Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- PART I THE OLD WORLD
- 2 The Origins and Development of Stable Fiscal and Monetary Institutions in England
- 3 France and the Failure to Modernize Macroeconomic Institutions
- 4 The Netherlands in the New World: The Legacy of European Fiscal, Monetary, and Trading Institutions for New World Development from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries
- 5 Fiscal and Monetary Institutions in Spain (1600–1900)
- 6 War, Taxes, and Gold: The Inheritance of the Real
- PART II THE NEW WORLD
- PART III COMMENTARIES
- Index
4 - The Netherlands in the New World: The Legacy of European Fiscal, Monetary, and Trading Institutions for New World Development from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- PART I THE OLD WORLD
- 2 The Origins and Development of Stable Fiscal and Monetary Institutions in England
- 3 France and the Failure to Modernize Macroeconomic Institutions
- 4 The Netherlands in the New World: The Legacy of European Fiscal, Monetary, and Trading Institutions for New World Development from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries
- 5 Fiscal and Monetary Institutions in Spain (1600–1900)
- 6 War, Taxes, and Gold: The Inheritance of the Real
- PART II THE NEW WORLD
- PART III COMMENTARIES
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
The Dutch have not left many deep and enduring marks on the political and economic institutions of the New World; their presence as colonists, rulers, traders, and investors is not invisible (indeed, their presence as rulers is not yet over), but it hardly bears comparison with the transforming impact of an England or Spain, or even a Portugal or France. This negligible legacy was not the result of Dutch indifference. In fact, from the early days of the Dutch Republic an “Atlantic dream” – a New World redeemed from its Spanish/Catholic yoke, populated by Dutch settlers and Calvinist Indians, forming a productive and profitable part of a global trading economy – captured the imaginations of merchants, the House of Orange, and many Reformed clergymen and their followers. In 1630 the new Dutch West India Company published a pamphlet with this bit of promotional verse:
Westindjen kan syn Nederlands groot gewin
Verkleynt's vyands Macht brengt silver platen in.
[West India can become The Netherlands' great source of gain, Diminishing the enemy's power as it garners silver plate.]The “Atlantic reality” never came close to fulfilling the high hopes of the early promoters, but this was not for want of trying. The Netherlands launched repeated efforts to achieve something in the New World: It fought and worked to build an empire, indeed, to construct a groot desseyn (grand design) in the Western Hemisphere comparable to the inter-Asian trading network operated out of Batavia.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Transferring Wealth and Power from the Old to the New WorldMonetary and Fiscal Institutions in the 17th through the 19th Centuries, pp. 100 - 139Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001