#Dutch West India Company

[ltwilliammowett]

Lieutenant! Can you tell us about Cape Horn and why it was so dangerous?

Of course I would,

So let's get to the location:

Cape Horn is located at 55° 59′ south latitude and 67° 17′ west longitude. The headland is located on the rocky island of Isla Hornos (Horn Island, not to be confused with the Horn Islands in Micronesia, also discovered by Schoutens), which belongs to Chile, and is the southernmost point in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. Like the southernmost 2,000 kilometres of South America, it lies in the cold Antarctic circumpolar current. Unlike South Africa, which is twenty degrees further north with the warm Agulhas Current, Tierra del Fuego is never reached by a warm Atlantic current (Brazil Current). Instead, the cold polar current (Falkland Current) reaches as far as the Río de la Plata in the southern summer and as far as southern Brazil in the winter, meaning that Cape Horn is under the influence of a large-scale subpolar current all year round.

The air temperature at Cape Horn is almost identical to the water temperature all year round - day and night - which is 8 °C in January and 5 °C in July. During the day, it rarely gets warmer than 12-13 °C. There are only occasional frosts in winter and it almost never snows, although it rains over 280 days a year.

With few exceptions, the wind blows from the western half of the compass rose all year round; easterly winds are very rare. However, the wind force in the sea area around the Cape tends to be lower than in the neighbouring south-east Pacific and off the Chilean coast near the Strait of Magellan, for example, where there is always one wind force more and twice as much chance of storms. Nevertheless, the wind blows almost constantly in summer (January) with at least five Beaufort, but only once a month with more than seven Beaufort, and once a week to the west. In July, at least seven Beaufort and one storm per week are recorded every third day, while two storms per week can be expected to the west.

The Cape was rounded for the first time by an expedition of Dutch sailors Willem Cornelisz Schouten and Jakob Le Maire on 29 January 1616, sailing on behalf of the Australian Company, which was founded by Jakob Le Maire's father Isaac Le Maire together with other Hoorn businessmen after an internal dispute with the Dutch East India Company (VOC). As Dutch ships at the time were only allowed to use the Strait of Magellan if they belonged to the VOC, Isaac Le Maire was looking for a passage to the Pacific untouched by the rights of the VOC to trade with the East Indies Spice Islands.

The expedition's mission was to explore a new route to the ‘East Indies’.It was considered fulfilled when a passage opened up between Tierra del Fuego (in the language of the Spanish owner) and the hypothetical huge southern continent of Terra Australis.It was named Fretum le Maire (literally Le Maire Strait) in Latin in honour of the initiator and most important financier Isaac Le Maire, and the ‘peninsula’ to the east belonging to Terra Australis was given the name Staatenlandt in honour of the newly constituted Dutch parliament.The rededication in favour of the son Jakob Le Maire took place after his tragic death at the instigation of his father.The island character of Staatenlandt, which is only sixty kilometres long, could not be recognised, as even at sea you can rarely see further than about forty kilometres. Not being able to see the connection of the state island to the huge Terra Australis only proved that one could not see further than twenty nautical miles - and this was already known.

According to the published records of the ‘shipwrecked passenger’ Jacob le Maires (his expedition ship, the Hoorn, burnt up during cleaning work in Patagonia), he and Captain Schouten were of the opinion that Tierra del Fuego was a rugged, rocky but contiguous island, the supposed southern tip of which was named Capo Hoorn in Latin by Schouten, who was responsible for it, in honour of the second great financier, the council of the city of Hoorn.The Le Maire Strait, the short and easy passage between America and Terra Australis at Staateninsel or Staatenlandt, was the important discovery; Cape Horn was already a clear 180 kilometres into the Pacific. Isaac le Maire had the discovery of this passage, supported by a ‘silent’ Schouten, attributed to his son by court order, with the father as heir.However, the associated and desired exploitation rights of the strait were immediately expropriated and granted to the monopoly of the East India Company.The last lawsuits over this were lost in 1648.

With the realisation that even Staatenlandt was not connected to Terra Australis and that Cape Horn was the decisive landmark, neither the Strait of Magellan nor the Le Maire Strait could be permanently managed with customs duties. Due to the factually and historically incorrect, commercially motivated court judgement that Jacob le Maire found his way into the Pacific via the Le Maire Strait, the discovery of Cape Horn is attributed to him just as incorrectly and abbreviated. Usually, however, all discoveries made on such a voyage are attributed to the captain, as he decides which unknown waters his ship sails into, is responsible for them and also has to assess and interpret what he sees. However, Schouten did not insist on a public acknowledgement of his exploratory achievement, presumably due to an ‘agreement’ between him and Isaac le Maire. In addition, the published documentation of the voyage was undoubtedly written by the representative of the shipping company Jacob le Maire, so that the impression of a discovery by the travelling merchant was already being conveyed to contemporaries

But according to the German author Wolf-Ulrich Cropp, the Englishman Francis Drake was the first European to sail around the Cape 40 years earlier, in 1578, on his circumnavigation of the globe, after he had reached the Pacific through the Strait of Magellan and then travelled south-east for a few days in search of the missing escort ships. However, this discovery was declared a state secret by Queen Elizabeth I.

At the time, it was believed that the Pacific could only be reached from the Atlantic via the Spanish-controlled Strait of Magellan further north, and the British did not want other nations to know about the second route.Drake's first discovery was only claimed after 1618 for political and economic reasons and was quickly disproved by examining the records and voyage reports and by interviewing the surviving travellers.The English naming of the sea area Drake Passage was only given in 1769 by James Cook when he surveyed the coast and is presumably only an expression of general reverence for the greatest English naval hero to date.

In fact, Drake no longer had any escort ships in the Pacific that he could miss; he had already lost them in the Atlantic or in the Strait of Magellan.In the event of a separation, a rendezvous point 2500 kilometres to the north had been agreed with the remaining Elisabeth; a search for missing persons in the south was therefore not very promising. Instead, Drake sought shelter between the islands west of the Strait of Magellan in a supposed ‘50-day storm’ and had no interest in drifting further and further south-east, where he would inevitably be wrecked on the expected Terra Australis in the storm.In any case, he took his time to ‘conquer’ the inhospitable islands of the archipelago one by one.Furthermore, the navigational documents show that he never travelled further south than 55° south, which, in view of his otherwise perfect latitude measurements throughout the voyage, rules out the possibility that he came closer than about 300 km to Cape Horn.Under no circumstances was he south of the Cape, travelling through the Drake Strait and the Le Maire Strait or Falkland Strait to the Atlantic entrance of the Strait of Magellan, in order to make a statement about its passability.The ambitious Drake would have seized even the slightest opportunity to make and verify such a glorious discovery, as he was well aware of the economic, personal, political and military benefits.Similar legends were subsequently spread about the Spanish captains Francisco de Hoces (1526) and Gabriel de Castilla (1603). However, the sources and evidence for both are so sparse and uncertain that the best that can be surmised is that they both sailed past the entrances to the Strait of Magellan for different reasons and then wandered south of it for a short time. In the case of de Hoces, the legend led to the same conclusion as with Drake: the sea area south of Tierra del Fuego, the Drake Strait, is called Mar de Hoces in Spanish.

