The Dutch Moment: War, Trade and Settlement in the Seventeenth Century Atlantic World

"This book is interesting from a Dutch perspective because in the Netherlands the focus, insofar as Dutch world trade was concerned, was always on the East Indies (what is now Indonesia) and at Asia more broadly, because the Dutch East India Company, the VOC , was very successful whereas the Dutch West India Company was a bit of a constant headache. It went bankrupt in the 1670s and had to be re-established, and never became a significant success. The main reason for that was that Spain and Portugal were already well established in the Atlantic, and the English were increasingly active in the Atlantic. So, for the Dutch, it was difficult to get a foothold in the Atlantic realm. They had to invest a lot of money, mostly on military operations, and the rewards were relatively meagre. But the Atlantic was seen by everyone in the 17th century as a sort of dream space. It’s difficult to imagine that now. In particular, with all the silver that was mined in central and southern America, people went a little bit crazy, dreaming of an Eldorado. So there were many, including in the Netherlands, who were obsessed with the Americas. They saw, of course, all these plantation crops that were coming to Europe. So a lot of people were willing to throw lots of money and effort at the Atlantic trade. This book manages to capture the new importance that the Atlantic world has gained in global history. European historians have tended to be more focused on Asia, because Asian countries and cultures looked the match of European ones. As a result, European historians were asking themselves all the time, ‘how did Europeans manage to get a foothold in Asia and to exploit those parts of the world?’ The answer to that question seemed much more obvious when it came to the Americas, because the indigenous people in the Americas were clearly no match for European military efforts. But in Asia, they were. Therefore, from a Dutch perspective, this book captures that new interest, and demonstrates that the Atlantic empire of the Dutch—and it also applies elsewhere—was first and foremost a military operation. Before you could make money, you had to really fight for your place in the sun. “For the Dutch, it was difficult to get a foothold in the Atlantic realm” What is also really interesting about this book is that it looks not only at the people who went to the various places that the Dutch, sometimes successfully, tried to colonise in the Americas, but also at their connections with the people who were already there. What would in the past have been called ‘the natives’ have a big place in the story, because they were sometimes subjugated by the Europeans, but also were often their allies. These people were not only the victims of the Europeans, they have agency in this story. The book shows very clearly how the success of Dutch efforts, for example in colonising Brazil, were dependent to a significant degree on collaboration with indigenous peoples. The Portuguese were unwilling to be recruited for this project and were fighting the native populations. Therefore the Dutch and the native population built alliances to fight the Portuguese. Another thing I like about this book is how it discusses the lives of the soldiers and the sailors who were involved in this whole project, and not only the merchants who benefited from it the most. The author has done a lot of archival research. It’s not just a general story of what was going on, he also brings a lot of new material to the table. They never did. There are still a number of Caribbean islands that are officially part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands . Suriname became independent only in 1975. So it took a very long time. But, New York, or as it was then, New Amsterdam, was lost to the British in the 17th century. Brazil was reconquered by the Portuguese in the 1650s. So the big projects, at least from our 21st-century point of view, failed in the 17th century. Having said that, New Amsterdam was not important in the 17th century, it was a rather poor community. It only became important as New York under British rule, and even then, it was not obvious it was going to become as important as it did until the 19th century. It’s easy to get the wrong picture, if you look at those places from our own modern perspective."