VI) Revolutions
(1763-1815)
The Indian Ocean
By 1763, the Indian Ocean was rapidly on its way of becoming a Dutch lake. The VOC ran colonies from southern Africa to India all the way to the Australian coast. Peace might have came to Europe, but in the middle of the Eighteenth Century the VOC sought new markets. New markets might as well mean new conquests. In the preceding century and a half, the VOC managed to expand its Portuguese conquests. French, Danish and Venetian trading posts were gradually muscled out of southern India, with France being the last to be ousted in 1763.
Only the VOC was pleased by the monopoly on foreign trade in southern India. A number of princely states, most notably Mysore, were not pleased by the lack of choices. Though the VOC’s prices were not extortion, they were higher than they would be with competition. A few states closed their borders to the Dutch, but most simply sought out new traders. In response, the VOC simply conquered the states, and installed more complacent princes and kings.
Like many trading companies of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, the VOC wielded powers comparable to that of nations. The VOC’s royal monopoly authorized it to sign treaties, raise armies, levy taxes and even wage war. What started as a small band of sailors and Ceylonese soldiers soon grew into a large, well-organized mercenary force. When veterans of Europe’s wars grew restless in peace, the found employment with their national trading companies. The VOC was no different.
The VOC hired the best soldiers they could find in Europe as well as indigenous soldiers known as Sepoy. Upon establishing itself in southern India, the company began to hire local talent. At first, they only hired locals as guides and translators, but after the VOC’s first conference gave the VOC a new problem; what to do with the prisoners of war? The task of disarming and pacifying conquered states strained the VOC’s resources, and occupying the state was simply not profitable.
In 1643, the governor-general of the East India Company proposed to the shareholders that the VOC simply hire the soldiers it just defeated. Who better to fight Indians than other Indians. He reasoned they were accustom to both land and disease, and hiring local armies would save on shipping Europeans half way around the world. Thus started the VOC tradition of employing those it just vanquished.
One today might wonder what would compel a pre-commonwealth Indian from allying with foreigners against their own nation and people. What one must keep in mind is that many of the soldiers were conscripted, and if paid, it was very little. The VOC offered, in some cases, seven times the salary of a soldiers, and up to twice the annual average income. The allure of better pay and constant work convinced more than a few defeated foes from switching sides. Truth was, the VOC exploited regional rivalries. It would be like Napoleon hiring Austrians to fight Turks, or Spaniards to fight Sardinians.
Aside from greater pay than conscripts and the opportunity to battle old adversaries, employment by the VOC offered Indians the possibility of advancement. In the Hindu states of the south, caste was everything. The idea of advancement, to elevate one’s position on the social ladder was very foreign indeed, and many Indian employees relished the idea. Change was not welcome by everybody, however. For centuries upon centuries, those of the highest castes, such as the Brahmans, ruled with occasional impunity.
In 1767, Mysore began to push back the tide of VOC influence in its region. For a century and a half, the VOC operated trading posts on Mysore’s coast, acting as middleman between the Indian state and foreign buyers. When the VOC began to enact its own tariffs and taxes on Mysore, and Mysoran King was most displeased by what he saw as an act of hubris. Several dozen tax collectors were killed by Mysore, their heads delivered to the local VOC headquarters at Goa. It took some time for word of the ‘massacre’ to reach Amsterdam, but when it did, the VOC gave the only response available; it declared war.
The Dutch-Mysore war was short, but still the bloodiest conflict in southern India during the Dutch Raj. Thousands of VOC employees lost their lives, while tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Indian were killed, either in combat or famine that followed. Native lords took their own taxes of food and gold, and when the VOC overran an estate, the vaults and granaries were taken as spoils of war. Indian employees, particularly those from states hostile to Mysore, looted markets and burnt fields.
The VOC had little regard for the Indians. If Indian killed Indian, that was not their concern. When the United Provinces took direct control over India in 1800, the anti-Dutch mentality gave future governor-generals fifty years of headaches. It took even longer to undo the damage inflicted by the company. When the VOC emerged victorious, the King of Mysore was put to death, and a distant cousin installed on the throne, one that might be more agreeable to VOC policies. By 1771, the government and courts of Mysore answered directly to the Governor-general on Ceylon.
Some of the spoils of the Mysore conquest came in the forms of precious and semi-precious stones found across the Indian sub-continent. Before the invasion, most Netherlanders only had the faintest idea about sapphires and emeralds. Afterwards, the demand for gemstones drove the VOC, and later the Dutch Raj, to expand its sphere of influence throughout India. It also lead to the downfall and near destruction of the VOC, following its prohibitively expensive conquest of British-controlled Bengal during the 1780s.
Empire
Following its defeat of the British East India Company, the VOC commercial empire dominated the Indian Ocean, holding large chunks of land along with millions of Indian, Ceylonese and East Indian subjects liable to company taxes. The VOC used what they taxed and invested it into the area in which it was taxed. Along with road and harbor improvements around the ocean, the VOC ran its own company schools and hospitals within its private empire. Tens of millions of more people were dependent upon the VOC. Across Sumatra and Borneo, small states and sultanates grew dependent upon the VOC for all of its external trade. The Kingdom of Kandy, still nominally independent, could not access the outside world without the use of VOC ships. For all intent purposes, between 1783 and 1799, the VOC was one of the largest Empires in the world.
Like all empires, the VOC’s Indian Ocean operation was not without troubles. The largest trouble came not from native population, but from the Dutch colonists in South Africa. One of the backwaters of the Dutch world and the VOC’s commercial empire oddly enough lay at the most strategic point in the spice trade; southern Africa. Kapenstadt was founded by the VOC in 1617, as an agricultural colony to stock its ships with the food required for long journeys. The VOC hired farmers and other adventurers across the United Provinces with the promise of free land. The first settlers brought with them tried and true crops, such as wheat, barley and grapes (all of which doubled for alcohol productions). The following decades saw the arrival of more exotic crops.
Potatoes from the New World, oranges and limes for battling scurvy, and even attempts to plant sugar. These attempts were quickly squelched by the VOC. The colonists were paid to produce food, not cash crops, and besides, Cape Colony was not the ideal environment for sugar cane. Much protest came out of the issue. “It is my land, and I will grow what I like,’ to which the VOC replied that no, you are our employees and you will grow exactly what we tell you to. Instead of a second Brazil, the Cape became Holland, Flanders or even Limburg transplanted on the opposite side of the world, complete with dairy farms, but minus the liberty.
Cape Colony was unique in the VOC’s holdings. It was the only mostly exclusive Netherlander department that was ruled like a private fief. The colonists considered the VOC tyrants of the worst kind, sons of Spain and not true Netherlanders. The VOC really did not care what the colonists thought, as long as they grew what they were suppose to, and since the company held a complete monopoly on the colony, what it said went.
By the start of the Eighteenth Century, many of the colonists had enough of the VOC’s dictates and upped and moved further inland. Since the company saw little of interest in the interior of southern Africa, it was reasoned that was the perfect place to escape. Word of the South Atlantic Company’s fall angered the colonists further. Former slaves now had more right than Dutch citizens, it was an outrage. Attempts to send word to the Hague failed, since again the VOC controlled the lines of communication. Anyone foolish enough to attempt sending word were eventually discovered and fined.
Up to a hundred families departed Kapenstaat for the bush and for freedom from the domineering VOC. The families, known across history as Boers, took upon the Boer Trek across three hundred kilometers of wilderness before reaching rivers and watering holes in the highland. The first Boer Trekkers left Kapenstadt in August of 1768, after suffering a century and a half of VOC rule. However, after 1768, the VOC cracked down on the colonists, and made every attempt to prevent emigration to the interior. The VOC went as far as to send several expeditions to bring back the Boers.
