Historical story

Dutch smuggling between 1600 and 1800 had a major impact on the economy and institutions and was quite common

Smuggling used to be the most normal thing in the world, also in the Netherlands. Recent figures show that it often involved a fifth – or even more – of trade. This had quite an impact on the economy, yet historians often do not take this "unofficial trade" into account. Time for a closer look…

Until the nineteenth century, smuggling was not really difficult. It also occurred in all walks of life. Captains, craftsmen, rich people, men and women:almost everyone who could earn extra money from illegal trade did so. Smugglers even claimed their goods back when caught, which says something about the mentality of the time. Only later, with the formation of nations and patriotic pride, did we come to see smuggling as an outrage against the homeland.

This is one of the conclusions of recent research into smuggling. Karwan Fatah-Black, historian at Leiden University, and other authors have listed recent research results on the Dutch smuggling trade between 1600 and 1800. They show, among other things, how smuggling was interwoven in all layers of the population and how the 'underworld' and 'upper world' intertwined. It is therefore necessary to look beyond the official figures of that time in historical research into trade.

Paper Customs

An example. Research into shipping disasters by Matthias van Rossum and Jan Lucassen shows that there was significantly more silver on board than was loaded according to the papers, as much as ten to twenty percent. And not only in the hold, the lower personnel also had a bit of silver with them to trade, although that was forbidden. Silver served as a means of payment and went all over the world. But that was not the only contraband, in fact everything you can think of was smuggled.

Fatah:“Ships had to pay levies on their cargo. A customs officer came on board to discuss what products were on board and how many. This sometimes happened while enjoying a drink. Not every product was subject to the same rate and a total sum was calculated for the entire load. As you can understand, this system was quite prone to fraud and private deals were made in order to pay less taxes. Or the officer was misled because highly rated products were packaged as products with a lower rate.”

Trade embargoes failed

Smuggling was common and sometimes a blind eye was turned with the permission of the city council. A tolerant port strengthened its position among competitors. That was worth the lost tax. In addition, it was difficult to combat smuggling. There are countless examples in history of trade embargoes that failed because smuggling took over. Napoleon, for example, instituted the continental system in 1806:to disrupt the English economy, no one was allowed to trade with the country anymore. He got into a big fight with his brother Lodewijk, the king of the Netherlands, because there was plenty of smuggling with the English here.

Recent research by Van den Tol shows that the Spanish embargo was ineffective during the Revolt (1568-1648). There were plenty of opportunities to circumvent the embargo using smuggling. For example, ships sailed under false flags to ports where they were not actually allowed to enter, or traders used an intermediary from a neutral country. Fatah:"The theory that the Spanish trade embargo has caused a crisis in the Netherlands can now be thrown into the trash."

Luxury within reach

Smuggling was not something that only shippers or merchants did. The passengers also participated. Women smuggled lace, painters smuggled paintings and rich pleasure yachts smuggled wine. In Amsterdam, for example, ships were no longer allowed to be checked once they had passed a certain point in the harbor. Fatah:“Anne Wegener Schleswijk found out that rich people smuggled wine with their pleasure yacht. They supposedly took a trip, but as soon as the inspectors ignored them, smugglers quickly loaded the wine into the boat and sailed into the harbor.” And inside was the loot.

That smuggling was serious business is apparent from its size:twenty to thirty percent of many trade flows remained off the books, and sometimes more. This contraband pushed prices down, so that more luxurious products were also within reach of the less wealthy, which again boosted demand.

Despite the fact that tolerant ports were popular with smugglers, governments did take action against smuggling. The levies on merchandise formed a large part of the finances. The right to levy tolls and check shiploads has therefore been fought over the centuries, literally and figuratively.

For example, shipping via the Sound seems to have taken off enormously after 1618. However, this was the result of stricter controls from that year on, which resulted in more taxes on goods entering the books.

An important conclusion from the recent investigations, according to Fatah:“We think smuggling was far from marginal, but that's not to say that governments were weak. It seems that institutions were closely intertwined with, and shaped by, the interests associated with smuggling. For future research it is all the more important to look at the world of smuggling, cheating, fraud, lobbying and evasion.”

This week, the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences announced that Karwan Fatah-Black won the Heineken Young Scientists Award for Historical Science 2016. This is because of his research into formal and informal transatlantic trade in the Netherlands in the Golden Age, in particular the slave trade. For example, Fatah contributed to calculations of the profits made by the Dutch from transporting and trading African slaves, with higher results than before. He looked further than just the official figures of the West India Company. After all, there was still an extensive network of 'informal trade' around that Company.