The rounding of the Cape was one of the most feared passages for ships, as evidenced by the founding of the Cape Horn Community. Commanding captains who conquered Cape Horn on a cargo ship without an auxiliary engine became honorary members of this international community.

Until the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914, sailing around the Cape was the slightly more favourable way to reach the west coast of South America from the Atlantic. The Strait of Magellan and the Beagle Channel, which had already been sailed through centuries earlier by ships of the Dutch East India Company and British exploration ships, also offered difficult weather and current conditions for sailing ships.

At Cape Horn, the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific against the westerly wind drift was particularly dangerous and difficult. It required ships sailing in this direction to constantly cross in high seas, rain, cold, poor visibility and icebergs. The False Cape Horn caused additional navigational difficulties due to the risk of confusion. However, to this day there are still ships that round the cape, albeit with the help of engines and modern navigation. But that does not mean that it is any less dangerous.

[blackhistorystoryteller]

Black Americans should visit Ghana

To know more about black slave trade in Ghana

Monuments of shame

Cape Coast Castle - now a World Heritage Site - is one of about forty forts in Ghana where slaves from as far away as Burkina Faso and Niger were imprisoned. This former slave fortress could hold about 1,500 slaves at a time before they were loaded onto ships and sold into slavery in the New World in the Americas and the Caribbean.

Male captives who revolted or were deemed insubordinate ended up in the condemned cells - a pitch-black room where slaves were left to die in the oppressive heat without water, food or daylight.Rebellious women were beaten and chained to cannon balls in the courtyard

Built in 1482, Elmina Castle on Ghana's Cape coast is the earliest European structure erected in sub-Saharan Africa. Originally Portugese, it was later captured by the Dutch, who used it as a base for the Dutch slave trade with Brazil and the Caribbean. Under the flag of the Dutch West Indies Company, around 30,000 slaves a year passed through Elmina until 1814 when the Dutch abolished slavery.

The Portuguese position on the Gold Coast remained secure for almost a century. During that time, Lisbon leased the right to establish trading posts to individuals or companies that sought to align themselves with the local chiefs and to exchange trade goods both for rights to conduct commerce and for slaves whom the chiefs could provide. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, adventurers--first Dutch, and later English, Danish, and Swedish-- were granted licenses by their governments to trade overseas. On the Gold Coast, these European competitors built fortified trading stations and challenged the Portuguese. Sometimes they were also drawn into conflicts with local inhabitants as Europeans developed commercial alliances with local chiefs.

The principal early struggle was between the Dutch and the Portuguese. With the loss of Elmina in 1642 to the Dutch, the Portuguese left the Gold Coast permanently. The next 150 years saw kaleidoscopic change and uncertainty, marked by local conflicts and diplomatic maneuvers, during which various European powers struggled to establish or to maintain a position of dominance in the profitable trade of the Gold Coast littoral. Forts were built, abandoned, attacked, captured, sold, and exchanged, and many sites were selected at one time or another for fortified positions by contending European nations.

Both the Dutch and the British formed companies to advance their African ventures and to protect their coastal establishments. The Dutch West India Company operated throughout most of the eighteenth century. The British African Company of Merchants, founded in 1750, was the successor to several earlier organizations of this type. These enterprises built and manned new installations as the companies pursued their trading activities and defended their respective jurisdictions with varying degrees of government backing. There were short-lived ventures by the Swedes and the Prussians. The Danes remained until 1850, when they withdrew from the Gold Coast. The British gained possession of all Dutch coastal forts by the last quarter of the nineteenth century, thus making them the dominant European power on the Gold Coast.

During the heyday of early European competition, slavery was an accepted social institution, and the slave trade overshadowed all other commercial activities on the West African coast. To be sure, slavery and slave trading were already firmly entrenched in many African societies before their contact with Europe. In most situations, men as well as women captured in local warfare became slaves. In general, however, slaves in African communities were often treated as junior members of the society with specific rights, and many were ultimately absorbed into their masters' families as full members. Given traditional methods of agricultural production in Africa, slavery in Africa was quite different from that which existed in the commercial plantation environments of the New World.

Another aspect of the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on Africa concerns the role of African chiefs, Muslim traders, and merchant princes in the trade. Although there is no doubt that local rulers in West Africa engaged in slaving and received certain advantages from it, some scholars have challenged the premise that traditional chiefs in the vicinity of the Gold Coast engaged in wars of expansion for the sole purpose of acquiring slaves for the export market. In the case of Asante, for example, rulers of that kingdom are known to have supplied slaves to both Muslim traders in the north and to Europeans on the coast. Even so, the Asante waged war for purposes other than simply to secure slaves. They also fought to pacify territories that in theory were under Asante control, to exact tribute payments from subordinate kingdoms, and to secure access to trade routes--particularly those that connected the interior with the coast.

It is important to mention, however, that the supply of slaves to the Gold Coast was entirely in African hands. Although powerful traditional chiefs, such as the rulers of Asante, Fante, and Ahanta, were known to have engaged in the slave trade, individual African merchants such as John Kabes, John Konny, Thomas Ewusi, and a broker known only as Noi commanded large bands of armed men, many of them slaves, and engaged in various forms of commercial activities with the Europeans on the coast.

The volume of the slave trade in West Africa grew rapidly from its inception around 1500 to its peak in the eighteenth century. Philip Curtin, a leading authority on the African slave trade, estimates that roughly 6.3 million slaves were shipped from West Africa to North America and South America, about 4.5 million of that number between 1701 and 1810. Perhaps 5,000 a year were shipped from the Gold Coast alone. The demographic impact of the slave trade on West Africa was probably substantially greater than the number actually enslaved because a significant number of Africans perished during slaving raids or while in captivity awaiting transshipment. All nations with an interest in West Africa participated in the slave trade. Relations between the Europeans and the local populations were often strained, and distrust led to frequent clashes. Disease caused high losses among the Europeans engaged in the slave trade, but the profits realized from the trade continued to attract them.

The growth of anti-slavery sentiment among Europeans made slow progress against vested African and European interests that were reaping profits from the traffic. Although individual clergymen condemned the slave trade as early as the seventeenth century, major Christian denominations did little to further early efforts at abolition. The Quakers, however, publicly declared themselves against slavery as early as 1727. Later in the century, the Danes stopped trading in slaves; Sweden and the Netherlands soon followed.

The importation of slaves into the United States was outlawed in 1807. In the same year, Britain used its naval power and its diplomatic muscle to outlaw trade in slaves by its citizens and to begin a campaign to stop the international trade in slaves. These efforts, however, were not successful until the 1860s because of the continued demand for plantation labor in the New World.

