Amsterdam in the Seventeenth Century
About Me:
I am a second year undergraduate student at Bath Spa University, who has been working with the Marine Lives team as part of the optional Humanities at Work module. Working with the Marine Lives team has been a wonderful experience for me, as I have been able to key typographical skills, whilst working with primary sources. This was an exciting opportunity for me, as a budding historian. Furthermore, as a student that is interested in the early modern era, I have also found learning about the High Court of Admiralty and the life of merchants and sailors in this era to be fascinating. I am also planning on writing a dissertation next year that will require me to be reading documents from the seventeenth century, so I will be putting into practice the typography skills that I have learned this year with the Marine Lives programme. Therefore, my experience with the project has been very useful and one that will benefit me tremendously in the future.
Seventeenth century Amsterdam
The story of Amsterdam in the seventeenth century is the story of development both in a physical and economic sense. By 1600, trade and industry was flourishing at unprecedented levels and this, in turn, attracted a whole new wave of immigrants. Many of these immigrants moved from Spanish- controlled Antwerp, such as the Jewish population, in order to escape religious persecution, and the merchant population which moved for employment and trade after Antwerp was usurped as the main trading capital of Europe by Amsterdam. This contributed to Amsterdam’s growing affluence, as it provided more sources of cheap labour. However, this caused huge initial issues for a city that was restricted in its physical size by its pre-existing medieval perimeter canal.
To alleviate this issue, Amsterdam underwent a much-needed expansion programme in 1613. In order to respond to the ever-growing population, the city’s canal system was reconstructed to extend the boundaries. The new Canal Ring included three new canal routes: The Herengracht, the, Keizersgracht (Emperor Canal) and Prinsengracht. The Herengracht canal, (also known as the ‘The Golden Band) was the most expensive and most luxurious. It was designed to attract the most prosperous of the new wave of merchants that had migrated to Amsterdam and many of Amsterdam’s elite classes built homes there. Each house was built individually by the individual merchant, meaning each of the houses along this part of Amsterdam were of differing sizes and designs. Alongside these newly built houses were a new group of warehouses in which local merchants loaded and unloaded their goods, to be taken by barge along the canal in order to be sailed abroad to foreign markets.
This video, found on Youtube, is a timelapse video that perfectly depicts the physical expansion of Amsterdam in this era.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvsHvfs3G1M
By 1601, the Dutch Republic built up the largest merchant fleet in the world. This massively aided the growing economic success of Amsterdam, as it allowed for an increase in the size and number of goods able to come in and out of the city which, whilst decreasing the number of men needed to man the ship. A key component to the increased trade was the invention of the 'Fluyt' ship, which was a technological revelation. The Fluyt was different to most other ships in that it had no military function whatsoever, meaning that it travelled with no guns or ammunition and carried less crew members. According to Clark G Reynold, “whilst a 400 ton French ship might have 25 crew, a Dutch Fluyt would have 12.” It was also cheaper than most warships and carried significantly more cargo, as there was little else on board. Furthermore, the ships were built simply, making them cheaper to build in the long run. This lowered the cost of transporting goods cheaper for individual merchants, which gave the city a massive boost in trade.
At the beginning of the 16th century Antwerp was the commercial capital of the Low Countries, as it handled approximately 80 per cent of trade conducted in the Hapsburg Netherlands. Historian Maarten Prak stated that “Holland was a satellite around Antwerp.” One of the main reasons for this commercial domination was the trade of bulk goods with the Baltic regions. Furthermore, numerous Dutch merchants, with interest in trade, but with little capital developed what was known as ‘partenrederji’. This allowed for merchants to become part owners of shipping firms, which meant that they could share the risk and attract capital. Individual ships were financed collectively, dividing ship ownership into 8/16/24/32/64 or even 98 shares. This allowed for ship owners to share in the profits that were generated as a result.
