Shareholders in the Dutch Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Trade

Author(s)

  • Koen van der Blij Tilburg University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52024/tseg.8371

Keywords:

Middelburg, Accounting, Atlantic, Slave Trade, Transatlantic

Abstract

This article provides the first quantitative evidence of the indirect benefits of shareholders of the Middelburgse Commercie Compagnie (MCC), a Dutch Atlantic trading company and the biggest slave trader in the eighteenth-century Dutch Republic. MCC shares provided its owners with a preferred status as suppliers and customers of the company. This article focuses on two years, 1725 and 1770, and finds that approximately one third of the MCC shareholders in both years acted as suppliers or customers of the company. The financial incentives of the directors appear to be better aligned with the financial interests of the shareholders in 1770 compared to 1725.

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Author Biography

  • Koen van der Blij, Tilburg University

    Koen van der Blij (1996) graduated from University College Roosevelt in Middelburg in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in liberal arts & sciences, focusing on history, economics, and philosophy. In 2020, he received an MPhil degree in economic and social history from the University of Cambridge. He is currently an MSc student in economics at Tilburg University.

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Published

2022-09-08

How to Cite

Shareholders in the Dutch Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Trade. (2022). TSEG - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, 19(2), 69-94. https://doi.org/10.52024/tseg.8371