Slave population of the Dutch Caribbean in perspective

To get an impression of how important the Dutch colonies were in the Caribbean, let's look at the most important staple crop of the region: sugar. While yesterday I looked at the numbers of slaves in the Dutch Caribbean, it was clear that the Dutch import of slaves was significant, but minor. This was also the case in terms of sugar exports.

Sugar exports of main producers in the Caribbean and Surinam just before
the French Revolution. Knight, The Caribbean p 365-370

Surinam was only a small producer of sugar compared to powerhouses like British controlled Jamaica and French St Domingue. And although the French Revolution ultimately destroyed sugar production in St Domingue (which continued independently as Haïti), Surinam was unable to capture more of the sugar market..

Sugar exports of main producers in the Caribbean and Surinam
early 19th century. Knight, The Caribbean p 365-370

In terms of slave population, Surinam was more considerable, although it was still dwarfed by Jamaica, St Domingue and Cuba.

Slave populations of the largest Caribbean colonies in the
early 19th century. Knight, The Caribbean p 366-7

Slavery in the Dutch Caribbean: numbers

Okay, so how many slaves were there in Surinam and on the Dutch Antilles?

First, let's look at the number of slaves coming in to the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean. Numbers are difficult, because the Dutch Antilles served as an entrepot and a number of slaves may have finally ended up elsewhere.

Over two centuries around half a million slaves were imported to the Dutch colonies, out of more than 9 million slaves brought to the new world from 1600 to 1870. That's a significant bit minor share. Brazil, Spanish America and the British and French Antilles received much larger numbers.

Knight, The Caribbean p 364

The high watermark of slavery in the Dutch Antilles lay in the late 18th century, when there were well over 20,000. More than half of the the slaves worked on Curacao, the main commercial center.

Slave population of the Dutch Antilles
Dalhuisen, Geschiedenis van de Antillen p55

Immediately after the British occupation and the abolition of the slave trade (effective in 1808, but officially confirmed by the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1814), the number of slaves had dropped to 12,000 and remained mostly stable after that.  Natural population growth was positive and balanced manumissions and several thousand slaves emigrating (ostensibly as freedmen).  The excess of births over deaths was probably mostly because the economic focus of the Dutch Antilles was on trade and self sufficiency instead of export of plantation crops for the world market.

The late 18th century was also the prime time for Surinam. There may have been as many as 60,000 slaves at that time. In the 19th century the numbers declined.  This was mostly the result of negative natural population growth, a common feature of plantation slave societies. Combined with manumissions and escapes, the only possibility was for a decline in the number of slaves. By 1863 there were only some 35,000 slaves left.

Slave populations in the 19th century
Staatkundig en Staatshuishoudkundig Jaarboekje

After abolition in 1863, the freed slaves between the ages of 15 and 60 were required by the Dutch government to work as contract labourers on the plantations for another 10 years. They were nominally under state supervision, or staatstoezicht. As soon as the requirement to work under contract disappeared, many former slaves left the plantations. This signalled the start of an era where plantation owners imported contract labour from India, Indonesia and China.

Until 1863 the population of Surinam was dominated by slaves. The white population was a small minority, living mostly in the capital, Paramaribo. In Paramaribo also lived the freed slaves, but while the colonial records account for 600 in 1844, Panday lists over 5000 of them in 1835. I have no way of reconciling those numbers.

There was also a significant group of maroons, called Bosnegers in Dutch, that lived in the interior. The were reckoned at 7 to 8,000 in the middle of the 19th century. The Surinam jungle also provided a refuge for maybe around a thousand Indians.

Population of Surinam 1844
Staatkundig en Staathuishoudkundig Jaarboekje 1850

Considering that about half a million slaves came in to the Dutch Caribbean, the death rate must have been horrendous if you consider the slave population at the end of the 18th century (just over 80,000). Apparently, slave owners felt no need to be careful with their investments as replacements were relatively cheap.

Bruce Schneier´s Liars & Outliers

We learn to trust strangers from a very young age. Not just uncles, cousins and neighbours, but also teachers, policemen, doctors and even newsreaders on TV. Compared to our ancestors and other animal species, humans have raised trust to unknown heights. Bruce Schneier , in his new book Liars & Outliers, takes us on a tour of how that trust came to be, how it manages to work in the majority of cases and why it doesn’t work in the rest.

Schneier uses Francis Fukuyama’s definition of trust, which holds that other members of society act in a predictable, honest and co-operative way, based on shared norms. This is enormously helpful for society as a whole, because there are costs and risks involved in dealing with others and establishing their trustworthiness. If society can organise itself so that we can safely trust other members, that save sus a lot of time and money.

