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Consuls-of-State and the Redemption of Slaves: The Dutch Republic and the Western Mediterranean, 1616–1651

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2015

Erica Heinsen-Roach
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Abstract

At the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch Republic developed a trade empire of global proportions. The Dutch government played a substantial role in building and sustaining merchant enterprises by allowing chartered companies to act on its behalf. In the Mediterranean, however, the authorities relied on a variety of commercial-diplomatic agents to promote commerce. This article argues that Dutch consuls in the western Mediterranean transformed from merchant-consuls into state-representatives and played a crucial role in sustaining diplomatic relations with states in the Maghreb. By comparing the conditions under which consuls liberated captives in Algiers and Morocco during the first half of the seventeenth century, the article examines how consuls continuously had to adjust their mission to the interests of different institutions and individuals. The article concludes that the expansion of Dutch global commerce in the Mediterranean did not evolve according to a standard script but in consuls’ interactions with local conditions and customary practices. The article contributes to the New Diplomatic History that emphasizes how successful diplomatic relations in the early modern world depended on a range of different diplomatic actors who created forms of state diplomacy beyond treaty making and alliances.

Keywords

consulscaptivitydiplomacyMediterraneanredemption
Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , April 2015 , pp. 69 - 90
Copyright
© 2015 Research Institute for History, Leiden University 

At the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch Republic developed a global trade empire by establishing trading posts as far north as Russia and as far east as Asia. The Dutch government played a substantial role in building and sustaining these merchant enterprises by creating chartered companies, such as the East India Company in the Indies, and allowing them to act on its behalf.Footnote 1 In the Mediterranean, however, the government had to find subtler ways to offer support, because existing commercial-diplomatic networks pre-empted the need for a trade company.Footnote 2 In the Ottoman Empire, the sultan regulated commercial-diplomatic traffic with European states through capitulations, a set of privileges that allowed them to trade in the Levant, invest an ambassador in Istanbul, and appoint consuls to oversee local merchant communities. When sultan Ahmed I granted the Republic capitulations in 1612, the Dutch Estates General quickly appointed consuls throughout the Ottoman Empire.Footnote 3 Thus, whereas the Estates General relied on chartered companies like the Dutch East India Company to spread Dutch commerce to other parts of the world, in the Mediterranean the Estates General relied primarily on consuls and other commercial diplomats.

In narratives on establishing Dutch global commerce, consuls in the western half of the Mediterranean have received little attention.Footnote 4 Piracy, or the corso, plagued the entire Mediterranean but particularly boomed in the western half where the trade in stolen goods and the ransoming of captives circulated and prospered from the shores of southern Europe to North Africa. Countless Muslims, Jews, and Christians, including thousands of Dutchmen, fell prey to corsairs.Footnote 5 To negotiate their release and the restitution of confiscated goods, the Estates General appointed twenty-eight consuls to Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli and Morocco between 1616 and 1686.Footnote 6 These consuls maintained treaties, assisted merchants, and acted as conduits of information especially, but not exclusively, on commercial matters. In the absence of a joint-stock company or resident ambassador, they became the representatives of the Republic to protect and promote the Dutch merchant community throughout the Mediterranean.Footnote 7

The dependence of the Dutch authorities on consuls allows us to understand how “lesser” diplomats forged and sustained commercial relationships in the early modern world. Scholars of the New Diplomatic History emphasise how successful diplomatic relations depended on more than resident ambassadors alone. Rather, they contend, a range of different diplomatic actors created forms of state diplomacy beyond treaty making and alliances.Footnote 8 Similarly, I argue that Dutch consuls in the western Mediterranean transformed from merchant-consuls into state-representatives in the early 1600s and thus became part of the emerging Dutch commercial-diplomatic network in the Mediterranean. In particular, I compare the conditions under which consuls redeemed slaves in Algiers on the one hand and Morocco on the other during the first half of the seventeenth century. Captivity challenged the sovereignty of the Dutch empire which, like England, rested on the dominion of the seas to sustain its global maritime commerce. Crewmembers formed the driving force behind Dutch maritime enterprises and their redemption was essential to ensure the continuation of trade in the Mediterranean.Footnote 9 To bestow consuls with the task of liberating them reinforced the importance of consuls in their capacity as state representatives.

A comparison between the redemptive practices of consuls in Algiers and Tunis on the one hand and Morocco on the other demonstrates the fluid and unpredictable ways in which early modern diplomatic networks evolved. The lack of strong states in the seventeenth-century Mediterranean allowed for the interplay among many different institutions, groups, and individuals in shaping and re-shaping the office of consul in ways that the Estates General did not always anticipate. By the end of the sixteenth century, the trade and sales of captives in the Mediterranean had grown exponentially into what some historians consider commercialized redemption. An extensive network of redemptive orders, civic institutions, and individual mediators emerged to mediate the release of Christian and Muslim captives alike.Footnote 10 Ransoming prisoners of war was the norm. The Estates General, however, refused to pay ransom because it did not want to be financially responsible for redeeming slaves.Footnote 11 It therefore instructed consuls to demand the unconditional release of captives instead.

An examination of the tenure of Wijnant Keyser, the first consul in Algiers and Tunis (1616-1625), reveals that this policy failed. The Tunisian ruler Yusuf Dey (r. 1610-1637) and the government of Algiers, especially cadi ‘Ali and the diwan, a military council, expected that the consul like his French counterpart would pay for the release of captives and not claim them for free.Footnote 12 Pressured by local rulers and driven by his own conscience, Keyser disobeyed his instructions and began to ransom captives. He thus redefined his mission by adjusting to local customs or rather, as many Dutch captains suggested, by being complicit in the ‘robbery’ practices of the pirate republics. The position of consuls in Morocco offers another example of how different forces shaped the consular corps. Here, too, consuls had to demand the liberation of slaves for free. However, an alliance between the Sa’dian dynasty and the Republic rested on the export of Dutch arms to Morocco and encouraged Moroccan agents to exchange captives for war material. A thriving trade in arms thus prevented consuls from claiming the unconditional release of captives. The situation changed when the alliance collapsed. Facing an increased number of captives, the Estates General consented in 1651 to ransom captives and, in 1657/58 gave consuls the sole right to do so.Footnote 13 The redefined mission of the consuls reflected how the Estates General had radically changed its policies. It no longer insisted on the unconditional release of slaves but instead adapted Mediterranean practices of ransom. The continuous adjustments of the consul’s mission to the interests of different institutions and individuals during the first half of the seventeenth century thus illustrates that the expansion of Dutch global commerce evolved, at least in the Mediterranean, in close interaction with local conditions and customary practices.

From Merchant-Consul to State Representative

In the late medieval Mediterranean, consuls were not commissioned by the state, but selected by a nation of merchants abroad to represent their community and handle legal disputes. These nations developed mostly in the Levant, where Venetian merchants and consuls had a long history of trading and negotiating with the Ottomans.Footnote 14 Initially, Flemish-Dutch merchant communities in Italy and the Levant also selected their own consuls. Around 1600, however, the Estates General made mercantile interests an affair of state rather than the private business of local merchants. Supported by the capitulations and upon request of Amsterdam merchants, the government founded a string of new consulates throughout the eastern Mediterranean and replaced the existing merchant-consuls in Aleppo, Genoa and Smyrna with state-appointed ones beginning around 1612.Footnote 15 The intervention of the Dutch authorities reveals that the government considered consuls a vital component in consolidating and expanding trade opportunities in the eastern Mediterranean. By turning consuls into state-representatives, the Estates General sent a strong message to Dutch nations in the Mediterranean that the prerogative to select consuls was no longer theirs but the Republic’s.

