The Dutch Republic and the Spanish Slave Trade, 1580-1690

Author(s)

  • Cátia Antunes Leiden University
  • Ramona Negrón Leiden University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52024/tseg.12315

Keywords:

Slave trade, Dutch Republic, Seventeenth century, Spanish Empire

Abstract

This article investigates the reason why groups of merchants operating from the Dutch Republic, particularly from Amsterdam, decided to take part in the exploitation of the Spanish Empire, through a very particular type of activity, that of the slave trade. We argue that Amsterdam-based merchants were heavily engaged, through various organizational forms, in supplying Spanish American markets with enslaved Africans. This participation was rewarded with a path for access to Spanish American silver, at the time the essential exchange mechanism for entry and expansion in the Mediterranean and Asian trades.

Author Biographies

  • Cátia Antunes, Leiden University

    Cátia Antunes is professor of Global Economic Networks: Merchants, Entrepreneurs and Empires at the Institute for History, at Leiden University. She is currently the principal investigator of the project Exploiting the Empire of Others supported by the Dutch Research Council.

  • Ramona Negrón, Leiden University

    Ramona Negrón (1997) studied colonial history at Leiden University. She works as a PhD Candidate at Leiden University in the project Exploiting the Empires of Others: Dutch Investment in Foreign Colonial Resources, 1570-1800 led by prof.dr. Cátia Antunes and as Data Curator at the Amsterdam City Archives. She publishes in the field of maritime and colonial history, mostly on topics related to slavery studies. 

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Published

2022-09-08

Issue

Vol. 19 No. 2 (2022): New Perspectives on Early Modern Dutch Atlantic Slavery and Slave Trade

Section

Research Article

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Cátia Antunes, Ramona Negrón

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Antunes, C., & Negrón, R. (2022). The Dutch Republic and the Spanish Slave Trade, 1580-1690. TSEG - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, 19(2), 17-44. https://doi.org/10.52024/tseg.12315
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