By the end of the 16th century, Antwerp’s powers began to wane and a series of political and religious events resulted in a seismic shift in power. In 1576, the “Spanish Fury” occurred, in which Spaniards ransacked the city of Antwerp and killed eight thousand civilians many merchants took their trade to other cities across Europe. This was followed nine years later by Alexander Farnese’s, (the duke of Parma) invasion, with his Spanish army. As a result of these two invasions, thousands of people fled Antwerp. These included Rouen, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt, London, Middelburgh and Amsterdam. By the start of the seventeenth century, Amsterdam had usurped Antwerp as the centre of international trade. Many of these were merchants, who brought trade to the city of Amsterdam. Approximately 50.4 per cent of Amsterdam’s merchants between 1601 and 1700 were immigrants. Consequently, these merchants brought with them excess capital and large trading networks across the world. The most important of these trade networks was the connection with the Baltic region, labelled the “Mother Trade”, due to its huge economic importance. Amsterdam’s rise to prominence at Antwerp’s expense was summarised by the German adventurer Karl Ludwig von Pollnitz in 1777, when he pronounced that “Antwerp… completely fallen from her previous glory. Once it was the great emporium in Europe. Amsterdam fed on her carcass.”
However, there was also a darker side to the merchants settling in Amsterdam, as much Spanish silver found its way into the city. According to historian Timothy Walton, approximately seven million Spanish pesos a year found its way over from Spain into Amsterdam. Silver smuggling was rife amongst many merchant sailors, such as the Master of the ship The Sampson Otto George, who allegedly smuggled silver into Amsterdam during the Spanish- Dutch war. In the examination of Abraham Johnson, a seaman aboard the ship at the time, it was said that:
“The said Otto George upon his retourne to Amsterdam from Cadiz with the said shipp the said voyage wherein this deponent served in her as aforesaid
delivered silver to one living at the signe of the Grave van Buren neere the old church in Amsterdam the name of which person living there he
remembreth not, alsoe to Mr Coymans dwelling in the keisars or cesars gracht, Adrian Poulson living in the Strasse market, Mr Webster on the keisars gracht , and to Mr Vanderstraten dwelling on the heeres gracht in Amsterdam aforesaid
all which deliveries this deponent was present at and sawe, and upon
the said Otto Georges last retourne to Amsterdam from Spaine about foure yeares or upwards
since, this deponent was present againe and sawe him deliver silver brought
in the said shipp to the said person dwelling in the Grave van Buren.”
Amsterdam merchants had trade links with merchants all over the world. For example, in his examination, Peter van Salingen (Captain of the ship The Brack) states how he travelled regularly between England and Amsterdam:
“To the first Interrogatorie hee saith that hee hath well knowne the said shipp
the Brack ever since her building which was about a yeare and a quarter
since, and saith that since her said building shee hath bin for the most part[?e]
imployed as a Conveyer of dutch and others Merchants shipps betwixt Amsterdam and
this port of London and yarmouth and came last over from holland in that imployment.”
Some merchants went even further afield, such as the Amsterdam mariner, John Peterson, who reports that he travelled aboard The Morning Starr in May 1656. In his witness statement during Egbert Scutt’s 1657 ‘claim for the ship the morning starr and goods’, he states:
“in the moneth of May 1656 the said Egbert Scutt and
company set out the said shipp from Amsterdam under conduct of
Claus Williams her Master upon a trading Voyage for the
Western Islands, laden with oile, Spanish wine, hatts, knives
aqua vita and severall other commodities to be bartered and trucked
away for tobaccoe and other goods such as hee the said master (being
appointed factor, or sub-marchant in that behalfe) could meete with and
might be most advantagious for his said imployers, owners of the said
shipp, and to retourne therewith for holland for their áccount, All
which hee knoweth being at Amsterdam shipped stiersman of the
said shipp and acquainted with the designe of the voyage.”
Peterson’s statement shows the wide array of goods that Amsterdam’s merchants exported to the wider world. It also shows the way in which Amsterdam imported exotic goods, such as tobacco, from places such as the West Indies.