The Boers lived life in the bush far freer than on the cape, but far harsher. Gone were the luxuries brought in by the VOC, and gone were the luxury crops grown for them. Boers brought with them their sheep and cattle, along with corn and wheat, and a few tomatoes. Not only did their livestock provide food, but wool and cattle hide powered the tanning and weaving industry the Boers built up.
The first hundred families settled in roughly the same area, founding a new town, Johannesbourg, named for the king at the time of the Trek. The town was little more than a collection of shops and farms clustered around a watering hole. After the first year each of the families lost at least one member to the hazzards of the bush. If not for the effort to establish positive relations with the Bushmen, it is not likely that the first Boers would have survived.
The community established around Johannesbourg struggled to survive for years to come. More Boers braved the elements and VOC, adding numbers to the town. Throughout history, population increases were often viewed as improvements. However, Johannesbourg lacked resources to support the growing community. Trade with the Bushmen supplemented what could be grown on farms and ranches. Boer homes were nothing like the plantations in Brazil and Ceylon or orchards of New Amsterdam. They were subsidence level farming, with simple houses built of stone with dirt floors. In comparison with the rest of the Dutch Empire, the Boers lived in poverty.
When Johannesbourg reached saturation level, Boers branched out to other watering holes and rivers, establishing new towns. Each of these towns, once stable, took to electing their own leaders, village chiefs or town mayors. Trade between towns soon brought the Boer communities closer together, closer to nationhood. Within a hundred years, three Boer republics were established; Johannestaaten, Transvaal and Nieu Oranje.
In 1786, the VOC sacked Johannebourg, taking all livestock back to the Cape, burning the thriving settlement and even poisoning the watering hole. This was the peak of the anti-Boer campaign, as the Board of Directors in Amsterdam decided that pursuing the Boers was simply not worth the expense. After giving the British the boot in India, the Company was in severe debt. Anything that could be cut, was cut. Instead of bringing back the Boers, thousands of new settlers were brought to Kapenstaat from Flanders. These colonists had but one decade to live under the VOC’s rule. To further exasperate their debt, the VOC had the third largest navy in the world, behind the United Provinces and the United Kingdom respectively. The upkeep of such a navy took almost 40% of the Company’s budget in 1798.
Turmoil in North America
While the Boers were struggling on the opposite side of the Atlantic, the New Amsterdammers were thriving. Trade with the American colonies and the Iroquois Confederacy, along with the United Provinces made many of the inhabitants of New Amsterdam wealthy. Where a Boer might live in a shanty, even the poorest of New Amsterdammers lived with wooden floors. The city of New Amsterdam, close to fifty thousand by 1770, was nearly as crowded as old Amsterdam.
Following the end of the Seven Years War, and temporary expulsion of France from North America, tensions began to rise between the United Kingdom and her American colonies. To London, it seemed only logical that the colonies help pay for the war that protected them. However, Americans are funny when it comes to taxation; they simply do not like it. In this regard, the Americans shared a similar relationship to their Mother Country as the Boers did to the VOC, with neither rebellious progeny being very cooperative.
During the 1760s, and early 1770s, various taxes were introduced to help offset the cost of waging war in the New World. Not only did London attempt to tax her colonies, but struggled to control who they could trade with. In 1770, the cities of Boston and Philadelphia were doing as much trade with the Dutch in New Amsterdam as they were with London. This trade impacted the profit of British merchants. Though it was an important market for the United Provinces, the American colonies were hardly vital.
The American justification for refusing to pay taxes was the famed quotation ‘no taxation without representation’. London gradually reduced and repealed most taxes, with the exception of the tax on tea. In eventual response to this final tax, several patriots dressed as Mohawks, likely lead by Samuel Adams, boarded ships of the British East India Company on December 16, 1773, and proceeded to dump ten thousand pounds worth of tea into Boston Harbor. In response, London passed a series of laws now known as the Intolerable Acts, which effectively disbanded Massachusetts’s government and closed the harbor of Boston until the British were compensated for the loss of tea.
By 1775, tensions in New England grew to the point were the British Army deployed contingent in Boston and the surrounding countryside. On April 18, 1775, British general Thomas Gage sent seven hundred soldiers further inland to seize militia stores in Concord. Before the British were to depart Boston, patriots within the city managed to get word out, warning the militia of the regulars’ advance. The first shots of the Revolution were fired in Lexington, on the following day. It is unknown who fired the first shot, but is largely believed to have been a militiaman, since the British Regular Army held far more discipline.
The militia retreated before regular fire, but bough militia in Concord enough time to organize. The Regulars were stopped on the North Bridge over the Concord river, and after a short and fierce fight, were forced back, and eventually returned to Boston. This victory gave the Americans a false sense that the war could be resolved by Christmas, a common enough mistake throughout the history of the world. More over, these two small engagements kicked off the Revolution and was in effect the dawning of United States history.
The Continental Army
Before the Second Continental Congress, the eleven colonies were forced to raise their own militias and generally fend for themselves. With continued encroachment on liberties in Massachusetts, other colonies believed that it was only a matter of time before the fate befell them. It was believed that a united front against the Mother Country could only improve their odds. In order to build a common defense, the Continental Congress established the Continental Army on June 14, 1775. To command this new army, Congress appointed a Virginian plantation owner, perhaps to bring the southern colonies into the cause, George Washington. At the time, the choice was somewhat of a dubious one. Washington fought two battles during the Seven Years War, and was victorious in neither. With hindsight, it is easy to see that Washington was the perfect choice, not only because he was a leader of men, but because when he had power, he let it go and returned home. Few in human history were strong enough to resist the lure of power.
Washington was appalled after his first tour of the ‘army’ by what he saw, and more over, by what he did not see. The Continental Army was camped out around Boston, as if to lay siege. However, it had no artillery to bombard Regular positions. The closest stockpile of cannon were located at the British fortress of Ticonderoga, within the Iroquois country. Washington dispatched Connecticut Brigadier General, Benedict Arnold, and a small contingent to attempt to capture these guns.
Arnold was met part way by one Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys. When Ticonderoga fell without firing a shot, it was Allen who stole the glory. In fact, the hardest fighting was between Arnold and Allen, as to which one of them was really in command. Benedict Arnold was a fighting general, a brilliant tactician, and as undiplomatic as possible. His habit of stepping on the toes of his fellow generals and various politicians would dog him for the rest of his life.
After bringing the guns back to Boston, Gage was amazed to wake up and see numerous cannon aimed at his garrison. Upon the realization that these rebels were at a total advantage, Gage had little choice but to evacuate the several thousand Regulars along with numerous loyalist families to British strongholds in Nova Scotia. It is not known whether or not Gage ever discovered that though Washington had the cannon, he lacked the powder to use them.
Invasion of Canada
Following the ‘victory’ at Boston, the Congress invited the French-Canadians to join them as the twelfth colony. The invitation dated back to 1774, but the Québécois responded to neither invitation. Though they were not pleased by British rule, that did not mean they were sympathetic to the patriot cause. For the most part, apathy reigned in Quebec. Congress authorized General Philip Schuyler to command an invasion of Canada and drive the British from the continent. General Arnold, who was passed over for the command, went to Boston to convince Washington to send him and a support force to aid in conquering Canada.
As it turned out, the initial invasion, and capture of Montreal was done under the command of Richard Montgomery. Schuyler dropped out of the invasion to confer with the Iroquois, to attempt to bring them over to the patriot cause. Though it did most of its trading through New Amsterdam, the Indian nation did have extensive commercial ties with the colonies, more so that with Britain herself, so they had little reason to join the British. However, the tribal leader decided, for the time being, this was a white man’s war, and opted for neutrality.
