Causes of the Golden Age[edit]
In 1568, the Seven Provinces that later signed the Union of Utrecht (Dutch: Unie van Utrecht) started a rebellion against Philip II of Spain that led to the Eighty Years’ War. Before the Low Countries could be completely reconquered, a war between England and Spain, the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585-1604, broke out, forcing Spanish troops to halt their advances and leaving them in control of the important trading cities of Bruges and Ghent, but without control of Antwerp, which was then arguably the most important port in the world. Antwerp fell on August 17, 1585 after a siege, and the division between the Northern and Southern Netherlands (the latter mostly modernBelgium) was established.
The United Provinces (roughly today’s Netherlands) fought on until the Twelve Years’ Truce, which did not end the hostilities. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years’ War, brought the Dutch Republic formal recognition and independence from the Spanish crown.
Migration of skilled workers to Netherlands[edit]
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Fishing for Souls (Zielenvisserij), 1614, a satirical allegory of Protestant-Catholic struggles for souls during the Dutch Revolt(Rijksmuseum)
Under the terms of the surrender of Antwerp in 1585, the Protestant population (if unwilling to reconvert) were given four years to settle their affairs before leaving the city and Habsburg territory.[2] Similar arrangements were made in other places. Protestants were especially well-represented among the skilled craftsmen and rich merchants of the port cities of Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp. More moved to the north between 1585 and 1630 than Catholics moved in the other direction, although there were also many of these. Many of those moving north settled inAmsterdam, transforming what was a small port into one of the most important ports and commercial centres in the world by 1630.
In addition to the mass migration of natives from the Southern Netherlands, there were also significant influxes of non-native refugees who had previously fled from religious persecution, particularly Sephardi Jews from Portugal and Spain, and later Huguenots from France. The Pilgrim Fathers also spent time there before their voyage to the New World.
Cheap energy sources[edit]
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Several other factors also contributed to the flowering of trade, industry, the arts and the sciences in the Netherlands during this period. A necessary condition was a supply of cheap energy from windmills and from peat, easily transported by canal to the cities. The invention[3] of thesawmillenabled the construction of a massive fleet of ships for worldwide trading and for military defense of the republic’s economic interests.
Birth and wealth of corporate finance[edit]
In the 17th century the Dutch — traditionally able seafarers and keen mapmakers — began to trade with the Far East and as the century wore on, they gained an increasingly dominant position in world trade, a position previously occupied by the Portuguese and Spanish.[4]
In 1602 the Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) was founded. It was the first-ever multinational corporation, financed by shares that established the first modern stock exchange. This company received a Dutch monopoly on Asian trade and would keep this for two centuries. It became the world’s largest commercial enterprise of the 17th century. Spices were imported in bulk and brought huge profits, due to the efforts and risks involved and seemingly insatiable demand. To finance the growing trade within the region, theBank of Amsterdam was established in 1609, the precursor to, if not the first true central bank.[5]
Monopoly on trade with Japan[edit]
Amsterdam’s dominant position as a trade centre was strengthened in 1640 with a monopoly for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) for trade with Japan through its trading post on Dejima, an island in the bay ofNagasaki. From here the Dutch traded between China and Japan and paidtribute to the Shogun. Until 1854, the Dutch were Japan’s sole window to the western world. The collection of scientific learning introduced from Europe became known in Japan as Rangaku or Dutch Learning. The Dutch were instrumental in transmitting to Japan some knowledge of the industrial and scientific revolution then occurring in Europe. The Japanese purchased and translated numerous scientific books from the Dutch, obtained from them Western curiosities and manufactures (such as clocks) and received demonstrations of various Western innovations (such as electric phenomena, and the flight of a hot air balloon in the early 19th century). In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch were arguably the most economically wealthy and scientifically advanced of all European nations, which put them in a privileged position to transfer Western knowledge to Japan.
European Great Power[edit]
The Trip brothers, arms traders, built theTrippenhuis in Amsterdam, currently the seat of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, which is a typical example of 17th-century architecture.
The Dutch also dominated trade between European countries. The Low Countries were favorably positioned at a crossing of east-west and north-south trade routes, and connected to a large German hinterland through the Rhine river. Dutch traders shipped wine from France and Portugal to the Baltic lands and returned with grain for countries around the Mediterranean Sea. By the 1680s, an average of nearly 1000 Dutch ships entered the Baltic Sea each year,[6] to trade with markets of the fadingHanseatic League. The Dutch were able to gain control of much of the trade with the nascent English colonies in North America; and after the end of war with Spain in 1648, Dutch trade with that country also flourished.
Other industries[edit]
National industries expanded as well. Shipyards and sugar refineries are prime examples. As more and more land was utilized, partially through transforming lakes intopolders such as the Beemster, Schermer and Purmer, local grain production and dairy farming soared.
National consciousness[edit]
The outcome of the revolt against Spain, better known as the Eighty Years’ War, that had been fought over religious freedom and economic and political independence, and ended in total independence of the reformist northern provinces (see also Dutch Republic), almost certainly would have boosted national morale. Already in 1609 much of this was accomplished, when a temporary truce was signed with Spain, which would last for 12 years.
Social structure[edit]
In the Netherlands in the 17th century, social status was largely determined by income. The landed nobility had relatively little importance, since they mostly lived in the more underdeveloped inland provinces, and it was the urban merchant class that dominated Dutch society. The clergy did not have much worldly influence either: theRoman Catholic Church had been more or less suppressed since the onset of the Eighty Years’ War withSpain. The new Protestant movement was divided, although exercising social control in many areas to an even greater extent than under the Catholic Church.
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