40 Atlantic African, American, and European Backgrounds to Contact, Commerce, and EnslavementSee also: Atlantic Slave Trade; Dutch New Netherland; Elm-
ina; Gold CoastDavid M. CarlettaBibliography
Goslinga, Cornelis C. Th e Dutch in the Caribbean and in the Gui-
anas, 1 680– 1791. Dover, NH: Van Gorcum, 1985.
Goslinga, Cornelis C. Th e Dutch in the Caribbean and on the Wild
Coast, 1 580– 1 680. Gainesville: University of Florida Press,
1971.
Postma, Johannes Menne. Th e Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade,
1 600– 181 5. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1990.
Shorto, Russell. Th e Island at the Center of the World: Th e Epic
Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony Th at
Shaped America. New York: Doubleday, 2004.Elmina
Constructed by the Portuguese in 1482 on the Gold Coast
(modern Ghana) of West Africa, the Castelo São Jorge da
Mina, Elmina, was the fi rst signifi cant European fortifi -
cation in sub-Saharan Africa. Th e castle fortress, erected
under the direction of Commander Diogo de Azambuja,
solidifi ed a Portuguese monopoly on Gold Coast trading for
more than a century. Th e fortress represented a permanent
foothold in tropical Africa, and as a result, rival European
naval powers, such as the British and Dutch, felt compelled
to construct similar fortifi cations across the West African
coast. Dozens of structures dotted the region in the suc-
ceeding centuries, changing forever the relationship be-
tween Europeans and both the coastal African populations
as well those in the interior regions.
Elmina was built near an existing African settlement of
Akan-speaking people who welcomed the construction of
the fort, both sides seeing its existence as advantageous to
their trading prospects. Th e local Africans gained a stable
supply of goods and some measure of protection from war-
fare, while the Portuguese were able to reduce the vulner-
ability of shipboard trading from hostile European navies
and gained larger storage and administrative spaces. Com-
merce initially consisted of gold and some natural products
from the interior such as ivory and wood. In later centuries
the slave trade would defi ne the castle’s major export; how-
ever, during the fi rst several decades African slaves wereDutch attention and led to the Dutch West India Company’s
seizure of the captaincy of Pernambuco in 1630. Seeking to
provide more slaves for its Brazilian colony, the company
attacked several Portuguese forts in Africa. In 1636, a West
India Company force captured the Portuguese fort at São
Jorge da Mina (Elmina), the main Portuguese outpost in
West Africa. For a short time in the mid-17th century, the
company also controlled Central Africa’s main slave port,
São Paulo de Luanda in Angola. Th e company held 7 of the
14 captaincies of Brazil before being driven out by the local
populace in 1654. Th e Dutch invasion of Portuguese Brazil
and the war to oust them allowed many slaves the opportu-
nity to escape to maroon societies. During the era of Dutch
colonization in northeastern Brazil, more than 30,000
slaves were imported to work for the area’s predominantly
Portuguese sugar plantation owners.
In the second half of the 17th century, the company
supplied slaves mainly to Spain’s American and Caribbean
colonies through both legal and illegal trade, oft en operat-
ing as a subcontractor for assorted merchants and compa-
nies that held an offi cial asiento with the Spanish Crown. In
the Caribbean, the Dutch West India Company controlled
Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire, three small islands off the
coast of Venezuela. Farther north, the company held the
islands of Saba and St. Eustatius, and part of the island of
St. Maarten. Curaçao became the hub for Dutch West In-
dian trade and the main slave distribution center to Spanish
America. Slaves were transferred on a lesser scale from St.
Eustatius to the French Caribbean. Th e Dutch exploited the
Caribbean, as well as the Guiana region of South America,
for sugar cultivation. By 1700, the colony of Dutch Guiana,
present-day Suriname, contained some 50,000 slaves. Aft er
1700, Dutch Guiana received the majority of slaves trans-
ported by the company.
In North America, the Dutch West India Company
was primarily interested in the lucrative fur trade. Th e
company oversaw the colony of New Netherland, which in-
cluded North America’s fi rst permanent Dutch settlement
at Fort Orange in what is today Albany, New York, as well
as New Amsterdam, now New York City. Th e majority of
New Netherland’s slaves arrived via Curaçao. Slaves num-
bered around 450 and made up 5 percent of the total popu-
lation of the colony, estimated at 9,000 in 1667 when the
Dutch ceded New Netherland to the English. Large defi cits
and free trade policies caused the company to be dissolved
in 1791.