Liars & Outliers most pressing question is how society can function based on trust when the short term and selfish interest of it’s members are often contrary to the long term benefit of the group. Put in different terms: people continuously decide whether to co-operate with the group or to defect.

There’s a number of pressures that society exerts to keep its members in the fold. Moral pressure makes us feel good or bad about our choices, reputational pressure makes us worry about the judgement of our peers. In a small group, those pressures are quite powerful and will generally convince us to stick to the norms.

But in bigger groups this no longer works as well, as fewer people know us and not as well. There is also less social control and more alternatives if our peers ostracise us. In these larger groups, the maintenance of the group norms has been delegated institutions: the church, the state, the council, the company.These institutions work with officials and formalised rules like laws, regulations and protocols.

Finally, there are security systems designed to keep you conformant. Locks and keys keep you out, your antivirus software protects your computer and cameras in the public space watch your movement and actions.

All these pressures determine the parameters in the trade off that every member of a group makes dozens if not hundreds of times a day. In simple cases, all these pressures point the same way, but often the pressures compete. You conscience may guide you one way, but the pressure of your peers keeps you from speaking out. You may be desperate to get food for your kids but gates and walls keep you from taking it from others. And group loyalties may conflict. Your membership of a gang may be more important than that of your local community. In some cases this can make decisions to co-operate or defect very difficult.

Societies have built institutions that can set these parameters. It can hire more policemen, set tougher penalties, offer more aid to potential victims (easing your conscience). However, this not easy to get right. First of all, there is delay in adjustment and longer in more complex institutions. Legislation may take years and funds allocated to execute policies take years to get in the budget. The transgressor are ahead of you all this time. Which gets worse if the technological advance is very fast. It takes even longer to measures the effects of new policies, and it´s hard to tell whether the policies were responsible for the observed changes at all. And even if you get the desired result, it may have unwanted side effects that require new policies to deal with.

Also, society sometimes goes after the wrong problems. The fact that we have the illusion that we can actually handle risk, that we can eliminate it, is very dangerous and makes it hard to remain objective. We tend to overstate the risk of catastrophic, singular and unexpected and understate the risk of what is familiar and controlable. That’s why more money is spent on counter-terrorism than road safety, although the latter causes more deaths. In fact, the most scary things imaginable are unknown risks.

Therefor it is all the more surprising that most people (to paraphrase Lincoln) stick to most of the rules most of the time. The first part of Schneier’s book deals with the theoretical and empirical evidence from evolutionary psychology, (socio)biology, game theory and other fields of science on what makes people so surprisingly co-operative. Especially when you compare it to our cousins, the baboons, who will defect from co-operating midway through a chase for prey. In some way humans have developed a wide array of pressures to get people to put their own short term interests aside and join with others for future benefit.

Schneier uses defection and society in a neutral sense. His view is that nobody sticks to all the rules all the time, and that this is natural. Moreover, some societies, or aspects of societies are bad (or can be seen as bad) and worth changing, and defection thus can be a good thing. This is different from the good/evil dichotomy that some people work by.

Schneier in action

The pressures mentioned above are strong positive feedbacks loops to conformity and they tend to stifle societal change. So an important question is whether we should foster non-conformity more? What I missed in Schneier’s book was that long term vision, maybe because I’m a historian and he’s a securitarian. By keeping society abstract, he doesn’t touch the subject whether certain societies have been better at dealing with non-conformity and whether they profited from this. For example democratic societies with free speech and protection from violent and legal repression by other members of society, the church and the state?

Modern societies have developed ways for people to defect without being ostracised from society as a whole. We have since long given artists more room for individual expression and have accepted that they not only break artistic rules but also have looser morals, dress more extravagantly and permit themselves a more critical stance towards authority. More recently we tolerate conscientious objectors, encourage whistle blowers and cheer on noble bandits like Robin Hood.

Has western society struck a balance between individual and collective that is superior to authoritarian societies? Not for nothing do most comparative studies show that western societies are more trusting in general than other societies? So can the lesson be, even if Schneier doesn’t make it explicit, that a society which allows its members to break some of the rules is stronger, as long as they don’t break them all?

Full disclosure: I won a galley copy of this book in a competition because I promised to give it away 

Warfare in Al-Andalus

It took me a while to finish this last part of the Al-Andalus project because I needed to sit down and have a look at the books again.

My reading list for Andalusia

These three books are  bound together by the author and illustrator and this results well researched books, which draw their strength from David Nicolle´s good knowledge of Arabic sources and the in beautiful paintings of Angus McBride. But there´s also a broad variety of photographs and maps that add to the text without overlap between the books.

