Dutch Trade Wars

(noun)

A series of wars fought between the English (later British) and the Dutch in the 17th and 18th centuries for control over the seas and trade routes; also called the Anglo–Dutch Wars (Dutch: Engels–Nederlandse Oorlogen or Engelse Zeeoorlogen).

Related Terms

Examples of Dutch Trade Wars in the following topics:

  • Troubled Neighbors

    • The Anglo-Dutch Wars, which took place between 1652 and 1784, were fought for control over trade routes in the colonies.
    • Driven by the mercantilist ideology that shaped European colonization and attempting to gain supremacy over trade, the English waged war against the Dutch in 1664.
    • The Anglo–Dutch Wars, also known as the Dutch Trade Wars, were fought in the 17th and 18th centuries for control over the seas and trade routes.
    • The second and third Anglo-Dutch wars confirmed the Dutch Republic's position as the leading maritime state of the 17th century.
    • After the Third Anglo-Dutch War ended and the two sides made peace, they agreed to return it to the English.

  • The Mercantalist System

    • British mercantilism mainly took the form of efforts to control trade.
    • The government had to fight smuggling—which became a favorite American technique in the 18th century to circumvent the restrictions against trading with the French, Spanish, or Dutch.
    • The Navigation Acts expelled foreign merchants from England's domestic trade.
    • This image illustrates a battle fought at sea during the Anglo-Dutch Wars.
    • Control of trade routes was a primary factor leading up to the war, and England's mercantilist policies were a major factor that shaped this desire to control trade routes.

  • Navigation Acts

    • They wished to stop direct colonial trade with the Netherlands, France, and other European countries, providing protections for British shipping and trade ventures.
    • A large trade had been growing between the New England and Middle colonies and the French, Dutch, and Spanish West Indian possessions.
    • However, in the aftermath of the Eighty Years' War, Britain was desperate for income.
    • Navigation Acts lead to conflict between the British and the Dutch
    • This picture depicts a battle during the First Dutch War, 1652-1654.

  • Enforcing the Navigation Acts

    • The major impetuses for the Navigation Acts were the ruinous deterioration of English trade in the aftermath of the Seven Years' War and the opening of trade between the Spanish Empire and the Dutch Republic.
    • In some instances, British colonists and foreign merchants subverted the Act; for example in the West Indies, the Dutch kept up a flourishing "smuggling" trade due to the preference of English planters for Dutch goods and the better deal the Dutch offered in the sugar trade.
    • The Dutch colony of New Netherland also offered a loophole through intercolonial trade, as settlers in different colonies traded with each other.
    • After the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667), which ended disastrously for England, the Dutch were permitted to ship commodities produced in the German hinterland to England as if these were Dutch goods.
    • Even more importantly, England conceded to the principle of "free ship, free good" which provided freedom for Dutch ships from molestation by the British Royal Navy on the high seas, even in wars in which the Dutch Republic was neutral.

  • Empires in Conflict

    • The British and the Dutch vied over the colony of New Netherland, the British and the Spanish fought the War of Jenkins' Ear, and the British and the French fought in a series of wars that concluded in 1763 with the French and Indian War.
    • The Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652-1674) were a series of conflicts fought largely at sea over Britain's power to restrict trade to the colonies.
    • The war was largely subsumed by the War of the Austrian Succession in 1742.
    • A New & Correct Map of the Trading Part of the West Indies Including the Seat of War Between Gr.
    • This painting by Pieter Cornelisz van Soest (c. 1667) depicts a major battle (and Dutch victory) during the Second Anglo–Dutch War.

  • From New Netherland to New York

    • Seeking to enter the fur trade, the Dutch cultivated close relations with the Five Nations of the Iroquois.
    • The Dutch, through their trade of manufactured goods with the Iroquois and Algonquians, presumed they had exclusive rights to farming, hunting, and fishing in the region.
    • During the Anglo-Dutch wars of the 1650s and 1660s, the two powers attempted to gain commercial advantages in the Atlantic World.
    • During the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1664–1667), English forces gained control of the Dutch fur trading colony of New Netherland, and in 1664, Charles II gave this colony (including present-day New Jersey) to his brother James, Duke of York (later James II).
    • In 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1674), the Dutch recaptured the colony; however, at the end of the conflict, the English had regained control.

  • European Wars in the Colonies

    • The British and the Dutch vied over the colony of New Netherland, the British and the Spanish fought the War of Jenkins' Ear, and the British and the French fought in a series of wars that concluded in 1763 with the French and Indian War.
    • The Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652-1674) were a series of conflicts fought largely at sea over Britain's power to restrict trade to the colonies.
    • The war was largely subsumed by the War of the Austrian Succession in 1742.
    • The Iroquois suffered heavily in King William's War and were brought, along with other western American Indians, into the French trading network.
    • Queen Anne's War (1702–1713) was the second war for control of the continent and was the counterpart of the War of the Spanish Succession in Europe.

  • The Dutch Empire

    • After some early trading expeditions, the first Dutch settlement in the Americas was founded at Fort Nassau in 1615, near present-day Albany.
    • In 1621, a new company was established with a trading monopoly in the Americas and West Africa: the Dutch West India Company.
    • The loss of New Netherland led to the Second Anglo–Dutch War (1665–1667).
    • The Dutch government ruled Suriname until 1975.
    • New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland.

  • Freedom in New Netherland

    • During the 1650s, the colony of New Netherland experienced dramatic growth and became a major port for trade in the North Atlantic.
    • The surrender of Fort Amsterdam to England in 1664 was formalized in 1667, contributing to the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
    • Within six years the two empires were once again at war, and the Dutch recaptured New Netherland with a fleet of 21 ships, then the largest ever seen in North America.
    • In 1673, the Dutch re-took the area but the next year, finding itself financially bankrupt, the republic relinquished New Netherland under the Second Treaty of Westminster in November, 1674, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War.
    • Analyze the Anglo-Dutch wars and the transfer of New Amsterdam to the British

  • Trade and Economy

    • States were responsible for their own trade policies under the Articles of Confederation.
    • The government had to fight smuggling, especially by American merchants, some of whose activities (which included direct trade with the French, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese) were classified as such by the Navigation Acts.
    • The states and the Confederation Congress both incurred large debts during the Revolutionary War, and how to repay those debts became a major issue of debate following the War.
    • Some States paid off their war debts and others did not.
    • Federal assumption of the states' war debts became a major issue in the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention.