprel, Marieke. “(On)eigenlijk onteigend?.” Kasteelkatern Nederlandse ­Kastelenstichting 37 (2012): 4–7. Potano, Max. “Een lange weg. De totstandkoming van de monumentenwet.” Jaarboek Monumentenzorg (1997): 92–111. Schendelen, Marijke van. “De strijd om Arcadië: Natuur en landschap als domeinen van ruimtelijke ordening.” In Landschap in meervoud. Perspectieven op het Nederlandse landschap in de 20e/21e eeuw, edited by Jan Kolen and Ton Lemaire, 217–234. Utrecht: Jan van Arkel, 1999. Sprenger, van Eyk, Jacobus Petrus, and Bernhard Jan de Leeuw. De wetgeving op het recht van successie van overgang en van schenking. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1930. Storms-Smeets, Elyze. “Verloren erfgoed. De destructie van landhuizen, buitenplaatsen en landgoederen in de twintigste eeuw.” In Huis en habitus. Over kastelen, bui­ tenplaatsen en notabele levensvormen, edited by Conrad Gietman et al. Hilversum: Verloren, 2017. Verstegen, Simon Wybren. “Een der dragelijkste middelen. De politieke discussies in de Tweede Kamer over de belastingen op het recht van successie 1817–1878.” In Doel en middel. Aspecten van financieel overheidsbeleid in de Nederlanden van de zestiende eeuw tot heden, edited by W. Fritschy, J.K.T. Postma, and J. Roelevink, 151–166. ­Amsterdam: NEHA, 1995. Verstegen, Simon Wybren. “Natuurschoonwetkaarten gered en nu via internet te raadplegen.” Caert Thresoor 31, no. 3 (2012): 75–78. Verstegen, Simon Wybren. “The Nature Scenery Act of 1928 in the Netherlands.” Forest History Today 21, nos. 1 and 2 (2016): 4–12. Verstegen, Simon Wybren. Vrije Wandeling. Het parlement, de fiscus en de bescherming van het particuliere Nederlandse natuurschoon tussen 1924–1995. Groningen: Historia Agriculturae, 2017. Waterson, Merlin, and Samantha Wyndham. The National Trust. The first hundred years. London: BBC Books, 1995. Wielenga, Johan Willem Friso. West-Duitsland: Partner uit noodzaak. Nederland en de Bondsrepubliek 1949–1955. Utrecht: Aula, 1989. Windt, Henny van der. En dan: wat is natuur nog in dit land. Natuurbescherming in Nederland 1880–1990. Amsterdam/Meppel: Boom, 1995.

Chapter 14

Birds in Texel in 1910 and the Shifting Baseline Syndrome Jan Luiten van Zanden What happened to Dutch nature in the twentieth century? Did the rise of population, the vast expansion of infrastructure, the growth of cities, the intensification of agriculture, and the increase in pollution result in a dramatic decline of biodiversity? Or did nature conservation stem the tide of the growing poverty of nature? The importance of the decline of biodiversity is beyond doubt – it has been called one of the most urgent problems facing humanity. We do not, however, know much about the exact timing of the process, and how it differs from region to region.1 Recent research shows that biodiversity in the Netherlands may be more or less constant over the past twenty-five years,2 but what about the rest of the twentieth century? Bird diversity is obviously only one part of biodiversity, and we simply do not know how representative birds are for the state of nature in general, in particular when we study longterm trends. This paper addresses this issue, starting with the results of the first census of breeding birds that was carried out in Texel in 1910. 1

Counting Breeding Birds

Counting is a modern human obsession. In the Netherlands, the “modern”, academic counting of nature – of breeding birds in this specific case – started in about 1910. Jac. P. Thijsse, the famous biologist who had a major influence on the emergence of the movement to protect nature in this period, suggested in a lecture in 1907 that a census of the breeding birds of the Netherlands had to be organized. This census should make it possible “to assess the prosperity or decline of certain bird species, which, considering the issues of ­contemporary 1 Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich, and Rodolfo Dizo, “Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines,” pnas 114, no. 30 (2017). 2 Arco C. van Strien et al. “Modest recovery of biodiversity in a western European country: The Living Planet Index for the Netherlands,” Biological Conservation 200 (2016): 44–50.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi:10.1163/9789004381568_016

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debates about protection and prosecution of birds, is highly important”.3 The model he suggested implied the classification of all birds in different regions (beaches, dunes, islands, polders etc.) in a number of categories, ranging from very rare to very common. That did not, however, involve actual counting, but estimation by expert ornithologists. In Het vogelboekje (the bird book), the highly productive Thijsse also published a first overview of what he knew about the presence and abundance of breeding birds in these regions, which is still highly informative.4 Before 1910, academic work on ornithology had concentrated on making lists of the birds that were present/breeding in a given region. Counting breeding birds would take this one step further. In the same year, 1912, Ardea, the journal of ornithologists, published the first – partial – census of the breeding birds of De Muy, a nature reserve on the island of Texel, famous for its high diversity of birds. The author, R. van Eecke estimated the breeding population of about 30 species. Some of his estimates were rather rough, however, simply stating that a bird was common (algemeen), whereas in other cases he provided exact numbers, especially for rare birds. In the same article, he also discussed recent extinctions on the island: the blue heron, stork and cormorant had disappeared, and the population of black tern had declined below 40 breeding pairs.5 As Thijsse pointed out already, the reason to start counting breeding birds was because there was a growing interest in nature conservation. The Society for the Protection of Birds (Vogelbescherming) had been set up in 1899. One of the reasons for its foundation was the tern hunt, whose feathers were very popular in those days. In 1905, this was followed by the establishment of Vereniging Natuurmonumenten, which aimed to acquire strategic “monuments” of nature and transform them into nature reserves. Both Vogelbescherming and Natuurmonumenten were almost immediately very active in Texel. In order to assess the impact of measures taken to protect nature, it was necessary to monitor the development of nature there, and this could be done via the counting of (breeding) birds. Quantification, therefore, was an instrument used to help get a grip on what was happening in nature. The De Muy “census” of 1910 is not the only source of information about birds in Texel in these years. The island was highly popular among this (and later) generation(s) of ornithologists. In 1908, Thijsse also published his own edition of a German article, discussing the presence or absence of birds on the Wadden-islands of Germany and the Netherlands, which contained detailed 3 Marga Coesel, Joop Schaminée and Lodewijk van Duuren, De Natuur als Bondgenoot. De wereld van Heimans en Thijsse in historisch perspectief (Zeist: knnv Uitgeverij, 2007), 254. 4 Jac. P. Thijsse, Het vogelboekje (Amsterdam: W. Versluys, 1912). 5 R. van Eecke, “De vogelfauna van Texel,” Ardea 1, no. 2 (1912).

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information on the birds of Texel.6 Recently, amateur ornithologists from the island have collected a wealth of information on the development of the birds of the island, and presented an overview of trends in breeding populations between about 1910 and the 1990s.7 In addition to this, the annual report of the Vogelwerkgroep contains the outcome of regular censuses of breeding birds (of 1974, 1987 and 2000), which make it possible to make detailed comparisons over time.8 What is the result of a century of counting of (breeding) birds on Texel? Let’s first compare 1910 and 2000: for 115 different species we can establish the trend between 1910 and 2000 “beyond reasonable doubt”. For 51 species, the evidence clearly points to an increase in population numbers. For 41, we have to assume that the population remained more or less constant, and for eighteen species we are quite sure that numbers declined. We will analyse the reasons for this in more detail below, but first want to check how robust this result is. Dirksen and Maas give overviews of the number of breeding species in Texel, which show a similar positive trend: in 1890 the number was 76, in 1910 87, rising to 99 in 1934, 108 in 1957, 109 in 1974 109 and as much as 120 in 1996. This points to an increase of almost 60% in the twentieth century.9 2

A National Bird Index

Is the increase in the number of bird species in Texel exceptional, perhaps because it was the subject of intensive nature conservation, and removed from changes in Dutch landscape caused by industrialization and urbanization? A similar but much more tentative reconstruction of all Dutch breeding birds was carried out by Parlevliet, who compared the detailed censuses of the 1970s and 2000 with what is known about breeding populations between 1900 and 1930.10 He firstly compared trends in populations of birds that bred continually in the country. Of the 143 species, 62 showed an increase, 34 remained 6 7 8 9 10

Jac. P. Thijsse, “De broedvogels van de Noordzee-Eilanden,” Verslagen en Medeelingen der Nederlandsche Ornitologische Vereniging 5 (1908). Adriaan J. Dijksen, Frits-Jan Maas, and Cor Smit, Vogels op het Gouwe Boltje: Een volledig overzicht van de avifauna van Texel (Texel: Langeveld & De Rooy, 1996). Vogelwerkgroep Texel, Ornithologische jaarverslagen 1997–2015, http://www.vwgtexel .nl/waarnemingen/ornithologisch-jaarverslag/ornithologisch-jaarverslag/, accessed 12 October 2017. Dijksen, Maas, and Smit, Vogels. Jan Parlevliet, “Broedvogels in Nederland in de 20e eeuw,” Limosa 76 (2003); see also Jan Luiten van Zanden and Simon Wybren Verstegen, Groene geschiedenis van Nederland (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1993), 41–50.

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stable and 47 declined, which suggests a positive balance. Moreover, seven species disappeared from the country (but two of them came back), and 47 new ­species started breeding, of which eight were non-indigenous; but the other 39 began breeding on their own. As a result, the number of regular b­ reeding species grew from about 150 in the first quarter of the twentieth century to 190 in 2000. Other regional studies have confirmed these trends: for the central part of Gelderland, for example, Lensink found a similar increase in the total number of breeding birds.11 To get a more precise picture of the ebbs and flows of the bird populations of the Netherlands, we started working on a national bird index, collecting all available data and estimates of the changes in their population in the ­period 1850–2010.12 For the nineteenth century, there are already some sources that make it possible to estimate trends in bird populations, starting with the ­famous overview of Dutch birds by Nozeman. Biologists such as Temminck and Schlegel also published overviews of Dutch birds which contain information about their occurrence.13 During the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the Provinciale Verslagen present a wealth of information on hunting and prosecution. Jan de Rijk has already made good use of these sources in his dissertation.14 For the period after 1900, the sources become much richer, including detailed censuses of the population of certain birds (storks, kingfishers, cormorants). The aim of this experimental study was to estimate the population numbers of each breeding species for every decade starting in 1850 until 2010. This proved possible for 33 bird species (but more work can still be done, we think, to increase this number). These 33 species are spread more or less evenly over the total bird population of the Netherlands, although large species (stork, herons, birds of prey) are probably overrepresented (but the dataset also includes very small birds, such as the common firecrest and the goldcrest). I present, very tentatively, the results of this reconstruction here, to illustrate what is possible in this respect, and to get a better idea of the development of biodiversity over time. For 33 species, we were able to estimate the number of breeding pairs in every decade from 1850 to 2010, frequently, it should be admitted, making use of interpolations. In the nineteenth century, we guesstimated trends on the 11 12 13 14

Rob Lensink, Vogels in het hart van Gelderland (Utrecht: knnv Uitgeverij, 1993). The case for such a bird index as measure of environmental health is made by Richard D. Gregory and Arco van Strien, “Wild bird indicators: Using composite population trends of birds as measured of environmental health,” Ornithological Science 9, no. 1 (2010). A valuable overview of this older literature in François Haverschmidt, Faunistisch overzicht van de Nederlandsche Broedvogels (Leiden: Brill, 1942). Jan H. de Rijk, Vogels en Mensen in Nederland, 1500–1920 (Rotterdam: Anoda, 2016).

