Lands of Red and Gold #24: Of Traders, Treasures and Trailblazers
“Portugal and Spain held the keys of the treasure house of the east and the west. But it was neither Portugal with her tiny population, and her empire that was little more than a line of forts and factories 10,000 miles long, nor Spain, for centuries an army on the march and now staggering beneath the responsibilities of her vast and scattered empire, devout to fanaticism, and with an incapacity for economic affairs which seemed almost inspired, which reaped the material harvest of the empires into which they had stepped, the one by patient toil, the other by luck. Gathering spoils which they could not retain, and amassing wealth which slipped through their fingers, they were little more than the political agents of minds more astute and characters better versed in the arts of peace... The economic capital of the new civilization was Antwerp... its typical figure, the paymaster of princes, was the international financier.
Convulsions of war and tides of religion unseated Antwerp from its commercial throne, the city besieged and its dissenting inhabitants dispersed. While force of arms might move borders, wealth migrated according to its own dictates, not the whims of princes. As the seventeenth century neared, international commerce continued in Amsterdam from where it had halted in Antwerp...”
- W H Stanhope, “Religion and the Birth of Capitalism”
* * *
Captain-General Frederik de Houtman’s second voyage to Aururia was, for the Dutch, a shining success. A trade agreement had been negotiated, and a valuable collection of sample trade goods had been brought back to guide the Company’s merchants in their pursuit of profit. Better yet, the expedition had brought back a host of information in charts, logs and journals to aid in the planning and conduct of further ventures.
The descendants of the Atjuntja and the other Aururian peoples would not have quite the same view of de Houtman’s voyage. Of course, that was hardly something that Governor-General Coen or the other senior officers of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie would concern themselves over. De Houtman and his fellow captains were showered with honours on their return.
Along with the honours, Jan Pieterszoon Coen gave the captains and their crews strict orders not to talk about their new discoveries. All had sworn oaths to the Company and to the United Netherlands, and those oaths had to be obeyed. They were to reveal nothing of this new South-Land, particularly about its wealth, and most particularly its location.
This order lasted about as long as it took the Dutch sailors to reach the nearest tavern.
The Dutch sailors did not intend to tell foreigners the secrets, exactly, but alcohol and secrets rarely go together. Mostly, they talked to other Dutchmen, who in turn repeated rumours to other compatriots. The taverns of Batavia were not the exclusive preserve of Dutchmen; apart from the local Javanese, this was a trading post sometimes visited by Englishmen, and occasionally by the Portuguese [1].
The Dutch sailors did not give detailed directions, but, inevitably, they talked. Within a few months, the Javanese, English and Portuguese knew that the VOC had discovered some fantastical new land somewhere to the south. Or was it to the east? Rumours spread, no two of them the same, about where this new land was and what it contained. The stories spread to Timor, to Malaya, to Surat, and in time to London, Lisbon and Madrid...
* * *
With the prestige secured from his second voyage, de Houtman successfully manoeuvred for command of the third expedition to the South-Land. He obtained appointment to the task of negotiating for the construction of the first Dutch outpost on the South-Land, and overseeing the first trade conducted there.
De Houtman set about his new task with enthusiasm. With a fresh fleet of ships loaded with carefully-chosen supplies, he returned to the South-Land in 1621 to establish a trading post. His chosen site was familiar from two previous visits: the Swan River. Given that he had already secured the permission of the King of Kings, it did not take long for de Houtman to negotiate the local governor’s agreement to set up his new trading outpost.
De Houtman had chosen a site on the south bank at the mouth of the Swan River, at a distance he thought was about fifteen miles from the local garrison-city. He optimistically called the site Fort Nassau [Fremantle], even though his trade treaty stated – and the governor had reiterated – that no fortifications were to be built. His sailors were set to the task of constructing houses and other key dwellings. De Houtman used a few judiciously-chosen gifts to obtain the assistance of some local labourers to speed the process. Fort Nassau was developed into a useable state and declared open after three months, although completing some stone buildings would take over another year.
Atjuntja nobles and merchants (often the same people) had already started to gather before Fort Nassau officially opened. The samples of Dutch trade goods the previous year had attracted a great deal of interest, and de Houtman assured all arrivals that they would be given the opportunity to bargain for similar goods. De Houtman had always been an astute bargainer, and he was in a particularly favourable situation here. In most cases, the Atjuntja merchants bid against each other to obtain the most favoured goods.
