Zaan Whaling and Shipbuilding in the Seventeenth Century

Home , Noordsche Compagnie, Vegetable oil, Westzaan, Zaan, Zaandam

Chapter 6 Zaanse Jonas: Zaan Whaling and Shipbuilding in the Seventeenth Century

Victor Enthoven

In 1973–1974, Karel Davids attended a research seminar on Dutch whaling focussing on the important transition from company rule under the Noord- sche Compagnie to free whaling after 1642. His paper discussed the Noordsche Compagnie, 1614–1663.1 The students used the documents on whaling collect- ed by Simon Hart of the Amsterdam Archive, predominantly bevrachtingscon- tracten (charters) from the notarial protocol books.2 This was no coincidence. Hart hailed from the town of Zaandam, which had deeply rooted interests in whaling during the Golden Age. The results of this study were published by Jaap Bruijn and Karel Davids in the seminal article “Jonas vrij. De Nederlandse walvisvaart, in het bijzonder de Amsterdamse in de jaren 1640–1664” [“Jonah set free. Dutch whaling, especially from Amsterdam in the years 1640–1664”].3 Bruijn and Davids noticed a strange paradox. Despite the fact that after the transition to free fishing, whaling boomed in the Zaan region, Zaan masters active in whaling, however, not only disappeared largely from the Amsterdam records, they also left hardly any traces in the Zaan protocol books.4 At the same time, commandeurs from the Zaan-region (commanders of a whaleship) also disappeared from these record.5 Recently, Björn Quanjer confirmed this development by looking at commanders active as mercantile masters in the

1 Stadsarchief Amsterdam (hereafter: saa), Archief van Dr S. Hart [883] no. 576, Werkstuk- ken over de Nederlandse walvisvaart in de periode 1630–1665 door studenten van de Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, werkcollege zeegeschiedenis, 1973–1974. 2 Protocol books are notebooks or copybooks which lawyers, known as notaries public, were required to keep as a record of their work. They contain transport deeds, charters, leases, testaments, probate inventories et cetera. 3 J.R. Bruijn and C.A. Davids, “Jonas vrij. De Nederlandse walvisvaart, in het bijzonder de Am- sterdamse in de Jaren 1640–1664,” in Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek 38 (1975). 4 The Zaanstreek or Zaan region is located just northwest of Amsterdam and includes the vil- lages of Westzaan, Zaandam, Oostzaan, Koog-aan-de-Zaan, Zaandijk, Jisp, Wormer, Wormer- veer, Knollendam, Krommenie and Assendelft. The Zaan maritime industrial complex of saw mills, timber trade, shipbuilding, and shipping firms was concentrated in Zaandam. 5 Bruijn and Davids, “Jonas vrij,” 149, 150n, 161, 163, 169 table 5, 170, 176.

124 Enthoven

Baltic, Archangel and Southern-European trade.6 Based on the existing litera- ture, Joost Schokkenbroek observed:

In the [early modern] whale fishery shipbuilders from the Zaanstreek regularly also acted as whaleship owners, while at the same time renting out their ships for other kinds of expeditions. These shipwrights could make temporary investments in whaling by supplying the vessels. At the end of each season they could sell off the ship at a handsome price. [Aris] van Braam calls this way of going about investing in one’s ship and its subsequent sale a kind of “trade in second-hand ships”. This statement cries out for additional research both on ships as well on the assumed intermingled positions of shipwrights and whaleship owners in the Zaanstreek.7

This chapter will, by examining Schokkenbroek’s outcry with regard to the role played by Zaan shipwrights in whale fishery, shed light on the Bruijn/Davids paradox of the rise of the Zaan whaling industry and the simultaneous disap- pearance of Zaan masters and commanders from the archival records after 1650. In order to unravel this mystery, this chapter will address the changes in the Zaan shipping industry in conjunction with the booming whaling industry after the demise of the Noordsche Compagnie. Essential for this change was the relation between the vegetable oil industry and the whale-oil cookeries. In addition, it will address the rise of the shipbuilding industry, including a new business model for building ships on their own account which resulted in the “intermingled positions of shipwrights and whaleship owners in the Zaanstreek.”8

1 Origin of the Zaan Shipbuilding Industry

The early modern Zaan maritime industrial complex of saw mills, timber trade, shipbuilding, rope making, anchor forging, and shipping firms was rooted in

6 B. Quanjer, “Jan, Piet, Gerrit en Corneel die jagen op walvis. Nederlandse commandeurs ter walvisvaart in de vrachtvaart, 1675–1695,” Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 35, no. 2 (2016). 7 J. Schokkenbroek, Trying-out. An anatomy of Dutch whaling and sealing in the nineteenth century, 1815–1885 (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2008), 30; A. van Braam, “Over de omvang van de Zaandamse scheepsbouw in de 17e en 18e eeuw,” Holland: Historisch Tijdschrift 24, no. 1 (1992): 35, 42–43. 8 A.M. van der Woude, Het Noorderkwartier. Een regionaal historisch onderzoek in de demograf- ische en economische geschiedenis van westelijk Nederland van de late Middeleeuwen tot het begin van de negentiende eeuw (Utrecht: H&S, 1983), 459–460.