The newly appointed Dutch consuls in the Levant joined Venetian, English, and French consuls. They, too, represented their home government in one way or the other. The relationship between Dutch consuls and the state, in this case the Estates General, mostly resembled the Venetian situation. Venetian consuls were formally appointed by the Venetian Senate. From 1583 onwards their appointment also required the consent of the Cinque Savii, the Venetian board of trade. The English Crown granted the Levant Company in London in 1605 the right to appoint consuls. In Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli and Salé, however, the Crown appointed the consuls directly. For most of the seventeenth century, French consuls could buy their office and possessed the right to farm out the consulate. In all cases, commercial and political institutions in Europe supported the tenure of consuls in the Mediterranean to represent their interests.Footnote 16

French and English consuls also resided in the Maghreb starting from 1565 and 1584 respectively, but the Republic initially hesitated to appoint consuls in Algiers and Tunis.Footnote 17 Normalised trade relations between Europe and North Africa hardly existed. Maghrebian merchants, for example, were not allowed to trade in European ports and they found it increasingly difficult to compete with English and Dutch commerce.Footnote 18 Hence, in the Islamic west corsairing and the capture of Christians emerged as retaliation and compensation for diminished trade opportunities. The corso attracted numerous renegades but simultaneously deterred many European merchants from establishing organized trade communities in the Mahgreb.Footnote 19 The absence of nations in especially Algiers and Tunis thus explains why the Estates General could not justify the appointment of consuls there.

The captivity of Dutch subjects, however, soon forced the Estates General to change its policies. In 1596, the first known reports about Dutch captives reached the Estates General. In 1609 about twenty-five sailors were reportedly held in Morocco and in 1611, about one hundred in Tunis.Footnote 20 With a few exceptions, the majority of these captives came from villages and towns in Holland and Zeeland, two coastal provinces that dominated Dutch naval and commercial traffic.Footnote 21 Most participated in the trade with the Mediterranean, the so-called Straatvaart, and laboured on merchant vessels as sailors, cabin boys, cooks, carpenters, rope makers and surgeons. Some were seized on their way to the West Indies, like Cornelis Stout and his family. Once captured, prisoners were sold and put to work in Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Salé, or Tetuan. They built public works, served in imperial or domestic households, or performed administrative work.Footnote 22 Escape or manumission offered a few captives the road to freedom. Most prisoners of war in the Mediterranean, however, whether it concerned ‘Uthman ibn Qasim from Algiers or Joost Prins from Amsterdam, had to pay ransom in order to be liberated.Footnote 23

Like most prisoners of war in the Mediterranean, the average Dutch captive had no financial means to buy his freedom. Sailors’ wages were insufficient to cover the expenses and so, too, were the Seamen’s Funds established in several towns in the Republic to insure sailors against the risk of captivity.Footnote 24 Like thousands of other English and French prisoners in the Mediterranean, Dutch captives were dependent on the aid of family and local institutions to raise money and arrange their liberation.Footnote 25 Relatives and local authorities, however, hardly had the financial means to support the requests. Hence, captives and their families addressed the highest political authorities in the Republic. Between 1611 and 1633, they frequently petitioned the Prince of Orange and the Estates General for help.Footnote 26 Magistrates of town councils, too, sought the intervention of the Estates General in liberating captives. In 1621, the town of Schiedam offered the Estates General fifty guilders per captive, seemingly for once, because it warned that from there on “wives or friends of the prisoners, as is possible within their powers, will have to leave the town unburdened.”Footnote 27 Likewise, Hoorn and Leiden requested the Estates General in 1633 to liberate their captives.Footnote 28 In other words, local authorities pressured the highest political bodies in the Republic to help them liberate citizens.

Although the Estates General believed that redemption was an affair of the marine and did not want to take financial responsibility for ransoming captives, it nonetheless recognized the dire situation of captives.Footnote 29 It therefore began to intervene, legally supported by the capitulations that offered the Dutch to claim the gratis release of captives throughout the Ottoman Empire.Footnote 30 To what extent the Ottomans believed this could truly happen, remains a question. Ambassador Haga in Istanbul, for example, dispatched two dragomans to North Africa, Giacomo Belegno in 1612 and Efraim Abensanchio in 1615, to demand the freedom of all Dutch captives. To show goodwill, Algerian and Tunisian officials returned some captives, but refused to hand them all over and abide by the capitulations.Footnote 31 The 1615 expedition under command of Hillebrant Geerbrantsz Quast, commander of five war ships, yielded similar disappointing results. Quast and his fellow negotiator Jan Pellecoren left Algiers empty-handed.Footnote 32 Yusuf Dey of Tunis ordered the release of some Dutch captives and confirmed his reputation as a generous ruler. But he, too, dismissed the capitulations.Footnote 33

The failure of Haga’s missions and the naval expedition of Quast and Pellecoren convinced the Estates General to seek another solution, namely to dispatch a consul to Algiers and Tunis. Yusuf Dey was key in extending the Dutch consular corps into the Maghreb. Already in 1613, Haga reported that Yusuf Dey, then waiting in Istanbul for transportation to North Africa, had recommended that a consul be dispatched to the Maghreb because “the authority of the consul should give corsairs more respect for [the Dutch Republic]; if no one is there to reclaim the stolen goods and to protect the citizens of your High and Mightinesses, it would not be possible to abolish pirate attacks on [Dutch ships].”Footnote 34 In other words, Yusuf Dey argued that a consul would have the authority to mediate the restitution of seized goods and the liberation of slaves. The advice of Yusuf Dey and Mediterranean customs impelled Haga to recommend establishing a consulate in North Africa.Footnote 35 Thus, in 1616 the Estates General selected Wijnant Keyser as the first Dutch consul in Algiers and Tunis “to defend and protect” Dutch subjects from the “sea robbers.” It also instructed him to demand the unconditional release of more than 130 captives held there.Footnote 36 Keyser’s arrival in August 1616 heralded the expansion of the Dutch commercial-diplomatic network into the Maghreb. Because Keyser was the first recognized state representative on behalf of the Republic to reside in Algiers and Tunis, it also marked the beginning of Dutch relations with Algiers and Tunis.

