A truth universally acknowledged: Dutch investment in French colonial resources in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on Dutch investments in the French colonial empire in the eighteenth century. During this period, the French empire was encapsulated by a strict framework of protectionist legislation (the Exclusif), aiming to reduce foreign interference in and dependence on foreign resources to operationalize the empire. In spite of this, business entities in the Dutch Republic were able to actively participate in the French colonial economy. For example, French colonial products such as sugar and coffee were continuously imported to the Dutch Republic on a large scale. Furthermore, Dutch-supplied credit played an important role in the financial circuits of the French empire. The dissertation analyzes the commercial, political and social strategies that effectuated these investments: how and why would one invest in areas which are legally and physically off-limits? It reconstructs the legal as well as the illicit ways in which these transnational colonial investments were realized. On a broader scale, these prominent investments in the ‘empire of another’ (in this case France) prove that the Dutch involvement in the colonial past goes beyond the Dutch colonies alone.