Montreal fell on November 13, with little resistance. Montgomery expended much of his resources laying siege to Fort St. John, between September and November of 1775, before it finally capitulated ten days before Montreal. Leaving a force to defend the new holdings in Montreal, Montgomery soon began his own march down river to join up with Arnold in an assault on Quebec. For his part, Arnold took the difficult road in reaching Canada. A march along the Kennebec River in Upper Massachusetts, through unbroken wilderness. Though his army experienced many hardships on the march and was not in the best of fighting conditions upon arriving on the banks of the Saint Laurence, the assault on Quebec would still go forth.
On December 31, 1775, on the day before enlistments expired, Arnold and Montgomery launched a joint assault against Quebec. During his own assault, Montgomery was killed by grapeshot, and Arnold later wounded in the leg. The British General, Guy Carleton, pursued the retreating Continentals, breaking a make-do siege laid upon Quebec by reinforcements in the spring of 1776. The Continental Army retreated across Lake Champlain. During spring and summer of 1776, both sides were locked in an arms race, attempting to build a fleet, one to conquer, the other to defend. Arnold and Carleton would meet in combat again on the lake in the autumn of 1776.
Declaration of Independence
Debate raged in Congress since the capture of Boston and retreat from Canada into the summer of 1776. Some wished for reconciliation between colonies and Mother Country. Others wished for complete separation from Britain. Gradually, the faction favoring independence won out. By July 1. 1776, Congress assigned a committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. On this committee were the likes of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the Immortal Benjamin, were given the task of writing the declaration. At the time, the declaration was considered to be little more than a footnote in future histories, and was delegated to the junior member of the committee, Jefferson.
On July 3, the Congress voted to accept the declaration. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, ‘we must hang together or we will most assuredly hang separately’. It was not until the next day that the declaration was signed by all the colonies’ delegates. By signing this blatant act of sedition, each representative knew he was a wanted man. Many lost land and property as a result. Two even lost their lives. News of the Declaration of Independence spread across the colonies, reaching Boston just days before the British landings. On July 15, twenty thousand soldiers, including five thousand Hanoverian and Hessian mercenaries landed in Connecticut. Patriots road day and night, reaching Boston, warning Washington that he was at risk of being trapped with his back against the sea.
Washington’s army began its march westward, intercepting the British along the Connecticut River. Much to Washington’s horror, his own army left the battle prematurely. Rather than risk a total route, and destruction of the Continental Army, Washington was forced to organize a retreat, abandoning New England for the time being. It is one of the tragic ironies in American History, that one of Washington’s most brilliant plans was that of evacuating his army. Trapped against the Connecticut River, the British were in no hurry to dispatch the rebels. In fact, William Howe, General commanding the British forces, decided to let his own army get a good night’s rest before ending the rebellion. During the night, dozens of Americans volunteered to stay behind and keep the fires in camp burning, to fool the British, while Washington and his remaining army escaped across the Connecticut. By the time Howe realized what had happened, the Continental Army reached a safe distance.
Valcour Bay
Aside from Howe’s own invasion, a second invasion from Canada was in the works. This one would travel down Lake Champlain, then the Mauritius River. They would have to build their ships on the river, since the Dutch in New Amsterdam refused to allow the Royal (British) Navy access to the river. Two things stood in the way of the British plan to dominate the Mauritius; 1) lack of a fleet on Lake Champlain; 2) Fort Ticonderoga stood between them and the Mauritius Valley.
Arnold fell back to Ticonderoga after the disaster that was Quebec. Only the lack of a British fleet allowed his army to escape. Some general might retreat further, accepting the impossibility of their position, but not Arnold. Before the Revolution, he was a pharmacists and book seller in New Haven. After the Stamp Act, Arnold did what many traders did; became a smuggler. He had a great deal of experience in maritime affairs, much more so than any of his soldiers. During the spring and summer of 1776, Arnold oversaw the construction of a small fleet, little more than armed rafts by Dutch or British standards.
The Champlain arms race ended on October 11, 1776, off Valcour Island. Arnold chose this narrow spot on the lake to diminish British advantages. The battle itself was a complete loss to the Americans; the British virtually annihilated the small fleet. So bad was the damage to Arnold’s flagship, the Congress was ran aground and burned to deny it to the enemy. It was not a surrender, for Arnold left the flag flying even as he lead his army back to Ticonderoga. One might expect the British to gain an easy victory, but Carleton was a veteran of the Boston campaign, and knew the rebels were formidable. Being October, it was too late in the year to lay siege to the fortress, thus Carleton opted to make winter camp at the north end of the lake. His cautiousness and Arnold’s audacity saved the patriot cause in this greatest battle of that nobody has heard.
Crossing the Mauritius
Washington’s shrunken army camped on the opposite shore of the Mauritius, within Iroquois country during December of 1776. This was the Revolution’s bleakest hour. Come January, enlistments would expire and the demoralized Continental Army would disband itself. Supplies were short, pay was back and victory appeared a distance dream; the soldiers had little incentive to remain. Washington knew that he must score a victory or the Revolution would fizzle out before spring were to arrive. He saw his chance in a small Hessian garrison at White Plains.
On December 25, Washington lead his army in a daring crossing of the ice choked Mauritius, and an all-night march through the cold over many kilometers. It was at dawn of the 26th that Washington initiated the attack against the German mercenaries. The Hessians, for their part, were so complacent, that they had yet to recover from their Christmas celebration. Some soldiers were hung over and all were taken by surprise when the Continental Army attacked. The battle was over before the Hessians could organize, and their commander died shortly after the garrison surrendered.
A second battle was fought further east, this against a garrison of Hanoverian soldiers camped near Deerfield. These soldiers were not as drunk, but the attack did catch them off guard. Again, the Germans were defeated. After the victory, Washington and his army retreated to a highly defensible position for Winter Quarters. These two small victories were enough to force the British back closer to Boston and New Haven for the rest of the winter. More over, it was a morale boost and convinced many soldiers to re-enlist. Because of Washington’s boldness, the British would have to wait until 1777 to crush the rebellion.
The Fall of Philadelphia
In the summer of 1777, the British had a grand plan to crush the rebellion. It also had two separate commands with little to no communication between the two. The grand plan was that one army, under William Howe, would march west from Boston, while another army under John Burgoyne would march south from Lake Champlain, and together they would sever New England from the rest of the colonies. The ancient plan of divide-and-conquer may even have trapped the bulk of the Continental Army between the two British armies and crush it.
However, that was not to be. During the Eighteenth Century, the glory would come to the man who conquered the enemy capital. That was Philadelphia and a notable distance from New England. Without consulting with his counterpart in Canada, Howe boarded most of his army into transports and sailed down into the Chesapeake Bay. Forts Washington and Lee blocked the Susquehanna River south of Philadelphia, forcing the British to attack overland. The Continental Army faced the British repeatedly, attempting to slow down the British.
At Brandywine Creek, Washington attempted to make a stand, only to have the militia break and run. The Americans were driven back, and Philadelphia fell on September 23, 1777. Congress fled the city ahead of the British, setting up a temporary capital in York, Pennsylvania. When the rebel capital fell, patriots fled and loyalist cheered the entry of the redcoats. Though the capital’s loss was not a strategic blow to the Revolution, it would impact diplomatic efforts in the Hague and Paris, making it more difficult for foreign governments to recognize the United States.
Howe attempted to pursue Washington further. The Americans stopped the British advance at Germantown. The battle itself was only a marginal victory for Washington, but it did signal an end to campaigning in Pennsylvania for 1777. Howe was in no great hurry to leave his own comfortable winter quarters in the occupied rebel capital. As for the Continental Army, they would spent their winter at Valley Forge, where one of America’s first German friends would help put the army in Continental Army. The Baron of Steuban not only drilled the Continental Army through the winter at Valley Forge, but later served as Washington’s own chief-of-staff.