Because it took decades to end the trade in slaves, some historians doubt that the humanitarian impulse inspired the abolitionist movement. According to historian Walter Rodney, for example, Europe abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade only because its profitability was undermined by the Industrial Revolution. Rodney argues that mass unemployment caused by the new industrial machinery, the need for new raw materials, and European competition for markets for finished goods are the real factors that brought an end to the trade in human cargo and the beginning of competition for colonial territories in Africa. Other scholars, however, disagree with Rodney, arguing that humanitarian concerns as well as social and economic factors were instrumental in ending the African slave trade.

[fatehbaz]

“Dutch King apologizes for Netherlands’ role in slavery.”

The Dutch/Netherlands abducted slaves from West Africa; hosted the Dutch West India Company; operated an extensive profitable sugar plantation industry built on slave labor; and established colonies in the greater Caribbean region including sites at Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, Bonaire, and the adjacent “Wild Coast” (land between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers, including Guyana and Suriname). Many of these places remained official colonies until between the 1950s and 1990s.

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Scholarship on resistance to Dutch practices of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism in the Caribbean:

“Decolonization, Otherness, and the Neglect of the Dutch Caribbean in Caribbean Studies.” Margo Groenewoud. Small Axe. 2021.

“Women’s mobilizations in the Dutch Antilles (Curaçao and Aruba, 1946-1993).” Margo Groenewoud. Clio. Women, Gender, History No. 50. 2019.

“Black Power, Popular Revolt, and Decolonization in the Dutch Caribbean.” Gert Oostindie. In: Black Power in the Caribbean. Edited by Kate Quinn. 2014.

“History Brought Home: Postcolonial Migrations and the Dutch Rediscovery of Slavery.” Gert Oostindie. In: Post-Colonial Immigrants and Identity Formations in the Netherlands. Edited by Ulbe Bosma. 2012.

“Other Radicals: Anton de Kom and the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition.” Wayne Modest and Susan Legene. Small Axe. 2023.

Di ki manera? A Social History of Afro-Curaçaoans, 1863-1917. Rosemary Allen. 2007.

Creolization and Contraband: Curaçao in the Early Modern Atlantic World. Linda Rupert. 2012.

“The Empire Writes Back: David Nassy and Jewish Creole Historiography in Colonial Suriname.” Sina Rauschenbach. The Sephardic Atlantic: Colonial Histories and Postcolonial Perspectives. 2018.

“The Scholarly Atlantic: Circuits of Knowledge Between Britain, the Dutch Republic and the Americas in the Eighteenth Century.” Karel Davids. 2014. And: “Paramaribo as Dutch and Atlantic Nodal Point, 1640-1795.” Karwan Fatah-Black. 2014. And: Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680-1800: Linking Empires, Bridging Borders. Edited by Gert Oostindie and Jessica V. Roitman. 2014.

Decolonising the Caribbean: Dutch Policies in a Comparative Perspective. Gert Oostindie and Inge Klinkers. 2003. And: “Head versus heart: The ambiguities of non-sovereignties in the Dutch Caribbean.” Wouter Veenendaal and Gert Oostindie. Regional & Federal Studies 28(4). August 2017.

Tambú: Curaçao’s African-Caribbean Ritual and the Politics of Memory. Nanette de Jong. 2012.

“More Relevant Than Ever: We Slaves of Suriname Today.” Mitchell Esajas. Small Axe. 2023.

“The Forgotten Colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, 1700-1814.” Eric Willem van der Oest. In: Riches from Atlantic Commerce: Dutch Transatlantic Trade and Shipping, 1585-1817. 2003.

“Conjuring Futures: Culture and Decolonization in the Dutch Caribbean, 1948-1975.” Chelsea Shields. Historical Reflections / Reflexions Historiques Vol. 45 No. 2. Summer 2019.

“’A Mass of Mestiezen, Castiezen, and Mulatten’: Fear, Freedom, and People of Color in the Dutch Antilles, 1750-1850.” Jessica Vance Roitman. Atlantic Studies 14, no. 3. 2017.

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This list only covers the Caribbean.

But outside of the region, there is also the legacy of the Dutch East India Company; over 250 years of Dutch slavers and merchants in Gold Coast and wider West Africa; about 200 years of Dutch control in Bengal (the same region which would later become an engine of the British Empire’s colonial wealth extraction); over a century of Dutch control in Sri Lanka/Ceylon; Dutch operation of the so-called “Cultivation System” (”Cultuurstelsei”) in the nineteenth century; Dutch enforcement of brutal forced labor regimes at sugar plantations in Java, which relied on de facto indentured laborers who were forced to sign contracts or obligated to pay off debt and were “shipped in” from other islands and elsewhere in Southeast Asia (a system existing into the twentieth century); the “Coolie Ordinance” (”Koelieordonnanties”) laws of 1880 which allowed plantation owners to administer punishments against disobedient workers, resulting in whippings, electrocutions, and other cruel tortures (and this penal code was in effect until 1931); and colonization of Indonesian islands including Sumatra and Borneo, which remained official colonies of the Netherlands until the 1940s.

[jewishpositivity18]

The very first Jewish people arrived on the shores of USAmerica in 1654 to escape religious persecution. They had already fled Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, which had been occupied by the Portuguese. The Governor of New Amsterdam at the time, Peter Stuyvesant, was anti-Semitic and refused to let the small group of Jewish people settle. Both the Dutch West India Company and the Jewish leaders in Amsterdam, Holland had to pressure Stuyvesant to allow the Jewish people in. Jewish people have been American since before America. We've adapted and developed a unique culture not seen anywhere else in the world. Happy Thanksgiving to all Jewish Americans.

[houseofmarcella]

Obligatory Philip/History Essay for my friends (pt1)

Recently I have been seeing various memes and art pieces (that are all lovely and beautiful) and some weird twitter discourse about Philip, the show's lore, real-life historical tragedies, and a complete misinterpretation of 17th-century christianty. I was hoping to clarify some things and put out some of my pet theories.

Obligatory: I am but a humble fan and history enthusiast, and this is all written in good fun and with the understanding that any children's cartoon depicting historical figures (even fictional ones) is not always going to portray things accurately to the finest details. To begin,

THEY'RE DUTCH (ethnically?)

'Witte' is a Dutch surname meaning white or blond. Combining it into Wittebane gives us 'the white bane', and the rather obvious allusion to the European colonization (and Christianization) of the Americas. Contrary to the common belief that the continent was only colonized by the Spanish/French/English, the Dutch were the first Europeans in the area. I have always had the pet theory that the brothers were Dutch orphans who were forced to join an English settlement.

The whole "tryed to fit in with the town by becoming witchhunters" thing could easily be interpreted as them doing their best to acclimate to their new town.

