A different angle on Beverwijk

A remarkable walk through Beverwijk

Beverwijk is an historic town near the Dutch coast, just to the north of the present-day canal linking Amsterdam to the sea at IJmuiden.

 

On April 13, 2024, a town excursion took place in Beverwijk, starting from the 14th Century Great Church past various historical places, ending at the Kennemerland Museum. In the Great Church there are several mourning boards and funerary chapels of families associated with the colonial past, as explained by Jan Kramer, who investigated the history of the church. Wim Goedegebuur then played the 18th Century Müller organ, which was donated by Anna Elisabeth Geelvinck, owner of the Scheybeek country estate and three plantations in Suriname.

the 14th Century Great Church of Beverwijk

From the Great Church we walked past the Lutheran church De Swaen, led by local historian Fred Schweitzer and Jan Kramer. In 1771-1778 this address was owned by Susanne Lespinasse, the patroness of Susanna Dumion (1713-1818), a Surinamese woman who was later freed from slavery by her owner, and died at the respectable age of 105 years! Her grave was recently rediscovered by Mariska de Jong in Haarlem. Susanne and her housekeeper Susanna undoubtedly spent the summers in Beverwijk during this period. 

We then visited the locations of long-gone houses where Claes van IJperen used to live, a man who played a part in the start of the Dutch slave trade. We continued past the country houses of Akerendam, Scheybeek and Duijnwijk, all of which have a colonial background and were owned by families associated with slavery. Jan Lapro, the last owner of Duijnwijk, returned to the Netherlands with three 'slave girls' from the East Indies, who had been given him by a local sultan. He gave the ladies their freedom at the notary before sending them home by ship. Evidently that was also possible at that time!

the Scheybeek mansion

At the Kennemerland Museum, who were so kind to provide us with a location for the afternoon programme, we were offered lunch by Mariska de Jong. Next, Fred Schweitzer and I each gave a lecture. Fred mainly focused on a city map from the 17th century with detailed information about Beverwijk and some well-known inhabitants, following which I spoke of the relationship of Beverwijk with the slave trade and Surinamese slavery. Finally, the guests made a tour of the museum and the exhibition of the Surinamese Maroon culture, opened one week previously.

A summary of my lecture is below.

Beverwijk and its slavery past

Surinamese and Caribbean slavery was a system of human exploitation on an industrial scale: in Suriname alone it affected 220,000 people over a period of 200 years. The slave owners were a numerical minority and did not view those people as persons, but merely as a means of production. On the plantations, the victims were literally worked to death, having an average life expectancy of 8 years. 

Nowadays we look with horror at the unabashed drive for profit of those days, at the cost of thousands of unfortunates. The astonishing thing is its occurrence during the Enlightenment, in which humankind, reason and civilization became mainstream thinking.

Fort Elmina, conquered by the Dutch after Claes van IJperen had tipped off the Dutch authorities that it was weakly defended by the Portuguese. This became a major centre of the slave trade.

Beverwijk was more connected with slavery than you might think. During the 17th and 18th centuries, many rich country estates around Beverwijk were owned by Amsterdam families with interests in slavery. And here are some other examples:

Claes van IJperen, before he became mayor of Beverwijk, was the Director General of the Gold Coast for the West India Company, and closely involved in the start of the Dutch slave trade in 1637.

A young man named Gerrit Pater left Beverwijk for Suriname in 1705. In 1710 he married a planter’s daughter, who possibly brought him a starting capital. He died in 1744 as a colonial magistrate, owning three plantations. He was the richest man in the colony and half of Suriname was in his debt, which says something of the spending habits of the planters...

Surinamese plantations owned by Gerrit Pater

The connection between Amsterdam and Beverwijk

The stench of the rich city of Amsterdam must have been unbearable, especially in the summer heat, because at the time, the pretty canals we admire nowadays were open sewers. Compared to the city, in those days the tidal headwaters of the Wijkermeer were an idyllic place out in the country. So in summer, the rich town residents sought refuge in their mansions situated between the dunes and the Wijkermeer. 

The deep tidal inlet from the Zuyderzee, with the Wijkermeer as its headwaters and Amsterdam at its mouth.

 

Wijkermeer, painting by Solomon Ruysdael showing the tower of the Great Church of Beverwijk in the distance.

Originally, Amsterdam wealth came from European trade such as iron, timber and grain carried from the Baltic, Scottish wool traded against Dutch roof pantiles, and salt carried in from Portugal. Only decades later the colonial trade of the Dutch East India Company and the West India Company played their respective parts. Much later still in the 17th century, the Society of Suriname was founded.

Let us have a look at the latter two.

The West India Company (1621)

The WIC was founded in 1621, authorised by the States General and financed by public and private capital. The WIC was intended to give the Spanish and Portuguese colonies a headache by privateering - legalised piracy by ships manned by the Company and Dutch soldiers. And as early as 1623 the WIC investigated the slave trade from Angola, following the Portuguese example. In 1630 the WIC conquered Portuguese Brazil, which was a Dutch colony until 1654. In 1637 the WIC took the West African fort São Jorge da Mina from the Portuguese, in which Claes van IJperen from Beverwijk, then Director-General of the Gold Coast for the WIC, played a leading role.