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basis of qualitative statement such as “the species is declining”. Of these 33 species, 27 were breeding in the Netherlands in 1850, of which two became extinct (dipper and woodchat shrike); 30 were breeding here in 2010, of which four (goldcrest, white-tailed eagle, red kite, peregrine falcon) settled recently. The number of birds actually breeding in the Netherlands out of the sample of 33 remained more or less constant between 1850 and 1950 (at 27–28), declined to 26 in 1960 and 1970, but increased to 30 in 1999 and 2010 (because there was a census in 1999, we used that year as benchmark, and not 2000).15 Our bird index is only based on the development of those 26 birds which (almost) always bred in the Netherlands between 1850 and 2010. The geometric mean of relative abundance, the measure most often used for calculating changes in biodiversity, cannot handle zero populations, so we could not include the other seven bird species, which either disappeared from the Netherlands, or settled there for the first time during this period.16 We calculated all populations, setting 1999 as a base year, and then calculated the geometric mean of the series involved, to create a single national bird index (see Graph 14.1). 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2

2010

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0 Graph 14.1 Bird index of the Netherlands, 1850–2010, based on 33 breeding species (1999=1). Source: Author’s estimates (see text, and footnote 15) 15 16

The details of the index and the underlying data will be explained in a separate paper which will contain all sources, data and estimates; we hope to include more than 100 ­species in the final version of the bird index. See Stephen T. Buchland, et al.‚ “The geometric mean of relative abundance indices: A biodiversity measure with a difference,” Ecosphere 2, no. 9 (2011).

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The index shows a very interesting pattern. As may be expected, there is a long-term decline in biodiversity between 1850 and 1970. It starts to decline slowly (but the nineteenth century estimates are weakest), the decline accelerates with industrialization, gaining speed in the Netherlands between the 1890s and the 1920s, but in the 1930s the decline of biodiversity seems to come to a halt. In the post-war period, when economic growth accelerated again, there was a strong decline in biodiversity, in particular in the 1960s. At the lowest point, the diversity of bird populations may have been at less than half the level of 1850, which demonstrates the strong decline that had occurred. The low point of 1970 may also be linked to the use of ddt and other insecticides, which were introduced in Dutch agriculture in the post-war period and resulted in heavy losses in bird populations high up in the food chain (birds of prey, terns). The ban on ddt and related products in 1968/69 was probably the most effective measure to protect bird populations of the twentieth ­century.17 After 1970, biodiversity shot up, but the steep rise may to some extent also be related to improved methods for counting birds (it has been found difficult to explain the rise in the breeding population between the first census of the 1970s and the second series of censuses that began in 1990). That recovery ­occurred, however, is beyond doubt, and biodiversity continued to increase during the rest of the period. According to this measurement, biodiversity in 2010 was at about the same level as in 1850. If we take into account that the number of breeding species may have increased as well, the level in 2010 was even higher than in the middle of the nineteenth century, but we should also discount for improved knowledge and census methods, which tempers the optimism somewhat. 3

Possible Explanations

The increased diversity of birdlife is a conundrum that does not fit into overall, global trends in biodiversity. There is no doubt that, on a global scale, biodiversity has been declining dramatically in recent years. The decline of natural habitats as a consequence of the growth of human occupation, the increase of cultivated land, and the intensification of land use resulting from the growth of agricultural production, are among the most important ­explanations of this trend. Pollution, overfishing, and global warming are other parts of the story. So, what explains the “strange” development of bird diversity in the N ­ etherlands in the past 100 years or so? 17

Van Zanden and Verstegen, Groene geschiedenis, 77.

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To understand this unexpected increase of bird diversity in the Netherlands, we have to return again to Thijsse in 1910, or more generally, the emergence of nature protection in the same time. Before 1900, approximately, hunting birds (and other animals) had been business as usual. In particular large birds suffered – they were easy to hunt, and contained more meat, had larger eggs and bigger feathers than the small ones. Birds of prey were also hunted ferociously – in Texel and in the rest of the country. They were often seen as harmful “competitors” which preyed on other birds, rabbits, and other game, if not on ­livestock (chicken for example). Similarly, birds from the crow family and gulls had an almost equally bad reputation and were hunted intensively. More generally, there were hardly any constraints on the exploitation of nature.18 Even nature lovers hunted birds with guns to get their skins – to study them and to show that they had really spotted the species. The Van Eecke paper opened by informing the reader that the spoonbill had recently returned to Texel: “In 1910 people were very happy to discover a nest of a spoonbill in De Muy. It had been a long time since the spoonbill had hatched there, and therefore the eggs were taken away by an admirer.”19 With friends like this, birds did not need enemies. But these attitudes started to change after 1900. The big birds that were absent from Texel in 1910 – grey heron, cormorant, spoonbill, grey-legged geese, swan, birds of prey – returned or settled on the island during the following century. Gulls and crows show a similar rapid advance. In 1910 they only occurred in very small numbers, but in 2000 the island was home to a number of large colonies. The explosion of all kinds of human waste, the by-product of economic growth found in the waste bins near the patatkraam (French fry stand) and in the proliferation of garbage dumps, containing plenty of food for these “scavengers”, also helps to explain their advance. A second main cause of the rise of diversity of birdlife is the fact that so many “new” birds settled spontaneously on the island. Of course, we cannot always be sure if they are truly first-time settlers or cases of re-settlement. An interesting example is the robin, which was a common bird in the rest of the country (although not as common as it is now, according to Parlevliet),20 but was very rare on Texel, and did not breed at all on the other islands. Why was this? Was the habitat of these Wadden-islands not suitable for the robin? During the twentieth century it spread successfully to all islands, suggesting that this was probably not the problem. The spread of the robin, and many other “successful” birds (willow warbler, goldfinch, great tit), may point to much 18 19 20

Jan Luiten van Zanden, Vogels, mensen en geschiedenis (Utrecht: Utrecht University, 1994). Van Eecke, “De vogelfauna,” 63. Parlevliet, “Broedvogels.”

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longer patterns of change. About 15,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, the Netherlands was largely covered by ice, on the edge of the glaciers, with average temperatures much below what we know now. Many (if not all) bird ­species had withdrawn to the south or the east, to places with a much more moderate climate. Since the retreat of the glaciers some 10,000 years ago, animals and plants gradually returned, slowly increasing the diversity of nature. It is striking that most of the new settlers – both in the Parlevliet dataset and in the Texel data that we reconstructed – came from the south. Today’s global warming obviously contributed to this as well, but its effects have probably only become noticeable recently. Perhaps some of the gains in biodiversity are the result of the catching up that occurred after the retreat of the ice covering the land. Another reason for recent settlement was the growth of forests on Texel. There was hardly any forest in 1910, but the area under trees has grown significantly and – also due to growing influence of nature conservation – the management of forest reserves became increasingly focused on enhancing bird diversity (and biodiversity in general). The settlement of great spotted woodpecker and goldcrest, and the spread of the finch, were in all likelihood caused by the increase in forest area. The discontinuation of bird hunting and the spread of more animal-friendly attitudes helps to explain the success of about one-third of the bird species with increasing populations (in both the Netherlands and on Texel). The spontaneous spread of “new” birds contributes about the same number of species to the list of success stories. Another factor that is more difficult to measure is the simple fact that the knowledge about the avifauna of Texel (and the ­Netherlands) has increased enormously, which means that the numbers of birds observed is going up. Every inch of Texel is now monitored carefully by nature watchers with extensive expertise and a range of instruments. P ­ revious generations lacked those resources and may have mixed up arctic tern and common tern, or failed to distinguish goldcrests from common firecrests, ­leading them to underestimate the number of breeding species. They may have missed rather shy birds, such as the water rail or the bittern. This may, however, simply help to explain the sudden appearance of a few species – it does not make clear why so many new birds started breeding on the island. The list of reasons why species declined is less clear. The intensification of agriculture is probably the main culprit for the decline of breeding populations, as other socio-economic changes such as urbanization and industrialization hardly affected the island. The decline of the skylark, the crested lark, the red-backed shrike, and the wheatear are probably related to the changes in agricultural practices. Sometimes it seems that the gains of one species were not unrelated to the loss of another, which occupied almost (or precisely) the

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same niche. The Stonechat (growing in numbers) and winchat (declining) for example, changed places. Montagu’s harrier (a regular breeding bird until the 1970s, after which decade it disappeared) and hen harrier (which started breeding in 1978, and of which the population increased rapidly until 2000) probably competed with each other in a similar way. It is less clear why the little grebe, a rather common bird on Texel at the start of the twentieth century, declined relative to its “cousin”, the grebe, which became quite common, but again some form of competition may have played a role. Summing up, even if we adjust our figures for the role played by our more advanced knowledge, it seems that the number and diversity of breeding birds in Texel increased substantially between 1910 and 2000. The national pattern, as shown by the preliminary bird index, also shows net increase between 1910 and 2000, but it is probably less strong than on the island. The changing face of human intervention – from prosecution to preservation – probably played a large role, in combination with autonomous changes resulting in the increase of biodiversity. This is a rather unusual story, however, running against the tide of the global decline of biodiversity that dominates the literature on the subject. 4

The Shifting Baseline Syndrome

The results of this comparison are that it appears that the diversity of birdlife in Texel, and perhaps in the Netherlands as a whole, has, on balance, not declined over the past century. On the contrary, there is good evidence, most clearly presented by Parlevliet, that the number and diversity of some breeding birds has gone up. The bird index presented here seems to confirm this picture. That is good, but also rather unusual news. It is unusual because we know that on a global scale – and perhaps when we look at other measures of biodiversity in the Netherlands as well – this is not the case. On a global scale, biodiversity is declining dramatically, but apparently there are exceptions to this rule. Until about 1970, the Dutch case fits into the story of a strong correlation between economic development and declining biodiversity, but after 1970 the two are “delinked”. This is also confirmed by other research. A recent survey of an ­integral biodiversity index for the Netherlands also concluded that a modest recovery occurred in the period after 1990.21 Why is the public perception of this so different from these “hard” facts? Perhaps birdwatchers and biologists appreciate the birds that are rare and 21

Van Strien et al., “Modest recovery.”

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“­indigenous” more than birds that are common or “exotic”. The loss of the ruff or the night heron and the decline of the skylark and the black-tailed godwit are valued differently than the settlement of the white-tailed eagle or the crane. In other words, gains are appreciated differently from losses. To some extent this is understandable, and perhaps it is the inevitable result of declining marginal utility. Some “declining” birds – such as the typically Dutch weidevogels (black tailed godwit, lapwing, ruff, common redshank, oystercatcher) – are part of the “national heritage”, and therefore extra valuable. But still it remains a bit of a mystery why the (re)appearance and recovery of so many birds – some of them with a highly symbolic value (such as the spoonbill or the stork) – are not valued in a similar way. Perhaps we can use the idea of the “shifting baseline syndrome” to explain the lack of appreciation of the trends in bird diversity in the Netherlands in the long run. This idea has been suggested to characterize the fact that in their assessment of what happened to eco-systems, biologists tend to take the s­ ystem as it was functioning when they were young (or started doing research) as the yardstick for measuring biodiversity decline. When, with the progress of time, new generations analyse biodiversity change, they tend to take different baselines as their starting point, moving over time, with any change that occurred before this baseline being considered unproblematic. The end result is that, due to the gradual shifting of the baseline, the actual, long-term decline of biodiversity is underestimated systematically.22 Is the appreciation of the long-term trends in Dutch bird diversity hampered by a similar “shifting baseline syndrome”? This would mean that c­ ontemporary nature lovers do not sufficiently value the return of the cormorant, blue heron, spoonbill and grey-legged goose, or the settlement of the hawk, sparrow-hawk, kestrel, and buzzard on an island such as Texel, because, once this has happened, they consider the new situation as “normal”. This “shifting baseline” does not result in an underestimation of biodiversity decline, but in a much too pessimistic view of the actual development of the diversity of the bird population. In his paper on the breeding birds of De Muy, Van Eecke made a similar remark: he noticed that, based on the stories that he had heard, “Texel is not what it used to be” (in terms of bird diversity), but since he actually lived on the island “he thought that the species living there, were actually increasing.”23 Only by conducting bird censuses, which first occurred on Texel in 1910, can we really try to get an accurate picture of what happened to the avifauna of the 22 23

S.K. Papworth, J. Rist, L. Coad, and E.J. Milner-Gulland. “Evidence for shifting baseline syndrome in conservation,” Conservation Letters 2, no. 2 (2009). Van Eecke, “De vogelfauna,” 63–64.