I really like how this could parallel Luz and Camilla too. Caleb 'taking care of Philip by pushing witchhunting as a way to protect him from townsfolk with hawkeyes for anything weird/of the devil. This can also feed into the 'betrayal' aspect of their relationship, where Philip feels that Caleb left him, but Caleb was older and just trying to keep them safe. (Flapjack choosing Hunter when he expresses the desire to "choose his own future" in HP feels... relevant)

Earlier in the fandom, it was a general impression that the brothers were the town founders, and not just some orphan kids from an ethnicity the townsfolk didn't like. I wonder if this was a change from the shortening of s3, but the nature of the statue seems to imply they were literate and probably did something important enough to be remembered besides disappearing mysteriously into the night.

Timeline for quick reference

1613 somehow, the Wittebanes arrive in Gravesfield, a town that should not yet exist (from TtT).

1614 Adriaen Block (dutch) sails up the Connecticut River and opens the door for the Dutch West India Company to trade for furs with local Mohegan and Pequot tribes. THIS IS THE FIRST EUROPEAN SURVEY IN THE AREA, let alone a settlement!

1634 Wethersfield, the first English/Puritan town in Connecticut, is founded, this is the town that has a historic district called 'Old Wethersfield' and was the location of the conneticut witch trials (sound familiar?).

1636-37 The Pequot War

1647-70 The Connecticut Witch Trials Occur

1664 The English take over New Amsterdam and rename it New York

Wethersfield... Gravesfield...

The town Wiki page cites Wethersfield as Dana Terrace's hometown, and though her official birth location is actually a town nearby, the parallels here are so overt I will simply summarise.

Wethersfield has a historic district called "Old Wethersfield" and just LOOK AT THIS CEMETARY! A few of the town's founders were pretty damn important to the Pequot War as well.

Most importantly, Wethersfield was the site of most of the major executions in the Connecticut Witch Trials.

The Witch 'Hunter' General & Hopkins

Matthew Hopkins (obv. the inspiration for Jacob Hopkins in show) was an English (this is in England btw) puritan who hunted women and poor people on a religious zealot murder spree from 1644-1647. He killed at least over 100 people and could arguably be held as the person who started this frenzy.

He published The Discovery of Witches and called himself the "Witch-Finder General". The change from finder to hunter in the show is probably just for clarity, but the reference is there.

Pt2, with a discussion about puritanism/calvinism, how Belos probs used his view of catholicism to build the government and religion of the modern BI, and how the grimwalkers relate to the Calvinist idea of predestination and salvation... will come soon.

Thank you @ter-claw-thorne, @theawkwardarchaeologist, @triple--a--threat--a--threat, and @died-of-ligma, for dealing with my rambling.

I apologize if there are any spelling errors in this essay, it's 2 am and I had a real history essay due two hours ago.

[indra69]

Borneo is the largest island in Asia, with a rich history and diverse ethnic groups such as Dayak, Malay, Bajau, Kedayan, Banjar, Kadazandusun and many more.

Borneo, a land blessed with wildlife and unparalleled natural beauty as well as abundant natural resources.

At an estimated 130 million years old, Borneo's rainforest is two times as old as the Amazon rainforest in South America.

Evidence for prehistoric human occupation of Borneo has been found at Neah Cave in Sarawak, including fossil bones, stone tools, and wall and ceiling paintings. Borneo is first mentioned in Ptolemy’s Guide to Geography of about 150 CE. Roman trade beads and Indo-Javanese artifacts have been discovered that give evidence of a flourishing civilization dating to the 2nd or 3rd century CE. Three rough foundation stones with an inscription recording a gift to a Brahman priest dated from the early 5th century, found at Kutai, provide evidence of a Hindu kingdom in eastern Kalimantan. Brahmanic and Buddhist images in the Gupta style have been found in the valleys of the Kapuas and other rivers in western Kalimantan. Later Kalimantan rulers were probably feudatories of the Majapahit empire of eastern Java (c. 1293–1520). With the arrival of Islam early in the 16th century, a number of Muslim kingdoms were founded, including the Banjarmasin, Sambas, Sukadana, and Landak. The Sukadana rulers owed allegiance to the Muslim Mataram kingdom of Java.

Modern European knowledge of Borneo dates from travelers who passed through Southeast Asia in the 14th century. The first recorded European visitor was the Franciscan friar Odoric of Pordenone, who visited Talamasim on his way from India to China in 1330. The Portuguese, followed by the Spanish, established trading relations on the island early in the 16th century. At the beginning of the 17th century the Portuguese and Spanish trade monopoly was broken by the Dutch, who, intervening in the affairs of the Muslim kingdoms, succeeded in replacing Mataram influence with their own. The coastal strip along the South China and Sulu seas was long oriented toward the Philippines to the northeast and was often raided by Sulu pirates. British interests, particularly in the north and west, diminished that of the Dutch. The Brunei sultanate was an Islamic kingdom that at one time had controlled the whole island but by the 19th century ruled only in the north and northwest. In 1841 Sarawak was split away on the southwest, becoming an independent kingdom ruled by the Brooke Raj. North Borneo (later Sabah) to the northeast was obtained by a British company to promote trade and suppress piracy, but it was not demarcated until 1912. Those losses left a much-reduced Brunei, which became a British protectorate in 1888.

During World War II the Japanese invasions of Borneo (1941–42) quickly eliminated the token British and Dutch forces on the island, which was not retaken until 1945. In July 1946 both Sarawak and North Borneo were made British crown colonies. In Dutch Borneo a strong nationalist sentiment developed and led to fighting between Indonesian and Dutch forces as the latter attempted to reimpose Netherlands control. Sovereignty passed to the Indonesians in 1949, and in 1950 a new constitution proclaimed Dutch Borneo part of the Republic of Indonesia.

The British government relinquished its sovereignty over Sabah and Sarawak in 1963, when those territories joined the Malaysian federation. That marked the commencement of Indonesian hostilities in the form of guerrilla raids across the border. Those raids ceased by agreement in 1966. Except for the period of Japanese occupation, Brunei remained a British protectorate until 1983. It became fully independent on January 1, 1984.

BORNEO, 1 Island, 3 Countries

[todaysjewishholiday]

22 Sivan 5784 (27-28 June 2024)

Today, New York City has the largest Jewish population of any urban area in the world, with three times as many Jewish residents as Jerusalem and four times as many as Tel Aviv. It’s without a doubt one of the great Jewish cultural centers of the modern world, and is famous worldwide for its varied and diverse population. Today, on the 22nd of Sivan, we celebrate the first Jewish immigrants who helped create that multiculturalism.

Four hundred years ago, Amsterdam was an early European testing ground of religious freedom, having thrown off Spanish rule and celebrated in part by accepting Sephardi refugees. The Dutch were also a mercantile powerhouse determined not to let the British outdo them at overseas colonization.

