Includes bibliographical references and index.

Front Matter -- Preliminary Material / Wim Klooster -- Glossary / Wim Klooster -- List of tables and illustrations / Wim Klooster -- Preface / Wim Klooster -- Introduction / Wim Klooster -- Chapter I The development of Dutch trade in the Americas / Wim Klooster -- Chapter II Outwitting the Spanish system Direct and indirect Dutch trade with Spanish America / Wim Klooster -- Chapter III Curaçao: Amsterdam’s Caribbean counterpart / Wim Klooster -- Chapter IV Informal foreign trade in the Spanish Caribbean / Wim Klooster -- Chapter V Statia, Curaçao, and French and British America / Wim Klooster -- Chapter VI Dutch slave supplies to foreign markets / Wim Klooster -- Chapter VII The symbiosis of Curaçao and Venezuela / Wim Klooster -- Chapter VIII Spain’s fight against contraband / Wim Klooster -- Chapter IX Dutch transatlantic trade Imports and exports / Wim Klooster -- Chapter X Conclusion / Wim Klooster -- Back Matter -- Appendix 1 Dutch participation in the asiento slave trade / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 2 Ships with cacao, Curaçao-Netherlands, 1701-1755 / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 3 Product trade Curaçao-Netherlands, 1701-1755 / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 4 Product trade St. Eustatius-Netherlands, 1738-1790 / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 5 Exports St. Eustatius-Netherlands, 1738-1790 (in pounds) / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 6 Venezuela’s legal and illegal cacao exports, 1701-1755 (in pounds) / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 7 Tobacco exports Curaçao-Netherlands, 1701-1755 / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 8 Hide exports Curaçao-Netherlands, 1701-1755 (in pieces) / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 9 Coffee exports Curaçao-Netherlands, 1735-1755 / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 10 Specified sugar suppliers of Curaçao, 1726-1755 (in %) / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 11 Indigo exports Curaçao-Netherlands, 1701-1755 / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 12 Dyewood exports Curaçao-Netherlands, 1701-1755 / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 13 The relative weight of Dutch contraband trade / Wim Klooster -- Appendix 14 The forced exchange of goods, 1752-1764 (in pounds of cacao) / Wim Klooster -- Bibliography / Wim Klooster -- Index / Wim Klooster.

This book aims to revise the history of Dutch world trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While studies of Dutch economic expansion tend to focus on the East India Company and its Asian empire, activities in the Atlantic have been neglected. Consequently, their importance has been seriously underestimated. By examining the transit trade in the Caribbean, this thorough and original study presents an alternative view of the Dutch seaborne empire, facing east as well as west. The Dutch transit trade in the Caribbean revolved around Curaçao and St. Eustatius, small islands that did not have much in common with other colonies in the region. Sugar and tobacco production in St. Eustatius was never a prosperous enterprise and Curaçao proved to be unsuited for the cultivation of cash crops. But enterprising merchants turned these Dutch possessions into entrepôts,local counterparts of Amsterdam, from where a wide variety of European commodities was sent to foreign colonies in exchange for tropical produce. Although outlawed by French, English, and Spanish mercantilist policies, inter-imperial commerce became a booming business, providing the Dutch in the New World with a niche which was much more profitable than historians have realized. The Caribbean contraband trade thus helped the Dutch to survive the loss in the mid-seventeenth century of most of their territorial empire in the Western hemisphere.

English

Description based on print version record.