The Staten-Generaal — the States General of the United Provinces, the federal parliament of the Dutch Republic from 1588 to 1795 — was the sovereign political authority that chartered the VOC on 20 March 1602, defined the Company’s quasi-sovereign powers (fortification, war, treaty-making), received the Atjeh embassy of 1601 on behalf of the United Provinces, and adjudicated disputes between the Heeren Zeventien that the body could not resolve. The Staten-Generaal is the principal Dutch political institution of Van der Woude’s Van der Woude (1948).
The chartering of the VOC (1602)
The Staten-Generaal chartered the VOC on 20 March 1602 by the octrooi printed by Van der Woude as Bijlage I. The charter granted the Company a monopoly of Dutch trade east of the Cape of Good Hope and through the Strait of Magellan for twenty-one years, with the right to build fortifications, to maintain armed forces, to conclude treaties with native rulers, and to wage war in the name of the States-General. The charter’s most consequential clause was the reservation of a supervisory role for the Staten-Generaal: in cases where the Heeren Zeventien could not agree, the dispute was to be referred to the States-General for decision. The charter’s plakkaat defining the functions of the Governor-General and the Raad van Indië observed that the appointment was made “voor den welstand der voorsz. Vereenigde Nederlanden, verzekering en goede regering van de landen, forteressen en plaatsen, die Wij en de Onzen in de Oost-Indien houden en bezitten”.
The Atjeh embassy (1601)
The Atjeh embassy of 1601 — dispatched by the sultan of Atjeh in response to the Zeeland mission of August 1601 — was received in the Netherlands on behalf of the United Provinces. Van der Woude, citing Huigh de Groot, notes that the Achehnese envoys “zonder twijfel den indruk gekregen [hadden] dat de vriendschap der Hollanders hun meer zekerheid bood dan de slavernij der Portugeezen”. The embassy’s reception — at the siege of Grave by Prince Maurits in the field, with a spiegelgevecht staged in its honour — was the principal Dutch instance of the early-modern practice of receiving non-European envoys in the field. The embassy produced a treaty of friendship and commerce between the sultan and the United Provinces that the VOC would inherit in 1602.
The Twelve Years’ Truce (1609)
The Twelve Years’ Truce of 9 April 1609 was the principal diplomatic achievement of the Staten-Generaal in the early VOC period. The truce negotiations of 1608-1609 turned on the colonial clause: whether the truce would apply to the East Indies, and whether the Dutch would be free to trade there. The compromise formula — free trade in the regions where it had been carried on, restricted to the king’s European dominions and to those places where his allies’ subjects had traffic by mutual consent — was ambiguous. The French and English ambassadors explicitly declared that the East Indies were included; the Staten-Generaal accepted the declaration. The truce was the proximate cause of the political conflict between Oldenbarneveldt (who accepted the truce) and Prince Maurits (who opposed it) that would lead to Oldenbarneveldt’s execution in 1619.
The supervisory role
The Staten-Generaal’s supervisory role over the VOC was the principal institutional framework within which the Dutch-Indies trade would unfold. The charter’s reservation of a dispute-adjudication role for the Staten-Generaal — in cases where the Heeren Zeventien could not agree — was the principal instance of the state’s residual sovereignty over the Company, and the framework within which the strategic arguments of Matelieff’s Discours of 12 November 1608 (that “de Staten Generaal moeten de leiding op zich nemen”) and Coen’s Discours of 1 January 1614 (that “Indië onafhankelijk van Holland” must be) would unfold.