The Dutch West India Company was established by Dutch merchants to organize colonial ventures in the western hemisphere. The company appointed Peter Stuyvesant as Director General of its overseas operations and Stuyvesant set out for the Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam. Ironically, much like the English Puritan settlers who left Amsterdam for Massachusetts because they were distressed by the wide cultural toleration of Dutch society, Stuyvesant yearned for life in the new world in part because he wanted to build a new society in which religious and cultural toleration had no place, ruled strictly by and for members of the Dutch Reformed Church. Stuyvesant had no interest in creating an inclusive religious environment for fellow mainstream Protestants such as Lutherans or new sects like the Quakers, much less Catholics or Jews.

But Stuyvesant’s ambitions of intolerance almost immediately ran up against the ideals and mercantile values of the company that paid his salary. The Dutch West India Company had Jewish merchants among its stockholders and didn’t want to risk offending any potential settlers willing to bring their capital to the new colony. In 5414, the first Jewish settlers arrived. They included a small contingent of Ashkenazim who had come directly from Amsterdam, and a boatload of Portuguese Sephardim who had begun practicing Judaism again in Dutch occupied Recife, and then fled to avoid the Inquisition when the territory was again seized by Portugal. Stuyvesant was horrified, and immediately wrote to the West India Company board seeking permission to expel the Jewish arrivals before a Jewish community took root. The board refused Stuyvesant’s request.

The next ten years, right up until the English conquest of the colony, consisted of Stuyvesant’s repeated attempts to impose restrictions of one kind or another on the Jewish colonists, Jewish protests against these restrictions through the courts or through appeals to Dutch Jews with influence on the company, and a string of letters from the West India Company reiterating the policy of toleration and insisting that Stuyvesant give the Jewish community of New Amsterdam all the rights that Amsterdam’s Jewish community enjoyed.

The 22nd of Sivan 5416 is the date of the board’s third letter to Stuyvesant overturning his attempts to restrict the rights of the Jewish settlers. In classic Dutch fashion for the period, it emphasized the rights of minorities to “quietly and peacefully” engage in business, and to privately practice their religion so long as doing so did not intrude on the public sphere. This final limitation meant that although New Amsterdam’s Jewish community regularly met for prayer and Torah services in each other’s private homes and had two licensed kosher butchers, the first official synagogue wouldn’t be built until seventy-six years after the first Jewish colonists arrived.

So today we celebrate the first Jews of New Amsterdam, who continued to fight for their rights through numerous bigoted attempts to restrict them, and for the victories they won. Their efforts laid the groundwork for a vibrant and thriving city that Jews—and many other minorities— now consider a beloved home.

Today is also Erev Shabbat. Prepare to welcome the sabbath queen when the day is almost over and the sun starts dipping under the horizon.

[scotianostra]

On July 12th 1698 a small fleet of five ships set out for the Isthmus of Darien in Panama carrying Scotland's hopes of founding a new empire on board.

Some have said: 'The Darien venture was the most ambitious colonial scheme attempted in the 17th century…The Scots were the first to realise the strategic importance of the area..." Whilst others claimed: "They were plain daft to try… It was disaster. They never had a chance." T'is for you to decide!

William Paterson, a Scot who's other major claim to fame was the foundation of the Bank of England, was born in Tinwald in Dumfriesshire in 1658. He made his first fortune through international trade, travelling extensively throughout the America's and West Indies. Upon his return to his native Scotland, Paterson sought to make his second fortune with a scheme of epic proportion.

His plan was to create a link between east and west, which could command the trade of the two great oceans of the world, the Pacific and Atlantic. In 1693, he helped to set up the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies in Edinburgh to establish an transshipment port on the Isthmus of Darien (the narrow neck of land separating North and South America now known as Panama). It was claimed that the company would prosper through foreign trade and promoted Darien as a remote spot where Scots could settle.

The original directors of the Company of Scotland were Scottish and English in equal numbers, with the risk investment capital being shared half from the English and Dutch, and the other half from the Scots. However, under pressure from the East India Company, afraid of losing their trade monopoly, the English Parliament withdrew its support for the scheme at the last minute, forcing the English and Dutch to withdraw and leaving the Scots as sole investors.

There were no shortage of takers though, as thousands of many Scots invested money in the expedition, to the tune of approximately £500,000 - about half of the national capital available. Almost every Scot who had £5 to spare invested in the Darien scheme. Thousands more volunteered to travel on board the five ships that had been chartered to carry the pioneers to their new home where Scots could settle, including famine driven Highlanders and soldiers discharged following the Glencoe Massacre.

But, who had actually been out to see this Promised Land, this remote spot where Scots could settle? Well not Paterson apparently! The pioneers had wrongly believed, on the basis of sightings by sailors and pirates, that Darien offered them a colony where entrepreneurs could establish trading links with the world and bring prestige and prosperity to their country. And so it was with much fanfare and excitement that the ships sailed from Leith harbour on 12 July 1698 with 1,200 people on board.

It was however, a depleted and less excited group of pioneers that arrived on the mosquito-infested scrap of land known as Darien on 30th October 1698. Many were already sick and others were quarrelling as power struggles arose among the elected councillors.

They struggled ashore and renamed the land Caledonia, with its capital New Edinburgh. The first task was to dig graves for the dead pioneers, which included Paterson's wife. The situation grew worse because of a lack of food and attacks from hostile Spaniards.

The natives in the area took pity on the Scots, bringing them gifts of fruit and fish. Seven months after arriving, 400 Scots were dead. The rest were emaciated and yellow with fever. They decided to abandon the scheme.

Sadly, news did not travel quickly in the 17th century. Six more ships set sail from Leith in November 1699 loaded with a further 1,300 excited pioneers, all blissfully ignorant about the fate of the earlier settlers. Whoever said that bad news travels fast was obviously not a Scot as a third fleet of five ships left Leith shortly after.

Only one ship returned out of the total of sixteen that had originally sailed. Only a handful survived the return journey. Scotland had paid a terrible price with more than two thousand lives lost. Together with the loss of the £500,000 investment the Scottish economy was all but bankrupted.

I found out about a proposed film a few years ago that was going to tell the full story of the debacle, sadly it does not seen to be any further forward, and like the Darien Scheme itself, looks doomed, the last post on their web page reflected that he/ they were having trouble coming up with a name for the film!

[akonoadham]

This is an early 17th century depiction of two Dutch drummers riding on mules by Dutch painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn located at the British Museum.

A good portion of the Moorish Sephardic Jew's who got kicked out from Spain and Portugal (during the late 15th century), settled in Holland and became known as Marranos or crypto Jews (covert practitioners of Judaism).

They set up the Dutch West Indies company to establish trade and commerce in the Americas, that being New Amsterdam (New York), Dutch Brazil (Northern part of Brazil), Suriname, Guyana, Dutch Antilles (several Caribbean islands) and the Gold Coast/Slave coast (Ghana, Angola and Brazil).

Sephardim in the America's, by Martin A. Cohen; "For 24 years the Dutch had held the bulge of Brazil that extends into the Atlantic Ocean, the province Of Pernambuco, with Recifeas its capital. Jews from Holland arrived in ever growing numbers to join New Christians from Portuguese Brazil who had converted to their ancestral faith."