Redemption in Algiers and Tunis

Soon after Keyser gave his credentials to cadi ‘Ali and took office, he realized the obstacles in demanding the gratis release of captives. He had entered a world in which ransoming slaves was the norm and numerous redeemers populated the streets of Algiers. Throughout the early modern period, friars from Iberia and France, for example, arrived with funds to negotiate the release of thousands of Catholic captives, while the cadi on Malta mediated the release of Muslim slaves there.Footnote 37 French consuls similarly partook in the practice, ransoming prisoners in the eastern and western Mediterranean.Footnote 38 The diwan of Algiers also expected the consul to adjust to the practices of the western Mediterranean and ransom captives; its members, the janissaries (Ottoman soldiers) made great profits of the ransoming proceeds.Footnote 39

Shortly after Keyser’s arrival, janissaries physically threatened the consul to comply. The cadi even paid the consul a visit at night. Under these circumstances, Keyser disobeyed his instructions and agreed to a separate agreement with ‘Ali to ransom captives instead.Footnote 40 Upon learning of the accord, the Estates General quickly ordered ambassador Haga in Istanbul to undo the treaty and have Algiers and Tunis abide by the capitulations. Despite Haga’s successful intervention in May 1617,Footnote 41 Keyser nonetheless proceeded to ransom slaves. In addition, he demanded their gratis release. In winter 1616, for example, he asked and received fifteen slaves for free in Tunis. Also, conform his instructions that allowed him to appoint a consul in Tunis, Keyser selected Gasparo van Aeken and ordered him to demand the unconditional release of slaves there. Again, Yusuf Dey’s generosity was at display when he gave Van Aeken seven captives and allowed him to ransom one young captive. In this manner, the consuls reportedly liberated more than 104 captives and sent them back home between fall 1616 and July 1617 on Dutch warships.Footnote 42

Caught between the instructions of the Estates General to demand the gratis release of captives and the expectations of Maghrebian officials that he would ransom them, Keyser walked a thin line between commerce, redemption, and corruption. Consuls hardly received a proper income and were frequently in debt.Footnote 43 Keyser appeared to have operated in similar circumstances. The Estates General allowed the consul to levy three-percent consular fees in Algiers and Tunis.Footnote 44 But these consular rights were hardly sufficient to make a living, let alone ransom captives. Keyser, though, found other ways to generate revenue. His brother Isaac ran a business and supplied the family income. Like French consuls in the Levant who used their notary powers to find extra compensation, Keyser also made use of his consular office by charging higher percentages in fees and demanding extra taxes.Footnote 45 In addition, money that captains deposited with him for safekeeping was at his disposal and towns in the Republic reimbursed his ransom expenses with credit letters. Finally, he pawned his goods to settle debts.Footnote 46 Keyser thus took great financial risks to liberate captives and care for them.

Merchants, however, were very critical of his actions. They accused him of trading illegally, even though he went to great lengths to accommodate the interests of the Dutch merchant community. But, as Sadok Boubaker observes, those involved in the redemption process always made a profit.Footnote 47 With this in mind, merchant Jacob Mille linked the question of Keyser’s morality to the conditions in North Africa. Algiers and Tunis were such “godless” centres of piracy and mischief, Mille contended, that to participate in any of their illegal practices inevitably corrupted a Christian; he would have to “set aside the fear of God and a good conscience and become brothers and companions of the robbers.”Footnote 48 In other words, to turn a profit or even to make a living one had to cooperate with North Africans and even acquiesce in their methods. Critics accused Keyser and his brother of doing precisely that. If Dutch captains refused to pay the higher consular fees Keyser demanded, Mille contended, then the corsairing community confiscated their vessel and cargo. Keyser’s brother, Isaac, subsequently bought and resold the goods.Footnote 49 Mille thus accused Keyser of abusing his office, collaborating with the corsairs, and, in the process, undermining “national” trade interests; all for his own benefit. Although Mille might have had his own reasons to criticize the consul’s actions (he would later be nominated but not selected to become consul in Algiers), his allegations reveal how the consul’s meager financial circumstances forced him to find alternative ways to raise his income.Footnote 50

Ironically, Keyser blamed Mille and others of immoral behaviour too. Keyser believed captains had a moral duty to take care for enslaved crews, especially since the Estates General had forbidden him to ransom captives. When captains ignored the plight of their tafelbroeders (comrades), the consul felt it was morally right to assist enslaved crews and ask captains to contribute to his expenses. Captains refused to pay him extra because they falsely assumed, Keyser wrote, that he was paid by the Estates General and that he sought to make a profit at their expense.Footnote 51 Thus, Keyser implied, Mille and captains acted on ill will and ignorance. Keyser had chosen to ransom slaves against his orders, because he feared that otherwise captives would convert to Islam and “become renegades and robbers.”Footnote 52 Thus, whereas regents in The Hague considered captivity a commercial-maritime problem, Keyser sincerely believed that liberating slaves was a Christian act of charity and the exact means assumed lesser importance.Footnote 53 He would later be appalled to learn that the Dutch authorities had retained his bills of exchange at the request of captains and others involved in these exchanges because they claimed that Keyser had forced them to pay for the care of their crews.Footnote 54

By disobeying his instructions and complying to local practices of ransoming captives, Keyser had reshaped his mission. He obviously did not meet the expectations of regents in The Hague. Fearful that the Republic would be held financially responsible for liberating captives, the Estates General instructed captain Quast in summer 1617 to set sail to Algiers and request the restitution of stolen goods and the unconditional release of captured Dutch sailors. Regents also ordered Keyser to assist Quast and strictly forbade him to pay for the release of slaves.Footnote 55 Quast, however, failed to reach a compromise. On his way back to the Republic, he captured and killed eighty-one corsairs and made war with Algiers inevitable.Footnote 56 In the ensuing years, great losses on the Dutch side showed the strength of the North African corsairs. In the years 1619/1620 alone, their commanders seized eighty-eight Dutch merchant vessels and increased the number of captives to 300 while the Dutch navy captured only two corsairing ships.Footnote 57 The Estates General thus realized that it could no longer expect its representatives to force Maghrebian officials to abide by the capitulations and release slaves for free. In 1622, it dispatched extraordinary ambassador Cornelis Pijnacker to the Maghreb to negotiate peace.Footnote 58 By concluding separate treaties with Algiers and Tunis, the Republic acknowledged their independent position within the Ottoman Empire. No longer could the Dutch claim the liberation of captives based on the capitulations; they now had to do so through international accords. Unfortunately for the Dutch, the one with Algiers only arranged an exchange of captives and the one with Tunis did not spend a word on redemption.Footnote 59 The policies of the Estates General to demand the unconditional release of captives had thus failed.

More importantly, Keyser’s consulate also raised questions about the financing and practicality of consuls in North Africa. Keyser’s inability to halt corsairing attacks on Dutch merchant vessels had prompted Amsterdam merchants in 1625 to establish the Directorate of the Levant Trade and Navigation in the Mediterranean Sea.Footnote 60 The Directorate neither traded on its own account nor had shareholders. It functioned instead as a platform for merchants that oversaw all commercial and diplomatic affairs in the Mediterranean. The directors, however, would not resolve the funding of the consulates.

In 1623, the Estates General had begun to raise lastgelden, a tax on cargo bound for the Mediterranean, in order to finance Dutch commercial-diplomatic enterprises in the Levant. The orders of 1627 and 1630 stipulated that the taxes also paid for the expenses of consuls in North Africa; probably in response to a proposal of the States of Holland to pay consuls higher compensations and that prohibited them from trading.Footnote 61 The revenue from these imposts, however, fell short of the amounts necessary. In 1625, the Estates General replaced Keyser with consuls Pieter Maertensz Coy in Algiers and Lambert Verhaer in Tunis. In 1628, their bills totalled 41,352 guilders, while the lastgelden generated only about 1265.Footnote 62 The discrepancy reflected the dire financial circumstances under which consuls operated. Although the Directors imposed inspections on the levying of the lastgelden to ensure compliance and conformity when they took over in 1633, the measures never improved the financial arrangement of the consuls.Footnote 63