Even with his previous experience of the White City, he was surprised by some of the priorities they set. The most highly-prized items were anything which showed great craftsmanship; lacquered goods, richly-decorated textiles, and the like. Steel ingots were worth half their weight in gold, and tin ingots only slightly less valued. Rum and brandy were held in similarly high esteem, especially after de Houtman’s traders generously provided some free samples. Wine, though, they would not accept. Nor, despite his best efforts, could he persuade any Atjuntja to trade lead ingots for anything.
In exchange, de Houtman’s trade ships were laden down with the commodities he had most desired. Gold and silver in abundance. Sandalwood in smaller quantities but, if anything, greater value. Dyes, especially their magnificent indigo. Considerable quantities of their mints and peppers and lesser spices, brought mostly to see if they could be resold for greater value. Yet despite his best efforts, he could not persuade any Atjuntja to offer any kunduri at a price he would accept. Instead, he received many variations of responses which amounted to, “Kunduri is not something we trade, it is something we trade for.”
Still, after de Houtman concluding his trading, he had the ebullient feeling that he had accomplished as much here as in his previous voyage. He left Fort Nassau in the command of a junior officer, and sailed for Batavia. There, he received another hero’s welcome. As de Houtman had expected, Coen was well-pleased with him.
Unfortunately, Coen would not stay pleased for long.
* * *
With trade expanding between Batavia and the South-Land, the rumours of newfound Dutch wealth spread ever further. They caused some consternation in London, where the governor and directors of the East India Trading Company had been considering a delicate situation.
An opportunity had arisen in the Middle East, where Persia had declared war on Spain, and was besieging the Spanish garrison on the island of Kishm, near the vital Spanish-held island of Hormuz. That port had been in Portuguese and then Spanish hands for nearly a century, and offered a gateway to Persia. The Persian commanders had requested English help in capturing Kishm and then Hormuz, and had offered to allow English merchants entry into the valuable silk trade.
Alas, opportunity was balanced by danger, namely, the risk of outright war with Spain. England and Spain had been at peace for nearly two decades, and the Company might find that its pursuit of profit in the Gulf would cause a broader war. The heads of the Company were minded to ignore that risk, trusting to Providence and the good offices of King James I to ensure peace was preserved.
However, now the governor and directors had a new risk to consider: the rising power of the Dutch, and more precisely that of the VOC. The two companies had been rivals in the East Indies for two decades, until they negotiated a recent truce. Now, if the VOC had found a spectacular new source of wealth, could they be trusted to hold to that truce? If not, perhaps it would be better to cooperate with Spain against the Dutch, rather than starting what could become two wars.
The directors considered this dilemma for a few days. In the end, they decided that the immediate opportunity was worthwhile. Trade with Persia would be a valuable new market. Besides, the Spanish were Catholics, and not to be trusted. So they accepted the proposed alliance with the Persians, and decided that they would deal with the consequences when they came.
The planned attack on Kishm Island went ahead two weeks later than originally planned. The English fleet bombarded the fort and quickly forced the Spanish garrison to surrender; the assault sustained very few casualties [2]. Bolstered by this success, the English and Persian forces conducted a joint operation against Hormuz, with the Persians attacking by land while the English scattered the Spanish fleet and bombarding the castle.
Hormuz surrendered on 7 May 1622, and the Persians took control of the island, while the Spanish retreated to a secondary outpost at Muscat. Honouring their agreement, all Christian prisoners were repatriated to England, and plans began for the exchange of English cloth for Persian silk. Spain was outraged, and the Company was forced to pay ten thousand pounds each to James I and the Duke of Buckingham in compensation for the efforts they went to in preserving peace [3].
* * *
Frederik de Houtman was an extraordinary man. An explorer, but also a self-promoter and liar. An astronomer and a visionary, recorder of constellations unknown and charter of lands unvisited by Europeans. A linguist who recorded the first European dictionary of the Malayan language, and an optimist who always trusted that fate would reward him. An opportunist with an eye for the main chance, but whose vision ultimately deserted him.
After his three voyages to the South-Land, de Houtman was eager to return to the Netherlands to describe in person what he had found. And, of course, to receive the adulation he believed he deserved for his discoveries.
Governor-General Coen willingly allowed de Houtman to return home, but was dismayed by what happened when the explorer made it to the Netherlands. De Houtman took the opportunity to describe his triumphs ad nauseum. He was careful enough to present his tales only to those who could be relied upon to keep the details secret: Company lords and officers, the Stadtholder, and other government officials.
