Factorij

Properties2
tagsconcept, dutch, colonial, voc, atjeh, banda, trade, precolonial, 17th-century, institution
aliasesFactory (trading post), Factorij (Dutch), Loge (Dutch factory), Handelskantoor, Lodge, Factorij at Atjeh, logie, loge, lodge, factory, factorij, factorijen, Compagnie's lodge, Nederlandsche loge, handelsloge

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Factorij — the Dutch factory or trading post, the principal commercial institution of the early Dutch East India trade — was the physical establishment (a lodge, house, or fortified compound) where the Dutch factors (factoren) lived, stored their merchandise, and conducted their trade with the local population, under the protection of the local ruler or — increasingly after 1609 — of a Dutch fort. The factorij was the principal Dutch commercial institution at Atjeh (the lodge “Zeelant” of 1601-1602) and at Banda (the factories at Lontor and Neira from 1599 onward), and the institutional foundation of the VOC’s commercial network in the East Indies. The factorij is the principal named Dutch commercial institution of Van der Woude’s Van der Woude (1948).

The lodge “Zeelant” at Atjeh

The first Dutch factorij on Achehnese soil was the lodge “Zeelant”, established by the Zeeland Company’s mission of August 1601 under the terms of the sultan’s permission. The Zeelanders obtained leave to settle two commiezen and three assistants on shore at the lodge, which they stocked with money and merchandise. The lodge was the first Dutch factory on Achehnese soil and the prototype of the system of factories that the VOC would establish across the archipelago after 1602. The lodge “Zeelant” survived only a few weeks: on 13 January 1602 a great fire broke out in Atjeh, destroying some 200 houses; the Zeeland lodge burned down with the rest, though with little loss of goods. The VOC did not rebuild the lodge, preferring to operate at Atjeh through visiting fleets rather than a permanent factory.

The Banda factories

The Dutch factories at Banda — at Lontor and Neira from 1599 onward — were the principal Dutch commercial establishments in the spice islands in the pre-VOC period. Jacob van Heemskerck left two factors and eighteen men at Lontor and Neira in March 1599 with a cargo worth over ƒ 38,000 in money and goods. The factories survived in good order through the 1600-1602 period, despite the Portuguese-inspired attempt by the prince of Toeban on Java to abduct the Dutch factors in April 1600. The factories’ destruction in the Verhoeff affair of May 1609 and the subsequent construction of Fort Nassau marked the transition from factory to fort — the institutional transition from commercial establishment to military-administrative compound that would define the VOC’s conduct at Banda and elsewhere after 1609.

The factor and the fort

The factorij was the principal commercial institution of the early Dutch East India trade, but its institutional character changed over time. In the pre-VOC period, the factorij was a lodge or house, dependent on the local ruler’s protection and operating without fortification. In the early VOC period — particularly after the Verhoeff affair of 1609 — the factorij was increasingly fortified, and the factor’s role shifted from commercial to military-administrative. The Coen programme of monopoly-by-force, articulated in the Discours of 1 January 1614, completed the transition: the factorij became the fort, and the factor became the governor.

Significance

The factorij is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the principal Dutch commercial institution of the early Dutch-Indies trade and the institutional foundation of the VOC’s commercial network in the East Indies. The lodge “Zeelant” at Atjeh — established by the Zeeland mission of August 1601 — was the first Dutch factory on Achehnese soil and the prototype of the system of factories that the VOC would establish across the archipelago. The Banda factories at Lontor and Neira — from 1599 onward — were the principal Dutch commercial establishments in the spice islands in the pre-VOC period, and their destruction in the Verhoeff affair of May 1609 marked the institutional transition from factory to fort that would define the VOC’s conduct after 1609. The Coen programme of monopoly-by-force, articulated in the Discours of 1 January 1614, completed the transition: the factorij became the fort, and the factor became the governor. The factorij’s role in the Dutch-Atjeh relationship — as the lodge “Zeelant” of 1601-1602 — was both foundational and brief: the first Dutch commercial establishment on Achehnese soil, and the prototype that the VOC chose not to replicate.

Account from Stapel’s De Koloniën (1931)

Loge (plural loges; also logie, handelsloge) was the standard Compagnie term for a commercial lodge or factory — the resident trading establishment that constituted the basic institutional unit of Compagnie presence at any native port. In Dr. F. W. Stapel’s Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland the loge is the building block of the Westkust system: every pepper port of significance had its loge, and the history of the Westkust is in large part the history of the establishment, withdrawal, restoration and fortification of loges.

