Dutch Atlantic Shipping: an open book

The electronic archive EASY of DANS was recently supplemented with data regarding Dutch shipping in the Atlantic region in the period 1600 - 1800. Depositing these data sets is only the beginning. More data are expected from the same project and data already collected previously will be added as well.

The data were deposited at the initiative of the project ‘Dutch connections: the circulation of people, goods and ideas in the Atlantic world, 1680-1795’ of which Dr. Gert Oostindie (Universiteit Leiden) is main coordinator. The project wants to contribute toward appreciation of the importance of shipping in the Atlantic for the Dutch Republic. So far, the United East India Company (VOC) has been better known than the West India Company (WIC), but the trade with the West must have contributed much more to the Dutch Republic’s prosperity than initially assumed. Sugar, cocoa, coffee, tobacco, gold, silver and slaves were the main commercial products.

DANS is contributing to the project by publishing the data. In addition, old shipping data will be made available in EASY prior to 1 August 2009. DANS will merge the old and new data in a relational database, which will enable easy searching in the journeys made by individual ships between 1600 and 1800. Where did these ships travel to and who were the captains? How long did an average Triangle journey take? What where the main trading hubs? Questions to which it will soon be possible to give well-founded answers with the aid of the data base. DANS and the Dutch Connections project want to keep the data base dynamic and therefore intend to continue to collect and include new data in the data base after completion of the project.