Unfortunately, that was the limit of de Houtman’s discretion. To hear him speak, a listener would believe that his actions alone had been responsible for the discovery of the South-Land. And that no-one else had the wit to recognise the opportunities. To add to his misdoings, de Houtman presented a magnificent golden neck-ring to Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, and Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders and Overijssel. This neck-ring was a prize which de Houtman had collected while in the South-Land, but he had retained it rather than giving it to the Company.
De Houtman’s generous gift endeared him to the Stadtholder, but it enraged the Lords Seventeen. Combined with his ever more frequent self-promotion, it ensured that he would never be trusted by the Company again. De Houtman was denied any further commissions, and lived out the remainder of his life in Europe. While he died a rich man, he never again set foot on the South-Land.
* * *
As the years turned, despite de Houtman’s departure, and regardless of the distant battles and manoeuvring in the Gulf, the Dutch were busy shipping goods to and from their newly-discovered land. A few outbound fleets from the Netherlands were ordered to stop at Fort Nassau on their way to Batavia, conducting trade with the Atjuntja merchants. Prices had fallen after the initial novelty – no longer did the Atjuntja value steel as half the worth of gold – but any Dutch ship which stopped to trade at Fort Nassau always left with more valuable cargo than when it arrived.
Fortunately for the Dutch, the Atjuntja and the rest of the world, the long shipping times meant that most diseases were not exchanged between the two peoples. Incubation periods were mostly too short; a disease would burn its way through a ship’s crew either before it reached the South-Land, or before the departing ships made their next landfall at Batavia.
Not all diseases were contained by the ocean barrier, of course. The first venereal diseases had been left behind at Seal Point in 1620 when de Houtman’s expedition visited there. Blue-sleep was an ever-present threat to Dutch sailors when they came ashore; many of them caught the illness. Yet this was a fast-burning disease; while many sailors fell ill and some died from it, it ran through a ship’s crew before they reached the Indies.
The greatest threat awaiting the Dutch in the South-Land was the malady called the Waiting Death. No epidemic of Marnitja had swept through the Atjuntja lands in the last decade before the Dutch arrival, so they were safe, for now.
The isolation of the seas would not last, of course. Eventually an asymptomatic carrier would make the journey, or a fast ship would carry disease to a new shore. If nothing else, some maladies would linger in blankets or textiles and bring Eurasian diseases to the South-Land, or Aururian diseases to the Old World, but that time was not yet.
* * *
While the Company officers were glad of the profitable trade they had found at Fort Nassau, they were eager to discover more. The first visit to the White City had told them that the Islanders lived far to the east, but not the details of how to travel there.
So a few of their officers did some exploration by land along the Atjuntja road network. That was tolerated, up to a point, provided that they did not attempt to trade. Yet they were always watched, and discouraged most strongly from coming by land to the White City or any other place where they might encounter Islander traders. The King of Kings did not wish his two trading partners to contact each other directly, realising full well the problems that this would bring for the carefully controlled Atjuntja internal trade and tribute networks.
Thus, the Dutch land explorations gave them some grasp of the geography of the Atjuntja dominions, but did not let them explore any further trade. Some inland regions were also expressly off limits, such as the vicinity of Star Hill or the main gold mines at Golden Blood. To build new trade networks, they would have to venture along the seas.
In 1622, Governor-General Coen ordered the first voyage be sent to explore past the Atjuntja dominions in pursuit of new trade markets. Pieter Dirkzoon was named captain of the Leeuwin, with the yacht Nijptang accompanying, and given orders to explore the southern coast of the South-Land. He was instructed to explore east past the White City, in the hope of reaching the Islander homeland and determining whether it was worthwhile establishing direct trade with this barely-known people.
Mindful of the Atjuntja watchfulness, Dirkzoon led his two ships from Batavia to Fort Nassau, where they resupplied before steering well south of Cape Hasewint [Cape Leeuwin]. His ships stayed out at sea until they had passed what they judged to be the easternmost Atjuntja dominion, Red Eye, then turned north.
As it happened, Dirkzoon was correct in his navigation, and he brought his ships close to the shore at what were no longer Ajuntja lands.
Unfortunately, these lands were uninhabited for good reason. The endless westerly winds gave the Dutch ships great speed, but the coast they faced was the bleakest that any of them had ever seen or heard of. This barren stretch of coast consisted of seemingly-endless sea cliffs, imposing bulwarks of stone which reached 300 feet high or more, stretching from horizon to everlasting horizon. Above the cliff-tops was nothing at all but featureless emptiness; no trees, no rivers emptying, nothing but hundreds of miles of unwelcoming hostility.