Jews and Muslims in British colonial America by Donald N. Panther-Yates & Elizabeth Hirschman; "Even (and particularly) New York, founded by the Dutch as New Amsterdam, was heavily people by Sephardic Jews and Muslim Moors. The presence of persons from these ethnic affiliations on the governing boards of the Dutch west and East India companies is no accident."

[indizombie]

Shir Hever, the military embargo coordinator for the Palestinian BDS National Committee, called India's closeness to Israel during this moment "shameful", given India's long history under colonial rule. "Hermes 900 drones are used to bomb defenceless civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. As Israel refuses to abide by the ICJ decision to refrain from actions under Article 2 of the Convention to prevent Genocide, third states such as India have the responsibility to enforce an arms embargo and not be complicit in the genocide," Hever added. Hever noted that since the ICJ ruling, two Japanese arms companies have ended their MoUs with Elbit Systems, Israel's largest weapons manufacturer. Meanwhile, on 5 February, a Dutch high court banned the Netherlands from continuing its export of F-35 parts to Israel, given the context in Gaza. "This moment is a test of the international law system, and instead of siding with Israel's genocide and its enabling of western powers, India should take inspiration from South Africa's global-south leadership and end its complicity with genocide," Hever said.

Azad Essa, ‘War on Gaza: Indian-made Israeli 'killer' drones set to make their way to Gaza’, Middle East Eye

[drownmeinbeauty]

HOMELANDS

A long-running semi-permanent exhibit at the national Museum of the American Indian, Native New York, gives a straightforward, text-heavy account of native communities in New York State. Backlit maps and diagrams show who lived where and how. Communities in present-day Manhattan clammed at its northern tip, carved canoes along the Hudson, settled among the ponds at its center, and hunted beavers in its streams. Then in 1626 Peter Menuit gave the Lenape 60 guilders and claimed the entire island for the Dutch West India Company. The fiction of harmonious coexistence ended, and the struggle for sovereignty began.

Of all the artifacts on display (clay bowls, beaded mocassins, hand-hewn arrowheads, feathered spears, gourd-rattles, canoes dug from tree trunks, cartoons on newsprint, wool blankets), the most poignant is a Haudenosaunee passport, issued by a league of six Iriqouis nations (the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora) and carried by enrolled members when they travel abroad. But it offers little security outside their homeland. It is recognized by the Irish government, only irregularly by the United States government, and not at all by the governments of Canada, Bolivia, Peru, and the European Union. One Canadian official, in denying the Haudenosaunee national lacrosse team entrance, called it a "fantasy document."

This little book mimics the pocket size, midnight blue color, and gold stamping of a US passport. In the low and low-lit museum vitrine it gives off a plasticky shine and won't lie flat. Why does it seem inert? Why doesn't it posses the same unquestioned, mythological, authority of a United States passport? The United States was created by proclamation, conjured with words and documents, not so long ago. Why don't we grant others the power to do the same?

[xtruss]

Tolerance and Capitalism; Slavery and Swindle: the Mixed Legacy of the Dutch in New Amsterdam

— April 5, 2024 | By Wendy Blake

View of New Amsterdam 1664, Watercolor. Photos courtesy of New-York Historical Society

Two remarkable letters are on display in the New-York Historical Society’s installation “New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam.”

One, a 1626 letter to the Dutch West India Company from an official in New Amsterdam, the seat of colonial government in New Netherland, describes the “purchase” of “the island Manhattes from the Indians for the value of 60 guilders” (converted by a 19th-century historian into $24). That letter is the only record of the infamous transaction.

1626 Letter Describing the “Purchase” of Manhattan.

The second letter, written by present-day Lenape chiefs whose ancestors inhabited the region when the Dutch arrived, declares the “purchase” invalid. Indeed, says Russell Shorto, director of the New Amsterdam Project at NYHS and exhibition curator, who reached out to the tribes for this response, the transaction was a swindle: The Lenape would have viewed the transaction not as a sale but as a land-use treaty, amounting to an economic and defensive alliance with the Dutch. The items valued at 60 guilders (kettles, knives, and such) would not have represented payment for land but gifts typically presented upon the sealing of a treaty.

The chiefs’ letter, addressed to “Ancestor,” decries the 400 years of devastation experienced by the Lenape people but proclaims that the surviving families have reconnected with “The Land and Waters of Manahahtáanung.”

The NYHS exhibition, which marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Dutch settlers, brings together rare items that document the ugly legacies of African enslavement and dispossession of Native tribes while also speaking to the valuable contributions of non-Europeans. It also describes two foundational elements of Dutch culture that positively influenced the city we know today.

“The Dutch brought a tolerance that was unusual in Europe at the time—in fact, intolerance was official policy in France, England and Spain,” said Shorto in an interview with the Rag. “You had this mix of people speaking different languages and worshipping different ways. [The Dutch] showed in effect that tolerance of others was a recipe for economic success.”

As inventors of the stock market, they also imported capitalism. “They were a practical, seafaring people, and it was in their interest to have an entrepôt [a global trading post],” said Shorto. “Everyone in New Amsterdam was a trader. They would put money back into particular ventures and voyages.”

Business in the New World centered on the fur trade—particularly the “soft gold” of beaver pelts, which were secured by Native trappers—paving the way for New York to become a commercial hub. But the city would also become a center of the slave trade.

The Castello Plan, Showing the City of New Amsterdam Around 1660.

The earliest known map of New Amsterdam, known as the Castello Plan, is a highlight of the exhibition. Drafted by Jacques Cortelyou, the surveyor general for the Dutch territory in the New World, and illustrated by cartographer Johannes Vingbooms, the map offers a bird’s-eye view of the city at its peak, around 1660. It depicts 300-some houses, home to about 1,500 people; extensive gardens; a windmill; a fort; and a church attended by Christians of many denominations, including enslaved Africans—all south of the fence that would become Wall Street. A 3-D rendering of the map allows visitors to tour the city virtually, taking them down a canal and under bridges.

The map is on loan from the Laurentian Library in Florence, Italy. (It was sold in Amsterdam to Cosimo III de’ Medici, an Italian grand duke, and went missing for over 200 years before turning up in 1900 at the Villa di Castello in Florence; hence the name.)

Though it resembles a small frontier village, the city depicted on the map offered great opportunities for wealth-building, especially for white Europeans. A 1655 book encouraging European emigration to New Netherland (the Dutch-claimed territory that included large parts of the northeast and mid-Atlantic) said the Dutch “regard foreigners virtually as native citizens” and that in the capital, New Amsterdam, “anyone who is prepared to adapt can always get off to a good start.”

