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Book by Bram Hoonhout
Borderless Empire explores the volatile history of Dutch Guiana, in particular the forgotten colo... more Borderless Empire explores the volatile history of Dutch Guiana, in particular the forgotten colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, to provide new perspectives on European empire building in the Atlantic world.
Bram Hoonhout argues that imperial expansion was a process of improvisation at the colonial level rather than a project that was centrally orchestrated from the metropolis. Furthermore, he emphasizes that colonial expansion was far more transnational than the oft-used divisions into national Atlantics suggest. In so doing, he transcends the framework of the Dutch Atlantic by looking at the connections across cultural and imperial boundaries.
The openness of Essequibo and Demerara affected all levels of the colonial society. Instead of counting on metropolitan soldiers, the colonists relied on Amerindian allies, who captured runaway slaves and put down revolts. Instead of waiting for Dutch slavers, the planters bought enslaved Africans from foreign smugglers. Instead of trying to populate the colonies with Dutchmen, the local authorities welcomed adventurers from many different origins.
The result was a borderless world in which slavery was contingent on Amerindian support and colonial trade was rooted in illegality. These transactions created a colonial society that was far more Atlantic than Dutch.
Articles by Bram Hoonhout
Slavery & Abolition. A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, 2019
In spaces of contested sovereignty, self-emancipated slaves exploited imperial rivalries to attai... more In spaces of contested sovereignty, self-emancipated slaves exploited imperial rivalries to attain freedom, based on the Spanish religious sanctuary. However, the status of foreign escaped slaves always remained subject to issues of empire-building. This article focuses on fugitive slaves from the Dutch colony of Essequibo and territorial Louisiana looking for freedom at the southern and northern borderlands of the Spanish empire, respectively, in Venezuela and Texas. In the former, increased Spanish control over the borderland created more opportunities for ‘runaways’. In the latter, improvisation led to erratic policies, related to pressure from US planters.
Papers by Bram Hoonhout
Hoofdstuk in: De slavernij in Oost en West. Het Amsterdam onderzoek, 2020
De Nederlandse koloniën in Guyana (Essequebo, Demerary en Berbice) ontvingen grote investeringen ... more De Nederlandse koloniën in Guyana (Essequebo, Demerary en Berbice) ontvingen grote investeringen uit de Republiek in de 18e eeuw die de expansie van het slavernijsysteem mogelijk maakten
Borderless Empire explores the volatile history of Dutch Guiana, in particular the forgotten colo... more Borderless Empire explores the volatile history of Dutch Guiana, in particular the forgotten colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, to provide new perspectives on European empire building in the Atlantic world. Bram Hoonhout argues that imperial expansion was a process of improvisation at the colonial level rather than a project that was centrally orchestrated from the metropolis. Furthermore, he emphasizes that colonial expansion was far more transnational than the oft-used divisions into national Atlantics suggest. In so doing, he transcends the framework of the Dutch Atlantic by looking at the connections across cultural and imperial boundaries. The openness of Essequibo and Demerara affected all levels of the colonial society. Instead of counting on metropolitan soldiers, the colonists relied on Amerindian allies, who captured runaway slaves and put down revolts. Instead of waiting for Dutch slavers, the planters bought enslaved Africans from foreign smugglers. Instead of trying to populate the colonies with Dutchmen, the local authorities welcomed adventurers from many different origins. The result was a borderless world in which slavery was contingent on Amerindian support and colonial trade was rooted in illegality. These transactions created a colonial society that was far more Atlantic than Dutch.
Mare - Leids Universitair Weekblad, 2019
Chapter in: Lex Heerma van Voss et al, ed., Wereldgeschiedenis van Nederland (Ambo Anthos), 2018
Al sinds de middeleeuwen bestond er in Noordwest- Europa geen slavernij meer. Men zag Europese gr... more Al sinds de middeleeuwen bestond er in Noordwest-
Europa geen slavernij meer. Men zag Europese grond zelfs
expliciet als ‘vrije grond’, waar niemand als slaaf gehouden
kon worden. Toch leek men voor slaafgemaakten
afkomstig uit de eigen kolonies een uitzondering te
maken. In de jaren 1770 leidde dat tot spectaculaire
rechtszaken in Nederland en Groot-Brittannië
Book chapter in: Cátia Antunes and Amélia Polónia (eds.), Beyond Empires: Global, Self-Organizing... more Book chapter in: Cátia Antunes and Amélia Polónia (eds.), Beyond Empires: Global, Self-Organizing, Cross-Imperial Networks, 1500-1800 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016), 212-235.
