13 - Soldiers and Sailors in the Atlantic

Summary

European expansion in the Americas was accompanied by wars and other forms of violence. With their superior military technology — firearms, iron blades, and the use of cavalry — Spanish conquistadors soon subjugated the vast empires of the Aztecs and the Incas.1 On the islands of the West Indies, the indigenous population was almost completely wiped out by European violence and diseases in the sixteenth century. In 1552, the Spanish priest Bartolomeo de las Casas opposed the unbridled violence in the New World in his Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (‘Brief Relation of the Destruction of the Indies’). How the Dutch Republic viewed the violent actions of the Spanish and Portuguese in the New World has been described in detail by the American historian Benjamin Schmidt in his study Innocence Abroad. The image of Spanish rapacity in America that was portrayed in many Dutch publications naturally reflected the violence on the battlefields in the Low Countries during the Revolt. When the Dutch themselves entered the Atlantic area, they too fought against both European adversaries and the indigenous peoples that they encountered in Africa and the New World.

This chapter discusses the deployment of soldiers and sailors in the Atlantic area and how this related to various aspects of Dutch military action there. After considering the size of a ship's crew and that of the military force available at different times in various parts of Africa and America, the question will be addressed of how the soldiers and sailors who conquered and defended Dutch possessions in the Atlantic area were recruited, where they came from, and how that changed over time. A further important consideration was the effectiveness of the fighting forces. Historians have often commented negatively on the quality of the soldiers and sailors in the Atlantic area, as they have on fighting forces in Asia. It is not infrequent to see them referred to as the dregs of the nation. But was this reputation really deserved? Moreover, the American colonies were less dependent for their defence on professional soldiers from Europe than were the Asian colonies. Up to the mideighteenth century, if not longer, colonists themselves played a significant part in the defence against internal and sometimes also external enemies. Furthermore, as in Asia, there was increasing reliance on indigenous soldiers.