Saratoga
While Howe was capturing Philadelphia, Burgoyne battled his way through rebels in the north. Ticonderoga fell without much of a fight, when the British hauled artillery up the aptly named Mount Defiant, forcing the rebels to surrender. After Lake Champlain was secured, the army began its slow march south through the Iroquois Confederacy. The Six Nations wished to retain their neutrality, but the incursion of thousand of British soldiers put a drain on the land. Though they had supply trains, British soldiers still foraged, taking both game and crops as they traveled. British commanders even went as far as to demand provisions from the Iroquois, in return for protecting the Indians from ‘colonial expansion’.
It is still not clear which specific incident precipitated violence, but what is known that some insult sparked an Iroquois war party to attack a British patrol. The British, in turn, retaliated, bringing the Six Nations of the Iroquois into the Revolution on the Patriot cause. Though the Indians were vastly outnumbered, they were aided by many patriot frontiersmen in obstructing and delaying the British advance. Toppling trees and collapsed bridges slowed Burgoyne’s advance to only a couple of miles a day. This allowed the Continental Army enough time to meet the British advance.
Congressional favorite, Horatio Gates, was appointed commander of the Northern Department of the Continental Army, over the head of Arnold, who had fought the British in the north for two years. Arnold was put under the command of Gates, whom he considered inept, despite Gates’s own experience as a soldier in the British Army before the Revolution. Unlike Arnold, Gates was not the fighting general his soldiers loved. The appointment of Gates caused a great deal of conflict between Gates and Arnold, and the two often quailed.
The British were slowed an Bennington, but not stopped, and they clashed with the Continental Army under the command of Schuyler and Arnold. The battle was a delaying action. The two sides clashed again at Freeman’s Farm on September 17. Gates was content to do nothing, but Arnold made his own move against the British. The battle bled the British, who were getting low on ammunition and supplies, forcing Burgoyne to withdraw to Saratoga.
Upon hearing that Arnold acted unilaterally, Gates relieved Arnold of command and confined him to quarters, on the eve of the second battle. Burgoyne launched his own attack, in a desperate bid to reach Albany before winter set in, on October 7. The Battle of Bemis Heights nearly turned into a disaster for the Patriot Cause. Though outnumbered by October, the British assault was strong enough to break the will of some militia units, causing them to flee.
Gates believed the battle would be lost if he did not act. His order was for his army to retreat, however an orderly retreat was difficult to manage. Some units broke and ran from charging British cavalry. If not for Arnold disobeying orders, the battle might well have been lost. Instead of staying confined to quarters, Arnold raced to join the battle. Seeing his own countrymen retreating, Arnold charged forth, rallying them. Given the choice between running away or at the enemy, the Continentals chose to follow Arnold instead of Gates.
Arnold personally lead the charge up Breymann Redoubt. Though seriously wounded in the leg, and taken out of the fight, the Continentals following him took the redoubt, and turned the course of the battle. Facing innumerable casualties, Burgoyne opted to retreat northwards toward Ticonderoga. Having the battle turned for him, Gates lead the army to outflank and cut-off the British plans of escape. Trapped, Gates attempted to demand unconditional surrender of the British, which was flatly refused. The British would sooner fight to the death. The British would accept the plan to be disarmed; taken into captivity, and marched to Boston to be returned to Britain, under the promise they would never fight in America again.
On October 17, after much negotiation, Burgoyne lead his army out of camp and surrendered. However, he refused to surrender to Gates, despite the fact it was he who was negotiating. From his own reports, Burgoyne learned that Gates sounded a retreat. Burgoyne would surrender only to the man who bested him. After much arguing, an aid sympathetic to Arnold lead Burgoyne to Arnold’s temporary quarters.
At the time of surrender, Arnold was fighting another battle, this against the surgeons to keep his leg. Arnold vaguely knew what happened outside the hospital, and believed Gates would steal all the credit. Much to his surprise, on the morning of the 17th, a Redcoat General entered his tent and offered Arnold his sword. Arnold accepted and acknowledged the terms of the surrender. Though he was clearly the Victor of Saratoga, it did not stop Gates from receiving credit. Arnold and part of his army would spend winter quarters in Albany, Arnold healing and promoted to Major General. Congress would reward Gates’s ‘contribution’ by appointing him Commander-in-Chief of the Southern Department of the Continental Army.
Recognition
Much of the history of the recognition of the United States lay with Benjamin Franklin’s exploits in the French court. For the purpose of Dutch history, the focus will be more on John Adams’s quieter mission to the Hague. Despite being dragged into several wars by an alliance with the British, the Dutch were not eager in engaging them in war. Much anti-British sentiment dwelled in the southern Provinces, those ravished by wars with France. Those same wars generated resentment by the Staaten-General towards its British counterpart. The Dutch had little interest in the dynastic wars of the Eighteenth Century. This did not mean the Dutch failed to benefit from its conquests of French colonial possessions in South America.
Trade with Great Britain itself had fallen to a minimal. The British had their own merchant fleet, and a combination of tax-breaks for the British and tariffs on everyone else made Dutch good, though generally higher in quality, too expensive to the relatively poorer British citizenry. Despite sentiment and trade obstructions, there was no real reason to recognize the American’s independence, despite strong trade ties with the colonies, unless the rebels can prove themselves capable of victory.
Though the French were eager to get back Quebec, Dutch recognition came only when the American’s forced the surrender of an entire British army. Oddly enough, John Adams first heard of the victory of Saratoga from Dutch diplomats and not his own people. Word of the victory quickly spread down the Mauritius River to New Amsterdam, then across the Atlantic as soon as the first trader set sail for home. Recognition came in April of 1778, but Adams had yet to secure an alliance. Word that France allied with the Americans made some members of the Staaten-General hesitate. After nearly a century of alliance, the Staaten-General did not jump at the chance to betray Britain. Recognizing the new American Republic was one thing, justified by commercial interests if nothing else. Actively waging war upon an ally, even one that drug the United Provinces to near disaster in the 1740s, was quite another matter.
When the alliance did come, in the summer of 1778, it came from a source very far away from the American Revolution. It was the VOC that pushed the alliance through their members of the Second Chamber and lobbied for the King and First Chamber to declare war upon Britain. The VOC had no interest in the United States. What it did have a great interest in were the British holdings in Bengal. After defeating the Moguls, the British gained dominance over the area. The British East India Company, the British counterpart of the VOC, was the greatest threat to VOC preeminence. When war was declared and the Anglo-Dutch alliance finally broken, it was not America that was the battlefield, but Bengal.
Bengal
All throughout the Eighteenth Century, the United East India Company was plagued by warfare in India. Fighting both their European rivals and the native Princes slowly drained the VOC’s coffers. Management in Amsterdam had little tolerance for lost profits, but the expense of waging war would inevitably lead to the Company’s domination of India itself. The VOC went to war when the United Provinces went to war and against the same enemy. During the wars with France, they attacked the French East Indian Company and its holding in India. The VOC’s own navy did the fighting on the seas, while native allies and mercenaries comprised the bulk of the land forces. Only Dutch officers served in the VOC’s Army. France’s own Indian army launched its own attacks on Company holdings in Goa and along the western coast of India. The bloodshed at the Battle of Nagapatnam in 1758, ending in a Dutch defeat cost the lives of over ten thousand Indian soldiers when the Company officials refused to surrender. One newspaper in Rotterdam put it well when after the battle it declared that the VOC would defend their holdings to the last Indian.
When word of war with Britain reached India, the Company was not ready to take Bengal. Like the VOC, the British trading company also had its own share of enemies in northern India. The Company spent hundreds of thousands of guilders arming these anti-British Princes and bringing them into alliance with the VOC. The British did likewise with the Dutch’s own Indian malcontents. On the seas, the VOC wasted no time in attacking British ships.