The weakest of the three books is El Cid and the Reconquista, 1050-1492. Spanning four and a half centuries, it suffers from bad organisation. By splitting up the discussion of the armies over different periods, any sense of continuity of change is lost. There is quite a lot of emphasis on equipment at the expense of other subjects, which feel rather general.

This is the only book of the three giving much detail on the armies of the Christian kingdoms. They relied on royal retainers, military religious orders and later urban militias to expand to the south. Their equipment and tactics were heavily influenced by their Arabic opponents.

One of the important lessons is that it is hard to talk of Christian or Muslim armies, because both sides employed warriors of both faiths and many different ethnicities: Spanish born, but also Arab and Berber Muslims, and Spanish as well as French Christians, not forgetting renegades. El Cid’s story is the best known of these soldiers fighting on both sides.

A model showing the Gibralfaro and Alcazaba of
Malaga and the double walls connecting them

Much better is the Moors, where the development is much better explained. Organisation, equipment, architecture and naval warfare are all better structured. It details the change from a Ummayad caliphate based on Spain to Almoravid and later Almohad empires that were both rooted in North Africa. These were seen, by the Muslims as well as the Christian, as foreign invaders. Their fundamentalist teachings meant that they remained separated from the Spanish elites.

Interesting is that these invasion always followed on fragmentation of the previous Muslim empire. Encroachment by Christian kingdoms then forced the Spanish Muslims to call for help from the south. They would have rather remained masters of their own fate.

The walls of Ronda served the town well, but the town
surrendered after its water supply was compromised

Granada 1492. The Twilight of Moorish Spain, on the last campaign is well structured, but has the advantage of a limited period of time with relatively few changes in equipment and organisation. It rolls like a narrative of the campaigns, with good analysis of the strategic considerations on both sides.

The war was pretty one-sided due to the infighting among the Granadese pretenders, although the financial burden of the war would have set limits on the Spanish side had it lasted longer. On the other hand, the quick progress was probably a factor in the ability to gain new loans.

The walls of the Alcazaba of Malaga
One of the few fortresses to stand up to Spanish cannon

But it was not only the internal strife on the Granadese side that won the Spanish the war. This war was about raid and sieges. And while the Granadese gave as good as they received on the first count, the Spanish enjoyed a marked advantage in the latter department. Although there was some artillery in the forts, the Spanish had more and better. Most sieges against smaller towns were therefore resolved quickly. Only Malaga and Granada could put up prolonged resistance. 

Having seen the terrain around Malaga and Ronda, I got the impression that the war in Al-Andalus was a struggle over valleys, with fortification providing control over the areas. This suited the Spanish well as fortifications could be taken at ease most of the time.

The church door of Alozaina commemorating the capture
of the town by Spanish troops on June 21st 1484

Looking at the long term, Granada’s long survival had only been obtained by bending its knees deeply to the Christian kingdoms, war among the Christians and support from North Africa. When these points were resolved in the late 15^th century with the unification of Castile and Aragon, and the loss of connections to Muslim rulers across the Straits of Gibraltar, the days of a Muslim state on the Iberian peninsula were marked.

One minaret remains of the mosque of Ronda

Check out my earlier post on the struggle between Christians and Muslims from the perspective of the other side of the Mediterranean, that is from Rhodes.

Surinam exports in the age of slavery: sugar, coffee, cotton and cacao

This is a bit that I didn't put in next Monday's article, partially because not all of this data is from a source I could use, and partially because it didn't fit in the article.

These are export volumes of the four main plantation staples from the early 18th century until the end of slavery in 1863 and a little bit further. For ten years after 1863, the former slaves of Surinam were forced to work as contract labourers on the plantations.

Sugar exports from Surinam in tons

Sugar was the main plantation export product throughout the Caribbean. Surinam was a relatively small producer.

Coffee exports from Surinam in tons

Coffee exports peaked late in the 18th century but all but disappeared by the end of slavery

Cotton exports from Surinam in tons

Cotton had a short period of success in Surinam but like coffee, didn't live past the end of slavery.

Cacao exports from Surinam in tons

Although cacao wasn't a major export product, it was the only one of the old plantation staples to to increase with the end of slavery.

Upcoming: Slavery Statistics in the Dutch West Indies

Working on a short article with stats about the abolition of slavery in the Dutch West Indies, 150 years ago next Monday. It will be published in Dutch, but you might like an English version.



My source: Het Staatkundig en Staathuishoudkundig Jaarboekje





La Religieuse, Riducule and the War That Made America

I very much enjoyed the French movie La Religieuse, based on the late 18th century book by Denis Diderot, better known for his encyclopedia.