The coast was ever-intimidating, never approachable. Besides the fierce winds pushing them against the cliffs, the seas themselves were a threat. Immense wind-driven swells broke endlessly upon the sea-cliffs, slowly eroding their bases, with force that would shatter even the largest ship to driftwood and splinters in an instant.
In an unusual display of originality, since new lands were normally named after high-ranking Company officers, Dirkzoon christened this endless barrenness as Kust van de Nachtmerrie [Nightmare Coast].
With such an unwelcoming and dangerous coast, Dirkzoon could not keep his ships constantly in sight of the shoreline. To do so risked disaster, since a gust of wind or more than usually potent set of swells would destroy his ships in a heartbeat. Thus, while he maintained enough sightings of the cliffs to know that they continued, he missed the one small break in the cliffs which marked a lonely Islander settlement that the locals so aptly christened in their own language as Isolation.
Dirkzoon kept on, doggedly persistent, until his expedition reached a point where the sea cliffs turned to the south-east. This was the worst possible direction, since it would force the ships ever further away from Batavia. His orders had anticipated sailing around the South-Land and back up to tropical latitudes, where he could return to Batavia in relative safety.
Alas, he now faced seemingly endless sea-cliffs stretching away in the wrong direction. For all Dirkzoon knew, the bleakly featureless cliffs stretched all the way to the South Pole. While he knew that the Islanders lived here somewhere, he did not know how far, or how friendly they would be. With dwindling supplies, hostile seas, and the prospect of a very slow voyage back west against the wind, he was minded to turn back.
Decision time came when the two ships reached a couple of small islands off the coast. The seas calmed enough to allow a few boats to venture ashore and confirm that these islands were uninhabited. The sailors replenished their supplies of fresh water from the islands, but otherwise found that these isolated rocky outposts had nothing to commend them.
While Dirkzoon’s ships lingered at these two islands, a rare shift in the wind saw the breeze come from the east. This fortunate change was enough to convince Dirkzoon to turn back; he might not get another such opportunity. So he ended his exploration and brought his two ships back to Batavia, where he provided them with charts and descriptions of bleakness, but not the new trading markets which Coen had sought [4].
* * *
With the failure of Dirkzoon’s 1622 expedition, Coen and the VOC decided to focus other priorities, rather than further exploration. War had broken out with Spain-Portugal in 1621. The Company concentrated its efforts on protecting its Far Eastern holdings and seizing other places of known value, rather than diverting valuable ships for another costly, challenging, and probably fruitless expedition. Instead, in accordance with their treaty, they built a second trading post near the Atjuntja garrison-city of Seal Point, which they called Fort Zeelandia. Being nearer to the salt-harvesting regions, this new outpost saw greater trading in salt, but otherwise its goods were similar to Fort Nassau.
Coen knew that the South-Land contained other nations and markets. However, he had also learned that gold and sandalwood, the most valuable goods of the South-Land, were what the Islanders came to Atjuntja lands to trade for. They would not find these goods if they ventured further east. The only known trade goods from further east were kunduri and gum cider. Gum cider was of little value to the Company. Kunduri was spoiled in Coen’s eyes for another reason: when he had first tried smoking it, he had inhaled so much of the stronger substance that it had caused him to vomit. He had refused to try kunduri again, and decided that it was worthless. While some other Company officers had sampled the drug and now savoured it, Coen was too stubborn to change his mind.
Thus, over the next four years, Coen ordered that Company ships focus on the known rewards of gold, sandalwood and sweet peppers [5]. This provided valuable capital for supporting Company activities elsewhere in the Orient, particularly for building new ships and recruiting mercenaries for garrisons and raids. The wealth of Asia beckoned; Coen hoped to monopolise shipping between the nations. The commodities of the South-Land were merely building blocks in the corporate edifice he wanted to construct.
The Company only decided to change its policy when it received direct word from the Islanders. In late 1625, a Nangu trading captain named Yuma Tjula discreetly arranged for some Djarwari labourers returning to their homeland to pass on an invitation to the commander of Fort Nassau. This gave the Dutch enough of a description of the southern coast of the South-Land to know how to sail to Islander-held territory.