It was well into 1779, that the VOC finally have sufficient forces in place to invade Bengal. The first regiments landed in May of 1779. VOC ships wasted no time in attacking British ships. Losses in trade in 1779 alone drove the British East India Company’s profits so low that bankruptcy was inevitable. They petitioned both Parliament and King for assistance against the invasion. Word of British losses provoked many natives in India to rise up against company rule. Little did they realize they would be trading one corporate master for another.
British control over the land was forever shattered on June 15, 1779, when VOC soldiers decisively defeated the British at Dacca. The battle was one of the few cases of two rival corporations actually coming to blows over a competing market. Never again would companies wield so much power as they did at the Battle of Dacca. The battle marked the end of British East India Company, and the deficit raked up by the VOC marked the beginning of its own decline, though it would eventually recover, but not to its nation state-like status.
Following the battle, company officials surrendered all assets in Bengal to the VOC. It would be three years before the British would feel the full impact to their own economy. Britain’s Royal Navy set sail for India in 1782, with fifty ships and enough soldiers to hopefully drive the Dutch from Bengal. Tragically, the fleet never reached Bengal. It was intercepted by VOC and Royal Dutch ships off the coast of Ceylon. The Battle of Jaffna marked the end of British control over India. British access to its colonies in the Philippines and trade with China was greatly restricted by the Dutch for twenty years following the peace treaty.
Treaty of Paris (1783)
With France and the United Provinces in the war (Spain declared war upon Britain in 1779), the British knew that they would not be able to hold on to all their colonies. The French managed landings in the Saint Lawrence and achieved what Arnold could not; capturing Quebec. Liberation of New France caused a rift between the fragile alliance. The Count of Estaing, a French Admiral and commander of France’s expeditionary force, refused to move south to aid the Americans in New England. Taking back Quebec, and Montreal, cost the French dearly, and they would risk the British retaking it.
Since the British already knew they would loose territory at the peace table (though not as much as they would when the Dutch capture Bengal), George III, took the advice of his generals and ordered the forces in the Americas try and hold on to the colonies loyal to the crown, namely the southern ones. In addition, with France in the war, much of the resources pumped into North America was diverted to save the precious sugar isles. London could afford to lose New England, but not Jamaica, the Bahamas or any of the lesser Antilles and their sugar production. And Louis XVI had his eyes on those islands.
Throughout 1780, the Southern Strategy worked well. Augusta and Charleston were in British hands by 1779, and the Southern Department of the Continental Army was forced to surrender at Camden. The loss of an entire army threatened to leave the southern colonies in the hands of the British, if not for the guerilla war launched by the likes of Nathaniel Greene in North Carolina and Virginia. The loss also forced Washington to march south to fill the gap. New England had little to fear from the British, with the Dutch navy operating out of New Amsterdam and French control of Quebec.
However, due to Gates’s ineptitude at Camden, Washington knew he would need fighting generals to aid him in defeating the British army under the command of Lord Cornwallis. He made a personal detour to New Haven to convince his greatest fighting general to once again take up the Patriot Cause. Arnold managed to rebuild part of his business, which had a great deal of trouble in trading in the Caribbean, as the British kept trying to capture his ships, and lived a bitter life of his own. He kept track of the war, and felt both vindicated and disgusted by the surrender at Camden. Arnold believe that if he were there, it would have been Cornwallis who would have surrendered.
Though he swore never to put on the uniform again, and never to bleed one more drop of blood for a government that did not appreciate him, Arnold was hard-pressed to resist Washington’s offer. Washington offered Arnold command of the entire left wing of the Continental Army, answerable only to himself. Washington waited three days, as long as he could afford to be absent from his army. On the last day, Arnold agreed to the commission.
By October of 1781, Cornwallis’s army was trapped in Virginia with both the Continental Army, and a French army under the command of Rochambeau trapped the British on the York Peninsula. Cornwallis had every intent to withdraw by sea, however, the French fleet battled the British and forced the evacuaters to themselves evacuate, trapping Cornwallis. Between September 28 and October 19, the allied armies laid siege to the trapped British.
On October 17, with many of the surrounding redoubts in American or French hands, and supplies dwindling, Cornwallis sent two officers under the white banner of truce into the American camp to negotiate a surrender. The surrender occurred on October 19, as eighty-five hundred British soldiers and two hundred artillery pieces were taken into American custody. Cornwallis attempted to surrender his sword to Rochambeau. The French General indicated that it was Washington who should surrendered. Washington himself refused, and indicated to one of his generals, Benjamin Lincoln, whom the British humiliated at Charleston. Lincoln accepted the surrender, and with that, the war in America grinded to a halt.
In 1782, The British met with the Americans, French and Dutch delegates in Paris to end the war. By then, the British were all but defeated in America and India, and the French were too well entrenched in Canada to drive them out. To compound difficulties for the British, the three nations insisted on an allied peace. Many in Parliament were regretting not negotiating with the Americans in 1776, for in 1783, the British were going to lose big.
In the end, Britain automatically recognized American independence. For the French, victory was far from complete. They could not be driven from Canada, but they could not secure all of their lost territory. The British held fast in Arcadia, and the French had no hope of regaining Louisiana, not without a war with Spain. George III had hoped his government could use this indecisiveness of the French to drive a wedge between the allied parties, allowing peace with the colonies and his remaining forces in America to storm north. In the end, France regained Quebec. As for the Dutch, the rewards were far richer. The United Provinces walked away from the American Revolution the sole European power in India. As with all of its Indian Ocean possessions, administration of Bengal was left to the VOC, as were all the riches that could be reaped.
Fall of the VOC
The conquest of Bengal depleted the coffers of the VOC, as well as forced them to take out loans in order to finance their war against the British East India Company. Most of these loans were taken from the Bank of Amsterdam, a bank not only chartered by the Staaten-General, but with a majority of the shares owned by both Staaten-General and the Crown, as well as the Dutch government being the largest depositor. The fiscal situation for the VOC could not be offset by its virtual international trade monopoly to India, as well as its spice monopoly to the East Indies. Neither could keep up with rising debt. As a result, the VOC defaulted on its loans in 1798, and later that year declared bankruptcy.
Just how a corporation of such revenue could suddenly become bankrupt was not understood by the general public, or even VOC shareholders. Upon hearing this, those who could sell their shares did just that, bursting the speculator’s bubble. Investors wished to liquidate their holdings in the company, while the company still existed. In early 1799, the Staaten-General refused to renew the VOC’s monopoly. The end of the almost two century old company looked at hand. In order to compensate for defaulted loans, the Bank of Amsterdam seized company property. The Staaten-General received its compensation for lost deposits in the Bank by seizing company lands in India, the Far East as well as the African Coast. The Company began to sell off assets to pay off its debt, and in effect, dissolved itself by 1800.
This was not the end of the VOC, but rather the beginning. The company was no longer a monopoly, nor in the trade of conquest. What remained by 1801, was a few diehard investors, captains and sailors, as well as twenty ships that these men purchased while the company was being liquidated. Despite the risk, they kept the name VOC, for the captains have served the company since they were cabin boys, decades before. Heydrick Doeff became the first chairmen of the new VOC. He would lead the company into fiercely competitive trading market, without the VOC’s previous power or privileges, but with the ghosts of all the enemies the previous company had made during its existence.
The Successful Republic
In 1777, the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, a system of government for the United States. The Articles laid the responsibility of the common government solely in the hands of Congress. The First Republic was little more than a loosely knit confederation of sovereign states who only agree to mutual defense and free passage of its citizens between each state. The states were in fact eleven independent republics.
Flaws were apparent from the beginning. The Articles offered one vote for each state, though the state could have as many as seven delegates. This favored the smaller states, and left the more populous ones at a disadvantage. In order to amend the Articles, the vote must be unanimous, making it very inflexible. It also pressed the states to give up their Western Land Claims, finally making it law in 1787. This caused a great deal of trouble for Virginia, who claimed the entire Ohio Valley.
