On the colonial history and policy of Spain the student has several excellent books: E. G. Bourne, **Spain in America (with bibliography); Häbler, **The colonial kingdom of Spain, in H. Helmolt, Hist. of the World, vol. 1, pp. 386-422, N. Y., Dodd, Mead & Co., 1902; Roscher, ** The Spanish colonial system, N. Y., Holt, 1904, Moses, *The establishment of Spanish rule in America, N. Y., Putnam, 1898.
Two scholarly works in the series of Harvard Economic Studies deserve the attention of the serious student: Clarence H. Haring, Trade and navigation between Spain and the Indies in the time of the Hapsburgs, vol. 19, 1918, and Julius Klein, The Mesta, a study in Spanish economic history, 1273-1836, vol. 21, 1920.
The best single reference on Portugal is H. Morse Stephens, *Portugal. For the Portuguese colonial ventures see Keller, **Colonization, chap. 3, The Portuguese in the East, chap. 4, The Portuguese in Brazil.
CHAPTER XX
THE NETHERLANDS
216. Establishment of the United Netherlands.—With the decline of Spain and Portugal the supremacy in European commerce passed definitely to the countries of the North. The country which first took the lead, and which we shall consider next, was the Netherlands, or as it is often called from its main province, Holland. The Netherlands, which has now an area but one fourth of that of New York State, was a part of the possessions which by marriage and politics had come under the rule of the Spanish crown. Its natural resources are slight, and in the early part of the sixteenth century it was far behind the adjoining Spanish territory now known as Belgium, which contained the developed manufactures of Flanders and the great port of Antwerp. The Dutch were strong, however, in the individual capacities of the people, and in spite of the disparity of the contest were able to win their independence from Spain in the Revolution which came in the last part of the sixteenth century.
A variety of causes combined to urge the Dutch to revolt. They suffered under Spanish rulers political oppression, and religious persecution designed to crush the Protestant movement which they had embraced. They suffered also, however, under the commercial restrictions of Spanish policy. These they could bear so long as they found an outlet for their growing commerce by trade with the East through Portugal, but the union of the crowns of Spain and Portugal in 1580 closed even this outlet, and forced them to fight for the means of existence and of growth.
217. Rise of Dutch commerce.—The Dutch were forced to the sea by the difficulties of life at home, and had made good progress in commerce with their European neighbors before their revolt. They had become used, also, to distant voyages by explorations designed to open up new routes for trade. In the vain attempt to establish a northeast route to India by the Arctic ocean they showed especial energy; and the names Tasmania, Van Diemen’s Land, New Zealand, attest their boldness later in exploring the southern hemisphere. When, therefore, they had achieved their independence and needed no longer to fear the threats of Spanish and Portuguese rulers, they made rapid strides in oceanic commerce. Before 1602 sixty-five ships had made the return voyage to India, and throughout the seventeenth century an active commerce was maintained with both Asia and America.
218. Dutch commercial policy.—We are tempted, by the position that the Netherlands took against Spanish oppression, to ascribe to the Dutch a greater love of liberty than they actually had. The government which they established for themselves was marked by serious faults of oppression and corruption, and their commercial policy was nearly as narrow as that of Spain. The exclusion of foreigners from trade with their distant dependencies was only natural in this period of commerce; even the Dutch, however, were not free to trade as they pleased. The colonial commerce was absorbed by great companies, which were granted a monopoly of trade in certain areas, and which regulated this trade with extreme minuteness. The companies had a complicated organization which prevented efficiency and encouraged the improper use of personal and political influence.
219. The Dutch West India Company.—The Dutch West India Company, founded in 1621, controlled the trade west of the Cape of Good Hope, comprising commerce with the west coast of Africa, and the east coast of the Americas. This company was an extraordinary specimen of its kind. It paid high dividends for a time, but its earnings were necessarily precarious for it made them not from the ordinary operations of commerce and colonization, but from armed attacks on the Spanish silver fleets. It was really a corporation of privateers. The character of the company can be estimated from the fact that it actually opposed peace between the Netherlands and Spain; in its remonstrance of 1633 it said that the services desired of it “for the welfare of our Fatherland and the destruction of our hereditary enemy could not be accomplished by the trifling trade with the Indians, or the tardy cultivation of uninhabited regions, but in reality, by acts of hostility against the ships and property of the King of Spain and his subjects.”
The Dutch soon lost their possessions in Brazil and New Netherland (New York), and the original company was dissolved; the possessions which the Dutch retained on the coast of Guinea and in South America were unimportant. Small islands in the Gulf of Mexico, which in themselves produced little of value, served as stations for the Dutch carrying trade, which continued to be considerable.