But not all were welcomed with open arms. On display is a petition to the city from Asser Levy, one of New Amsterdam’s 24 Jewish residents, who sought burgher status. Peter Stuyvesant, director-general of New Netherland from 1647 to 1664, had barred Jews from being burghers (citizens), which meant they couldn’t serve as guards for the city. Adding insult to injury, Stuyvesant then taxed them for not serving. Levy’s initial petitioning to become a burgher was unsuccessful, but Jews eventually won their case.

The exhibition introduces us to Native figures of the time, such as Seweckenamo, a chief of the Esopus people living north of Manhattan, who in 1664 proposed a treaty to Stuyvesant by carrying a branch to New Amsterdam and promising peace as “solid as a stick.”

It also reveals how Dutch leaders in Europe, appalled by a two-year war between the settlers and the Native population, condemned Stuyvesant’s predecessor, Willem Kieft, for “abominations” against the tribes and recalled him. Kieft had ordered soldiers to massacre Indigenous people in their sleep, sparking a war in which over 1,000 Native people and hundreds of colonists were killed.

Bones, Pottery Shards, and Other Fragments Used By Africans in Traditional Healing.

Most surviving artifacts from New Amsterdam relate to European settlement, but in 1984, a special group of objects – presumably collected by an enslaved African – was unearthed near present-day Pearl Street. This “mpungu” collection, found buried in a basket covered by a Dutch plate, includes shell fragments, shards of pottery, marbles, and a copper thimble. It was a Central African belief that the objects had to be broken and previously used so that a healer could engage with their energies.

Despite centuries of rapid and unceasing changes on Manhattan island, the original street grid of New Amsterdam remains remarkably intact. But the Dutch colony itself came to a quiet end in 1664, when its citizens surrendered control without resistance to the British. Shorto, whose books include Island at the Center of the World, a history of Dutch Manhattan, says he’ll be writing about the British takeover next.

Wendy Blake, who writes about arts and culture for the Rag, is a descendant of Jacques Cortelyou, the surveyor general of New Netherland who drafted the Castello Plan.

“New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam” will be at the New-York Historical Society, at Central Park West and 77th Street, until July 14.

[kemetic-dreams]

The writer, O. Dave Allen is a community activist and political commentator

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica, January 25, 2022 - We the Jamaican people are at risk of becoming slaves again. We are a country with   95% African people. It’s a fact that the majority of the African population is at the bottom of the economic pyramid while the 5% at the apex are the minorities who control the economy. We all know that the economy is the superstructure that determines everything else, we also know that those who control the economy rules the country. It is time for majority rule.

When the Chinese were commandeering the local retail and distributive business, it was of little concern to the traditional moneyed class.  Their long held sense of security is now threatened by the fact that the Chinese have cornered the retail business and have accumulated untold millions, buttressed by unaccountable billions of dollars of dubious origin with an insatiable and avaricious appetite of the tiger spreading their tentacles devouring  all that is in its path.

There is an insidious war that is being waged by the Chinese business interest that will undermine all and every local Jamaican business. We are not here dealing with the compliant Chinese shopkeepers of yesteryears; but a contrived network, led by the Chinese State to dominate and control the Jamaica economy with Montego Bay as the entry point, bolstered by the powerful Association of Chinese Enterprises in Jamaica (ACEJ), a non-profit organization. 

This mega conglomerate is akin to the Dutch East India Company (The Dutch East India Company historically a military-political-economic complex rather than a pure trading or shipping company).

Can you imagine the consequences when the Chinese would have established their own bank and  formal financial intermediaries?

Recently China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), was awarded the Government of Jamaica funded US$274.5-million Montego Bay Perimeter Road Project, which includes the rehabilitation of Barnett Street and West Green Avenue, as well as the construction of the Long Hill bypass and a drainage study of the Montego Bay bypass area is also to be conducted under the project.

This catalysis project strengthens the presence of the Chinese in Jamaica and serves as beachhead in Montego Bay to supplant the hegemony of the United States of America in Jamaica and make a mockery of the Monroe Doctrine as they pursue endless war at distant shores.

The Montego Bay perimeter road is funded by the Jamaican taxpayers and as such there is no justifiable reason why this contract should have been awarded to any overseas contractors.

The government has a duty not only to provide physical infrastructure but also to effectively use our taxpayer’s money to build our social capital and to strengthen the capacity of our human resource. 

We have developers, engineers, contractors and consultants with more than adequate competencies to develop the Montego Bay Development Road.  Our local professionals have demonstrated the capacity to execute and manage major projects as exemplified by the work carried out by Jamaican professionals on the Northern Coastal Highway. 

In the recent Andrew Holness cabinet reshuffle the Hon. Homer Davis was appointed to head the Office of the Prime Minister West. This is no accident, but a strategic move to ensure the orderly integration of the Chinese into western Jamaica.

Minister Davis and Former Mayor of the City of Montego Bay enjoys more than cordial relationship with the Montego Bay Chinese community with numerous visits to China during his tenure in office.  With the support of the Chinese Dr. Horace Chang remains the most powerful member of the Holness’ Cabinet.  

While Bishop O’Neil Russell, and others may be disappointed in the reappointment of Dr. Horace Chang as Minister of National Security, they missed the bigger picture that Chang has consolidated his power base with the appointment of his Deputy General Secretary and his protégé Homer Davis as head of OPM West and the ostensible Emissary of the Chinese community, the new power base in Montego Bay.

To those who sing praises of Homer’s appointment, are living in a fool’s paradise. It is not about you, it is about the Chinese work permits and citizenship, building approvals, the clearance of their goods at the wharf and importantly their security. Homer Davis as a conduit who will ensure that the JLP is fully funded to win the next elections.

There will be a seismic shift in business activities back to the old city of Montego Bay. This regeneration started with Harmony Park, the building out of the downtown Montego Bay Waterfront District and soon the regentrification of the urban centre. 

Finally, Who gave the Chinese the permit to dump the wetland and mangrove swamp at Reading to construct the multi story, multi family, high end, Chinese enclave. According to the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation the “project will open new areas to the south of Montego Bay for development and expansion, giving access to lands for housing development.”

But will our local developers; Gore, Moe, Azan, WICHON be beneficiaries of the development opportunities.

odamaxef@yahoo.com

China's Silk Road to Montego Bay, “Turn Them Back” ! says O Dave Allen (wiredja.com)

[fatehbaz]

The rise of the European empires [...] required new forms of social organization, not least the exploitation of millions of people whose labor powered the growth of European expansion [...]. These workers suffered various forms of coercion ranging from outright slavery through to indentured or convict labor, as well as military conscription, land theft, and poverty. [...] [W]ide-ranging case studies [examining the period from 1600 to 1850] [...] show the variety of working conditions and environments found in the early modern period and the many ways workers found to subvert and escape from them. [...] A web of regulation and laws were constructed to control these workers [...]. This system of control was continually contested by the workers themselves [...]