The Directors soon questioned the value of continuing diplomatic representation in North Africa altogether. When Coy died unexpectedly in 1629, the Estates General made another attempt to demand the unconditional release of slaves by sending a war fleet under the command of Jan Wendelsz in 1630. The expedition did not yield the desired results. The diwan refused to liberate the Dutch captives unconditionally and Wendelsz declared war. In the months after his departure, the Algerian fleet captured twenty-three vessels and held about five hundred Dutchmen captive.Footnote 64 Not until 1662 would Dutch consuls represent the Republic in Algiers and Tunis again. The Directors wondered why merchants should continue to pay for consuls if the latter could not prevent pirate attacks on Dutch merchant vessels. If consuls could not deliver, then merchants saw no reason to foot the bill. The Directors suggested that if the Estates General considered consuls beneficial, then the government itself should pay them rather than have merchants do so.Footnote 65 By questioning the validity of the consul’s office and suggesting that the Estates General pay for the consulates, the Directorate divorced the office of consul from its commercial roots and firmly placed it in the realm of the Dutch government.Footnote 66 The very establishment of the Directorate, in other words, illustrated the transformation of the consul from merchant-consul into state representative. It also exposed the uneasy relations between consuls in North Africa, merchants trading with the Levant, and the government, and how this relationship formed the fragile foundations of the Dutch consulates in the western Mediterranean.

Morocco: captives in exchange for arms

The question of the consul’s position in redeeming slaves played out differently in Morocco. In the late sixteenth century, Mulay Ahmad al-Mansur had unified Morocco and remained out of the sphere of influence of the Ottoman Empire; it thus had no jurisdictional obligations towards the Ottoman state. Because Spain still held several presidios along the coast, however, Moroccan rulers welcomed English merchants exporting weapons to Morocco, albeit secretively.Footnote 67 Dutch merchants followed soon. The Della Faille family, for example, built a trading house whose reach extended throughout northern and southern Italy as well as into Morocco and the Ottoman regencies.Footnote 68 The increased trade, however, also attracted pirates of all nationalities. In 1596, Amsterdam merchants reported the first known cases of captivity and stolen cargo seized by Moroccan and Spanish pirates. The merchants urged the Estates General to seek a separate treaty with al-Mansur to resolve the issue.Footnote 69 In response, the Estates General dispatched two merchants, Jacob Bartholomeusz in 1596/7 and Pieter Maertensz Coy from Schiedam in 1605, to obtain an accord with the Moroccans, demonstrating once more the mercantile roots of diplomatic relations with states in the Islamic west.Footnote 70 It took fourteen years to reach an agreement. Only when the Dutch navy defeated a Spanish squadron in April 1607, became Zaydan, al-Mansur’s son, interested in forming an alliance against Spain, their common enemy.Footnote 71 In 1610, the Estates General and Mulay Zaydan concluded an accord that marked the first alliance between the Dutch Republic and a Muslim state in the Mediterranean.

The treaty reflected that the interest of the Dutch Republic in an alliance with Morocco went beyond the redemption of slaves and prevention of piracy. Article 15 stipulated that the Moroccan king could hire or purchase men, ships, weapons, and ammunition in the Republic, a clause that raised eyebrows in the rest of Europe but clearly enhanced Dutch arms trade.Footnote 72 The treaty, however, remained vague on the conditions under which Dutch captives were to be released. Article 16 stipulated that the king would liberate all Dutch captives in Morocco, but was not clear as to whether the king would manumit the slaves or allow them to be ransomed. Similarly, the article prohibited the seizure and sale of Dutch captives in the future.Footnote 73 In the early days in Dutch-Moroccan relations, the redemption of captives thus depended on an alliance against Spain and facilitating mutual trade, specifically that in arms.

The 1610 treaty did not stipulate conditions to exchange resident ambassadors, a diplomatic convention characteristic for Christian-Muslim relations. Instead, a range of temporary diplomats mediated relations. Moroccan ambassadors as well as non-Muslim agents, Jewish and Christians alike, maintained relations with the Republic and frequently visited Europe to negotiate the interests of the king.Footnote 74 One family, the Pallaches, became a prominent force in sustaining Dutch-Moroccan relations. During the first half of the seventeenth century, Samuel (1604-1616), his brother Joseph (1610-1637), and Joseph’s son David (1637-1650) acted as agents of the Moroccan king while also mediating affairs on behalf of the Dutch authorities. The Estates General encouraged the position of the Pallaches as Moroccan agents to mediate diplomacy and the sales of arms; thus reinforcing Morocco’s position as an ally against Spain.Footnote 75

Their mediation also explains why only a handful of Dutch consuls resided in Morocco between 1610 and 1650. They seemed to have had little impact on diplomatic affairs in general and redemption in particular. The instructions for Albert Ruyl (1623-1624) only concerned the investigation of a port in Aier. The credentials for Jurriaen van Bijstervelt (1636-1638) and Hendrick Dopper (1643-1644), as well as those for Jan Sautijn (1648), specifically addressed their handling of commercial affairs for several ports in Morocco, including Salé and Safi. They were to assist Dutch merchants and captains on all occasions and maintain treaties just as their counterparts in Algiers and Tunis did.Footnote 76 This implies that they could only liberate captives by, once again, demanding their unconditional release. Still, the Estates General refrained from funding ransoming expeditions. In 1640/41, for instance, it appointed the Dutch captain Liederkerke as temporary ambassador charged with the task of liberating forty-five captives from Santa Cruz. Liederkerke had to advance the ransom and only after he sent in the bill, did the Estates General order a committee of five men to “to find the money” to reimburse the captain.Footnote 77

The liberation of Dutch captives thus mostly proceeded by intervention of Moroccan agents. In Salé, Isaac Pallache made a living off ransoming Dutch prisoners.Footnote 78 Similarly, Jacques Fabre, a Frenchman who temporarily served as agent for the Moroccan king, mediated in the ransoming of Dutch captives on behalf of his patron. Zaydan had advanced the captives’ ransom and instructed Fabre to collect the money in the Republic and oversee the delivery of bronze cannons in return.Footnote 79 Likewise, in 1639, the brothers Cohen offered to free Dutch captives in exchange for arms. On behalf of the Salese ruler Cid Maamed, Josef Cohen requested the Estates General to sell him 200 quintalen gunpowder for a reasonable price in exchange for freeing captives and arranging their return on the vessel of Claes Wiboutsen.Footnote 80 In short, the redemption of captives was dependent on the commercial interests of those involved in their liberation. Dutch consuls, constrained by the instructions of the Estates General to liberate captives for free, and forbidden to pay ransom, stood on the sidelines. The Estates General probably considered the involvement of Moroccan agents convenient, because ransoming captives remained in private hands and made no demands on the state’s coffers.

These methods of redemption, however, did not last. The peace between the Dutch Republic and Spain in 1648 agitated many Moroccans, because the commercial and diplomatic relations between the Republic and Morocco were based on fighting Spain as the common enemy.Footnote 81 The Dutch truce with Spain now opened a breach in the Dutch-Moroccan alliance and soon the corsairs’ seizures of Dutch vessels resumed. Between 1647 and 1649, some twenty Salese corsairing vessels, cruising Atlantic waters, severely damaged Dutch merchant fleets. Free from battling Spain, the Amsterdam Admiralties responded by dispatching war fleets to Morocco. Eventually, a blockade of the port of Salé forced Said Adjenoui, its governor, to agree to a treaty with the Dutch in 1651.Footnote 82

The treaty was a radical departure from the policies the Estates General had promoted thus far. The Republic agreed for the first time, and in an international treaty, to ransom captives for cost-price, that is the original price of the captive paid directly after his or her capture.Footnote 83 The condition was an attempt to eliminate the risk of price inflation and profiteering during the ransoming process. Buying and selling captives for cost price, as stipulated in the treaty, would discourage middlemen, that is Moroccan agents, from capitalizing on the redemption of slaves. Thus, with a stroke of the pen, the release of captives for ransom became the responsibility of the Estates General under the best financial terms possible.