Furthermore, as Clé Lesger explains, Amsterdam was also a major importer of goods from all over the globe, which is what made Amsterdam the dominant market in the global economic market. He states that as many ships made Amsterdam “their last port of call” after leaving cargo at other areas of the Dutch Republic is evidence that “the city was pivotal in the exchange of goods between the regional economy and the wider world.” The vast majority of goods that were imported into Amsterdam in the seventeenth century, according to Lesger, were luxury consumer goods. Silk, for example, was a popular import, a large proportion of which came from England. A paper from the House of Commons, dated 3rd February 1650, gives evidence of “9 parcels of Silk and Silk-ware; viz. 4 bales of Silk, and Five cases of Silks” aboard the ship The Jonas.
[For the full House of Commons Paper, see http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23943.]
Furthermore, the 1653 witness examination of Robert Swanley, Commander of the ship the 'Harry Bonadventure, reveals other examples of luxury goods bound for Amsterdam. He states that he was travelling with (amongst other goods):
“Two chests of quicksylver… 8 or 9 hundred bags of Anniseed… About 100 bags of currants, about 1600 weight of ffustick… and allso severall chests of drinking glasses and lookeing glasses…” [For the full transcription, see http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/HCA_13/68_f.145v_Annotate]
After riding the high tide of the seventeenth century and her ‘Golden Age’, Amsterdam saw an economic downturn in the eighteenth century. One of the main reasons for this was the halt in the growing population, which had brought a vast amount of the wealth into the population in the early stages of the economic boom. As a result of the economic downturn, depression began to hit Amsterdam towards the end of the eighteenth century, with poverty hitting the city hard. According to Maarten Prak, approximately one in five families depended on poor relief between 1780 and 1790. Amsterdam retained some form of economic prowess on the international stage but was surpassed by London as the international financial capital. As historian Fernand Braudel states, “Amsterdam undoubtedly gave way to London, as Venice did to Antwerp and as London would one day to New York.” Amsterdam's period of global financial domination was over.
The seventeenth century was something of a zenith for the city of Amsterdam. The flood of immigrants that came to the city at the start of the century brought great commercial wealth, as well as cheap forms of labour, which Amsterdam benefitted from. Furthermore, the newly settled merchant population brought a great deal of profit, through the advancement of Dutch trade and the invention of the Fluyt, which revolutionised the exporting of goods.
Bibliography:
Braudel, Fernand. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th- 18th Century: The perspective of the world, California, University of California Press, 1981, p. 266.
'House of Commons Journal Volume 7: 3 February 1652', Journal of the House of Commons, vol. 7: 1651-1660 (1802), pp. 79-83. URL: [WWW]http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23943, Date accessed: 08/05/2015.
Lesger, Clé. The Rise of the Amsterdam Market and Information Exchange: Merchants, Commercial Expansion and Change in the Spacial Economy of the Low Countries, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2006
Lindemann, Mary. The Merchants Republics: Amsterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg: 1648-1790, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Marnef, Guido. Antwerp, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopaedia of the Early Modern World, 2004. [Online] Available from: Encyclopedia.com, [Accessed 4 May 2016].
Prak, Maarten. Amsterdam, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, 2004. [Online] Available from http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Amsterdam.aspx, [Accessed 08/05/2016].
Prak, Maarten. The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century: The Golden Age, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Rijksmuseum, 1600- 1665 Amsterdam’s Prosperity [Online] https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/explore-the-collection/timeline-dutch-history/1600-1665-amsterdams-prosperity [Accessed 04/05/2016].
Reynold, Clark G. Traders, The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 11, Issue. 3, 1987.
Walton, Timothy R. The Spanish Treasure Fleets, Pineapple Press, Florida, 2002
Zanden, J.L. The Rise and Decline of Holland’s Economy: Merchant Capitalism and the Labour Market, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1993.