---

Timothy Coates [...] focuses on three locations in the Portuguese empire and the workers who fled from them. The first was the sugar plantations of São Tomé in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The slaves who ran away to form free communities in the interior of the island were an important reason why sugar production eventually shifted to Brazil. Secondly, Coates describes working conditions in the trading posts around the Indian Ocean and the communities of runaways which formed in the Bay of Bengal. The final section focuses on convicts and sinners in Portugal itself, where many managed to escape from forced labor in salt mines.

Johan Heinsen examines convict labor in the Danish colony of Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Denmark awarded the Danish West Indies and Guinea Company the right to transport prisoners to the colony in 1672. The chapter illustrates the social dynamics of the short-lived colony by recounting the story of two convicts who hatched the escape plan, recruited others to the group, including two soldiers, and planned to steal a boat and escape from the island. The plan was discovered and the two convicts sentenced to death. One was forced to execute the other in order to save his own life. The two soldiers involved were also punished but managed to talk their way out of the fate of the convicts. Detailed court records are used to show both the collective nature of the plot and the methods the authorities used to divide and defeat the detainees.

---

James F. Dator reveals how workers in seventeenth-century St. Kitts Island took advantage of conflict between France and Britain to advance their own interests and plan collective escapes. The two rival powers had divided the island between them, but workers, indigenous people, and slaves cooperated across the borders, developing their own knowledge of geography, boundaries, and imperial rivalries [...].

Nicole Ulrich writes about the distinct traditions of mass desertions that evolved in the Dutch East India Company colony in South Africa. Court records reveal that soldiers, sailors, slaves, convicts, and servants all took part in individual and collective desertion attempts. [...] Mattias von Rossum also writes about the Dutch East India Company [...]. He [...] provides an overview of labor practices of the company [...] and the methods the company used to control and punish workers [...].

---

In the early nineteenth century, a total of 73,000 British convicts were sentenced to be transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). There, the majority were rented out as laborers to private employers, and all were subjected to surveillance and detailed record keeping. These records allow Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Michael Quinlan to provide a detailed statistical analysis of desertion rates in different parts of the colonial economy [...].

When Britain abolished the international slave trade, new forms of indentured labor were created in order to provide British capitalism with the labor it required. Anita Rupprecht investigates the very specific culture of resistance that developed on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands between 1808 and 1828. More than 1,300 Africans were rescued from slavery and sent to Tortola, where officials had to decide how to deal with them. Many were put to work in various forms of indentured labor on the island, and this led to resistance and rebellion. Rupprecht uncovers details about these protests from the documents of a royal commission that investigated [...].

---

All text above by: Mark Dunick. "Review of Rediker, Marcus; Chakraborty, Titas; Rossum, Matthias van, eds. A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism 1600-1850". H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews. April 2024. Published at: h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=58852 [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[mariacallous]

From Spanish conquistadors to British colonialists, the prevailing story of European empire-building has focused on the rival ambitions of competing states. But as Outsourcing Empire shows, from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, company-states—not sovereign states—drove European expansion, building the world’s first genuinely international system. Company-states were hybrid ventures: pioneering multinational trading firms run for profit, with founding charters that granted them sovereign powers of war, peace, and rule. Those like the English and Dutch East India Companies carved out corporate empires in Asia, while other company-states pushed forward European expansion through North America, Africa, and the South Pacific. In this comparative exploration, Andrew Phillips and J. C. Sharman explain the rise and fall of company-states, why some succeeded while others failed, and their role as vanguards of capitalism and imperialism.

In dealing with alien civilizations to the East and West, Europeans relied primarily on company-states to mediate geographic and cultural distances in trade and diplomacy. Emerging as improvised solutions to bridge the gap between European rulers’ expansive geopolitical ambitions and their scarce means, company-states succeeded best where they could balance the twin imperatives of power and profit. Yet as European states strengthened from the late eighteenth century onward, and a sense of separate public and private spheres grew, the company-states lost their usefulness and legitimacy.

Bringing a fresh understanding to the ways cross-cultural relations were handled across the oceans, Outsourcing Empire examines the significance of company-states as key progenitors of the globalized world.

[ptseti]

AFRICA WAS DESTROYED WHEN ARABS AND EUROPEANS FIRST STEPPED FOOT ON HER SOIL. "All of the countries named as Underdeveloped in the world are exploited by others. And underdevelopment to which the world is preoccupied is a product of capitalist, imperialist and colonial exploitation." - Walter Rodney (How Europe Underdeveloped Africa). When the Europeans came to Whydah, they found a thriving kingdom with its own institutions, political system and a network of trading relations between Dahomey and other West African kingdoms like the Benin Empire in what is modern-day Nigeria. Benin, for instance, had been trading with Dahomey since the early 17th century CE and the Ashanti kingdom in the following centuries, even before both Ashante and Dahomey became a strong polity to be reckoned with. Benin empire had before then, been trading on the West African Coast since the 11th century CE. These trade relations were shattered by first, the Portuguese, then the British and the French; with the sole intention that all African policies should no more be trading among each other but that they should all depend slavishly on Europe. To this end, Europe was most successful and the effects can still be felt today. So much so that some African countries today, imports toothpicks from Europe...and toothpick is the simplest thing, anyone can make. The Europeans were welcomed with traditional African hospitality, because according to Historian Dr John Henrik Clarke, "no one would have imagined that the welcomed guests will enslave the man of the house and the woman who cooked the meal." No one would have, indeed, imagined that. Another thing the African kings did not know was that the European trading(and later looting and plundering) corporation had an active army that was more than that of some countries. For example, the British East Indian trading corporation under Colin Mackenzie in the 1800s, that took over India(especially the kingdom of Virjayanangra in southern India) had such an army. The Dutch East Indian Company had such an army too. One of the successful transactions of such a trading corporation was when the entity became northern protectorates and southern protectorates of the British along the Niger River (which was later amalgamated by the British in 1914 CE to form Nigeria after a series of wars and manipulations), was bought by the British from the Royal Niger company for an amount of about 850 hundred pounds, some sources indicated the amount to have been in thousands of pounds. No African was part of this transaction. And in this way, it was like a 'mafia don who had taken over a territory, selling what wasn't his to another mafia don.' The British(descendants of the European barbarian tribe, the Angles-Saxons) claimed this territory as their own property, just as the French(descendants of the European barbarian tribe known as the Franks) took over Dahomey in 1894 CE. This had come at a huge price for the Africans. First, the visitors were allowed room in the coastal areas and they brought in an invisible enemy; alien diseases like gonorrhoea, syphilis, smallpox and other germs causing ailments that the Africans were not immune to. Next was slavery which was followed closely by colonialism that shattered African ancient polities to this very day. And why Europeans were busy with this 'enterprise,' Arabs were busy in the Sahel, North Africa and East Africa, placing a 'knife on everything that had held the societies together, even before there was a Europe or an Arab in existence. This knife was Mohammedanism or Islam, and it has confused the Africans to this very day. (C: THE HISTORY OF AFRICA MAGAZINE '22) #Africa