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Netherlands in the past. Counting is a modern obsession, but it may help to get a better understanding of the changes in biodiversity in the past. Bibliography Buchland, Stephen T., et al. “The geometric mean of relative abundance indices: A biodiversity measure with a difference.” Ecosphere 2, no. 9 (2011): 1–15. Ceballos, Gerardo, Paul R. Ehrlich, and Rodolfo Dizo. “Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and ­declines.” PNAS 114, no. 30 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1704949114. Coesel, Marga, Joop Schaminée, and Lodewijk van Duuren. De natuur als bondgenoot. De wereld van Heimans en Thijsse in historisch perspectief. Zeist: KNNV Uitgeverij, 2007. Dijksen, Adriaan J., Frits-Jan Maas, and Cor Smit. Vogels op het Gouwe Boltje. Een v­ olledig overzicht van de avifauna van Texel. Texel: Langeveld & De Rooy, 1996. Eecke, R. van. “De Vogelfauna van Texel.” Ardea 1, no. 2 (1912): 63–68. Gregory, Richard D., and Arco van Strien. “Wild bird indicators: Using composite ­population trends of birds as measured of environmental health.” Ornithological Science 9, no. 1 (2010): 3–22. Haverschmidt, François. Faunistisch overzicht van de Nederlandsche Broedvogels. Leiden: Brill, 1942. Lensink, Rob. Vogels in het hart van Gelderland. Utrecht: KNNV Uitgeverij, 1993. Papworth, S.K., J. Rist, L. Coad, and E.J. Milner-Gulland. “Evidence for shifting baseline syndrome in conservation.” Conservation Letters 2, no. 2 (2009): 93–100. Parlevliet, Jan. “Broedvogels in Nederland in de 20e eeuw.” Limosa 76 (2003): 141–156. Rijk, Jan H. de. Vogels en Mensen in Nederland, 1500–1920. Rotterdam: Anoda, 2016. Strien, Arco C. van, et al. “Modest recovery of biodiversity in a western European country: The Living Planet Index for the Netherlands.” Biological Conservation 200 (2016): 44–50. Thijsse, Jac. P. Het vogelboekje. Amsterdam: W. Versluys, 1912. Thijsse, Jac. P. “De broedvogels van de Noordzee-Eilanden.” Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Nederlandsche Ornitologische Vereniging 5 (1908): 35–56. Verstegen, Wybren, and Jan Luiten van Zanden. Groene geschiedenis van Nederland. Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1993. Zanden, Jan Luiten van. Vogels, mensen en geschiedenis. Utrecht: Utrecht University, 1993.

List of Publications of Karel Davids 1973–20171 “De republikeins-filosofische oppositie tegen het Principaat in de eerste eeuw na Chr.” Lampas. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse classici 6 (1973): 375–396. “Het Nederlandse zeemanslied in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw: Het gebruik als historisch bronnenmateriaal.” Mededelingen van de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Zeegeschiedenis 28 (1974): 5–28. (with Jaap Bruijn). “Jonas vrij. De Nederlandse walvisvaart, in het bijzonder de Amsterdamse, in de jaren 1640–1664.” Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek 38 (1975): 142–178. “Wat leyd een zeeman… Nederlandse zeemansliederen in de zeiltijd.” Fibula 19 (1978): 14–19. (with Herman Diederiks, Dirk Jaap Noordam, and Heiko Tjalsma; eds.). Een stad in achteruitgang. Sociaal-historische studies over Leiden in de achttiende eeuw. Leiden: Leiden University, 1978. “Migratie te Leiden in de achttiende eeuw. Een onderzoek op grond van de acten van cautie.” In Een stad in achteruitgang. Sociaal-historische studies over Leiden in de achttiende eeuw, edited by H.A. Diederiks, C.A. Davids, D.J. Noordam, and H.D. Tjalsma, 146–192. Leiden: Leiden University, 1978. (with Bert Aalbers). Wat lijdt den zeeman al verdriet. Het Nederlandse zeemanslied in de zeiltijd (1600–1900). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980. “De zeevaartkunde en enkele maatschappelijke veranderingen in Nederland tussen 1850 en 1914.” Mededelingen van de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Zeegeschiedenis 40–41 (1980): 51–83. “Commentaar op het artikel van C.R.Boxer.” Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 1 (1982): 124–131. “De Amsterdamse dierenbeschermers en het Palingoproer.” Ons Amsterdam 35 (1983): 122–127. (with Wim Blockmans, and Eddy Grootes; eds.). Literatuur als bron voor sociale geschiedenis. Special issue of Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 10, no. 3 (1984). (with Jan Lucassen; eds.). Tien jaar Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis. Special issue of Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 10, no. 4 (1984). (with Jan Lucassen). “Sociale geschiedenis: Een momentopname.” Tijdschrift voor S­ ociale Geschiedenis 10:4 (1984): 359–367. “Van Anthonisz. tot Lastman. Navigatieboeken in Nederland in de zestiende en het ­begin van de zeventiende eeuw.” In Lucas Jansz. Waghenaer van Enckhuysen. De maritieme cartografie in de Nederlanden in de zestiende en het begin van de ­zeventiende 1 Excluding reviews, unpublished papers, and contributions of two pages and less.

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eeuw, edited by E. Bos-Rietdijk et al. 73–88. Enkhuizen: Vereniging Vrienden van het Zuiderzeemuseum, 1984. Zeewezen en wetenschap. De wetenschap en de ontwikkeling van de navigatietechniek in Nederland tussen 1585 en 1815. Amsterdam/Dieren: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1986. “Het zeevaartkundig onderwijs voor de koopvaardij in Nederland tussen 1795 en 1875. De rol van het Rijk, de lagere overheid en het particuliere initiatief.” Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 4 (1985): 164–190. “De migratiebeweging in Leiden in de achttiende eeuw.” In Armoede en sociale spanning. Sociaal-historische studies over Leiden in de achttiende eeuw, edited by H.A. Diederiks, D.J. Noordam, and H.D. Tjalsma, 137–156. Hilversum: Verloren, 1985. “The use of globes on ships of the Dutch East-India Company.” Der Globusfreund. Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für Globen- und Instrumentenkunde 35–37 (1987): 69–80. “Aristocraten en juristen, financiers en feministen. Het beschavingsoffensief van de die­renbeschermers in Nederland vóór de Eerste Wereldoorlog.” Volkskundig Bulletin. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse cultuurwetenschap 13, no. 2 (1987): 157–200. “De ‘rosse’ Kaap. Over het stigma van een Rotterdamse buurt 1900–1985.” In Onder­ scheid en minderheid. Sociaal-historische opstellen over discriminatie en vooroordeel, edited by Herman Diederiks, and Chris Quispel, 150–173. Hilversum: Verloren, 1987. “Nederlandse geschiedbeoefening in vergelijkend perspectief.” Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 14 (1988): 440–445. “Vluchtige blikken en stampende schepen. Over wetenschap, sociale wetenschap en zeevaartkunde.” Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 103 (1988): 672–682. “Zeelieden en wetenschap in Nederland. De ontwikkeling van de navigatietechniek tussen 1600 en 1900.” Spiegel Historiael 23 (1988): 485–491. (with Jan Lucassen, and Jan Luiten van Zanden). “Schaduwboksen van Righart. Over samenwerking van Nederlandse historici.” Spiegel Historiael 23 (1988): 492–493. “On the diffusion of nautical knowledge from the Netherlands to north-eastern Europe, 1550–1850.” In From Dunkirk to Danzig. Shipping and trade in the North Sea and the Baltic 1350–1850, edited by W.G. Heeres et al., 217–236. Hilversum: Verloren, 1988. “Het navigatieonderwijs aan personeel van de VOC.” In De VOC in de kaart gekeken. Cartografie en navigatie van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie 1602–1799, edited by Patrick van Mil, 65–74. The Hague: SDu Uitgevers, 1988. Dieren en Nederlanders. Zeven eeuwen lief en leed. Utrecht: Matrijs, 1989. “De staatsomwenteling in Frankrijk en het verval van de oude maatschappelijke orde in Europa.” Spiegel Historiael 24 (1989): 357–362. (with Jaap van der Veen and E.A. de Vries). “Van Lastman naar Gietermaker. Claes Hendricksz. Gietermaker (1621–1667) en zijn leerboeken voor de stuurmanskunst.” ­Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 8 (1989): 149–177.

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“Vrijwilligers en hegemonie. De Rotterdamse vrijwillige brandweer in vergelijkend ­perspectief, 1857–1969.” Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek 52 (1989): 198–230. “Dutch contributions to the development of navigation technology in the 17th century.” In 1688. The seaborne alliance and diplomatic revolution. Proceedings of an ­international symposium held at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 5–6 ­October 1988, edited by Ch. Wilson and D. Proctor, 59–74. London: National Maritime Museum, 1989. “Een huis vol handboeken. Het Huis van Keulen en de vakliteratuur voor de zeeman (1678–1885).” In “In de Gekroonde Lootsman”. Het kaarten-, boekuitgevers en instrumentmakershuis Van Keulen te Amsterdam 1680–1885, edited by E.O. van Keulen, W.F.J. Mörzer Bruyns, and E.K. Spits, 44–61. Utrecht: Utrecht H&S, 1989. “De zondeval van de dierenbeul. Toelaatbaar en ontoelaatbaar gedrag tegenover die­ ren in Nederland vanaf de late middeleeuwen tot de twintigste eeuw.” In Een schijn van verdraagzaamheid. Afwijking en tolerantie in Nederland, van de zestiende eeuw tot heden, edited by M. Gijswijt-Hofstra, 237–262. Hilversum: Verloren, 1989. “The transfer of windmill technology from the Netherlands to north-eastern Europe from the 16th to the early 19th century.” In Baltic affairs. Relations between the Netherlands and North-Eastern Europe 1500–1800, edited by J.Ph.S. Lemmink and J.S.A.M.  van Koningsbrugge, 33–52. Nijmegen: Instituut voor Noord- en Oosteuropese ­Studies, 1990. “Finding longitude at sea by magnetic declination on Dutch East-Indiamen, 1596– 1795.” The American Neptune 50 (1990): 281–290. “Universiteiten, illustre scholen en de verspreiding van technische kennis in Nederland, eind 16de-begin 19de eeuw.” Batavia Academica. Bulletin van de Nederlandse Werkgroep Universiteitsgeschiedenis 8 (1990): 3–34. “Van vrijheid naar dwang. Over de relatie tussen wetenschap en zeewezen in Nederland in de 19de en de vroege 20ste eeuw.” Tijdschrift voor de Geschiedenis der ­Geneeskunde, Natuurwetenschappen, Wiskunde en Techniek 13 (1990): 5–22. “Verenigingsleven en politiek in Rotterdam tussen 1850 en 1940.” Rotterdams Jaarboekje 8 (1990): 278–309. “De Nederlandse dierenbeschermingsbeweging en de Duitse overheid, 1940–1945.” In Argos. Bulletin van het Veterinair-historisch genootschap (1990): 41–50. “Navigeren in Azië. De uitwisseling van kennis tussen Aziaten en navigatiepersoneel bij de voorcompagnieën en de VOC, 1595–1795.” Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 9  (1990): 5–18 [reprinted in De VOC en de cultuur. Wetenschappelijke en culturele relaties tussen Europa en Azië ten tijde van de Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, edited by J. Bethlehem, and A.C. Meijer, 17–37. Amsterdam: Schiphouwer en Brinkman, 1993].