Significance
The Staten-Generaal is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the principal Dutch political institution of the early VOC period and the sovereign political authority that chartered the Company and defined its quasi-sovereign powers. The charter of 20 March 20 March 1602 — with its grant of fortification, war, and treaty-making powers, and its reservation of a dispute-adjudication role for the Staten-Generaal — was the legal foundation of the Coen programme of monopoly-by-force. The reception of the Atjeh embassy of 1601 on behalf of the United Provinces established the diplomatic framework within which the Dutch-Achehnese relationship would unfold, and the Twelve Years’ Truce of 1609 was the principal diplomatic achievement of the Staten-Generaal in the early VOC period. The Staten-Generaal’s supervisory role over the VOC — and the strategic arguments of Matelieff and Coen for greater state involvement — would frame the institutional development of the VOC for the next two centuries.
Account from Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis (1955)
The following account is drawn from the parliamentary history of the Dutch Second Chamber as narrated by Vermeulen in the colonial section of the 1955 fourth revised edition of Rengers’s *Schets*.
The Staten-Generaal — the States-General of the Netherlands — was, in the source’s narrative, the parliamentary body that, in 1880, chose the concentration option for Atjeh from the three possibilities offered by a newly-appointed civil governor: (i) concentration behind a fortified line; (ii) new aggression; or (iii) restoration of the sultanate. Although the governor himself “het eerste ten sterkste ontried” (most strongly advised against the first), the States-General chose concentration.
The 1880 concentration decision
The source records that a newly-appointed civil governor — the source does not name him — submitted an advice to the government offering three options: “concentratie achter een versterkte linie, nieuwe agressie en herstel van het sultanaat” (concentration behind a fortified line, new aggression, and restoration of the sultanate). Although the governor himself “het eerste ten sterkste ontried” (most strongly advised against the first), the States-General chose concentration: “viel de keus van de Staten-Generaal op de concentratie” (the choice of the States-General fell on concentration).
The concentratie-stelsel
The States-General’s 1880 concentration decision is the institutional act by which the concentratie-stelsel began. The source’s verdict on the decision is implicit in its narrative of the consequence: “Jaren lang zaten onze troepen in Kuta-Radja gevangen achter een kring van posten, lijdende van ziekten en geplaagd door de vijand” (For years our troops sat in Kuta-Radja imprisoned behind a ring of posts, suffering from diseases and plagued by the enemy).
Significance
The States-General is, in the source’s narrative, the parliamentary body whose 1880 concentration decision set the course of the Atjehoorlog for the next sixteen years. The decision is the type-specimen, in the source, of the institutional cost of the Dutch parliamentary preference for half-measures in Atjeh.
See Also
- Atjeh embassy to Prince Maurits (1601)
- Heeren Zeventien
- Twelve Years’ Truce (1609)
- 1602
- 1614
- Prince Maurits
- Huigh de Groot
- Jan Pieterszoon Coen
- Sultan of Atjeh (1589-1604)
- 1601
- Johan van Oldenbarneveldt
- 1609
- Acheh
- Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie
- Founding of the VOC (1602)
- Cornelis Matelieff
- 1884
- Koeta Radja
- Atjehoorlog
- 1896
- Concentratie-stelsel (1884-1896)
- 1880
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 I, II, XI and Bijlage I (pp. 7-65, 326-374).
The Staten-Generaal — the States General of the United Provinces, the federal parliament of the Dutch Republic from 1588 to 1795 — was the sovereign political authority that chartered the VOC on 20 March 1602, defined the Company’s quasi-sovereign powers (fortification, war, treaty-making), received the Atjeh embassy of 1601 on behalf of the United Provinces, and adjudicated disputes between the Heeren Zeventien that the body could not resolve. The Staten-Generaal is the principal Dutch political institution of Van der Woude’s Van der Woude (1948).
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 I, II, XI and Bijlage I (pp. 7-65, 326-374).
Nederlanders over de Zeeën: 350 Jaar geschiedenis van Nederland buitengaats, onder redactie van Dr. H. J. de Graaf, met medewerking van Prof. G. Gonggrijp, W. R. Menkman en Prof. Jhr Dr P. J. van Winter, 2e geheel herziene druk (Utrecht: W. de Haan N.V., MCMLV), p. 217.