How do you research the colonial history of the Orange-Nassau family?

For three years, sixty scholars researched the role of the House of Orange-Nassau in colonial history. King Willem-Alexander initiated the research. The researchers included Utrecht economic historian Christiaan van Bochove. He examined the financial involvement of the House of Orange-Nassau in colonial history during the period from 1584 to 1795. How did he go about his research, and were all doors really opened to him?

In 2023, Van Bochove was approached by Gert Oostindie, who led the research. “He thought of me because the project closely matched my research into the financial history of the early modern period, from 1500 to 1800.” Given the sensitive nature of the research, it was crucial for Van Bochove to be as comprehensive as possible when collecting relevant information.

“I wanted to avoid overlooking existing knowledge or missing important archival documents. That is why I reviewed a vast amount of literature and archival material.” Van Bochove ultimately drew on more than two hundred publications and studied cartloads of documents at the National Archives and the Royal Collections.

A prerequisite was that all the researchers would be given unrestricted access to the archival documents.

Archives on the House of Orange-Nassau

Van Bochove was given full access to everything he needed to build a complete picture. “I was always able to consult all the archival documents I requested. On one particular day, I requested so many documents that it became too much for the staff in the reading room of the Royal Collections. They were understaffed because they also had to provide guided tours.”

“Moreover, withholding information would have been very difficult, as documents were often preserved in several forms – for example, as drafts, fair copies and duplicates – and much of the information could be found in multiple archives. In addition, if I had ever gained even the slightest impression that documents were being withheld, I would have returned the assignment immediately.”

The National Archives in The Hague, where a substantial portion of the archival documents used by Van Bochove can be found, is open to the public, and anyone interested can request access to documents. “The same applies to the other archival institutions from which I obtained material.”

“Although the Royal Collections is not a public archive, it was agreed beforehand that all researchers would be given unrestricted access to the archival documents. This worked extremely well in practice. For example, I already had the necessary authorisation to visit in my inbox before my appointment to the project had been formally confirmed.”

Unexpected discoveries

Van Bochove says he was surprised by some of his findings. “During the second half of the eighteenth century, it was not unusual for wealthy families in the Dutch Republic to buy shares in loans to planters in Suriname and the Caribbean. I therefore did not rule out finding such investments among the wealthy House of Orange-Nassau. Although the archival material for this period is particularly comprehensive, I found no trace of them whatsoever.”

I wanted to avoid overlooking existing knowledge or missing important archival documents.

During the period studied by Van Bochove, the stadtholders’ investments were found to be focused primarily on land and other property in Europe. Before the Netherlands had a monarchy, these stadtholders were influential statesmen in the Dutch Republic. Many of them belonged to the House of Orange-Nassau. “The colonial revenues I found therefore accounted for a relatively small proportion of the stadtholders’ total income and almost all of them were connected to offices held by members of the House of Orange-Nassau at the time.”

Silver Fleet Less Lucrative Than Thought

Van Bochove looks back on one of the highlights of his research: “That was when I managed to establish that Stadtholder Frederick Henry benefited from the Silver Fleet by several hundred thousand guilders less than had been believed for almost 375 years.” The convoy of Spanish ships and their cargo was captured from the Spanish in 1628, when the Netherlands was at war with Spain. It contained silver that the Spanish had looted in the Americas or obtained through forced labour.

“Frederick Henry was formally the commander-in-chief of the Dutch fleet and was therefore entitled, as admiral general, to a share of the captured booty, which, in the case of the House of Orange-Nassau, we can therefore call colonial only in an indirect sense at most. Until now, our knowledge of the revenues had been based on a publication from 1654 by none other than Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt. It now appears that he was less well informed than we thought.”

Documents from the archives of the States General and the Dutch West India Company, together with the House of Orange-Nassau’s own accounts, revealed that Frederick Henry received not 700,000 but 425,000 guilders. “That was still a considerable sum, but it was substantially less than previously thought.”

Research into the colonial history of the House of Orange-Nassau

By studying the colonial past carefully and from multiple perspectives, scholars can contribute to a fair and accurate account, Van Bochove believes. “My research brings together extensive knowledge from the literature and archival sources in a Dutch-language publication. I hope this will provide the public and academic debate on Dutch colonial investments and revenues with a solid foundation, making speculation and guesswork unnecessary.”