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“De technische ontwikkeling van Nederland in de vroegmoderne tijd. Literatuur, problemen en hypothesen.” Jaarboek voor de Geschiedenis van Bedrijf en Techniek 8 (1991): 9–37. “Contribution to Round Table on Alain Cabantous, La ciel dans la mer.” International Journal of Maritime History 3 (1991): 199–204. “Follow the actors? Some recent Dutch studies on the history of science and technology.” Tractrix. Yearbook for the History of Science, Medicine, Technology and Mathematics 3 (1991): 193–202. “Technological change in early modern Europe (1500–1780).” Journal of the Japan-Netherlands Institute 3 (1991): 32–44. “Transfer of technology in the early modern Netherlands.” Jaarboek Vereniging van Akademie-Onderzoekers (1990–1991): 43–52. “Report on the First Conference on the Transfer of Science and Technology between Europe and Asia since Vasco da Gama (1498–1998), Leiden, 5–7 June 1991.” Itinerario (1991): 8–17. “Ondernemers in kennis. Het zeevaartkundig onderwijs in de Republiek gedurende de zeventiende eeuw.” De zeventiende eeuw 7 (1991): 37–48. “Technological change and the professionalism of masters and mates in the Dutch mercantile marine, 1815–1914.” Collectanea Maritima 5 (1991): 282–303. “The transfer of technology between Britain and the Netherlands, 1700–1850.” In ­Anglo-Dutch mercantile marine relations 1700–1850, edited by J.R. Bruijn, and W.F.J. Mörzer Bruyns, 7–23. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum, 1991. “Mensen en dieren op het Brabantse platteland.” In Rijke oogst van schrale grond. Een overzicht van de Zuidnederlandse volkscultuur, ca.1700–1900, edited by Ch. de Mooij and R. van de Weijer, 55–68. Zwolle: WBooks, 1991. (with Jan Lucassen and Jan Luiten van Zanden). De Nederlandse geschiedenis als afwijki­ng van het algemeen menselijk patroon. Een aanzet tot een programma van samenwerking. Amsterdam: NEHA, 1988 [reprinted in: Ideeën en ideologieën, edited by Leo Noordegraaf, 571–589. Hilversum: Verloren, 1992. “Cultuur en techniek. Over de geschiedschrijving van een relatie.” Leidschrift 8 (1992): 5–22. (ed.) Gemma Frisius, De principiis astronomiae et cosmographiae (1553). Delmar NY: Scholar’s Facsimiles and Reprints, 1992. (with Leo Noordegraaf, eds.). The Dutch economy in the Golden Age. Nine studies. Amsterdam: NEHA, 1993. “Technological change and the economic expansion of the Dutch Republic, c.1580– 1680.” Economic and Social History in the Netherlands 4 (1993): 79–104. “Recasting the history of technology in the Netherlands.” Tractrix. Yearbook for the History of Science, Medicine, Technology and Mathematics 5 (1993): 161–170.

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“Sources of technological change in the Dutch Guianas, c.1670–1860.” In Mundialización de la ciencia y cultura nacional, edited by A. Lafuente, A. Elena, and M.L. Ortega, 659–672. Madrid: Ediciones Doce Calles, 1993. “Les sociétés savantes.” In l’Identité de l’Europe. L’évolution des connaissance, edited by W.P. Blockmans and W. Fischer, 69–80. Hilversum: Verloren, 1993 [also published as “Learned societies.” In The Making of Europe, edited by W.P. Blockmans, and W. Fischer, 69–80. Hilversum: Verloren, 1993), 69–80. De macht der gewoonte? Economische ontwikkeling en institutionele context in Nederland op de lange termijn. Amsterdam: VU Amsterdam, 1995. “Honderd jaar bedachtzaamheid. Denken over sociale en economische geschiedenis in Nederland, 1894–1994.” Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 20 (1994): 249–264. “Dieren en geschiedenis. Benaderingen, bronnen, problemen.” Groniek 126 (1994): 8–19. “Seamen’s organisations and social protest in Europe, c.1300–1825.” International Review of Social History 39 (1994): 145–169; [also as: “Organizacii morjakov i social’nyj protest v Evrope mezdu 1300–1825.” In Predvarjaja sojuzy. Naemnye rabocie i kollektivnye dejstvija v Evrope 1300–1850, edited by Catharina Lis, Jan Lucassen, and Hugo Soly, 203–236. Moscow: RAN, 1997. (with Jan Lucassen, eds.). A miracle mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995; paperback 2011 [translated as Een wonder weerspiegeld. De Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden in Europees p­ erspectief. Amsterdam: Aksant 2005. (with Jan Lucassen). “Introduction.” In A miracle mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European perspective, edited by Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen, 1–25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. “Shifts of technological leadership in early modern Europe.” In A miracle mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European perspective, edited by Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen, 338–366. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. (with Jan Lucassen). “Conclusion.” In A miracle mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European perspective, edited by Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen, 438–460. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. (with Marjolein ‘t Hart, Jan Lucassen, and Henk Kleijer, eds.). De Republiek tussen zee en vasteland. Buitenlandse invloeden op cultuur, politiek en economie in Nederland, 1580–1800 Leuven/Apeldoorn: Garant, 1995. (with Marjolein t Hart, Henk Kleijer, and Jan Lucassen). “Inleiding.” In De Republiek tussen zee en vasteland. Buitenlandse invloeden op cultuur, politiek en economie in Nederland, 1580–1800, edited by Karel Davids, Marjolein ‘t Hart, Henk Kleijer, and Jan Lucassen, 9–22 Leuven/Apeldoorn: Garant, 1995. (with Ton de Graaf and Yvonne van Meer, eds.). Geld en water. Banken, verzekeringen en scheepvaart in de negentiende en twintigste eeuw. Special issue of Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 14, no. 3 (1995).

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“Diffusie en creativiteit. De technische ontwikkeling van Nederland in de negentiende eeuw in vergelijkend perspectief.” NEHA-Jaarboek voor Economische, Bedrijfs- en Techniekgeschiedenis 58 (1995): 72–88. “Openness or secrecy? Industrial espionage in the Dutch Republic.” The Journal of ­European Economic History 24 (1995): 333–48. “Beginning entrepreneurs and municipal governments at the time of the Dutch Republic.” In Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in early modern times. Merchants and industrialists within the orbit of the Dutch staple market, edited by C. Lesger and L. Noordegraaf, 167–184. The Hague: Hollandse Historische Reeks, 1995. “De zeeman.” In Gestalten van de Gouden Eeuw, edited by Herman Beliën, 95–130. ­Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1995. (with Wantje Fritschy and Loes van der Valk, eds.). Kapitaal, ondernemerschap en beleid. Studies over economie en politiek in Nederland, Europa en Azië van 1500 tot heden. Amsterdam: NEHA, 1996. (with Wantje Fritschy, and Loes van der Valk). “Inleiding.” In Kapitaal, ondernemerschap en beleid. Studies over economie en politiek in Nederland, Europa en Azië van 1500 tot heden, edited by Karel Davids, Wantje Fritschy and Loes van der Valk, 11–34. Amsterdam: NEHA, 1996. “Neringen, hallen en gilden. Kapitalisten, kleine ondernemers en stedelijke overheid in de tijd van de Republiek.” In Kapitaal, ondernemerschap en beleid. Studies over economie en politiek in Nederland, Europa en Azië van 1500 tot heden, edited by Karel Davids, Wantje Fritschy, and Loes van der Valk, 195–220. Amsterdam: NEHA, 1996. “Maritime labour in the Netherlands, 1570–1870.” Research in Maritime History 13 (1997): 41–72. “Familiebedrijven, familisme en individualisering in Nederland, ca.1880–1990. Een bijdrage aan de theorievorming.” Amsterdams Sociologisch Tijdschrift 24 (1997): 527–554. “Van moderne groei naar moderne neergang? De economische geschiedenis van Nederland in de vroegmoderne tijd.” Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 112 (1997): 57–65. “The development of navigational techniques before 1740: General background.” In Maritime history, Volume two: The eighteenth century and the classic age of sail, ­edited by John Hattendorf, 47–54. Malabar: Krieger, 1997. “Sources of knowledge: Journals, logs, and travel accounts.” In Maritime history, Volume two: The eighteenth century and the classic age of sail, edited by John Hattendorf, 79–85. Malabar: Krieger, 1997. “The development of navigational techniques, 1740–1815: General background.” In ­Maritime history, Volume two: The eighteenth century and the classic age of sail, ­edited by John Hattendorf, 87–93. Malabar: Krieger, 1997.

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“The diffusion of navigational knowledge: Comparative approaches.” In Maritime ­history, Volume two: The eighteenth century and the classic age of sail, edited by John Hattendorf 101–108. Malabar: Krieger, 1997. “Historici, ingenieurs en techniek. Over de relatie tussen techniekgeschiedenis en algemene geschiedenis.” Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 113 (1998): 202–207. “Successful and failed transitions. A comparison of windmill-technology in Britain and the Netherlands in the early modern period.” History and Technology 14 (1998): 225–247. “1986. Woekeren met talenten.” In Een beeld van een academie. Mensen en momenten uit de geschiedenis van Koninklijk Instituut en de Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, edited by P.W. Klein, 197–198. Amsterdam: KNAW, 1998. “Bedrijfsspionage: een historische cursus.” In Onzware ernst en droomrigheid. Lustrumboek uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van het vijftigjarig bestaan van de Faculteit der Economische Wetenschappen en Econometrie, Vrije Universiteit, edited by M. Gelderman et al., 38–42. Amsterdam: VU Amsterdam, 1998. “Change, variation and continuity in the history of navigation in the Netherlands.” In Culture and technology of sea and ship, 3–12. Tokyo: Japan Institute of Navigation, 1998. “Cartography and navigation in the North Atlantic in the late 16th and early 17th centuries: A comparison of England and the Northern Netherlands.” In Proceedings International Willem Barentsz Symposium, 48–52. Terschelling: Maritime Institute Terschelling, 1998. “Zekerheidsregelingen in de scheepvaart en het landtransport, c. 1500–1800.” In Studies over zekerheidsarrangementen. Risico’s, risicobestrijding en verzekeringen in Nederland vanaf de Middeleeuwen, edited by Jacques van Gerwen and Marco van Leeuwen, 183–202. Amsterdam/The Hague: Spinhuis, 1998. “Deregulering in de stedelijke exportnijverheid in de vroegmoderne tijd. Beschouwingen over de Republiek in Europees perspectief.” In Ondernemers en bestuurders. Economie en politiek in de Noordelijke Nederlanden in de late middeleeuwen en de vroegmoderne tijd, edited by Clé Lesger and Leo Noordegraaf, 109–128. Amsterdam: NEHA, 1999. (with Koos Bosma, eds.). Werken aan een open Amsterdam. Special issue of Historisch Tijdschrift Holland 32, nos. 3–4 (2000). (with Koos Bosma). “Werken aan een open Amsterdam. Infrastructurele verbindingen tussen Amsterdam en de buitenwereld vanaf de achttiende eeuw tot heden.” ­Holland 32, nos. 3–4 (2000): 111–116. “Sporen in de stad. De metro en de strijd om de ruimtelijke orde in Amsterdam.” ­Holland 32, nos. 3–4 (2000): 157–182.

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“Patents and patentees in the Dutch Republic, 1580–1720.” History and Technology 16 (2000): 263–283. “From ‘Golden Age’ to ‘Golden Age’. An introduction to the role of the Netherlands in economic science and economic history.” De Economist 148 (2000): 433–442. “Nieuws wordt geschiedenis. Het Bulletin van voorloper tot tijdverschijnsel.” Volkskundig Bulletin 26 (2000): 56–59. “From De la Court to Vreede. Regulation and self-regulation in Dutch economic discourse between 1660 and the Napoleonic Era.” The Journal of European Economic History 30 (2001): 245–289. “Dierenbescherming in Nederland vanaf 1864.” Justitiële Verkenningen 9 (2001): 10–23. “Contribution to Round Table on Jann Markus Witt, ‘Master next God’?.” International Journal of Maritime History 14 (2002): 337–340. “In opdracht van de tijd? (De) Nederlandse cultuur in Europese context.” Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 117 (2002): 544–556. “Amsterdam as a centre of learning in the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, 1580–1700.” In Urban achievement in early modern Europe. Golden ages in Antwerp, ­Amsterdam and London, edited by Patrick O’Brien, Derek Keene, Marjolein ’t Hart, and Herman van der Wee, 305–325. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. “De aartsvader der deskundigen: Jan Hendrik van Swinden (1746–1823) tussen politiek, wetenschap en maatschappij.” In De opmars der deskundigen. Souffleurs van de samenleving, edited by F. van Lunteren, B. Theunissen, and R. Vermij, 33–43. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2002. “Van loser tot wonderkind. De VOC in de geschiedschrijving van 1800 tot heden.” In Rotterdammers en de VOC. Handelscompagnie, stad en burgers, edited by M.P.C. van der Heijden and P. van der Laar, 11–29. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2002. (with Marc Boone and Paul Janssens, eds.). Urban public debts, urban government and the market for annuities in Western Europe, 14th–18th centuries. Turnhout: Brepols, 2003. (with Marc Boone and Paul Janssens). “Urban public debts from the 14th to the 18th century. A new approach.” In Urban public debts, urban government and the market for annuities in Western Europe, 14th–18th centuries, edited by Karel Davids, Marc Boone, and Paul Janssens, 3–11. Turnhout: Brepols, 2003. (with Jan Parmentier and John Everaert, eds.). Peper, Plancius en porselein. De reis van het schip Swarte Leeuw naar Atjeh en Bantam, 1601–1603. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2003. “Marine, koopvaardij en zeevaartkunde in de negentiende eeuw: Een antwoord aan J.M. Mohrmann.” Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 22 (2003): 175–179. “Innovations in windmill technology in Europe, 1500–1800.” Atti XXXIV Settimana di Studi Economia e energia secc XIII–XVIII, 271–291. Prato: Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica, 2003 [also as: “Innovations in windmill technology in Europe