By turning redemption into a diplomatic affair, the role of consuls seemingly became more important. Renewed hostilities between Salé and the Dutch Republic resulted in another agreement in 1657/58. Article seven proclaimed that “only the consul of the Dutch Republic possesses [the] authority [to negotiate the release of captives].”Footnote 84 The clause clearly aimed to cut back the role of middlemen but, to a certain extent, was also a critique on the lax attitude of the Estates General. As it turned out, the Estates General refused to use state funds nor organize a general collection to finance the collective redemption it had agreed on. Gathering ransom in the Republic had always been a local affair and the Estates General once again relied on town and rural magistrates to redeem its citizens. Hence, the magistrate of Rotterdam asked Henrico d’Azevedo, a Jewish merchant from Amsterdam who traded bullion with Salé, to ransom captured crewmembers then being held in Salé and Algiers.Footnote 85 Interventions like these, however, concerned the Dutch Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. In 1655, he requested Sidi Abdallah, the governor of Salé, that “if some Algerian vessel comes here to sell slaves, no Jews be allowed to negotiate, but [that instead] the consul is permitted to negotiate first.”Footnote 86 De Ruyter’s comments reflect how hard it was to break customary practices and curtail the agency of middlemen in favour of that of consuls.

The consent of the Estates General to redeem slaves en masse had nonetheless set a precedent for other treaties the Dutch Republic concluded with states in the Maghreb. The accords with Algiers (1662, 1679/1680) and Tunis (1679/1680) also included clauses that allowed the Estates General to ransom captives collectively. None of them, however, incorporated a clause that assigned the consul a significant task in ransoming captives like the 1657 treaty with Salé had. Thus, despite the newfound involvement of the state in redeeming slaves, the role of consuls did not drastically change. In Morocco, Moroccan agents, including Jewish merchants, continued to play an influential role in liberating captives in exchange for arms.Footnote 87 In Algiers, Tunis, and later Tripoli, consuls would continue to maintain relations on behalf of the state and the Dutch merchant community at large. The continuous need for consuls in the Maghreb during the second half of the seventeenth century demonstrates that consuls had become a fixed part of the Dutch commercial-diplomatic corps in the Mediterranean.

Conclusion

A close examination of the efforts of consuls to liberate captives in North Africa during the first half of the seventeenth century demonstrates that the Estates General was not able to define the office of consul and develop a commercial-diplomatic network in the Maghreb according to its own needs. Indeed, the evolution of the office of the consul depended greatly on the commercial and political interests of not just the Estates General, but also Maghrebian rulers, Amsterdam merchants, intermediaries, and even consuls themselves. In the early 1600s, the Estates General transformed the consul from a spokesman of the local merchant community into a representative of the state by taking over the appointment of consuls in Italy and the Levant. Conditions in the western Mediterranean forced the Estates General to expand this commercial network to the North African coast and redefine the task of consuls. Consuls in the Maghreb had to counter the negative side effects of two phenomena that hampered trade in the Mediterranean: piracy and captivity. The redemption of slaves as part of promoting the interests of the Dutch merchant community justified their status as state representative in North Africa and distinguished them from consuls in the Levant. The Estates General, convinced that it had the law on its side by means of the capitulations, insisted on the gratis release of captives.

The experiences of consuls on the ground show how this policy failed. Commercialized redemption had turned the corso into a profitable business and few slave owners were willing to release captives for free. Rather, the Maghrebian establishment expected and pushed Dutch consuls to adapt to local customs and ransom captives like everyone else did, including their fellow French consuls. A complicating factor entailed the funding of consulates. The government expected the consul to finance himself as if he were a merchant-consul by allowing him to levy consular fees and forbidding him to trade. That situation forced the first consul, Keyser, to engage in illegal trade to generate revenue and liberate captives. Dutch merchants complained bitterly that Keyser’s conduct harmed their interests. Represented by the newly founded Directorate of the Levant Trade and Navigation they valued the consul no longer as a commercial representative but as a representative of the state. With so many interests and adversaries, consuls in North Africa supplemented their income in alternative ways and defined their mission according to their own norms.

The office of consul developed differently in Morocco than in Algiers and Tunis.

The Sa’dian kings, their agents, and the Dutch authorities were all complicit in maintaining an arms trade that facilitated the redemption of slaves. The willingness of the Estates General to rely on agents of the Moroccan king to exchange captives for arms testifies to a flexibility on the part of the Dutch government to adapt to local circumstances or perhaps the necessity of doing so. The few consuls, who periodically resided in Morocco, had little chance of liberating captives as long as they cleaved to a state policy mandating that they could only demand the immediate release of captives without paying ransom. Only when the Estates General, under pressure of institutions in the Republic, agreed to ransom captives collectively and insisted that the consul had the sole right to ransom them, did the consul gain status. Ironically, it was a role that Maghrebian rulers expected Dutch consuls to play all along. But the experiences of consuls on-the-ground, the continuous seizure of Dutch captives, and the relentless bargaining over ransom had left the Dutch no choice but to adjust to customary practices in the western Mediterranean. The Islamic west showed the limits of Dutch commercial expansion.

Bibliography

SAA Amsterdam City Archives, Netherlands

BGLH Klaas Heeringa, Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van den Levantschen Handel, 1590–1726. RGP, 2 vols. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1917.

GPB Groot Placaet Boeck, vervattende de placaten, ordonnantiën ende edicten van de Staten Generaal, de Staten van Holland en Westvriesland en de Staten van Zeeland. Edited by Cornelis Cau, Simon van Leeuwen, and Jacobus Scheltus. 5 vols. The Hague, 1658–1725.

NA National Archives, The Hague, Netherlands

GAR Rotterdam City Archives, Netherlands

RAIEO Gabriel Effendi Noradounghian, Recueil d’actes internationaux de l’empire Ottoman. Vol.1, 1300–1789. Paris: Librairie Cotillon, 1897

RSGNR Resolutiën der Staten Generaal. Nieuwe Reeks 1610–1670, ed. A.Th. van Deursen, J.G. Smit, and J. Roelevink. RGP Grote serie, 7 vols. The Hague: Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 1971–1994.

SIHM Castries, Henry de. Les Sources inédites de l’histoire du Maroc de 1530 à 1845. Première série - Dynastie Saadienne 1530-1660. Archives et bibliothèques des Pays Bas. 6 vols. Paris: Ernest Leroux, éditeur, 1906, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1906–1923.

Footnotes

*

Erica Heinsen-Roach is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of History & Politics at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg (USA). Her research interests include the global connections and cultural interactions between European and non-European societies in the early modern period. Her dissertation, “Consuls, Captives, and Corsairs: The Creation of Dutch Diplomacy in the Mediterranean, 1596–1699” received the 2014 Parker Schmitt Dissertation Award from the European Section of the Southern Historical Association.