The story is about a daughter of lower gentry that gets send to a convent because her parents can't afford her a dowry. She doesn't want to go but is lured in, then refuses to take the vows. But as she brings shame on her family, it is even more difficult to escape the life of a nun and she goes back, more or less of her own free will. Of course she comes to regret it and the movie then documents her struggle to get out.

It was an interesting look at 18th century society, and gives a bit of background to 18th century gaming.

Another French movie I can recommend for this period is Ridicule. In Ridicule, a lowly nobleman travels to Paris to ask the king's aid in financing a project to improve his village. But as the king is bored with audiences the only way to gain access is through the court circuit in which wit and sarcasm provide the means to attract attention. 

But of course, you guys want hardcore military history, so my last recommendation is through the Bloggers for Charity, not only a lofty cause, but cleverly combined with the miniature refight of the Battle of La Belle Famille in 1759.

The War That Made America is a four part documentary on the French & Indian Wars and has some interesting combat sequences with reenactors. It is also surprisingly good on introducing the perspectives of Britons, Americans, French and Indians of various persuasions. It takes George Washington's experiences as a main lead, and I see this as inescapable if you consider he was involved in some of the actions and that that is the best way to gain the attention of the general audience.

Dutch and Belgians at Waterloo Ospreys

Yes, the day before yesterday was the 198th anniversay of the Battle of Quatre Bras, and so today is that of the Battle of Waterloo. And then I found out I was not the owner of the two Osprey Men at Arms about the Dutch and Belgians in the campaign! Incredible. So I rectified that omission last Friday. I hope nobody noticed them missing in my collection...

Napoleonic and Native American Cavalry

Two more books I ordered some time ago and only arrived recently. I was very much impressed by Paul Dawson's thesis on the rebuilding of the French cavalry in 1813. It had lots of stuff on the organisation of remounts and the corners Napoleon could cut to rapidly increase his number of horses. Dawson argues that it wasn't a shortage of remounts but rather a shortage of trained cavalrymen combined with a breakdown of logistics that hamstrung Napoleon's army in the autumn campaign.

Not surprising that I was interested when Paul's Au Galop. Horses and riders of Napoleon´s Army was published on the French cavalry from an equestrian viewpoint. There is certainly a lot of the stuff in here, but not all the exciting bits of his thesis.

In one fell swoop I also picked up from the same publisher The Warhorse in the modern era by Ann Nyland, which does the same for a much longer period but in less depth. It is also somewhat older. Unexpected boon were the chapters on the use of horses by the Indian Plains tribes.

Of course these books are on the list for reading after this weekend, when we play the Leipzig campaign in one day with over forty guys in two large rooms. It's a double blind map game, with each team representing a headquarters or political leaders. So if I don't post much in the coming days, you know what I'm doing..



ps I vaguely recall a post not long ago in which I said I didn't expect much in the mail for the future. I guess I was fooling myself there.

Maroons and slave revolts

When my interest was raised in slavery at university, I also learned about the maroons (called bosnegers in Dutch controlled Surinam). These escaped slaves formed communities in hard to reach areas of British Jamaica, Surinam, French Saint-Domingue (present day Haiti). I assume there were also maroon communities in North and Latin America.

 These include the French, Haitian, British and even Dutch units involved in the
Napoleonic Wars in the Caribbean, in my possession since last Friday 

The subject has not left me since but was rekindled with the 150th anniversary of abolition of slavery in the Dutch West-Indian colonies coming up on July 1st (more on this later). It made me wonder why there have been no wargame rules that included maroons or slave revolts in their rules, at least none that I know of. But there's references in a few Ospreys (shown above) and at least I've found a miniature manufacture, Trent Miniatures, that offers maroons, Haitian rebels and regulars.

For the rules, I've been looking at Muskets and Tomahawks, as it also focuses on 18th century skirmish wargaming in the North American colonies. I think it can be easily adapted to include actions in the Caribbean. As it uses card driven scenarios, it could be well suited for the raiding, tracking and harassing expeditions of slave societies.

Revolting slaves by Trent Miniatures, from NorthStar website

It could also include scenario's based on the larger slave rebellions, like the one on Saint-Domingue in 1792 that led to its independence. With British, Spanish and French attempts to (re)gain control, there's all kinds of interesting angles to take.

So I've done myself a big favour by getting a few relevant Ospreys and ordering Muskets & Tomahawks, and the Trent minis (as well as some French and Indians for the French & Indian wars). This isn't a project yet, and will have to wait a while, but I'm looking forward to working on it. René, are you reading this?