This largest flaw was that Congress was denied the right of taxation. States levied their own taxes, and if they were feeling generous, would donate a portion to the central government. Within ten years of its creation, many American statesmen knew the government was at risk of collapsing if these flaws were not corrected. Attempts to amend the articles were short lived as Rhode Island continued to block any changes. At the Annapolis Convention in 1786, five states (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Connecticut and New Hampshire) called for a Constitutional Convention, to replace the Articles of Confederation wholly.
On May 25, 1787, the ten states (Rhode Island abstained) plus delegates from the Iroquois Confederacy met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia. Presiding over the Convention was George Washington, a man that all the delegates respected. For four months, Federalists, lead by Alexander Hamilton of Connecticut argued with anti-federalists, consisting of mostly southern delegates over the finer points of the Constitution.
There was a great deal of effort to make the Executive Branch into a monarchy with Washington as King. Washington refused, time and again. Some adjustments would have made the office President-for-Life, which was little more than an elected monarchy. A four year term was settled upon, so that the electors could remove any man who did an inadequate job. Duties of the President were largely designed with Washington in mind. Few Presidents since had been worthy enough to fill Washington’s shoes.
The Congress was redesigned, somewhat along the lines of the Staaten-General of the United Provinces. The lower house, the House of Representatives, would be elected by popular vote and proportioned by population, thus favoring the larger states. Each would serve for two years. To placate the smaller states, a Senate was created, in which the state assemblies would elect Senators to represent the interests of the states. Each would serve six years.
A Supreme Court was created, in which seven Justices would be appointed for life pending good behavior by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Each three branches of government were specifically designed to impede the growth of power in any other. A series of checks and balances was believed to preserve the new republic, and thus far has managed. The final draft was settled upon on September 25, 1787, and went to the legislatures of the eleven states.
Pennsylvania attempted to ratify it first, but was beaten by Delaware (December 7, 1787) but was second to do so (December 12, 1787).Connecticut followed (December 18, 1787). Georgia was the 4th ratifier (January 2, 1788) followed by Massachusetts (February 6, 1788) and New Hampshire (March 9, 1788). When Maryland became the 7th ratifier (April 28, 1788) the Constitution was the law of the land, and preparation were made for the first federal elections.
South Carolina (May 23, 1788) and Virginia (June 25, 1788) where the last to ratify it that year. In 1789, North Carolina ratified the Constitution (December 21, 1789). Last of the Eleven Colonies was tiny Rhode Island (May 29, 1790). The Republic of Vermont was admitted into the Union on March 3, 1791. After much deliberation in Congress, the Iroquois Confederacy was admitted as the 13thState on November 15, 1791.
George Washington was the only man to ‘run’ unopposed for the office of President when he was elected unanimously by the Electoral College in 1788. He was not elected as much as the office was designed with him in mind, then thrust upon him. He took the Oath of Office at the Pennsylvania State House on March 20, 1789. Philadelphia would serve as capital until the new Federal City, located on neutral territory between Maryland and Virginia could be opened– or at the very least, the critical federal buildings completed.
One of the first tests for the Second American Republic came from the western counties of Pennsylvania. After fighting a revolution supposedly over taxation, it came as quite a shock to many whiskey distillers that Congress passed a tax on whiskey. Instead of paying, most of the western part of the state rose up in protest, bordering rebellion. In order to make it clear that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land, President Washington lead ten thousand soldiers of both the small federal army and various militia into western Pennsylvania to put down the ‘Whiskey Rebellion’. He has been the only president to ever personally lead an army while President.
Some interstate matters also tested the new nation. White settlers from the other states continuously attempted to migrate into the State of Iroquois, much to the displeasure of the state’s largely Indian population. The Iroquois state assembly attempted to pass laws restricting encroachment on their lands, but these were struck down as unconstitutional. Iroquois representatives introduced legislation to Congress concerning making lands in the Ohio Valley cheap, while at home increase various ‘property’ taxes. Since most of the Six Nations’ people did not believe in land ownership, they were exempt. These tactics, plus the bitter coldness of the Iroquois winter, persuaded many settlers to move westward. This brought them into conflict with Indian tribes of the Great Lakes region. The Federal Government would exempt their allies from colonization, but turned a blind eye when an enemy tribe was invaded.
Externally, relations with Revolutionary France were strained at best. The United States, more specifically its merchants, were trapped in the war between Britain and France. Any ship heading to British port was seized by the French, and any ship heading into France was seized by the British. This reached a head during the Jefferson Administration with Congress passing the Embargo Act, forbidding trade with other countries. This hurt American industry far worse than Europe.
Elected in 1800, Jefferson was the first President to reside in the presidential mansion in the new capital. The city of Washington, in what was called the District of Columbia, would serve as the nation’s capital for another eight decades. In its day, it was widely condemned for being built on a swamp, in hindsight, it was a very appropriate location for what would be a stagnate government in future decades.
Jefferson’s election also ushered in America’s first foreign war. During the Adams Administration, Congress and the President found it more practical to pay off the pirate states of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, nominally under Ottoman overlordship. As the year went by, the ‘tribute’ continued to rise, when in 1803, it would have measured twenty-five percent of the annual budget. By then, it was decided that it was cheaper to build and maintain a large navy than to pay extortion. Some American ships sought to cheat by sailing under an orange banner. After the Dutch raised the city of Algiers during the 18thCentury, the Barbary pirates avoided any ship under the Dutch flag.
By 1810, the Barbary threat was largely suppressed by actions against Algiers and Tunis by the navy and a march on Tripoli by the marine corps. The three states signed treaties with America, basically guaranteeing the right of passage on the sea and the freeing of all American sailors captured by the pirates. American actions against Algiers were nowhere nearly as traumatic as those of the Dutch more than a century before, but the actions still weakened the state. Weakened it the point, that in twenty years, the city was firmly in French hands.
Overseas wars were not the United States’ only means of expansion. In 1803, after relations between America and France normalized, Jefferson sent an envoy to Paris to negotiate the purchasing of New Orleans. With that city under American control, farmers in the Ohio Valley and all lands west of the Appalachians would have free access of the Mississippi River. Jefferson and Congress authorized spending as much as ten million dollars to buy the strategically important city (less than what was used to purchase the entire island of Cuba).
France, under Napoleon’s control, was strapped for cash to finance its wars against the European empires. Napoleon knew he could not control all of Louisiana while fighting on Continental Europe, and he had no way of preventing the British from taking it. He raised the price to twelve million, but instead of the city, he offered the Americans the whole of Louisiana. Better to sell it to friends than to be forced to cede it to enemies. Despite the fall of the monarchy, the French remembered the lessons of the Seven Years War, and the loss of New France and French Amazonia to her enemies.
It was a great surprise when the envoys returned and presented the agreement to Congress. There was much debate as to even if this purchase was legal. Jefferson went as far as to draft a constitutional amendment to allow the country to purchase new land. In the end, the Louisiana Purchase was deemed constitutional, eliminating any need for amendments, and doubled the size of the young nation. As to what the United States purchased, it was not known. Several expeditions would be sent forth to chart this land. As for what to do with it, there was a proposal to render the land a vast Indian reservation, a place to deport tribes hostile towards the Federal Government.
The French Revolution
As a direct result of involvement in the American Revolution, France experienced its own revolution. By the late 1780s, tens of thousands of French were fleeing famine northward into the United Provinces. At first, it was believed the vanguard of a peasant army bent on conquering Flanders. Instead, the peasants were only interested in acquiring enough wheat to feed themselves and perhaps passage to overseas colonies. Brazil was, after all, built upon the labors of refugees from all corners of Europe.
By 1789, the French Estates General was summoned for the first time in living memory. However, it was the old Three Estates of France, with the Nobility and Clergy, about one percent of the populations, able to outvote the other ninety-nine percent. However, the French learned not only remember the values of the American Revolution, but have themselves been discussing and debating the ideals of liberty and the enlightenment.