1 The Dutch state/ government refers to the Estates General. The Estates General officially determined foreign policy and appointed and commissioned ambassadors and consuls. Although the States of Holland and Amsterdam regents dominated the agenda of the Generality and greatly influenced Dutch policy making, foreign governments and the Dutch themselves often viewed the Estates General as embodying the sovereignty of the Republic abroad. Franken, “The General Tendencies and Structural Aspects of the Foreign Policy,” 1–42; Israel, The Dutch Republic, 276–297.

2 The Directorate of the Levant Trade and Navigation, established in 1625, was no trade company but rather a platform of merchants that advised the Estates General about appointments and other commercial affairs. Israel, Dutch Primacy, 16–17.

3 Capitulations were an imperial decree (ahdname) bestowed upon foreign states; not a negotiated treaty as Europeans liked to think. Goffman, The Ottoman Empire, 172–176; Boogert, The Capitulations, 19–61. On the Dutch receiving capitulations, see especially De Groot’s The Ottoman Empire and the Dutch Republic; Van Gelder, Trading Places, 159; and Israel, “The Dutch Merchant Colonies,” 87–128.

4 Admittedly, scholars acknowledge the role of consuls as frontrunners of the ever expanding commercial empires of England, the Dutch Republic, and France in the seventeenth-century Mediterranean, but they pay most attention to consuls in the east. See Steensgaard, “Consuls and Nations in the Levant,” 13–55; chapter 5 of Greene, Catholic Pirates; Mather, Pashas; Chapter 5 of Games, The Web of Empire. In the western half, historians tend to discuss consuls’ activities as a small part of a larger network of mediators engaged in commercial and diplomatic developments. Weiss, Captives and Corsairs; Wätjen, Die Niederländer im Mittelmeergebiet; De Groot, “Ottoman North Africa and the Dutch Republic,” 131–147. An exception is Christian Windler. In La Diplomatie comme expérience de l’autre he discusses inter-cultural diplomacy in eighteenth-century Tunis. By then, the position of the French consul as state representative is a fait accompli.

5 For an explanation of the corso, see Greene, Catholic Pirates, 53; Braudel, Mediterranean, 865–880. In the Mediterranean, a wide variety of human bondage existed. Captives of the corso were prisoners of war who could be ransomed. Fodor, “Introduction,” xi–xx.

6 The Estates General also entrusted two extraordinary ambassadors, officials of the Dutch admiralties and independent captains with missions to liberate captives. These representatives, however, all served the Republic on occasion and did not reside in the Maghreb. Schutte, Repertorium Nederlandse Vertegenwoordigers, 323–383. Van Gelder has also explained how renegades offered their services to the Estates General. Van Gelder, “Tussen Noord-Afrika en de Republiek,” 27–28.

7 The Dutch Republic had no uniform policies concerning the appointment and oversight of consuls. The Dutch Admiralties and the West India Company presided over consuls in the British Isles. The Estates General authorized and maintained consulates in several European states but this happened only at the end of the eighteenth century: in port-cities in Germany (1803), Russia (1790), Sweden (1781), Denmark (1781), Norway (1781) and the United States (1784). Schutte, Repertorium Nederlandse vertegenwoordigers, 123, 201, 222, 259, 280, 299, 469.

8 Watkins, “Toward a New Diplomatic History,” 2–14; Riches, Protestant Cosmopolitanism, 1–24; Frigo, Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy, 8.

9 Linda Colley has explained how captivity challenged English maritime commerce worldwide. Colley, Captives, 1–20.

10 Kaiser, “Introduction,” 1–14; Boubaker, “Réseaux et techniques,” 25–46; Kaiser, “Zones de transit,” 253. See also Friedman, Spanish Captives and Rodriguez, Captives and their Saviors in the Medieval Crown of Aragon.

11 Michel Fontenay advocates that in the western Mediterranean a captive had exchange value and a slave use value for providing free and skilled labor. In practice, however, the distinction between captive and slave was blurry. Captives were sold on slave markets and were forced to work until ransom was paid. Contemporary sources therefore use the terms interchangeably. Fontenay, “Esclaves et/ou Captives,” 21–22.

12 The Ottoman sultan appointed pashas each three years to govern Algiers, but the diwan (military council) and the cadi (judge) held more power than the pasha. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib, 174.

13 Art. 1 of Dutch-Salese treaty, 9 Feb. 1651, Cau, GPB, Vol 1, 129; Art. 7 of Dutch-Salese treaty, 1657/1658, GPB, 2: 2504.

14 Steensgaard, “Consuls in the Levant,” 14–15; Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, 67–70; Müller, Consuls, Corsairs, and Commerce, 75–76.

15 Israel, “The Dutch Merchant Colonies,” 87-128; Schutte, Repertorium Nederlandse vertegenwoordigers, 327, 349, 441, 445; Van Gelder, Trading Places, 162; Engels, Merchants, Interlopers, Seamen and Corsairs, 125–126. Similar developments took place in Archangel, Russia. Veluwenkamp, “Merchant Colonies in the Dutch Trade System,” 148.

16 Steensgaard, “Consuls in the Levant,” 25–34. The relationship between French consuls and the authorities in France remained ambiguous. Weiss, Greene, Catholic Pirates, 140; Berridge, British Diplomacy in Turkey, 76.

17 Weiss, Captives and Corsairs, 9; Fisher, Barbary Legend, 119.

18 Braudel, Mediterranean, 887; Matar, “Introduction,” 12–13.

19 Merchants, captains, freed slaves, and even renegades made up what could be called a Dutch merchant community in, for example, Algiers but there is no evidence to suggest they had formed an organization.

20 List captives in Barbary, August 7 1609, NA, toegang 1.01.02, inv. nr. 6888. A second document is undated. Letter Dutch captives to prince Maurits, Tunis, 13 April 1611, NA, toegang 1.01.04, inv.nr. 6888.

21 In the 1680s, for example, of a total of 489 slaves in Algerian captivity, 278 came from Holland (c.57%) and 166 from Zeeland (c.34%). These 444 slaves constituted almost 91% of all prisoners. Report, no date, AM, 5028, inv.nr. 499, folio 3.

22 Van den Broek and Jacobs, Christenslaven, 103–248; Boon, Een Westfriese Zeeman, 33–41.

23 Letter ‘Uthman ibn Qasim, November 1, 1707, Matar, Europe through Arab Eyes, 230–232; List captives in Barbary, August 7 1609, NA, toegang 1.01.02, inv. nr. 6888; Kaiser, “Introduction,” 1–14.

24 Many of these funds did not cover the risks of captivity in North Africa. Davids, “De Zeeman,” 117–118; Deursen, Plain Lives, 220; Deursen, Graft, 303–304.

25 Colley, Captives, 75–77; see Chapter two of Weiss, Captives and Corsairs, 27–51.

26 Letter Dutch captives to prince Maurits, Tunis, 13 April 1611, NA, toegang 1.01.04, inv.nr. 6888; Petition captives’ wives to Prince of Orange, about 1619, NA, toegang 1.01.04, inv. nr. 6895; Petition captives’ wives to the Prince of Orange, 1626, NA, toegang 1.01.04, inv.nr. 6898; Petition captives’ wives to the Estates General, 15 Oct. 1629, NA, toegang 1.01.04, inv.nr. 6900.

27 Resolution Town council Schiedam concerning the liberation of captives in Algiers, 15 June 1621, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 850–851.

