Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [183]
“. . . reports sent to the Netherlands” Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, pp. 53–7. Pelsaert’s genuine interest in the local people was exceptionally unusual. As one historian notes, “The average man going to the Indies had no training and no knowledge of foreign languages. What he knew of Asia before leaving Amsterdam was very little, usually based on hearsay—or he knew nothing at all. His contract with the VOC obliged him to serve in the East for some years only . . . his expectations were limited to the issue of money-making during a temporary sojourn abroad. Both this and his socio-educational background would make it extremely unlikely for him ever to get in touch with his Asian environment and to develop an interest in the cultural specifics of Asia.” Peter Kirsch, “VOC—Trade Without Ethics?” in Karl Sprengard and Roderich Ptak (eds.), Maritime Asia: Profit Maximisation, Ethics and Trade Structure c. 1300–1800 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1994), p. 198.
Eurasian couples in the east and infant mortality L. Blussé, “The Caryatids of Batavia: Reproduction, Religion and Acculturation Under the VOC,” Itinerario 7 (1983): 57, 65; Jean Gelman Taylor, The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), pp. 8, 12, 14–6.
“. . . dalliances with slaves . . .” Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, pp. 19–21, 24, 31; Ratelband op. cit., pp. 91–2; Coolhaas, op. cit., p. 5.
The oil of cloves incident Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, pp. 32–3; for the properties and uses of oil of cloves, see M. Boucher, “The Cape Passage: Some Observations on Health Hazards Aboard Dutch East Indiamen Outward-bound,” Historia 26 (1981): 35.
“There are no Ten Commandments south of the equator” Cited in Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, p. 205.
Private trade “The result was that everyone from Governor-General to cabin boy traded on the side, and everyone else knew it,” Boxer says. “[The men’s] superiors in the East normally had no inclination to give their subordinates away, as they themselves were almost invariably deeply implicated.” Ibid., pp. 201–2. The English East India Company, despite an ostensibly more liberal system (from 1674, employees were allowed to ship as much as 5 percent of the chartered tonnage on their own account), in fact fared little better; see Keay, op. cit., pp. 34–5, Ralph Davies, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p. 147.
“There was no esprit de corps . . .” Kirsch, op. cit., p. 199.
Huybert Visnich Ibid., p. 200.
Pelsaert as a money lender He avoided detection simply by adding the interest he was owed to the price of the indigo he purchased, thus leaving no trace of his activities in the factory’s accounts. Without detailed knowledge of local market conditions, neither the Gentlemen XVII nor Pelsaert’s superiors at the VOC factory in Surat were in any position to question the prices he paid. Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften, pp. 33–4.
The Amsterdam one-way system Geoffrey Cotterell, Amsterdam: The Life of a City (Farnborough: DC Heath, 1973), p. 86.
Cornelisz’s selection procedure Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, p. 51; Kirsch, op. cit., pp. 198–9; Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 147. “To be ranked as an assistant, merchant or upper-merchant did not mean very much,” Kirsch observes. “Whatever the rank, it had little or nothing to do with abilities or morals. It was a label only, won by practical experience of acting as a profit-maximiser.”
Adriaan Block He lived from 1581/2 until 1661 and was the brother-in-law of Isaac Massa (1586–1643), another wealthy merchant who built a fortune trading with Russia and who belonged to Thibault’s Fencing club. Govert Snoek, De Rosenkruizers in Nederland, Voornamelijk