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c.1500–1800. The state of research and future directions of inquiry.” NEHA-jaarboek voor de Economische, Bedrijfs- en Techniekgeschiedenis 66 (2003): 43–63]. “Makelaardij in Rotterdam, c.1700–1870. Een case-study over de flexibiliteit van instituties.” In In het kielzog. Maritiem-historische studies aangeboden aan Jaap R. Bruijn, edited by Leo Akveld et al., 438–451. Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 2003. (with Doreen Arnoldus, Gregory Vercauteren, and Ivan Wijnens). “De groei van de overlegeconomie in Nederland en Vlaanderen. Een overzicht van ontwikkelingen in het onderzoek.” Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 1 (2004): 76–109. “Aan de oever van de Rubicon. Kennis, markt en vooruitgang in Mokyrs The Gifts of Athena.” Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 1 (2004): 120–124. “De geschiedschrijving over navigatie en maritieme cartografie in de Lage Landen in de twintigste eeuw.” Collectanea Maritima 7 (2004): 165–180. “The bookkeepers tale. Learning merchant skills in the Northern Netherlands in the sixteenth century.” In Education and learning in the Netherlands 1400–1600. Essays in honour of prof. dr. H. de Ridder-Symoens, edited by K. Goudriaan, J. van Moolenbroek, and A. Tervoort, 235–252. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Global history en de “canon” van de Nederlandse geschiedenis. Amsterdam: Edita, 2005. “De wijde horizon van een kamergeleerde: Isaac Vossius (1618–1689) en de zeevaart.” In Leven na Descartes. Zeven opstellen over ideeëngeschiedenis in Nederland in de zeventiende eeuw, edited by Paul Hoftijzer and Theo Verbeek, 27–38. Hilversum: Verloren, 2005. “Weest EenDERLEY sins. Jan Hendricksz. Jarichs van der Ley (c. 1566–1639) en de ­eenheid in godsdienst en navigatie.” In Koersvast. Vijf eeuwen navigatie op zee, edited by Remmelt Daalder et al., 132–141. Zaltbommel: Aprilis, 2005. (ed.). Secrecy. Special issue of Early Science and Medicine. A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period 10, no. 3 (2005). “Public knowledge and common secrets. Secrecy and its limits in the early modern Netherlands.” Early science and medicine. A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period 10 (2005): 411–427. “Craft secrecy in Europe in the early modern period: A comparative view.” Early science and medicine. A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the P­ re-modern Period 10 (2005): 341–348. “Keuzes en patronen in de techniekgeschiedenis van Nederland in de twintigste eeuw.” Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 120 (2005): 51–59. “River control and the evolution of knowledge: a comparison between regions in C ­ hina and Europe, c.1400–1850.” Journal of Global History 1 (2006): 59–79. “The transformation of an old industrial district: firms, family and mutuality in the Zaanstreek between c.1840 and 1920.” Enterprise and Society 7 (2006): 550–580.

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“Lage landen, verre horizonten. De verbinding van natuur, landschap en ‘Nederlandse’ identiteit in internationaal perspectief.” Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 121 (2006): 605–619. “Amsterdam.” In Encyclopedia of World Trade since 1450, edited by John McCusker et al., Volume one, 17–18. Farmington Hills: Macmillan, 2006. “Ondernemers en religie in Nederland. Een inleidende beschouwing.” In Geloof in eigen zaak. Markante protestantse werkgevers in de negentiende en twintigste eeuw, ­edited by R.E. van der Woude and P. Werkman, 9–21. Hilversum: Verloren, 2006. (with Patrick Pasture and Greta Devos, eds.). Changing liaisons. The dynamics of consultative arrangements in 20th century West-European democracies. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2007. (with Patrick Pasture and Greta Devos). “Introduction: Changing liaisons. The ­dynamics of consultative arrangements in 20th century West-European democracies.” In Changing liaisons. The dynamics of consultative arrangements in 20th century West-European democracies, edited by Karel Davids, Patrick Pasture, and Greta ­Devos, 11–28. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2007. “Overheid, sociale partners en representatie in een veranderende wereld. Een historisch perspectief.” Beleid en Maatschappij 34 (2007): 69–77. “Apprenticeship and guild control in the Netherlands, c.1450–1800.” In Learning on the shop floor. Historical perspectives on apprenticeship, edited by B. De Munck, S. ­Kaplan, and H. Soly, 65–84. New York/Oxford: Berghahn, 2007. “Deutsche Seeleute in der niederländischen Handelsflotte vom Beginn des 17. bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Encyklopädie. Migration in Europa, edited by Klaus J. Bade et al., 508–511. Paderborn etc.: Schöningh und Fink, 2007 [translated as: “German sailors in the Dutch mercantile marine from the early 17th to the end of the 18th century.” In The encyclopedia of migration and minorities in Europe from the 17th century to the present, edited by Klaus J. Bade et al., 433–435. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011]. “Willem Jansz. Blaeu.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, edited by John B. Hattendorf, Volume one, 295–297. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. “Navigational manuals.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, edited by John B. Hattendorf, Volume three, 67–71. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. “Navigators.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, edited by John B. Hattendorf, Volume three, 71–78. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. The rise and decline of Dutch technological leadership. Technology, economy and culture in the Netherlands, 1350–1800. Two volumes. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2008. “Lange aanloop, zachte landing. Economische groei in de Republiek.” Kleio 49, no. 8 (2008): 35–37. “Het technisch paradijs. De Republiek als voorloper in de technische ontwikkeling.” Geschiedenis Magazine 43, no, 8 (2008): 30–33.

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“The Dutch Republic: a water-borne power? Naval power and the maritime sector in the Netherlands, c. 1590–1795.” In Water and state in Europe and Asia, edited by Peter Borschberg and Martin Krieger, 185–203. Delhi: Manohar, 2008. “De Tweede Wereldoorlog: Een breuk in de economische ontwikkeling in de wereld?.” Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 122 (2009): 464–476. (with Sabine Go). “Buitenlandse agenten in Rotterdam. De opkomst van buitenlandse aatschappijen op de Rotterdamse zeeverzekeringsmarkt, circa 1815–1880.” In In behouden haven. Liber amicorum Greta Devos. Reflecties over maritieme regio’s, edited by Ilja van Damme and Hilde Greefs, 351–366. Tielt: Lannoo, 2009. “Nederlanders en de natuur in de Nieuwe Wereld. Een vergelijking van visies op de natuur in Brazilië, Nieuw Nederland en de Wilde Kust in de zeventiende eeuw.” Jaarboek voor Ecologische Geschiedenis 10 (2009): 1–24. (with Koos Bosma, Iris Burgers, Abdel el Makhloufi, and Heidi de Mare). “De Schipholregio als ‘nevelstad’. Een nieuwe benadering van stedelijke transformaties in de late twintigste eeuw.” Stadsgeschiedenis 4 (2009): 165–190. “Humanism and water management: Scaliger’s Discours de la ionction des mers.” LIAS. Journal of Early Modern Intellectual Culture and Its Sources 37 (2010): 1–22. “Public services in early modern European towns: An agenda for further research.” Journal of Urban History 36 (2010): 386–92. (with Cor van der Heijden). “Historici, erfgoed en ruimte: veranderende opvattingen sinds 1970.” In Geschiedenis en ontwerp. Handboek voor de omgang met cultureel erfgoed, edited by Koos Bosma and Jan Kolen, 72–82. Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2010. “Van VOC-mentaliteit naar jezuïetenmentaliteit. De Societas Jesu als schrikbeeld, partner en ijkpunt voor de Oost-Indische Compagnie.” In Alle streken van het kompas. Maritieme geschiedenis in Nederland, edited by Maurits Ebben, Henk den H ­ eijer, and Joost Schokkenbroek, 131–146. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2010. (with Marjolein ‘t Hart, eds.), De wereld en Nederland. Een sociale en economische ­geschiedenis van de laatste duizend jaar. Amsterdam: Boom, 2011; second, revised edition 2017. “Groei en aanloop naar de Great Divergence: Economische ontwikkelingen.” In De wereld en Nederland. Een sociale en economische geschiedenis van de laatste duizend jaar, edited by Karel Davids and Marjolein ’t Hart, 37–82. Amsterdam: Boom, 2011. “Van Leiden naar de wereld. Een microgeschiedenis van de global turn in de Nederlandse geschiedschrijving.” Holland. Historisch Tijdschrift 43 (2011): 154–157. “Tussen Smith en Schoonhoven. De verloren wereld van Dirk Hoola van Nooten (1747– 1808),” In Levenslopen in transformatie. Liber amicorum bij het afscheid van prof. dr. Paul M.M. Klep, edited by Theo Engelen, Onno Boonstra, and Angélique Janssens, 222–235. Nijmegen: Valkhof Pers, 2011. “Dutch and Spanish global networks of knowledge in the early modern period: Structures, connections, changes.” In Centres and cycles of accumulation in and around

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the Netherlands during the early modern period, edited by Lissa Roberts, 29–52. ­Berlin-Zürich: LIT Verlag, 2011. “Regions, families, religion: Continuity and change in social contexts of entrepreneurship between 1800 and 2000.” In Context of entrepreneurship, edited by Marco van Gelderen and Enno Masurel, 127–138 London: Routledge, 2011. “Economic discourse in Europe between Scholasticism and Mandeville: Convergence, divergence and the case of the Dutch Republic.” In Departure for modern Europe / Aufbruch in das moderne Europa. A handbook of early modern philosophy, edited by Hubertus Busche and Stefan Hessbrüggen, 80–95. Hamburg: Meiner, 2011. (with Ian Inkster, eds.). Useful and reliable knowledge. Special issue of History of Technology 31 (2012). “Introduction: ‘Useful knowledge’ reconsidered.” History of Technology 31 (2012): 1–4. “Gate-keeping. Who defined ‘useful knowledge’ in early modern times?.” History of Technology 31 (2012): 69–88. “Het geheim van het collectief. Technische vernieuwing in de Zaanstreek in de vroegmoderne tijd.” In Geschiedenis van de Zaanstreek, edited by Eelco Beukers, and ­Corrie van Sijl, Volume one, 307–320. Zaandam: Uitgeverij Wbooks, 2012. “In the shadow of Jesuits: Vossius and geography.” In Isaac Vossius between science and scholarship, edited by Eric Jorink and Dirk van Miert. 189–206. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012. “White collar workers of the VOC in Amsterdam, 1602–1795.” In Working on labor. ­Essays in honor of Jan Lucassen, edited by Marcel van der Linden and Leo Lucassen, 191–212. Boston/Leiden: Brill, 2012. (with Marjolein ‘t Hart). “The navy and the rise of the state. The case of the ­Netherlands c.1570–1810.” In Navies and state formation. The Schumpeter hypothesis ­revisited and reflected, edited by Jürgen Backhaus, Nicholas Kyriazis, and Nicholas Rodger, ­273–316. Münster: LIT Verlag, 2012. Religion, technology, and the Great and Little Divergences: China and Europe compared, c.700–1800. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013. “Ritueel slachten en dierenbescherming vanaf 1850 tot heden.” Geschiedenis Magazine 48, no. 5 (2013): 24–27. “Twintigh exempelen .. tot oeffeninghe. Leren navigeren in open zee in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw.” In Buitgemaakt en teruggevonden. Nederlandse brieven en scheepspapieren in een Engels archief, edited by Erik van der Doe, Perry Moree, and Dirk J. Tang, 56–64. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2013. (with Abdel El Makhloufi). “Air, money and space. How Amsterdam Airport S­ chiphol transformed the region.” In Megastructure Schiphol. Design in spectacular simplicity, edited by Koos Bosma, 230–239. Rotterdam: NAi Uitgevers, 2013 [translated as: “Lucht, geld en ruimte: Hoe Schiphol de regio veranderde.” In Schiphol