28 Requests from magistrates Hoorn and Leiden to Estates General to liberate their captured citizens, 1633, NA, toegang 1.01.04, inv.nr. 6902.

29 Resolution Estates General, Nov. 10, 1618, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 790–791.

30 Art. 21 and 37 of Dutch capitulations, 1612, GPB, 3: 386–387. The French and English capitulations prescribed that their people when captured, sold, and enslaved in the Ottoman Empire, had to be freed, but they did not indicate whether release implied that Christian states had to ransom their captives or if the sultan was to liberate them without ransom. The Dutch articles clearly stated that slave owners, if ordered to release slaves, could request reimbursement, not from the Dutch, however, but from the persons who had sold the captives to them. In other words, the Dutch capitulations stipulated that the Republic could claim their slaves for free because the financial responsibility lay with the seller of the slaves. Art.14 of French capitulations, 1604, RAIEO, 1: 96; Art.2 of English capitulations, 1675, RAIEO, 1: 147; Art. 21 and 37 of Dutch capitulations, 1612, GPB, 3: 386–387.

31 Letter of Haga to Estates General, Constantinople, Aug. 24, 1612, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 647–649. Belegno received thirteen old sick slaves in Tunis, although there were an estimated seventy-five. In Algiers, he collected four of the fifty-two Dutch slaves. Letter of Jacimo Belegno, Jan. 8, 1613, NA, 1.01.02, inv nr 6889. In April 1615, Abensanchio received three slaves in Tunis and fifteen in Algiers. Letter of Haga to Estates General, Constantinople, April 18, 1615, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 660–661 and Dec. 26, 1615, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 671–674.

32 Instructions Quast, May 26, 1615, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 662–664; Weber, Beveiliging, 95–97.

33 A point of contention concerned the inspection of vessels. Yusuf Dey insisted on inspecting Dutch ships because he suspected that they transported goods of the enemy. The Dutch feared that these inspections were an excuse to confiscate ship and cargo. Letter of Yusuf Dey to Estates General, Aug. 21, 1615, NA, 1.01.02, inv. nr 6890. For Yusuf’s reputation, see Ibn Abi Dinar, “1590–1654: Euro-Tunisian Piracy” in Matar, Europe through Arab Eyes, 216–227, 219.

34 Letter of Haga to Estates General, Constantinople, Oct. 25, 1613, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 651–653. Letter of Haga to Estates General, Constantinople, Feb. 13, 1614, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 655–657; Letter of Haga to Estates General, Constantinople, Aug. 24, 1612, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 647–649.

35 Letter of Haga to Estates General, Constantinople, Oct. 25, 1613, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 651–653.

36 Resolution Estates General Wijnant de Keyser, April 23, 1616, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 678–688, 679; See also Art. 2 and 3 of Instructions Keyser, May 28, 1616, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 682–686. Schutte, Repertorium Nederlandse Vertegenwoordigers, 374.

37 Between the beginning of the Reconquista and the 1680s, for instance, the Trinidarians liberated an estimated 5792 Portuguese captives. Barata, “Le Rachat des Captifs,” 111. At the disposal of Spanish friars stood a combination of limosnas (alms for the general fund) and adjutorios (donations for specific individuals). Friedman, Spanish Captives, 108, 121; Boubaker, “Réseaux et Techniques,” 42.

38 Boubaker, “Réseaux et Techniques,” 47; Weiss, Captives and Corsairs, 36; Greene, Catholic Pirates, 152.

39 Letter of Yusuf Dey to Estates General, Aug. 21, 1615, NA, 1.01.02, inv. nr 6890; Earle, Corsairs of Malta and Barbary, 27.

40 Letter of Keyser to Estates General, Algiers, Sept. 12, 1616, 2 GS 10, 1: 691–692 and Sept. 17, 1616, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 694; Letter ‘Ali Cadi, Algiers, Sept. 17, 1616, NA, 1.01.02, inv.nr. 6890.

41 Letter Haga to Estates General, Constantinople, May 27, 1617, NA, 1.01.02, inv.nr. 6892.

42 Letters Keyser to Estates General, Algiers, Oct. 8, 1616, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 694–698; Mallorca, Nov. 19, 1616, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 701–702; Tunis, Dec. 3, 1616, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 703–704; Algiers, March 5, 1617, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 712; and Algiers, July 15–Sept. 3, 1617, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 742–751, 742. Letter Hercules Rusca to States of Holland, Zeeland en Westvriesland, Jan. 31, 1617, Tunis, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 711–712; Heeringa, Bronnen, 1: 723, n1.

43 Steensgaard argues that English consuls in the Levant fared better than their French and Dutch counterparts. In the most important towns in the Levant, English consuls received a fixed income. They had no control over consular fees that were collected and distributed by a treasurer. This dramatically improved their financial situation and negotiating power in comparison to the Dutch and French. Steensgaard, “Consuls and Nations in the Levant,” 36.

44 The Estates General stipulated that Keyser had the right to collect and keep consular fees customary to percentages levied in Spain and Italy. In the meantime, the Estates General would inquire what French and English consuls received in consular fees. Resolution Estates General, Wijnant de Keyser, 23 April 1616, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 678–688. Item 15, 685.

45 French consuls in the Levant frequently ransomed Muslim captives or offered other services in exchange for fees. Greene, Catholic Pirates, 152–153. For Keyser’s activities, see: Letter Suleiman Reis (alias Veenboer) to the Estates General, July 2, 1617, Algiers, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 740–741; Letter Jacob Mille to Jacob Jacobsz Hinlopen in Amsterdam, Dec. 15, 1624, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 952. Mille wrote a similar letter to Willem Muilman, Dec. 29, 1624, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 953–954.

46 In July 1617, for instance, Keyser announced a two percent augmentation as “embassy” fees. Letters Keyser to Estates General, Algiers, June 16–July 8, 1617, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 733–737; Nov. 19, 1616, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 701; Jan. 25, 1617, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 709–711; and Nov. 26, 1622, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 865–867.

47 Boubaker, “Réseaux et Techniques,” 37.

48 Letter of Jacob Mille to Jacob Jacobsz Hinlopen in Amsterdam, Dec. 15, 1624, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 952. Mille wrote a similar letter to Willem Muilman, dated Dec. 29, 1624, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 953–954.

49 Letter of Jacob Mille to Jacob Jacobsz Hinlopen in Amsterdam, Dec. 15, 1624, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 952.

50 Heeringa, Bronnen, 1: 950. Eventually, Pieter Maertensz Coy, not Mille, served as consul in Algiers and Lambert Verhaer in Tunis. Jacob Mille could be the same person as Giacomo Mille, who served as consul in Cyprus and as chancellor in Aleppo, starting in 1615. Schutte, Repertorium Nederlandse vertegenwoordigers, 355.

51 Letter Keyser to Estates General, Nov. 26, 1622, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 865–867.

52 Letter Keyser, Algiers, Jan. 25, 1617, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 710; Letter Keyser, Algiers, June 16–July 8, 1617, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 734, 735.

53 He frequently conveyed his hopes that he could release captives soon “because [their captivity] is terrible to watch.” Letter Keyser to Estates General, Algiers, Feb. 2–March 5, 1617, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 712–721, 718.

54 Letter Keyser to Estates General, Nov. 26, 1622, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 865–867.

55 Letter of Estates General to divan Algiers, Aug. 24, 1617, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 752; Instructions Keyser, Aug. 22, 1617, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 751.

