Rotterdam and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Today the Lloydkwartier is an upcoming Rotterdam neighbourhood where new buildings are overlooking the river the Maas, yet in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries ships left from here for Africa to trade slaves. To remind us of this episode in our history a slavery monument was unveiled in the Lloydstraat on June 16th 2013. The Dutch company with the second most trips with slave ships to the Caribbean was founded in Rotterdam. In this thesis the involvement of Rotterdam inhabitants in the slave trade is analysed. The main question to be answered was: ‘Who were involved in the Dutch trans-Atlantic slave system in Rotterdam between 1770 and 1780, how and why were they involved, and how was their mutual relationship?’ The answers to these questions will give a deeper understanding of the mechanism behind the slavery system that existed for almost three centuries. To answer these questions, six slavery investors were researched in-depth. Furthermore, a social network analysis is applied to more than 200 people investing in slavery. We came across three types of involvement in this research. Firstly, there were the directors of the companies. The second type were the slave ship shareholders. The third type were people who bought bonds in a plantation investment. Many of the people included in this study fitted in more than one type. There were at least four ways in which the investors and directors could have been connected. The most visible and present form was family. Many investors were family, either by birth or by marriage. The second form was church, of which members met each other on Sundays. Another way were business connections outside the slave trade, many merchants used the same ships, notaries and banks. Lastly, the learned societies were one place to develop oneself while acquainting new people, or keeping up older contacts. The six people thoroughly researched all belonged to the highest classes of society. They fulfilled functions in the city council, the admiralty or in big companies as the WIC and VOC. All of them loan money at interest to other people. Most of them had international stocks in countries and cities. Two of them were primarily real estate agents, but also merchants. Three of the six people were ship owners, whose ships were destined for international trade. This means that people investing in slave trade, already invested in other ships as their profession. They had an international outlook. This sample of six men is too small to extract it to all slavery investors, but it is still an interesting observation. It seems they invested in a lot of different branches and trades, as to spread the changes. Also jobwise they fulfilled different positions at the same time. To conclude; the people involved in slave trade were among the top 20 percent wealthy people of Rotterdam. They were involved by directing, or investing in a slave ship or plantation. Many of these investors had connections with each other through family, business, church or clubs. The main reason to invest was financial gain, to secure wealth for themselves and family members, the family capital often was spread over many different investments.