After the Peace of Münster of 1648, the end of the 80 Years’ War with Spain, privateering comes to an end. The WIC’s attention then shifts to the trade in colonial products and the slave trade to the Americas. They have contracts with slave traders in the West Indies. In 1674 the WIC goes bankrupt, but it makes a restart. Gradually it will play a role in governing the new colony of Suriname in addition to Curaçao and other islands, and later the Company becomes a shareholder in the Society of Suriname.

The Society of Suriname (1683)

The Society was founded in 1683, with the WIC, the city of Amsterdam and Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck as shareholders. The latter is an adventurer, a former soldier and a real battleaxe, who buys his share with money borrowed in Amsterdam. The Society is a colonial exploitation company charged with the administration and defense of the Colony. Suriname supplies must be routed through Amsterdam, an awkward regulation inspired by the import and export dues levied by the city.

Many members of the Amsterdam elite were directors of the Suriname Society with secondary interests in plantations. 

the 18th Century Mariënbosch plantation house, Suriname

Mansions and rich families

During the 17th and 18th centuries, many of the rich country estates on the shores of the Wijkermeer were owned by Amsterdam families with colonial interests. I will mention a few of their names: Bicker, Geelvinck, Boreel, Coymans, Pels, Trip and Sautijn. Those families formed a restricted clan, many of whom had lucrative colonial board positions. The estates also often changed ownership within their own "bubble" through inheritance, intermarriage and mutual sales.

The Scheybeek estate was the property of members of the rich Geelvinck family for a long time. They already were involved with the WIC in 1621. Over a century later, Anna Elisabeth Geelvinck was the owner of Scheybeek for almost 20 years. She had inherited the Surinamese plantations Boxel, Het Yland and Sinabo & Gelre from her husband Lucas Pels. The beautiful Müller organ of the Great Church of Beverwijk was donated by Anna Elisabeth Geelvinck. 

Surinamese plantations owned by Anna Elisabeth Geelvinck

Over the years, we also see well-known family names as owners of the Akerendam mansion, each with important colonial connections: Bicker, Geelvinck, Pels, Boreel and Sautijn.

The original Westerhout country house was built around 1627 by Balthasar Coymans (1555-1634). The Coymans family has a long history of slave trade. Marriage and inheritance created relationships with the Boreel and Geelvinck families, both with interests in the WIC and the Suriname Society.

Let's look at the Coymans family.

The Coymans family

Balthasar Coymans II, together with his brother Joan Coymans (who both died in 1657) extended the scope of the Coymans trading house originally founded by their father Balthasar I (1555-1634). They originally traded gold, Swedish iron, pitch, linen and spices. Their cousin Isaac Coymans (1622-1673) was Chief Merchant at Elmina for a while and actively involved in the slave trade from about 1653. 

Soon, the Coymans company acted as brokers in the slave trade via Curaçao. Their Cádiz (Spain) branch contracted the WIC as a supplier, because the Spaniards were not allowed to trade in Africa as a result of the Tordesillas treaty of 1494, which divided the world between Spain and Portugal. 

funerary board dedicated to Balthasar Coymans II, a slave trader buried in the Great Church of Beverwijk

Sophia Trip, the widow of Joan Coymans and sister-in-law to Balthasar II, led the commercial empire between 1657 and 1670. Her sons Balthasar III and Jan then took over. Isabella Coymans (1647-1705), owner of the Westerhout estate and married to Jacob Boreel, was their cousin.

Old money and investors

Many country estates on the Wijkermeer were originally established before 1650 with capital earned from European trade. Only later in the 17th century did the slave trade and the plantation economy enter the picture. The later owners of those country estates were often connected with the WIC and the Suriname Society, and thus earned a percentage of the slave trade returns. They developed the country houses and their associated gardens with funds, the origin of which is doubtful. 

Location of 17th Century mansions along the shore of the Wijkermeer. The hazy contours show how this expanse of water had shrunk by 1850.

Around 1750 so-called negotiations were created, investment funds from which the Surinamese planters could negotiate loans. Those planters borrowed crazily to pay for their extravagant lifestyle. Due to these negotiations, the money flow became less transparent, which raises questions about their investors. How much did they know about the human exploitation in the colony? Or did they know and look away all the same? In the end, these investors lost almost all their money which I think served them well...

I sometimes compare this with the investors in Shell Oil. Did they know what was being perpetrated by Shell in Nigeria? Shell is still being sued for the pollution and the injustices done.

Conclusion

Shouldn’t we enjoy the beauty anymore of all those historical monuments? That would take things a little too far. But perhaps we should sometimes remember the dark side of all that splendour.

Akerendam mansion situated in Beverwijk