Breaching the Mercantile Barriers of the Dutch Colonial Empire:

Author(s):  
Johannes Postma
2008 ◽  
Vol 82 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 47-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rik van Welie

Compares slave trading and slavery in the Dutch colonial empire, specifically between the former trading and territorial domains of the West India Company (WIC), the Americas and West Africa, and of the East India Company (VOC), South East Asia, the Indian Ocean region, and South and East Africa. Author presents the latest quantitative assessments concerning the Dutch transatlantic as well as Indian Ocean World slave trade, placing the volume, direction, and characteristics of the forced migration in a historical context. He describes how overall the Dutch were a second-rate player in Atlantic slavery, though in certain periods more important, with according to recent estimates a total of about 554.300 slaves being transported by the Dutch to the Americas. He indicates that while transatlantic slave trade and slavery received much scholarly attention resulting in detailed knowledge, the slave trade and slavery in the Indian Ocean World by the Dutch is comparatively underresearched. Based on demand-side estimates throughout Dutch colonies of the Indonesian archipelago and elsewhere, he deduces that probably close to 500.000 slaves were transported by the Dutch in the Indian Ocean World. In addition, the author points at important differences between the nature and contexts of slavery, as in the VOC domains slavery was mostly of an urban and domestic character, contrary to its production base in the Americas. Slavery further did in the VOC areas not have a rigid racial identification like in WIC areas, with continuing, postslavery effects, and allowed for more flexibility, while unlike the plantation colonies in the Caribbean, as Suriname, not imported slaves but indigenous peoples formed the majority. He also points at relative exceptions, e.g. imported slaves for production use in some VOC territories, as the Banda islands and the Cape colony, and a certain domestic and urban focus of slavery in Curaçao.


2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 257-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart Luttikhuis ◽  
A. Dirk Moses

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 47-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans van der Jagt

This article aims to discuss neo-Calvinist perspectives on race in the Dutch Colonial Empire. How did the colonial racial practice affect the Dutch neo-Calvinist perspectives on race? This article is based on new research: an analysis of a race-debate among neo-Calvinist church leaders in the Netherlands and colonial Indonesia. It is a debate which took place in the Dutch Christian weekly De Heraut in 1893 and 1894 and focused primarily on the practice of racial separation in the reformed church of Batavia. This article will describe, analyze and criticize this debate and bring it into context by making use of a model for racial categorization proposed by the Dutch scholar Dienke Hondius. In the end, it argues that the main argument of the neo-Calvinists for defending a separation policy was based on a linguistic, societal and cultural distinction. The neo-Calvinists however, ignored their own racial prejudice and preserved their church-practice of racial disjunction.


Itinerario ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-60
Author(s):  
Louis Sicking

In the historiography of the colonial empires in the nineteenth century, much attention has been paid to the large European powers Britain and France. When the Dutch colonial empire is studied in an international context it is mostly in relation to the British empire. However, little or no attention has been given by scholars to Franco-Dutch colonial relations. This is surprising given the fact that after Britain, France and the Netherlands were the second and third largest colonial empires. Three Franco-Dutch colonial frontiers existed: in South America between French Guyana and Surinam, in the Caribbean on the island of St Martin and in Africa on the Gold Coast. In Asia, where the most important Dutch colony, Indonesia, was located, the French and Dutch did not have neighbouring possessions. Nonetheless, because of its location, Indonesia was highly important for navigation between France and Indo-China. In each of the regions mentioned above, French colonial administrators or private individuals developed plans to extend French territory at the expense of the Dutch: on St Martin from 1843 to 1853, on the Gold Coast from 1867 to 1871, in South America from 1887 to 1891 in Indonesia in 1888. This article will focus on nineteenth century France-Dutch colonial relations and will. address such questions as: what were the motives of the French administrators and how effectively did they exert pressure on the metropolitan government in order to effect their schemes? What was the role of special interest groups? And finally how did the Netherlands react? Being a small European power, how were they able to resist the French?


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