56 Weber, Beveiliging, 119; Krieken, Kapers en Kooplieden, 18.

57 Weber, Beveiliging, 131–136; Krieken, Kapers en Kooplieden, 18–19.

58 Krieken, Kapers en Kooplieden, 20–21.

59 Art. 7 of Dutch-Algerian treaty, 1622, GPB, 2: 2292; Dutch-Tunisian treaty, 1622, GPB, 2: 2293–2296.

60 Instruction Directorate, 1625, NA, 1.03.01, inv.nr. 87. The mission of the Directorate was to oversee all tasks previously administered by the government, such as issuing passports, checking vessels’ armaments, and proofing insurance policies. It also advised the Estates General on candidates for diplomatic posts throughout the Mediterranean. Israel, Dutch Primacy, 16–17; Weber, Beveiliging, 79; Brakel, De Hollandse Handels-compagnieën der Zeventiende Eeuw, XXIII–XXVIII.

61 Whether the 1623 and 1625 orders included the payment of consuls in the Maghreb is unclear, but the orders of 1627 and 1630 leave no doubt: captains paid sixteen stuivers for each last (load) to cover “the expenses of the agents in Algiers and Tunis” and another four stuivers to the Directors of the Levant Trade. Captains could charge two thirds to the cargo’s owners and one third to the ship’s owner. Art.11 of Order op de Straatvaarders, Second Part, 1623 en 1625, GPB, 1: 914; Order Lastgelden, 1627 and 1630, GPB, 1: 914, 915; Recommendations Delegates States of Holland concerning Affairs in Algiers and Tunis, July 1624, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 929–931.

62 Resolution Estates General, Feb. 1, 1625, RSGNR, 7: 249; Remonstrantie of Directors, May 1628, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 1034–1035.

63 Letter of Directors to Estates General, Aug.23, 1628, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 1035. See information provided by A.H.H. Van den Burgh, National Archives, 1.03.01, Aantekeningen, 1881, 1882, 15–16.

64 Schutte, Repertorium Nederlandse Vertegenwoordigers, 375. Krieken, Kapers en Kooplieden, 33–34.

65 Letter of Directors to Estates General, Oct. 1628, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 1036. Remonstrantie of Directors to Estates General, Oct. 1628, BGLH, 2 GS 10: 1034–1035.

66 Merchants continued to complain about financing consulates in North Africa in the second half of the seventeenth century. Resolution Estates General, Dec. 14, 1679, NA, 1.03.01, inv.nr. 87; Estates General, July 30, 1692, NA, 1.03.01, inv.nr. 87.

67 Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib, 214–215; Yahya, Morocco in the Sixteenth Century, 151–152.

68 Brulez, De firma Della Faille, 124–145; Groot, The Ottoman Empire, 86–87.

69 Request Amsterdam merchants, Oct. 15 1596, SIHM, 1: 19.

70 Resolution Estates General Bartholomeusz, Oct. 15, 1596, SIHM, 1: 21–23; Letter of Estates General to Mulay al-Mansur, Oct. 15, 1596, SIHM, 1: 24–30. A letter from Jacobsz. to the States General in April 1609 suggests that Jacobsz accepted the mission and became the first Dutch agent to Morocco. Letter of Bartholomeus Jacobsz to Estates General, April 23, 1609, SIHM, vol. 1, 331–333.

71 For the naval battle, see Resolution Estates General on Heemskerk, Feb. 8, 1607, SIHM, 1: 181–182; Letter of Estates General to Heemskerk, March 6, 1607, SIHM, 1: 183–185; Israel, The Dutch Republic, 402; De Bruijn, Varend Verleden, 28.

72 Zaydān considered this military assistance crucial, because weaponry, ship building materials, and skilled labor were hard to find in North Africa. Art. 15 of Dutch-Moroccan Treaty, GPB, 2: 2266. Memorie of Youssef Biscaino, The Hague, July 31, 1624, SIHM, 4: 1–9.

73 Art. 16 of Dutch-Moroccan treaty, GPB, 2: 2266.

74 Matar, Europe through Arab Eyes, 114–117.

75 Samuel Pallache had assisted ambassador Hammou ben Bachir in reaching the accord with the Republic. Letter of Zaydān to Estates General, July 21, 1609, SIHM, 1: 351–356; Second letter of Zaydān to Estates General, Marakech, July 21, 1609, SIHM, 1: 357–358. Schutte, Repertorium der Buitenlandse Vertegenwoordigers, 579–580; García-Arenal and Wiegers, A Man of Three Worlds, 130–131; Israel, Diaspora, 304.

76 Schutte, Nederlandse Vertegenwoordigers, 382; Commission Jurriaen van Bystervelt, The Hague, Dec. 29, 1635, SIHM, 4: 385–390; Commission Hendrick Dopper, The Hague, May 23, 1643, SIHM, 5: 12–18; Letter of Estates General to Mulay Mohammed ech-Cheikh el-Asegher (accredition Jan Sautijn), The Hague, Sept. 7, 1648, SIHM, V: 154–156.

77 Resolution Estates General concerning Liederkerke, March 8, 1642, SIHM, 5: 1–3; Resolution Estates General in response to Willemina van Braeckel’s request, The Hague, Sept. 28, 1641, SIHM, 4: 1–3, 527–529.

78 Letter of Isaac Pallache to Estates General, April 13, 1623, SIHM, 3: 244–246; García-Arenal and Wiegers, A Man of Three Worlds, 105–106, 121. The Sephardic-Jewish connections with Amsterdam ensured that Dutch captives were not enslaved and quickly liberated. Israel, Diaspora, 296, 301–302.

79 García-Arenal and Wiegers, A Man of Three Worlds, 105–106.

80 Benjamin Cohen claimed that he had ransomed seventeen members of the captured crew of Captain Gerrit Pietersen from Hoorn for 1600 pieces of eight. Request Joseph Pallache to Estates General, March 26, 1639, SIHM, 4: 482–485.

81 Israel, Diaspora, 304, 310.

82 Letter of Admiralties of Amsterdam to Estates General, Amsterdam, Nov. 12, 1649, SIHM, 5: 175–179. Israel, Diaspora, 291–301; Instructions Admiralties of Amsterdam for Joris van Cats e.a., Amsterdam, April 1649, SIHM, 5: 160–163; Instructions Admiralties of Amsterdam for J. van Galen e.a., Amsterdam, Feb. 1650, SIHM, 5: 180–191; Letter of Admiralties of Amsterdam to Estates General, Amsterdam, Sept. 13, 1650, SIHM, 5: 203–208; Resolution Estates General, The Hague, Sept. 22 1650, SIHM, 5: 209–210.

83 Art. 1 of Dutch-Salese treaty, 9 Feb. 1651, Cau, GPB, Vol 1, 129; Krieken, Christenslaven, 23.

84 Art. 7 of Dutch-Salese treaty, 1657/1658, GPB, 2: 2504.

85 Letter of Henrique d’Azevedo to Magistrate Rotterdam, Amsterdam, May 7, 1651, GAR, 1.01, inv.nr. 2838; Israel, Diaspora, 308.

86 Letter of De Ruyter to Sidi Abdallah, anchored nearby Salé, Oct. 30, 1655, SIHM, 6: 186–190.

87 See especially chapters five, six and seven of Slaves, Arms, and Holy War by Johan de Bakker.

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