The loge as institution

A Compagnie loge was a resident trading house, typically manned by a small European staff (an opperhoofd, or chief, with assistants and servants) and equipped with warehouse space for the storage of pepper, camphor, gold and other commodities. The loge was the institutional counterpart of the native ruler’s court: it was the place where the Compagnie’s commercial business was transacted, and the place from which the Compagnie’s diplomatic relations with the native ruler were conducted.

The loge was distinct from the factorij (a more limited commercial establishment) and from the fort or sterkte (a fortified military post). In practice the distinctions were often blurred: a loge could be fortified (as at Perak after 1655, where the Compagnie was permitted to “rebuild a factory (kantoor) and warehouse”), and a fort could host a loge within its walls (as at Poeloe Tjingkoek from 1666).

The Westkust loges

The principal Westkust loges in the Painansch Contract era were:

  • The loge at Atjeh itself — established briefly in 1601, withdrawn, restored, withdrawn again in 1623, restored by the 1659 peace, withdrawn in 1663.
  • The loge at Tikoe — one of the four pepper ports of the 1641 Schouten treaty; one of the four definitive factories established by Cau in 1664–1665.
  • The loge at Priaman — one of the four pepper ports; one of the four definitive factories; re-fortified in 1684.
  • The loge at Padang — one of the four pepper ports; one of the four definitive factories; the head office (hoofdkantoor) of the Westkust from 1664–1665.
  • The loge at Indrapoera — one of the four pepper ports; “for the present no longer deemed necessary” (voorloopig niet meer noodig geacht) in 1665, but re-established at various points in the eighteenth century.
  • The loge at Salido / Poeloe Tjingkoek — one of the four definitive factories; the centre of the southern Westkust gold-mining complex.
  • The loge at Perak — established under the 1650 treaty; overrun in 1651; restored under the 1655 peace; withdrawn in 1663 in favour of shipboard trade.
  • The loge at Baros — restored in 1730 after long abandonment.

The loge at Atjeh

The history of the Compagnie’s loge at Atjeh is a case study in the institution’s fragility. Stapel records that “the in 1616 lifted factory on Atjeh was restored in 1620, but was again lifted in 1623; thenceforth only a single assistant of the Compagnie remained resident on Atjeh” (De in 1616 gelichte factorij op Atjeh was in 1620 hersteld, maar werd in 1623 andermaal opgeheven; sedert bleef slechts één assistent van de Compagnie op Atjeh gevestigd). The 1659 peace restored the right to re-establish a loge at Atjeh, but the 1663 Compagnie withdrawal of its Atjeh and Perak factories ended the permanent presence.

The fortified loge

In some cases the loge was fortified with a pagger (a bamboo palisade) or with more substantial works. The 1643 treaty with Djambi permitted the Compagnie “to surround its loge with a fortified pagger” (omringen door een versterkten pagger). The 1641–1642 Palembang treaties permitted the Compagnie “to build a fortified loge and to place there eight pieces of gun” (een versterkte loge te bouwen en daar acht stukken geschut te plaatsen). The 1666 fort on Poeloe Tjingkoek and the 1684 fort at Priaman are the most substantial Westkust fortifications, but the principle of fortifying the loge is general.

Significance

The loge is the building block of the Westkust system. Every Westkust treaty — the 1641 Schouten treaty, the 1649 Truytman treaties, the 1659 peace, the 1663 Painansch Contract, the 1680 Padang Conference — is in some sense a treaty about loges: where they may be established, what goods they may trade, what fortifications they may have, what native rights they must respect. The history of the Westkust is the history of the establishment, withdrawal, restoration and fortification of loges, and the Painansch Contract system is, in institutional terms, a network of loges bound by a common treaty form.

See Also

Sources

Coen, Koopman van Heeren Zeventien. Geschiedenis van den Hollandshen Handel in Indië (1598-1614), by Johan van der Woude (Amsterdam: C.V. Uitgeverij v/h C. De Boer Jr., 1948), Hoofdstukken V, X (pp. 108-119, 296-318).

De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, passim (tekst bij de bladen 2, 3, 4 en 5).

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