With this inspiration, the Lords Seventeen commissioned a new expedition of discovery. They sent three ships, under the command of François Thijssen in the Valk, to make contact with the Islanders. Unlike his predecessor, Thijssen was given explicit orders to explore further east, to find a way around the expected edge of the South-Land and return to Batavia by a more northerly route.
So, in 1626 and 1627, François Thijssen commanded an expedition which some would later claim to make him the greatest European explorer of Aururia. Even those who did not give him that rank placed him a close second behind Frederik de Houtman.
Thijssen did not visit set out from Fort Nassau as his predecessor had done, by came directly from Europe via Mauritius. Knowing that the winds were more reliable in higher latitudes, he sailed well south of Cape Hasewint, and did not turn north until he judged he had neared the longitude where Dirkzoon had turned back.
Thijssen had, in fact, gone further east than he intended, and by the time he sailed north he made landfall near the tip of what would come to be called Valk Land [Eyre Peninsula, South Australia]. He followed the coast until he reached the Mutjing city of Pankala, where he and his sailors were the first Europeans to contact a Gunnagalic people in their own land.
From here, Thijssen charted some of the coast, then crossed over to the Island, where he spent a few days at Crescent Bay before sailing on to Jugara on the mainland. Here, among many other accomplishments, he became the first Dutchman to visit the kingdom of Tjibarr, and the first to trade for a significant quantity of kunduri [6].
Due to warnings from both Tjibarr and the Islanders, he avoided any efforts to contact the Yadji. Instead, he sailed further south, where he explored much of the south and east coasts of an island which would later be named for him, although he called it New Holland [Tasmania]. Here, he became the first European to contact the Kurnawal, and the first to be utterly confused by attempts to translate their allusion-laden poetry.
In keeping with his orders, Thijssen sailed further east across a great expanse of sea, until he made landfall on the western coast of the southern island of Aotearoa [New Zealand]. The local Maori king ordered his sailors to depart or be killed, saying that they had no interest in visitors. Thijssen decided that combat was pointless, and withdrew. He sailed up the western coast of Aotearoa, meeting with similar hostility and sometimes violence whenever he made contact with the Maori kingdoms. So he confined himself to mapping the western coast of the two islands (although he believed they were a single island), and sailed north into the Pacific.
Thijssen’s expedition went much further north, visiting Tonga before turning west, sailing north of New Guinea, and returning to Batavia in November 1627. Here, he had a wealth of tales which he planned to tell.
Unfortunately, the world had changed by then.
* * *
“Sire, Your Majesty finds yourself in a situation in which no part of your dominions is not under attack from your enemies, in league and conspiracy so extensive that one can without any exaggeration say that the whole of the rest of the world is turned against Your Majesty alone, in Asia, Africa and Europe.”
- Gaspar de Guzman, Count-Duke of Olivares to Philip IV of Spain (and Philip III of Portugal), 26 July 1625
* * *
[1] Strictly speaking, these Portuguese visitors would have been considered Spanish; those two countries had had a unified crown since 1580. Most of the trade in the East Indies was conducted by the Portuguese, though. At this point, Spain-Portugal and the Netherlands had a truce, and there was still some contact between traders on both sides. (The truce was due to expire in March 1621).
[2] The similar historical attack which happened a couple of weeks earlier was also successful, but one of the (few) casualties was the notable English explorer William Baffin. Baffin had made his name exploring the artic regions of North America, going further north than any before him while searching unsuccessfully for a passage to India. He had recently joined the East India Trading Company, and was present for the assault on Kishm, where he met an untimely end. With the allohistorical delay to the attack, Baffin survives.
[3] This is essentially the same outcome as happened historically, although the historical date for the fall of Hormuz was 22 April 1622.
[4] The progress of Pieter Dirkzoon’s exploration is similar to that of the historical exploration of Francois Thijssen in the ship Gulden Zeepaerdt in 1627; he charted much of the southern coast of Australia but turned back when the coast started to stretch to the south-east. The islands which Dirkzoon discovered are in historical Australia still called the Nuyts Archipelago, which Thijssen named after a high-ranking passenger on his ship.
[5] Sweet peppers are what the Dutch call the various pepperbushes that the Atjuntja cultivate (Tasmannia spp, especially T. lanceolata). The berries of these plants are initially sweet, but with an intense peppery aftertaste. Per weight, they have about ten times the spiciness of common peppers, and they are developing into a profitable spice which the VOC exports to Europe.
[6] Some influential (or, perhaps, influenced) historians would argue that his establishment of trade in kunduri was more important than his contact with Tjibarr.
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Thoughts?