During the revolutionary year of 1789, nobility and clergy renounced their privileges and the old Estates General fell, to be replaced by a unicameral National Assembly. The assembly forced Louis XVI to sign away power after power as the once absolutist state was elevated to the level of constitutional monarchy. Before long, Louis had enough an attempted to organize his own coup against the National Assembly, with the help of his in-laws, the Habsburgs. Upon hearing of this, the King was eventually arrested and put on trial. By 1791, the King was found guilty of treason and executed, transforming France into a kingless state. Shortly after, the Reign of Terror began.
Most Dutch considered themselves safe from France’s problems, but by 1792, almost every monarch in Europe was at war with France. The Dutch opted to stay neutral, and as long as its shipping was not threatened, they were content to let their rivals reduce each other to second- and third-rate powers. It did not work according to their wishes. The first Dutch to feel the force of the Revolution were in Flanders and Artois, were a revolutionary army invaded the United Provinces.
The invasion spread Revolutionary ideas, including reforming the Staaten-General. For the most part, the Dutch wanted only to reform the Second Chamber, to abolish the practice of buying votes, to end dynastic politics and to give the vote to every man. The companies, especially the VOC, opposed this idea, for it would take away their power. In the waning years of the Eighteenth Century, governor-generals and boards of shareholders have grown more autocratic, greedier, and for the only time in its history, placing the VOC before the United Provinces.
Revolutionary France was not content to wait for the Dutch to reform itself. In 1793, the French Republic once again declared war against the United Provinces. For the most part, the Dutch expected repeats of previous invasion. However, the new France proved to be merit-based in its selection of officers and generals. In May of 1793, the Duke of Luxembourg was systematically defeated by the new corp of French generalship. By the end of the year, France’s National Assembly was calling for union with the Dutch Provinces.
Rise of an Emperor
Each nation has its pivotal moment, when everything that happens is either before or after. For the United Provinces, that moment was Napoleon. The United Provinces managed to stay free from Napoleon’s control, mainly because of British activity in the Mediterranean and the Austrians in Italy. Consul Bonaparte had more dangerous foes to defeat first. France sent several expeditions into Dutch territory following its occupation of Luxembourg. The Dutch made several of its own attempts to dislodge the French. For the most part, Napoleon, Emperor in 1804, was content to leave the Dutch and their banks alone, with the exception of the strategic crossroads of Luxembourg. It was vital to his wars in Germany.
Before the campaigning season ended in 1804, Napoleon grew displeased by the Dutch and their resistance. He lead an invasion, at the head of a quarter of a million men, and easily crushed the Dutch at Limburg, Mons and finally crushing the army at Arnhem, in the northern Provinces, opening the road to Amsterdam. For the first time since the Dutch Revolution, the United Provinces were not only defeated in the north, but left completely defenseless before a foreign invader. The Dutch inability to stop the French was not a deficiency of its own officer corp, but rather the fact they faced Napoleon, the greatest general in European history, and the only man who took on the world and nearly won.
By March of 1805, Amsterdam was in French hands, and Napoleon was marching on the Hague. King William V, too old for combat in 1805, learned of Napoleon’s terms; France would annex the lands south of the Rhine, and the remaining United Provinces would become a vassal of the French Empire. When Napoleon began his march, members of the Staaten-General were already loading their ships and preparing to flee.
The King wished to stay and fight the invaders to the death. It was only the intervention of his son and heir that convinced the King he must seek exile for the time being. There was no hope of defeating Napoleon, and should he fall into French hands, it would be a disaster for the Dutch. Just because the Dutch government was going into exile, did not mean it planned to just give its capital to the French. Before evacuating, William V ordered dikes and levies along the Rhine River and the North Sea breached. The floods inundated the land, slowing Napoleon’s advances, allowing enough time for the Dutch government to escape.
Exile
When fleeing the advancing French Grande Armee, the Dutch did not flee aimlessly. Several destinations were proposed. Britain was first proposed due to its proximity, but no self-respecting Netherlander would ask an Englander for sanctuary, even if it was the only nation holding its own against Napoleon. New Amsterdam was offered up, but quickly rejected due to a legal technicality. Technically, the United States were still allied with France, though a great rift developed during the Reign of Terror and the tens of thousands executed, not to mention seizure of American ships trading with the British.
New Amsterdam was too much a security risk for the House of Orange, nor did it have enough manpower to allow for the Dutch to rebuild its forces. The only destination with enough wealth, enough population and sufficient infrastructure to support the Dutch Empire was Brazil. July 27, 1805, King William V debarked his ship in the city of Recife. For the next ten years, Recife would serve as capital to the United Provinces and all Dutch colonies.
William’s first, and last act before his death, was to consolidate Dutch forces in Recife. He ordered couriers to each of the colonies, calling forth men and ships to arms. Even in exile, the Royal Navy was still more than capable of blockading France. France was effectively cut off from its own colonies, and again the British occupied Quebec along with Haiti. Though the Provinces were occupied, the Dutch still managed to cut off France’s entire import-export economy. Blockade was but a mere inconvenience to France, which by 1806 was the master of western Europe. However, not all Dutch escaped to Brazil. Many remained home, to resist the French occupation and terrorize the collaboration government.
Batavian Republic
Once in command of the low countries, Napoleon expanded his legal code to include not only the Provinces annexed to France, but the seven remaining ones. Along with new laws, the northern Provinces were combined into a new nation in the image of France; the Batavian Republic. Revolutionary Netherlanders found positions in the new government, abolishing titles and handing the powers of government into a National Assembly based in Amsterdam. What nobility remained in the Netherlands soon found itself under assault from a milder form of the Terror. The Count of Holland was one of the nobles put to death for ‘crimes against liberty’.
Though the Dutch Revolutionaries declared the new republic, in truth they had little power. For the most part, the Dutch National Assembly did as Napoleon commanded. The Dutch people, living in the light of liberty long before the French ever considered overthrowing its own despots, found the Batavian Republic tyrannical. The Revolutionaries said that to save liberty, they must sacrifice liberty, though the repression was not as severe as the later German occupation.
To control the population, internal passports were issued in 1807. The attempts were largely ineffectual; the guards appointed to border crossings were conscripts and resentful of the Batavian Republic. They made only a lukewarm attempt to enforce the laws. Nor did they attempt to thwart the resistance. The terrorizing of collaborators was the primary cause of the passport laws. To compound matters, the Batavian Army was stocked with either sympathizers to the resistance, or full fledged members.
By 1810, the French had enough of Dutch insolence. Napoleon dissolved the Dutch National Assembly, and placed his brother, Louis as Regent of Batavia. When Louis called forth a new Assembly, it was stocked with members personally picked by the Regent. The Batavian Army was dissolved. Louis instead commanded two divisions of French reserves to police Batavia. Furthermore, he levied an almost suffocating level of taxation upon the nominally low-taxed Dutch people.
What was simple acts of resistance under the National Assembly became full blown ‘insurrection’. Louis’s heavy-handed response only added fire to the raging fury. With rebellion in his rear, Napoleon was forced to divide his forces on the eve of his invasion of Sweden, with dire consequences to the Emperor. To quell the uprising, entire cities were put to the torch. Country village and towns were not the only ones to feel the flame. March 20, 1813, was the day Rotterdam was put to the torch following the assassination of Louis’s general Montier.
The Empire of Brazil
Across the Atlantic, while the Provinces suffered beneath both puppet rulers and foreign, a new Staaten-General was formed in Recife. Though the First Chamber remained largely unchanged, minus the inclusion of Brazilian peerage, the Second Chamber took on a whole new dimension. The members that did manage to escape, few had ever left the United Provinces, and even fewer had ever set foot in Brazil before 1805. As with tradition, members of the Second Chamber must be elected from the populace. Since the fall of the South Atlantic Company, Brazil has been ruled directly from the Hague. It had little experience in self-rule or elections, or so the Netherlanders believed.
