Holland: explorations and colonial expansion (for individual work)
Holland: explorations and colonial expansion
Exploration by the Dutch was closely tied to their long war of independence against Spain, which lasted from 1568 to 1648. Much of the northern Netherlands, under radical Protestant leadership by the late 1560s, was engaged in a massive rebellion against Catholic Spanish control, and the animosity spread from land to sea. Thus Dutch activities against Spanish and Portuguese dominions in the Americas and elsewhere during this period might be seen as an extension of the so-called Eighty Years War (1568–1648), which ended with Spain’s recognition of Dutch independence.
Dutch mariners disrupted Spanish trade and attacked Spanish-controlled ports worldwide, and they did the same to the Portuguese.
In 1595, the Dutch decided to set sail on their own to acquire products for themselves, making use of the "secret" knowledge of the Portuguese trade routes, which Cornelis de Houtman had managed to acquire in Lisbon.
On 10 June 1596, Willem Barentsz and Jacob van Heemskerk discovered Bear Island, a week before their discovery of Spitsbergen Island.
In the 1590s, Dutch ships began to trade with Brazil and the Dutch Gold Coast of Africa, towards the Indian Ocean, and the source of the lucrative spice trade. This brought the Dutch into direct competition with Portugal which was under the rule of Spain’s king since 1580.
The joining of the two crowns deprived Portugal of a separate foreign policy, with King Phillip II's enemies becoming Portugal's enemies as well. War with the Dutch led to attacks on most of Portugal's far-flung trading network in and around Asia, including Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), and Goa, as well as attacks upon her commercial interests in Japan, Africa (especially Mina), and South America.
In the long run, Dutch predation in Spanish waters was damaging and the temporary loss of north-eastern Brazil was a huge blow to Portuguese interests, formally united with Spain between 1580 and 1640.
By 1600, they had begun to seize colonies from both: the port of Melaka, the island of Sri Lanka, much of West Africa, and a number of Caribbean islands.
The Dutch ship, Duyfken, led by Willem Janszoon, made the first documented European landing in Australia in 1606.
The Dutch also took Indonesia (the Dutch East Indies), which they colonized for centuries, running pepper and spice plantations based on slavery. Operations here were administered by the Dutch East India Company (Dutch, Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC)), a joint-stock enterprise founded in 1602.
The charter awarded to the Company by the States-General granted it sole rights, for an initial period of 21 years, to Dutch trade and navigation east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan. The directors of the company, the "Heeren XVII", were given the legal authority to establish "fortresses and strongholds", to sign treaties, to enlist both an army and a navy, and to wage defensive war. In 1604, the Dutch established a trading post in Ayutthaya, modern day Thailand.
In 1621, the Dutch West India Company (WIC) was established to oversee Caribbean colonies. The company was given a 25-year monopoly to those parts of the world not controlled by its East India counterpart: the Atlantic, the Americas and the west coast of Africa.
From the mid-1500s to mid-1600s Dutch pirates and privateers (seamen licenced by state to plunder) systematically raided the Spanish and Portuguese shipping.
WIC employed Piet Heyn, a veteran of the Brazil conflicts and an outstanding sea captain who managed to take a legendary treasure from the Spanish in Matanzas Bay, Cuba, in 1628. Heyn was well armed and openly sponsored by the Dutch West India Company, and was thus a respected naval officer rather than a criminal in his homeland. His return to Amsterdam with 15 million guilders’ worth of American treasure upset European financial markets and deeply wounded Spain’s international credit. Unsurprisingly the Spanish remember Piet Heyn as a pirate.
For a time, the Dutch also controlled the New York region, which they hired Henry Hudson to explore in 1609. In 1624, Dutch settlers purchased the island of Manhattan from a local Native American tribe, and the city they built there, New Amsterdam, thrived as a commercial centre under the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant. New Amsterdam became New York in 1674 after the third Anglo-Dutch war, by a settlement and peace terms.
Dutch involvement in the Atlantic slave trade covers the 17th-19th centuries. Initially the Dutch shipped slaves to northern Brazil, and during the second half of the 17th century they had a controlling interest in the trade to the Spanish colonies. Today’s Suriname and Guyana became prominent markets in the 18th century. Between 1612 and 1872, the Dutch operated from some 10 fortresses along the Gold Coast (now Ghana), from which slaves were shipped across the Atlantic.
Expert questions
1. What were the stimuli of the Dutch explorations and colonial expansion?
2. What tools and strategies did the Dutch use in their colonial expansions and capital accumulation?
3. What role did the joint-stock companies (name which) play in the Dutch colonization? Why, you think, were the joint-stock companies involved by the Dutch government?
4. What were the main achievements of the Dutch expansion? Were there any falls in this expansion?
5. Compared with other nations (Spain, Portugal, England and France) what were the distinct features of Holland? (before giving answer read other nations in the theme 8 section)