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­megastructuur. Ontwerp van spectaculaire eenvoud, edited by Koos Bosma, 231–239. Rotterdam: NAi Uitgevers, 2013. “Moving machine makers. The circulation of knowledge on machine-building in China and Europe between c.1400 and the early 19th century.” In Technology, skills and the pre-modern economy in the East and West, edited by Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden, 205–224. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2013. (with Bert de Munck, eds.). Innovation and creativity in late medieval and early modern European cities. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. (with Bert de Munck). “Innovation and creativity in Late Medieval and Early Modern European cities: An introduction.” In Innovation and creativity in Late Medieval and Early Modern European cities, edited by Karel Davids and Bert de Munck, 1–34. ­Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. (with Bert de Munck). “Beyond exclusivism. Entrance fees for guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries, c.1450–1800.” In Innovation and creativity in late medieval and early modern European cities, edited by Karel Davids and Bert de Munck, 189–224. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. “Only connect. Stedelijke ontwikkeling in de wereldgeschiedenis.” Stadsgeschiedenis 9 (2014): 48–51. “Great transformations. Economic history and the history of technology.” Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 11 (2014): 307–326. (with Marjolein ‘t Hart). “Is the polder model good for the economy?” BMGN Low Countries Historical Review 129 (2014): 90–96. “Colonial, religious and commercial machines: Globalization as an impulse for knowledge.” In Mapping spaces. Networks of knowledge in 17th century landscape painting, edited by Ulrike Gehring and Peter Weibel, 212–219. Munich: Hirmer, 2014. “Russko-gollandskie sviazi v oblasti tehniki v XVIII veke: sravnitelvyi analiz. in Rossia – Niderlandy.” In Dialog kultur v Evropeiskom prostranstve, 146–154. St. Petersburg: Evropeiskii dom, 2014. “The scholarly Atlantic. Circuits of knowledge between Britain, the Dutch Republic and the Americas in the eighteenth century.” In Dutch Atlantic connections, 1680– 1800. Linking empires, bridging borders, edited by Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. ­Roitman, 224–248. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2014. (ed.). Bridging and globalizing concepts. Connecting history of science, history of technology and economic history. Special issue of Isis 106, no. 4 (2015). “Introduction: Bridging concepts.” Isis 106, no. 4 (2015): 835–839. “On machines, self-organization and the global travelling of knowledge, c. 1500–1900.” Isis 106, no. 4 (2015): 866–874. “Local and global: seafaring communities in the North Sea area, c. 1600–2000.” International Journal of Maritime History 27 (2015): 629–646.

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“Levensbericht van Peter Wolfgang Klein.” Levensberichten en herdenkingen KNAW (2015): 58–68. “The Longitude Committee and the practice of navigation in the Netherlands, c.1750– 1850.” In Navigational Enterprises in Europe and its Empires, 1730–1880, edited by Richard Dunn and Rebekah Higgitt, 32–46. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. (with Joost Schokkenbroek), “Voorbij de oude wereld. Nieuwe beroepen in de koopvaardij, 1850–1950.” In Reizen door het maritieme verleden van Nederland, ­edited by Maurits Ebben, Anita van Dissel and Karwan Fatah-Black, 59–77. Zutphen: ­Walburg Pers, 2015. (with Sabine Go and Timon Schultz). Zekere zaken. Mijlpalen uit de geschiedenis van de coassurantiemarkt. Rotterdam: VNAB, 2016. “Religion and technological development in China and Europe between about 700 and 1800.” Artefact. Techniques, Histoire et Sciences Humaines 4 (2016): 287–298. “Making knowledge ‘useful’ in Europe between c.1750 and 1850. Shipbuilding and navigation technology compared.” In Making useful knowledge, edited by Thomas ­Morel, Giuditta Parolini, and Cesare Pastorino, 11–23. Berlin: Max Planck Institut für ­Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 2016. “Florijn, Van Swinden and the Longitude Committee (1787–1818).” In Pour une histoire du Bureau des Longitudes (1795–1832), edited by M. Schiavon and L. Rollet, 175–194. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy / Editions Universitaires de Lorraine, 2017.

List of Doctoral Theses Supervised by Karel Davids (1997–May 2018) Achbari, Azadeh, Rulers of the Winds: How academics came to dominate the science of the weather, 1830–1870, VU Amsterdam, 2017 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Frans van Lunteren). Arnoldus, Doreen, Family, family firm and strategy. Six Dutch family firms in the food industry 1880–1970, VU Amsterdam, 2002 (co-supervisor Dr Phil Kint). Bruggeman, Marijke, Nassau en de macht van Oranje. De strijd van de Friese Nassau’s om de erkenning van hun rechten, 1702–1747, VU Amsterdam, 2005 (co-supervisor Dr Jan de Jongste). Cornelisse, Charles, Energiemarkten en energiehandel in Holland in de Late Middeleeuwen, University of Leiden, 2007 (co-supervisors Prof. Dr Wim Blockmans and Dr Petra van Dam). Faber, Jasper, Kennisverwerving in de Nederlandse industrie, 1870–1970, VU Amsterdam, 2001 (co-supervisor Dr Erik Bloemen). Fransen, Alfons, Een kleine dijk met een groot doel. De financiën van de Diemerdijk, 1­ 591–1864, VU Amsterdam, 2009 (co-supervisor Dr Milja van Tielhof). Geertse, Michel, Defining the universal city. The International Federation for Housing and Planning and the transnational planning dialogue, VU Amsterdam, 2012 (cosupervisor Prof. Dr Koos Bosma). Geljon, Piet, De algemene banken en het effectenbedrijf 1860–1914, VU Amsterdam, 2005. van Genabeek, Joost, Met vereende kracht risico’s verzacht. De plaats van onderlinge hulp binnen de negentiende eeuwse particuliere regelingen van sociale zekerheid, VU Amsterdam, 1999 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Jan Lucassen). Go, Sabine, Marine insurance in the Netherlands 1600–1870. A comparative institutional approach, VU Amsterdam, 2009 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Bernard Compaijen). Hellema, Peter and Joop Marsman, De organisatie-adviseur. Opkomst en groei van een nieuw vak in Nederland, 1920–1960, VU Amsterdam, 1997 (co-supervisor Dr Erik Bloemen). Hertroijs, Frasie, Hoe kennis van China naar Europa kwam. De rol van Jezuïeten en VOCdienaren, 1680–1795, VU Amsterdam, 2014 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Jan Lucassen). Hilster, Nicolàs de, Navigation on Wood. Wooden navigational instruments 1590–1731. An analysis of early modern western instruments for celestial navigation, their origins, mathematical concepts and accuracies, VU Amsterdam, 2018 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Frans van Lunteren). Jonkers, Art, North by Northwest. Seafaring, science and the earth’s magnetic field (1600– 1800), VU Amsterdam, 2000 (co-supervisor Dr Andrew Jackson, University of Leeds).

344 List Of Doctoral Theses Supervised By Karel Davids (1997–may 2018) Lurvink, Karin, Beyond race and poverty. The truck systems on Louisiana plantations and Dutch peateries, 1865–1920, VU Amsterdam, 2016 (co-supervisor Dr Wybren Verstegen). Molema, Marijn, Regionale kracht. Regionaal beleid in Noordoost Nederland en Noordwest Duitsland, 1945–2000, VU Amsterdam, 2010 (co-supervisors Prof. Dr Koos Bosma and Prof. Dr Maarten Duijvendak). Mörzer Bruyns, Willem, Het Schip Recht door Zee. De octant in de Republiek in de achttiende eeuw, University of Leiden, 2003 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Jaap Bruijn). van Rossum, Matthias, Werkers van de wereld. Globalisering, maritieme arbeidsmarkten en de verhouding tussen Aziaten en Europeanen in dienst van de VOC, VU Amsterdam, 2013 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Jan Lucassen). Schilt, Kees, Simon Stevin en het Hermetisme, Een cultuurhistorische studie naar zijn methodologie, VU Amsterdam, 2013 (co-supervisors Prof. Dr Willem Frijhoff and Prof. Dr Ida Stamhuis). Suurenbroek, Frank, Stadsrand in transformatie, Haarlem 1800–1901, VU Amsterdam, 2006 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Koos Bosma). Tump, Janneke, Ambachtelijk geschoold. Haarlemse en Rotterdamse ambachtslieden en de circulatie van technische kennis, VU Amsterdam, 2012 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Koen Goudriaan). Veenstra, Wietse, Tussen gewest en Generaliteit. Staatsvorming en financiering van de oorlogvoering te water in de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden, in het bijzonder Zeeland, VU Amsterdam, 2014 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Marjolein’t Hart). van Vuure, Cis, Van kaikan tot konik. Feiten en beeldvorming rond het Europese wilde paard en de Poolse konik, VU Amsterdam, 2014 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Jan Boersema). de Wilt, Carla, Landlieden en hoogheemraden. De bestuurlijke ontwikkeling en de participatiecultuur in Delfland in de zestiende eeuw, VU Amsterdam, 2015 (co-supervisor Prof. Dr Petra van Dam). Zeischka, Siger, Minerva in de polder. Waterstaat en techniek in Rijnland, 1500–1850, VU Amsterdam, 2007 (co-supervisor Dr Petra van Dam).

Index Aalborg 217 Aardenne, Gijs van 109 Acemoglu, Daron 84 Adams, Henricus 48, 51, 52n44 Adams, Julia 9 Adriaan & Catharina (ship) 136 Africa 187, 237, 259, 262, 263 Agt, Dries van 109 Alexander, Amir 29 Alkmaar 160 Allart, widow 285, 289 Allemeyer, M.L. 279, 290 Allewelt, Zacharias 183, 194 Alps, the 30, 279 Alston, Lee 91, 92 Ambon 223 Ameland 151 American University of Beirut 66 Amsterdam 4, 28n46, 115, 127–129, 131, 132, 135, 137, 138, 140, 146, 147, 155–158, 160, 162–165, 184, 185, 228–246, 253, 278, 281–283, 285–287, 289, 292, 293 Amsterdam Island 127, 129 Amsterdam Museum (Amsterdam Historical Museum) 196 Amsterdam Stock Exchange 150 Andriesse, Jacob 223 Anna (ship) 162 Anna Catharina (plantation) 233–235 Anna Catharina Maria (ship) 136, 144 Annales school 2, 4 Antwerp 36–59 Aquinas, Thomas 19, 27 Archangel 124 Arctic 150, 151, 154, 324 Aristotle 27, 28n46, 31 Arkel, Dik van 1, 2 Arkenbout, Arie Pieterszoon 185 Arkenbout, Jacobus Ariesz 185, 186, 196 Artillery and Military Engineering School 283 Asia 154, 170, 174, 188, 201–225, 238, 255 Asia (ship) 161 Asiana Airlines 73

Askew, Anthony 181, 196 Aust-Agder Museet, Arendal 183, 194 Australia 66–68, 73, 268 Austria 312 Ayala, César J. 256 Bach, Johann Sebastian 18 Bacon, Francis 19, 24, 27, 29 Baerts, Nicolaes 47, 48 Baffin Bay 150 Bakker Schut, Frits 311 Balkans 73 Baltic 126, 130, 132, 134, 139 Baltimore 255 Banda 201, 206–209, 212–214, 216, 221–223, 225 Bantaeng (Bonthain) 209 Bantijn 214 Baptist, Jan 28, 48 Batavia 174, 176, 184, 185, 187, 202–204, 205n25, 206–210, 212–214, 216, 219–221, 222n105, 223, 224 Bath, Bernhard Slicher van 4 Batjo 204 Baud, J.C. 236 Becker, Carl 19, 31 Beekvliet (ship) 208 Beemster 130 Beens, George 220, 221, 225 Beijer, Johan Coenraad 278, 283–286, 288, 289, 292–294 Belgium 1, 5, 311 Belize 251, 261, 262, 264, 267, 268 Bellinghen, Jacobus van 52 Bengal 187 Bengtson, Roelof 187 Berbice (British Guyana) 232, 233 Bergen op Zoom 209 Bergsma, Edo 308 Bess, Michael 298 Bierman, Hendrik (sailor) 205n22, 212, 222 Biesheuvel 108 Bijlmermeer 130 Blaauw, Dirk Dirksz 138