Background article on Guyanese history for the exhibition of the Guyanese artist Andrew Lyght in ... more Background article on Guyanese history for the exhibition of the Guyanese artist Andrew Lyght in the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (State University of New York at New Paltz)
In Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis, 2015, vol. 34, no. 2.
In the second half of the eighteenth century the Dutch created a system of 'subprime' plantation ... more In the second half of the eighteenth century the Dutch created a system of 'subprime' plantation mortgages. A credit structure was set up that would link Dutch investors with their West Indian colonies, by providing plantation mortgages (called negotiaties) for those dreaming of becoming planters. Interest rates were high: attractive for investors, but all too cumbersome for the new plantation owners. Many planters, mostly producing coffee, could not repay their loans, leading to the demise of the system as many bankrupt planters returned home and investors lost their capital. That is the case in Suriname at least, because in the near-by colonies of Essequibo and Demerara the plantation economy had only just took-off and continued to expand. This thesis tries to explain that divergence, next to identifying the winners and losers in the system and testing several explanatory concepts in order to gain a better conceptual understanding of the negotiatie structure. Results are that winners and losers were different than previously thought: investors could still be winners, while the fund managers could easily be losers. Additionally, the negotiatie system should be termed a classic mania, that could persist only for a limited time because of the Ponzi aspects, visible in the need for continuous refinancing. Lastly, the plantation mortgage structure could be seen as a failed transition to modernity, one that tried to bridge the commercial and financial interest of the Dutch economy, but was too much rooted in mercantilist thought. This was less the case for Essequibo and Demerara, where an open, but partly illegal, connection with the rest of the Atlantic proved more important than the regulated relationship with the metropolis. In addition to legal provisioning, illegal trade occurred on a large scale and proved crucial for the development of these two colonies.
Borderless Empire explores the volatile history of Dutch Guiana, in particular the forgotten colo... more Borderless Empire explores the volatile history of Dutch Guiana, in particular the forgotten colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, to provide new perspectives on European empire building in the Atlantic world.
Bram Hoonhout argues that imperial expansion was a process of improvisation at the colonial level rather than a project that was centrally orchestrated from the metropolis. Furthermore, he emphasizes that colonial expansion was far more transnational than the oft-used divisions into national Atlantics suggest. In so doing, he transcends the framework of the Dutch Atlantic by looking at the connections across cultural and imperial boundaries.
The openness of Essequibo and Demerara affected all levels of the colonial society. Instead of counting on metropolitan soldiers, the colonists relied on Amerindian allies, who captured runaway slaves and put down revolts. Instead of waiting for Dutch slavers, the planters bought enslaved Africans from foreign smugglers. Instead of trying to populate the colonies with Dutchmen, the local authorities welcomed adventurers from many different origins.
The result was a borderless world in which slavery was contingent on Amerindian support and colonial trade was rooted in illegality. These transactions created a colonial society that was far more Atlantic than Dutch.
Slavery & Abolition. A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, 2019
In spaces of contested sovereignty, self-emancipated slaves exploited imperial rivalries to attai... more In spaces of contested sovereignty, self-emancipated slaves exploited imperial rivalries to attain freedom, based on the Spanish religious sanctuary. However, the status of foreign escaped slaves always remained subject to issues of empire-building. This article focuses on fugitive slaves from the Dutch colony of Essequibo and territorial Louisiana looking for freedom at the southern and northern borderlands of the Spanish empire, respectively, in Venezuela and Texas. In the former, increased Spanish control over the borderland created more opportunities for ‘runaways’. In the latter, improvisation led to erratic policies, related to pressure from US planters.
