Empire at the Periphery: British Colonists, Anglo-Dutch Trade, and the Development of the British Atlantic, 1621–1713 by Christian J. Koot (review)

The historiography of British-Atlantic trade is dominated by the eighteenth century and the works of David Hancock, John McCusker, Kenneth Morgan, and Jacob Price. It is great therefore to have a book on the seventeenth century, to add to the excellent work by Nuala Zahediah on London’s merchants. Christian Koot, however, looks from the outside in, taking the perspective of the colonists on the edge of empire, rather than that of the metropole. He therefore also links with the work of Claudia Schnurmann and April Lee Hatfield, in considering how colonists transgressed metropolitan rules. Koot traces the links between English and Dutch merchants from 1624 (when St Christopher was colonized) to 1713 (the Treaty of Utrecht). Interestingly, he takes a comparative approach in order to show how varying economic, agricultural, and demographic circumstances shaped colonists’ survival strategies. Through looking at Barbados, the English Leeward Islands and New York, Koot traces the varying trading activities of these three colonies. He argues that the colonists started by adopting commercial habits that suited their own exigencies and were at odds with larger metropolitan national goals, but by the early eighteenth century, they chose to conform to imperial standards because it suited them to do so.

Koot first sets the context in which this early Anglo-Dutch trade occurred, and argues that there was much Anglo-Dutch cultural exchange on the margins as early colonists strove to survive during a period when the English government often seemed to forget about their colonies on the margins. The second chapter traces the move to sugar in the Caribbean as tobacco prices declined—though the move was far more evident in Barbados. This chapter also contrasts the increasing rivalry between the Dutch and English in a metropolitan context, while the Dutch were becoming even more important to the Leeward Islands via the provision of warehousing and capital. In contrast, Barbados received more attention from London merchants due to the increasing importance of sugar and so appeared to need the Dutch comparative less. The third chapter investigates the role of “mercantilist” goals via the Navigation Acts, in increasing the tensions Governors felt as they strove to combine their roles as imperial agents with the need to protect the colonists and indeed often the colony itself. While the metropole was trying to clamp down on illegal trade, the colonists, especially in the Leeward Islands (which were still reliant on tobacco and other crops rather than sugar) found themselves still reliant on the Dutch for survival. The fourth chapter discusses the situation after the English took New York. English merchants were increasingly seen as taking advantage of the colonists by charging high prices and not providing enough credit—so the colonists, especially in the less-developed Leeward Islands, still looked to the Dutch. In contrast, successful Barbadians found that their goals were becoming increasingly aligned with those of the metropole. Chapter five, in contrast, shows that Dutch merchants remained in control of much of the trade in New York and, importantly, with a more varied hinterland, were not so reliant on London in any case. This meant that (Dutch) New York remained important to the British Caribbean for not only goods but also for finance and insurance. Often the “creative adaptations” (176) they made were taken either with the acquiescence or, more often, with the full complicity of the Governors. The last substantive chapter considers the persistence of cross-national trade, even as all the colonies found it in their interests to increasingly follow the rules set by the metropole. Trade became less speculative as the colonies were less peripheral to, and more interdependent with, the metropole. In concluding, Koot argues that this trend continued as the...