346 Blaauw, Lijsbeth Dirks 138 Blauwe Arent 134 Blockmans, Wim 1 Blom, Joachim 209 Bocca Tigris (fortress) 174 Boelens, Ambrosius Aijso van 281 Bogaard, Cornelis Jan 220 Booker, Albert 160, 161 Booker (firm) 259, 264, 265 Boomsma, G.R. 279 Borkum 151 Borski, Wilhelmina 233, 239 Bosch, Toon 278 Bosch Reitz, G.C. 239 Botticini, Maristella 19 Boutonese 221 Boyle, Robert 24, 25 Braam, Aris van 124 Braam Houckgeest, Andreas Everardus van 184, 196 Brainport Eindhoven 103 Brake, Wayne te 9 Brazil 250, 268 Breda 283 Bremen 154 Bremer, Jacob 162 Brinkman, Hendrik 157 Britain 5, 66, 73–75, 150, 229, 243, 251, 253, 255, 259–261, 268, 270, 312 Britannica International School 75 British Commonwealth 259–261, 270 British Council 71 British Isles 130 British West-Midlands 6 Broeke, Anthonij van den 205n22, 212, 222n98 Broertjes, Jacob 162 Broocker, Jan Claesz 129 Brouwer, Guillaume de 183, 203 Brouwer, Willem (sailor) 205n22, 212, 222n98 Bruckner 18 Bruijn/Davids paradox 124, 139 Bruijn, Jaap 1, 3, 123–124, 128 Brussels 40, 255 Budapest 66, 73 Buginese 201, 204–207, 218, 220–224 Buisman, J. 280 Bulukumba 217, 220, 221, 225 Bunnen, Philip 45, 50

Index Caeskoper, Aris Cornelisz 130, 131, 138 Caeskoper, Claas Arisz 138 Caeskoper, Gerrit Arisz 138 California 250, 257 Camerling, Willem 217, 221 Campbell, Horace 264 Canada 73, 263 Cape of Good Hope 184, 185, 187, 206 Caroni 260, 261, 263 Cassé, Jean Bapt. 50 Cassie from Makassar 208 Castricum, Claes Jansz 162 Castro, Fidel 250, 267 Central Asia 250 Ceram 223 Chazal 26 Cheribon 209 Chevalier, R. le 239 China 10, 15, 18, 19, 31, 64n3, 65, 73, 170–172, 174–176, 178–181, 183, 184, 187, 189, 253 Chitqua, Amoy 188 Chitqua, Tan (Tan-Che-Qua, Tan Chetqua)  178, 180 Clausen, Elisabeth 218 Clausen, Franciscus 217 Clausen, Johanna 218 Cochin 206 Cohen, Floris 28 Co Hong 174 Coimbra 28 College Zeemanshoop 292, 293 Collet, Joseph 177, 180, 192 Columbia University, New York 9 Company (voc) 3, 170 Condorcet, Marquis de 68, 69 Confucius 26 Coninck, Jacobus I. de 45 Coromandel 183, 194 Coster, Balthasar de 45 Cottereau, Alain 38, 41, 44, 50, 56 Cracow 28 Cronprintz Christian (ship) 182, 189 Cuba 250, 255, 256, 258, 266, 267 Cunningham Copeland, Pamela 182 Czechoslovakia 255 Dam, Adriaan Jacobsz 136, 144 Dam, Jacob van 185, 186, 194

347

Index Danda, slave from “Mangarij,” 218 Danish East India Company 182, 183, 194 Danzig 201, 208 Dardenne, Henry 48, 51 Datang 204–207, 215, 222, 223 Davids, Karel 1–11, 15, 31, 67, 81, 83, 85, 102, 123, 146, 166, 167, 300 Davis Strait 127, 150, 152–154, 156, 157, 159, 160, 163 Deal, Kent 180 Deeg, Richard 88, 91 Delfland (ship) 201–225 Delft 18, 103, 127, 184, 206, 209, 283 Delfzijl 107 Demerara (British Guyana) 232 De Muy 318, 323, 326 Den Dooren de Jong, E.L.G. 148, 157, 159–161 Denmark 138, 139, 181–183 Derbij, Fransiscus J. 49, 50 Descartes 26 Deshima 175 Detroit 73 Deuren, Matthias van 48, 51 Devos, Greta 85 De Vries, J. 4, 83, 147 De Vrouwe Jacoba (ship) 162 De Vrouw Wijva Jdr (ship) 162 De Wisselvalligheijd (ship) 162 Dijksen, Adriaan J. 319n7 Dobbelaar, Petrus Gerardus 183, 194 Dominican Republic 256, 258, 267 Dordrecht 132, 135 Dorking and District Museum, Dorking 180, 192 Drachten 107 Drees, Willem 93 Drenthe 104, 107, 110 Drie Dammen (Ship) 136, 144 Drury Lane Theatre 181 Duijff, Christiaen (captain) 207–209 Dumonceau, Michiel 49, 50, 52 Dunkirk 156 Durgerdam 292 Dutch East India Company. See voc Dutch Republic 6, 83, 149, 152, 156, 170, 176 Dyke, Paul van 174

Eastern Europe 64, 73, 110, 115 East-Groningen 108 Eckstein, Zvi 19 Eecke, R. van 318, 323, 326 Eendracht (mill) 130 Elias, D.W. 292 Emmen 107 Emmer, Piet  229 Enge Wormer 130 England 8, 24, 25, 36, 51, 139, 176, 179, 181, 182, 188, 243, 312 English East India Company (eic) 175–177, 179–183 Enkhuizen 127, 185, 289 Erasmus scheme, European Union’s 66 Essequibo 232 European Union 86, 96, 110 Everaerts, Jean Baptist 48, 51 Faber, Joop 4 Ferrier, Leonardus 51 Fiji 265 Flanders 102, 181, 183 Fleet Street 181 Florida 250, 266 Flushing (Vlissingen) 127, 129 Föhr 136, 151 Formosa (Taiwan) 171 France 5, 7–9, 130, 156, 176, 241, 243, 298, 303, 312 Franeker 282 Frankfurt 266 Fransz, Frans 221 Fredrik, King V 183 Friedman, Harriet 250, 251, 255, 268 Friesland 104, 107, 110, 276, 278, 281, 282, 285, 287, 290, 291, 293 Frisian Society for History, Archeology, and Linguistics (Friesch Genootschap voor geschied-oudheid-en taalkunde) 282 Fujian Province 177 Gaesbeeck, Cornelis van 54 Galen 28n46, 31 Galileo 23, 30n55 Garrick, David 181, 196 Geer, Dirk Jan 300 Gelderland 104, 107, 278, 283, 284, 320

348 Gemert, Lambertus van 48, 51 Geneva 266 George, King iii 179 Gereffi, Gary 250, 254 German North Frisian Isles 151 Germany 2, 5, 8, 115, 130, 139, 257, 298, 299, 302, 311–313, 318 Gillemans, Job 49 Gillespie, Michael 29 Goddard, Jonathan 24 Goliath (Ship) 128 Gorski, Philip 9 Goubou, Jacobus 41n15, 48 Goubou, Michiel iii 52 Gouda 282 Goudswaard, Han 109, 110 Graft 136 Gräper, Fleur 113, 116 Greenland 150, 157, 159, 160, 163 Greenwich 182 Grenville (ship) 179 Grießinger, Andreas 38, 56 Grindley, Nicholas 181, 196 Groen, Harmen Jans 291–293 Groningen 104, 107, 108, 110, 118, 119, 164 Groot, Jeldert Jansz 162 Groot Kaij 223 Guillemont, Henrico F. 45 Guyana (British) 232, 235, 238, 259 Haaften (ship) 208 Haagen, J.K. van der 309, 310 Haaksburg (ship) 220 Haarlem 160, 286 Hacquebord, Louwrens 127n12, 128, 129n17 The Hague 55, 104, 115, 208, 283 Hall, Peter A. 87, 90 Hall, Thomas 182, 194 Halve Maan (mill) 130, 138 Hamburg 154, 253 Hamburg (plantation) 235 Hannocet, Lambertus 48, 50 Hardekos, Catharina Melchers 185 Hardwick (ship) 182 Harlingen 127 Harpen, Johannes Jacob van 184, 196 Hart, Marjolein ‘t 8–9 Hart, Simon 123 Havemeyer, Henry Osborne 256, 257, 270

Index Havemeyer, Horace 258 Hawaii 250, 256–258 Heerenveen 281, 282 Heerhugowaard 130 Heerma van Voss, Lex 9 Heijden, Manon van der 9 Hellman, Lisa 171n3, 176 Helmont, Jan-Baptist van 28 Hemerijck, Anton 93 Hencxthoven, Judocus van 52 Hennekin, Josephus 48, 51 Herck, Artus 49, 50 Herck, Jan Baptist iv 49, 52 Hering, J. 286 Het Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam 185, 186 Heylens, Gaspar 52, 54 Heyn, Claas Dirksz 134 Hickey, William 178 Hillegonda (Ship) 136, 144 Hofman, Jan 205, 212 Hofstede, G. 85, 86, 91 Hoge Horn 126 Hogenhouck, Marten 136 Hog Lane 176 Holland 128, 129, 147, 148, 164, 277, 278, 281–284, 291 Hollandse Maatschappij der Wetenschappen 291 Holter, Peter 183, 194 Holtkamp, publisher 284, 285 Hong-merchants 174, 175 Hoorn 127, 281 Hooykaas, R. 30 Hopkins, Terence K. 250, 262 Horsedon (ship) 179 Howell, Martha 9 Huff, Toby 18, 19 Huisduinen 136 Hungary 65, 74, 75 Hupke, Klaus Dieter 298 Hurk, Pieter van de 182, 194 Huybrechts, Peter ii 49, 52 ij, the 126, 150, 278, 287, 292 India 175, 177, 178, 237, 249, 251, 252, 255 Indies (Netherlands) 255, 258 Insinger, Albrecht Frederik 228, 229, 231, 233, 236–237, 243–246

349

Index Insinger, Herman Albrecht 232 Insinger, Jacob Herman 233, 246 International Baccalaureate Organisation (ibo) 67, 71 International General Certificate of Secondary Education (igcse) 69 International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam (iisg) 5 International Primary Curriculum (ipc) 69 International School Association 69 International School Award 71 International School of Geneva (isg) 69 International Schools Assessment programme 70 Ispasia, slave, from “from Boegies,” 218 Italy 5, 139, 312 Jackson, Gregory 91 Jacobs, Adriaen 49 Jacobs, Guilliemus Jacques 49 Jacobs, Peter 48, 51 Jamaica 259–265 Jamat 204 Jan Mayen 127–129 Japan 175, 253, 255, 267 Jisp 129, 131, 135–137 Jong, Cornelis de 127 Jonge Juffrouw Anna Maria (ship) 157 Jonge Roggebloem (ship) 162 Joost 204 Kalf 130, 138 Kattegat 133 Katwoude 289 Katznelson, Ira 9 Keetel (ship) 208 Kepler, Johannes 26 Keuken, Claes de Jonge 162 Keynes 93 Kieft (mill) 130 Klein, Peter 1 Knots, Klaar 161 Kongen af Danmark (ship) 183 Koog 139 Koog-aan-de-Zaan 138 Kranzberg 32 Krimpen aan de Lek 160 Kuijp, Jan van der 216

Labouchère, S.P. 239 Ladrones 178 Lagrangia, Giuseppe Lodovico (Lagrange)  30 Lamoen, Leopoldus van 49, 50 Langman, Harry 108, 115 Latin America 251 Laureyssens, Jean F. 45, 50 Leeuwarden 281, 282, 286, 287, 291 Leeuwarder Courant 291 Leeuwen, Cornelis van 281 Leeuwenhoek, Anthonie van 18 Leeuwen, Jacob van 278, 281, 282, 284, 294 Leiden 1, 281, 282 Lemmer 287 Lensink, Rob 320 Lepies, Anthony 47, 48, 51 Leur, Pieter 158–160 Libaerts, Jacques 50 Lis, Rina 1 Loire 253 London 8, 18, 39, 53, 179–181, 188, 253, 259, 266 Lootsma, J. 148 Loten (governor) 221 Loudon, James 244, 245 Low Countries 6, 82 Lucassen, Jan 5, 6, 85 Lucassen, Leo 9 Luhman, Niklas 106 Lups, Daniel 45 Luxemburg 312 Lyons 38 Maarschalk, Livinius 201, 208, 210–213, 215–217, 224 Maas, Frits Jan 319 Macau 174, 187 Maccassar 218 Madagascar 206 Madeira 237 Malakka 187 Malemokka [Manawoka] 223 Mansveld, Wilma 113–115 Marsh region 279 Martens, Jan 184, 194 Martineau, David 259 Marum, M. van 291