Hoofdstuk in: De slavernij in Oost en West. Het Amsterdam onderzoek, 2020
De Nederlandse koloniën in Guyana (Essequebo, Demerary en Berbice) ontvingen grote investeringen ... more De Nederlandse koloniën in Guyana (Essequebo, Demerary en Berbice) ontvingen grote investeringen uit de Republiek in de 18e eeuw die de expansie van het slavernijsysteem mogelijk maakten
Borderless Empire explores the volatile history of Dutch Guiana, in particular the forgotten colo... more Borderless Empire explores the volatile history of Dutch Guiana, in particular the forgotten colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, to provide new perspectives on European empire building in the Atlantic world. Bram Hoonhout argues that imperial expansion was a process of improvisation at the colonial level rather than a project that was centrally orchestrated from the metropolis. Furthermore, he emphasizes that colonial expansion was far more transnational than the oft-used divisions into national Atlantics suggest. In so doing, he transcends the framework of the Dutch Atlantic by looking at the connections across cultural and imperial boundaries. The openness of Essequibo and Demerara affected all levels of the colonial society. Instead of counting on metropolitan soldiers, the colonists relied on Amerindian allies, who captured runaway slaves and put down revolts. Instead of waiting for Dutch slavers, the planters bought enslaved Africans from foreign smugglers. Instead of trying to populate the colonies with Dutchmen, the local authorities welcomed adventurers from many different origins. The result was a borderless world in which slavery was contingent on Amerindian support and colonial trade was rooted in illegality. These transactions created a colonial society that was far more Atlantic than Dutch.
Mare - Leids Universitair Weekblad, 2019
Chapter in: Lex Heerma van Voss et al, ed., Wereldgeschiedenis van Nederland (Ambo Anthos), 2018
Al sinds de middeleeuwen bestond er in Noordwest- Europa geen slavernij meer. Men zag Europese gr... more Al sinds de middeleeuwen bestond er in Noordwest-
Europa geen slavernij meer. Men zag Europese grond zelfs
expliciet als ‘vrije grond’, waar niemand als slaaf gehouden
kon worden. Toch leek men voor slaafgemaakten
afkomstig uit de eigen kolonies een uitzondering te
maken. In de jaren 1770 leidde dat tot spectaculaire
rechtszaken in Nederland en Groot-Brittannië
Book chapter in: Cátia Antunes and Amélia Polónia (eds.), Beyond Empires: Global, Self-Organizing... more Book chapter in: Cátia Antunes and Amélia Polónia (eds.), Beyond Empires: Global, Self-Organizing, Cross-Imperial Networks, 1500-1800 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016), 212-235.
Background article on Guyanese history for the exhibition of the Guyanese artist Andrew Lyght in ... more Background article on Guyanese history for the exhibition of the Guyanese artist Andrew Lyght in the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (State University of New York at New Paltz)
In Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis, 2015, vol. 34, no. 2.
In the second half of the eighteenth century the Dutch created a system of 'subprime' plantation ... more In the second half of the eighteenth century the Dutch created a system of 'subprime' plantation mortgages. A credit structure was set up that would link Dutch investors with their West Indian colonies, by providing plantation mortgages (called negotiaties) for those dreaming of becoming planters. Interest rates were high: attractive for investors, but all too cumbersome for the new plantation owners. Many planters, mostly producing coffee, could not repay their loans, leading to the demise of the system as many bankrupt planters returned home and investors lost their capital. That is the case in Suriname at least, because in the near-by colonies of Essequibo and Demerara the plantation economy had only just took-off and continued to expand. This thesis tries to explain that divergence, next to identifying the winners and losers in the system and testing several explanatory concepts in order to gain a better conceptual understanding of the negotiatie structure. Results are that winners and losers were different than previously thought: investors could still be winners, while the fund managers could easily be losers. Additionally, the negotiatie system should be termed a classic mania, that could persist only for a limited time because of the Ponzi aspects, visible in the need for continuous refinancing. Lastly, the plantation mortgage structure could be seen as a failed transition to modernity, one that tried to bridge the commercial and financial interest of the Dutch economy, but was too much rooted in mercantilist thought. This was less the case for Essequibo and Demerara, where an open, but partly illegal, connection with the rest of the Atlantic proved more important than the regulated relationship with the metropolis. In addition to legal provisioning, illegal trade occurred on a large scale and proved crucial for the development of these two colonies.