3.4.4 Ignoring the Precedent: Antwerp and Middelburg
The best way to test whether these precedents were effectively lived up to is to look to those areas where slaves were most likely to appear.
For once, we know that the first sizeable “black presence” in the Low Countries was in Antwerp.
This can be connected to the presence of Iberian merchants, coming from countries where slavery was legal. In Spain and Portugal, amidst rising anti-Jewish sentiment, decrees of expulsion in 1492 and 1497 had ordered the Jews to either convert, or to leave the kingdom. We know that many of those Jews, both the ones who kept their religion and the christianos nuevos, left their homeland, some of them coming to the Low Countries. They sometimes travelled together with their slaves.173 In the North, they could primarily be found in Amsterdam (to which we will return later), but in the South, they came to Antwerp, as an outgrowth of the city’s place in the Portuguese trading empire. Unfortunately, we do not know much about the presence of slaves in Antwerp. Some twentieth century Belgian scholars claimed that Antwerp had the second-largest black presence in Europa, right after Lisbon. Others have tried to refute this and believe their presence to have been minimal.174 No one seems to have conducted a thorough analysis of the Antwerp municipal archives to measure the presence of slaves in Antwerp, and this is a fruitful area for further research.The little evidence we do have from the municipal records indicates two things. A link between baptism and slavery was made here as well, and the Antwerp authorities did not consider a slave to be free upon touching the soil of their city (to know whether they effectively freed slaves who petitioned them, we lack data).175
In a 1516 municipal order, the city of Antwerp promised to give a reward to those persons who would bring back two unbaptised Moors to their masters (“twee Mooren nog niet kerstende wesende”).
The slaves belonged to a Portuguese merchant and had disappeared.176 Likewise, in 1563, a Moorish slave petitioned the Antwerp authorities to recognise his freedom. Whilst his master claimed that he had fled, the Moor claimed that he was freed by his master before. Next to that, he held that he was born a Christian and considered this to be a relevant element in favour of his freedom.177 Other evidence confirms that slavery existed in the city. For example, historians have found two notarial deeds of manumission in 1544 and 1556.178 Likewise, in 1540, we find proof of the sale of a slave in the city.179 Clearly, municipal authorities and notaries were unconcerned with the pronouncement of the Great Council of Malines, or the nascent freedom tradition.In the North, we find one curious case before the seventeenth century. In 1596, a ship with 130 Moors aboard arrived in the port of Middelburg.180 The ship was captured from the Portuguese and apparently, captain Melchior van den Kerckhoven wanted to sell the slaves in Middelburg. This was disallowed by the burgomaster of the city and the States of Zeeland. They decided that the slaves, who were all baptised Christian slaves, had to be set at liberty (“gestelt in heure vrye liberteyt”).181 If the case had ended here, this would have been a clear confirmation of the Dutch freedom principle, and some scholars do only mention this part of the case.182
However, the merchant Pieter van der Haegen, who was the owner of the captured ship, took the case to the States General. There, he filed a request to be allowed to bring the Portuguese crew of the ship to Portugal, and the Moors to the West Indies. At first, the States General refused, but the merchant filed a new request. This time, things ended badly for the slaves. The States General decided that the merchant could do with the slaves as he wished (“soe hy ?t verstaet”), and that they were not planning to interfere in this matter any further.183 If this decision is taken into account, the States General clearly did not consider the soil of its provinces to have given freedom to slaves (even when baptised) upon arrival.
Given the fact that many of the Middelburg protagonists were to become involved in the Dutch slave trade later on, Hondius has concluded that the episode shows that the Dutch authorities wanted to send a multi-layered message. To the individual ship owner and the wider community of merchants and captains, the idea was that whereas the slave trade itself was not deemed to be problematic, slaves ought not to be sold in the metropolis. At the same time, the general population was presented with a more positive message, as the Zeeland authorities tried to keep the myth that there was no slavery in Zeeland, and that Christians could not be treated as slaves.184