350 Mastogh, Rijnier 216 Mauritius 265 McCants, Ann 9 McCloskey, Deirdre 15, 19, 23 McMichael, Philip 250, 255 Medemblik 188, 289 Mediterranean 126, 252 Meertens, Captain 184 Meeuwen, Jacob van 135 Meijer, Roelof/Meeuw, Roelof 162 Meijer, Wim 110 Mencius 26 Mertens, Jacob iii 52 Mertens, Jacobus F. 48, 49 Merton, Robert K. 24, 25 Meurs, Jacobus F. van 45 Meuse, river 278 Meyn, Jan Arendsz 138 Middelburg 127, 129, 183, 194 Mijer, Pieter 240, 241 Mildenburgh 300 Mina (slave) 204, 205, 215 Minns, Chris 36 Mishna 31 Missamive (village) 223 Moluccas 175 Monnickendam 289 Motten, Thomas van der 48 Mule, Peter 183, 192 Munck, Bert de 7 Munnekeburen 291 Museum of London 181, 196 Muyt, N. 286 National Department of Water Management 286 National Museet, Copenhagen 182, 183 National Portrait Gallery, London 177, 192 Nebbens, Jacob 183, 194 Neo-Confucian 31 Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (nias) 5 Netherlands, the 2–10, 82–85, 88, 89, 93–95, 97, 102, 103, 107, 108, 111, 115, 119, 131, 137, 180–183, 185, 187, 230, 234, 275–294, 298–300, 302, 304–312, 317, 318, 320–326

Index New Orleans 255 Newton, Isaac 25–27 New York 1, 2, 9, 255, 256, 266 New Zealand 89 Nieuwkoop 281 Nieuwland (ship) 187 Nigeria 264 Nispen tot Sevenaer, Eugene van  302–304 Noomen, Meijndert 161 Noorderkwartier 126, 135, 136, 140 Noord-Holland 104, 278, 282, 283, 285, 289, 292, 293 North, Douglass 82n2, 91 North Germany 136, 138, 140 North Sea 6 Norway 126, 131, 139, 181, 183 Novaya Zemlya (Nova Zembla) 127 Nozeman, Cornelius 320 Nussauwe (Nussaniwe) 223 Occam, William of 29 Oebles, Oeble 161 oecd 66, 86 Ollier, Franchois 49, 50, 52 Olson, Mancur 83 Oosten, Jan van 207, 208 Oosterkattegat 133 Oostermeer 282 Oostzaan 131 Oostzaandam 133 Opregte Haarlemsche Courant 286 Osbeck, Pehr 178 Osnos, Evan 65 Ostend 181 Overijssel 104, 107, 116, 276, 278 Pacific 257, 265 Padang 206 Pahud, Charles Ferdinand 240 Pakes (Captain) 292 Papoe from Papoea 208 Paracelsus 28, 30 Paris 8, 28, 30, 40, 45, 53, 55, 192 Parlevliet, Jan 319, 323–325 Pasture, Patrick 85 Paterborn 217

Index Peabody Essex Museum (pem), Salem, ­Massachusetts 182, 192, 194, 196 Pearl river 174, 176 Persian Gulf 170 Petty, William 24 Phenix (ship) 208 Philadelphia 255 Philippines 256, 258 Pietersz, David 128 Pincus, Steven 9 Pink (mill) 130 Pirenne, Henri 2 Ploeg, Jan Douwe van der 267 Plymouth 187 Poland 131 Pomeranz, Kenneth 15 Popper, Karl 1, 10 Postelijn, Andries 217, 218, 221 Pott 178 Prak, Maarten 85 Price, Richard 68, 69 Prins, Petrus (Corporal) 205, 209n55, 212, 214, 215, 222n98 Prussia 7, 8 Puerto Rico 256, 258 Pulau Ay 202 Purmer 130 Pyke, family 182 Pyke, Isaac 182, 194 Quanjer, Björn 123, 132, 136 Ramée, Pierre de la 27 Ramsgate 180 Ray, John 24 Reael, Pieter 213 Redi, Fransesco 27 Reith, Reinhold 38, 56 Renders, Jacobus 47–49, 52 Réunion 269 Rhine river 132 Riedeman, Wieke 161 Riello, Giorgio 39, 41, 44, 50, 54, 56 Rijck, Guilliam De 49, 52, 53, 55 Rijk, J.C. 237 Rijk, Jan de 320 Rijksmuseum Amsterdam 184, 196

351 Rijp, de 135, 136 Rits, Christiaan 201, 205, 208, 212, 215, 222, 223 Robidé van der Aa, C. 291, 292 Robinson, James A. 84 Rochussen, Jan Jacob 241–244 Roessingh, Henk 4 Rohr, C. 279 Rokkan, Stein 6 Rosenburg (ship) 187 Rotterdam 1, 127, 135, 150, 151, 162, 208, 292 Rotterdam (castle) 218 Rotterdam (ship) 184 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 65, 68, 69 Royen, Paul van 132 Rubin, Jared 17, 19 Russia 9, 65, 126, 130, 139 Rust en Werk (ship) 221 Ruts, Josias 185 Sage, Daniel 182, 188, 196 St. Andrews 28 St. Helens 182 St. Martin 237 Salem, Massachusetts 182 San Francisco 73 Sante, Gerret van 151, 161 Sante, Jacob van 161 Sargent, William 182 Scandinavia 136, 140 Schattle, Hans 72 Scheijbeek (ship) 209 Scheiper, Abraham 49, 50 Schermer 130 Schiedam 283 Schlegel, Hermann 320 Schleswig-Holstein 279 Schuttevaêr, Herman 310 Semarang 208, 209n48 Sevenstar (ship) 129 ship repairs 209 Sierie (from Toerong or Toerang) 204–206, 208 Simons, Jean Baptist 49 Singapore 72, 73 Sittie, Dain Sittie 218 Sivin, Nathan 31

352 Siwpersad, Jozef Prabhudass 246 Sleswig (ship) 183 Slot Kronenburg (ship) 209 Sluijck, Claas Hendriksz 135 Sluyterman, Keetie 97 Smeerenburg 127, 128 Smidts, Christiaen 45 Smout, Adriaan Hendrik (governor) 219–221 Sneek 284 Society for Public Welfare, “Nut” (­Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen)    282, 283, 291, 294 Soeteblom, Matthijs (sailor) 208, 210–213, 215, 217 Soly, Hugo 1 Somer, Wierick 48, 51 Soreang, village 219, 220 Soskice, David 87 South Africa 264 Southeast Asia 202, 218, 225 Southern Europe 124, 153 South-Korea 73 South Sulawesi 209, 214, 219, 220, 224 Soviet Union 110 Sparrehout (ship) 136, 144 Speelman, Henk 112, 113 Spinoza 30 Spitsbergen (Svalbard) 127–129, 150, 154 Spreckels, Klaus 250, 256–259, 270 Stad Brielle (ship) 136 Stam, Gerrit (commander) 203, 204, 207, 209–218 Standvastigheid (ship) 184 Staring, Adolph 308–310 Starnmeer 130 Stavoren 127 Stibel, Marcus 214, 215 Stipriaan, Alex van 232 Stone, Lawrence 20 Strand, the 181 Sulawesi 217–220 Sundberg, A. 280 Suriname 232–235, 237, 239–242, 244, 246 Swaak, Klaas 115 Swart, Nicolaas 278, 282–290, 292–294 Swaziland 265 Sweden 89, 139

Index Swift, Jonathan 27 Switzerland 312 Sydney 72 Taan, Claas & Zoonen 161 Tegal 209 Talbot, Henry 180, 192 Tarelinck, Jan van 134 Tarnimmerse Eijlanden (Tanimbar)  222 Temminck, Coenraad Jacob 320 Tempessij, Andries 223 Tertolen, Arij 209, 216 Tets van Goudriaan, A.W.N. van  292 Texel 136, 151, 187, 317–327 Thailand 268 Thelen, Kathleen 89, 90, 98 Thelwall, A.S. 288 Thijsse, Jac. P. 317, 318, 323 Thopas, Klaas & Gerrit Noomen 161 Tienhoven, Pieter van 310 Tijn, Theo van 4 Tilbury (Essex) 266 Tjerksz, Albert 187 Todd, Thomas 181, 196 Tokyo 266 Touwen, Jeroen 9 Tribou, Louis Bernard 181, 188, 196 Trimpo 204–208, 215, 223 Trinidad 260–264 Turkish 71 Twickel 310 Udjung Pandang (Makassar) 207 Unilever 109 United Kingdom 89, 263, 264 United States 65, 66, 68, 72, 74, 181, 253, 256–258, 266, 267 United World College 70 University of Groningen 282 Urimesing 223 US Lake Shore High School, USA 73 Utrecht 4, 104, 277 Values, Christian 288 Veblen, Thorstein 81 Veere 127, 129 Verhoeven, Thym 235, 236

353

Index Versteegh, Adriaan 223 Verstolk van Stoelen, baron J.G. 291, 293 Vesalius 30 Victoria & Albert Museum 180, 192 Vienna 28 Vierhuis 291 Vietnam 250, 267 Vijverberg, shipyard 138 Vinckhuijsen, Jan 215 Vink, Jasper 107 Virtues, Christian 289, 290 Vitelleschi, General Muzio 29 Vlaardingen, village 218 Vlieland 136 Vlissingen 217 voc (Dutch East India Company) 3, 170 Volta 23 Vonhoff, Henk 110 Voorzaan 126, 133 Vos, De en Zoon 156 Vos, Jan (sailor) 212, 222 Vries, Jan de 4, 147 Vrouwe Petronella (ship) 187

Whampoa 174 White, Andrew Dickson 28, 30 White, Lynn 16, 21, 29 Whitley, W.H 179 Wiegel, Hans 110 Wijde Wormer 130 Wilde, Dirk de (sailor) 205, 212 Wilhelmina/Welmeende (ship) 162 Wilkins, John 24 William, King I 278, 293 William, King ii 292 William, King iii 278 Williams, Eric 261, 263 Willughby, Francis 24 Wilsen, Zelgen Laurens (Corporal) 217, 220, 225 Wisselbank 133 Witte Olifant 134 Witte Papiermolen (ship) 135 Wogmeer 130 Wolverdijxhorn (ship) 208 Wootton, David 19 Woude, Ad van der 4, 135, 147

Waal, Aletta Petronella de 187, 188 Waal, Johannes de 187 Wadden Isles (Waddeneilanden) 151, 318, 323 Wageningen 4, 5 Wagner, Gerrit 109 Wales 70 Wallerstein, Immanuel 250, 262 Wallis, Patrick 36 Wassenaar 5, 109 Watergraafsmeer 130 Waterhond 127 Waterland 278, 287, 289 Weber, Max 20, 24 Wederzorg (plantation) 234–236 Wedgwood, Josiah 179 Welsh, Jorge 68, 180, 181, 194, 196 Werelt, Jan de 216 Westerkattegat 133 Westfall, Richard S.  26 West Indies 153, 244, 253, 264, 265, 267 West-Indies (British) 253, 259–264, 270 West Indies (Danish) 232, 233 West Indies (Dutch) 228, 229, 245 Westzaandam 131, 151, 153

Xunzi 26 Zaandam 123, 126–130, 132, 135–137, 139, 158, 159 Zaan, region 123, 125, 136, 137, 146–148, 150, 153, 155, 157–161, 163, 164, 166 Zaan, river 126, 130, 131, 146, 151, 153 Zaanstreek 124, 125, 147, 151 Zambia 264 Zanden, Jan Luiten van 5 Zeeland 104, 129, 184, 185, 277, 300 Zeeland (ship) 187 Zeeuws Museum, Middelburg 183, 184, 194 Zeezigt (plantation) 233, 235, 236, 239, 241 Zeiler, F 278 Zhu Xi 31 Zierikzee 217 Zimbabwe 264 Zoetermeerse Meerpolder 130 Zorgdrager, Cornelis 153 Zuiddijk 133, 138 Zuiderzee 275–294 Zuiderzeelijn 115 Zwart, Gerrit 160 Zwolle 107, 130