In March 1651, Virginia governor William Berkeley, declared, “…we can only feare the Londoners, who would faine bring us to the same poverty, wherein the Dutch found and relieved us …” He was referring to the 1650 Act of Navigation that forbade any ships other than British vessels from trading with the North American colonies (see Early Modern Virginia: Considering the Old Dominion, a collection of essays edited by D. Bradburn and J.C. Coombs).
This was around the time that the majority of the tobacco that Virginia produced was shipped out by Dutch merchants who, on the way in, brought goods that were highly valued there. The free trade was good for the Virginians and good for the Dutch. But, it was not good for the London merchants who were not able to compete.
Sparring between Virginia and its colonial overlords would continue the rest of the 17th century. In May 1660, the “Articles of Amite & Commerce” concluded a treaty between Virginia and New Netherlands allowing for free trade between them (with some caveats). In 1663 Berkeley published a book, “A Discourse and View of Virginia,” in which he declared his wish that Virginia had been a Dutch colony which would have allowed it to thrive instead of being choked.
There was a lot of contact between Virginia and the Netherlands. From the utterances and declarations of Virginia traders and governors it is clear that they were jealous of the Dutch republican form of government and the freedoms that it provided its citizens and traders. Free trade was the Dutch mantra and it was the open society of republicanism that had made it possible.
In 1609, Hugo Grotius published his Mare Liberum or “The Freedom of the Seas.” In it he advanced the theory that the seas were international territory, controlled by no one, and free to use for seafaring trade (Wikipedia: Mare Liberum). It harks back to the work of Philips van Leyden who, in the 1350s, declares that waterways are in the public domain and thus free for all to use. The Dutch principle of free trade is further propounded by Pieter de la Court (also of Leyden) in his book, “Interest van Holland,” published in 1662 (Institute of Public Affairs: Heroes of liberty you haven’t heard about). De la Court made a strong case for the necessity of two conditions to coexist, free trade and free government, for a nation to become wealthy. His free government was the republican form.
The North American colonies witnessed the competing forces of Dutch liberalism and British insularity. In the course of the 18th century the influence of the Dutch diminished while British control increased. Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1778, “… and as in the love of liberty, and bravery in the defence of it, [the Dutch Republic] has been our great example, …” (The Works of Benjamin Franklin). The events of the 1770s are well known and by 1775 Americans embarked on their journey away from British suffocation and toward free trade and free government.
Mau VanDuren
Author of “Many Heads and Many Hands, James Madison’s Search for a More Perfect Union.”