When it came to democracy, the Brazilians did not look east, but rather north, to the United States of America. To them, the words ‘all men are created equal’ held more value than to a Netherlander, who took liberty for granted. By 1806, more than a third of Brazil’s population were descendant from slaves brought over from Angola during the Seventeenth Century. Few members of the Second Chamber had ever seen a black man before arriving in Brazil. This seeming aloofness by the government of the Mother Country created a great deal of contradictions in the Brazilians’ feelings. They were loyal to their crown, but they were also their own people.
Before Napoleon, Brazilians were contemplating their own revolution. The Americans had it right ‘no taxation without representation’ nor should a people be ruled without their consent from across the ocean. However, with the Dutch Government in exile, the Brazilians had the perfect opportunity for reform. If the government was to be in Recife, then there shall be Brazilians in it. Unlike the Americans, the Brazilians never felt ill towards the Dutch King, their King. When William V arrived in Recife, the Brazilians welcomed him with all the respect a monarch commands.
When the Staaten-General attempted to return to business as usual, the Brazilians soon felt as if their own King was not leading their nation, but rather occupying it. Brazilians at first demanded equal representation in an assembly upon their own soil, but when their words were ignored, they began to demand their own government, separate from the Hague. Again, the Staaten-General ignored them. The Netherlanders looked down upon the Brazilians as unsophisticated children, the colonists needed guiding from the parent nation.
After two centuries of ‘guidance’ the Brazilians decided they could stand on their own. Amsterdam and the Hague were not the only cities in which words of liberty were discussed in cafes and pubs. Citizens in Recife, Mauristadt and Natal organized nation-wide strikes and protests. At the head of this quasi-rebellion was former professor at the University of Pernambuco, Johann Valckenaer.
Like many American revolutionary leaders, Valckenaer was born to a well-to-do family in the city of Salvador. He was well educated, traveled, charismatic, and above all, he genuinely cared about the ills of his fellow countrymen. He tried to lead a non-violent protest, not wanting to spark the level of violence seen in the American colonies. He loved his country and king, and had misgivings about striking during a time when the mother country was beneath foreign heels, but if the Dutch aristocracy and merchant-class wanted Brazil’s help in their war, then they were going to give Brazil the respect it deserved.
Valckenaer made no attempt to declare independence, and invested much energy in stopping the extremist factions from tearing a rift between Brazil and the United Provinces. If Brazil was to lead the Dutch fight against Napoleon, then in must do so as its own nation, separate from the Hague but not from the King. He petitioned William Frederick, the heir-apparent, to hear his grievances. He shall be king of Brazil the same as the Provinces, but the Brazilians wanted to handle their own affair, without interference from the Hague. More to the point, if the Dutch were to stay in Brazil, then they must form a government of Brazilians.
Maurice already had an enemy in front of him, he could scarcely afford to have a rebellion behind him. If the Dutch were to prevail over Napoleon, they must remain a unified front. In the End, Maurice II and the Netherlander transplants had little choice but to give in to Brazilian desires. Along side the United Provinces’ Staaten-General, and Brazilian Staaten-General was established. In return for their cooperation against Napoleon, the Brazilians would be permitted to attend their own affairs, though foreign affairs were tightly controlled by the U. P. Staaten-General. One of the Brazilian Staaten-General’s first acts was to locate a suitable monarch to take the as of yet made Brazilian Throne.
King Maurice II
Upon taking the thrones of the United Provinces and Brazil, Maurice went to work on forming a new government. The Brazilian Staaten-General shall be independent of the United Provinces in all affairs internal, however, it would still be a realm within the Dutch Empire. Brazil also adopted the first written constitution within the Dutch world. Since 1609, the United Provinces operated under an unwritten, sacred agreement on how to govern a realm of seventeen independent states. Brazil would be united from the get go, and the Brazilian drafters of its constitution borrowed heavily from the United States.
The Staaten-General was to be divided into two chambers. The first chamber shall be called the Senaat, and its members will either be hereditary nobles of the Brazilian provinces, such as the Count of Natal and Duke of Pernambuco, or otherwise elected by provincial government to represent their own interests in Recife. The second chamber, called the House of Electors shall be elected from districts within the provinces for terms of two years. Senators, if inherited, will be in for life, where as elected officials shall hold office for six year terms.
Unlike the United States Constitution, Brazil’s made specific articles addressing the monarchy. Brazil shall be in personal union with the United Provinces, and its ruler shall be bestowed the title of Emperor. The title amused Maurice, and he quite enjoyed being known as Emperor Maurice, now standing on equal level as the upstart Corsican. Brazil was an empire in the continental sense; it controlled a large portion of South America. With Spain so weak from its own involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, Brazil could have annexed any of the Spanish colonies it desired.
The head of the Brazilian government, and representative of the Emperor, who assuredly would return to the Hague eventually, would not be given to a Governor-General, but be bestowed upon a Prime Minister, one Johann Valckenaer. He would be the first of Brazil’s many Prime Ministers, elected by the Brazilian Staaten-General, which would do so at the Emperor’s blessing. Unlike future Prime Ministers of future Dutch realms, the length of time required to send message across the Atlantic in the early Nineteenth Century prohibited any sort of direct control by the Hague. To rectify this, the Emperor would travel to Brazil and reside within his palace in Recife on a regular basis; once every five years according to the bare minimum requirements of the Constitution.
Brazilians
Whereas the Brazilian Constitution would be groundwork for the future Dutch Constitution, the foundation of the Empire drastically altered the way Brazilians conducted business. Before the Staaten-General fled the Hague, the Brazilians had little in the way of self-determination. City councils and town halls about covered it. The provincial and overall colonial government was handled first by the South Atlantic Company, then directly as a Crown Colony.
Before 1806, the average Brazilian, a person whose culture was a fusion of Dutch, West African with a pinch of Portuguese, lived a political life far different than the average Netherlander. Though both lived in a largely middle-class society, the Brazilian people had no say in how their nation was ran. On the other hand, the Netherlander could petition for their representatives in the Staaten-General, or failing that, simply replace him at the next election. Brazilians had no such option; they policies were decided thousands of kilometers away.
The mother country, through its governor-generals and bureaucrats, governed and taxed Brazilians without their own consent. When the United Provinces declared themselves to be home of the freest people, obviously they did not consider citizens in the colonies as ‘its people’. To a large extent, colonial citizens were not ethnic Netherlanders. They were Ceylonese, Indian, Javanese and Chinese. Only colonies in the New World, whose indigenous population surrendered to European diseases when Portugal ruled Brazil, could claim to be truly Dutch.
Governing conquered peoples without consent was one thing, but after suffering for over a century under Spanish suzerainty, the Dutch in Brazil could not understand why their own cousins across the sea now govern them as such. In truth, colonial rule was far less brutal as that of Spain. Brazilians could come and go as they pleased, to trade in goods, and (provided it was not overtly subversive) in ideas without duties or occupying soldiers looking over their shoulder. Nor did they have to fear the inquisition. Brazil was as divided in issues of religion as the United Provinces, though geographically opposite; in Brazil it was the Protestants who lived mostly in the south, and Catholics mostly in the north.
Brazil did have a sizable wealthy class, mostly plantation owners spread out across eastern Brazil. In the larger cities, the Brazilians lived largely as their cousins in the Old World lived; middle-class, but with many more local luxuries available. One might think that every home in Recife would have large quantities of sugar, coffee and cocoa. Not true, even in Brazil the prices were only half they would be in the Netherlands. Most of what was grown by the wealthy was intended for markets in Europe, where low supply and massive demands would make them even richer. Even with a century’s worth of hired-hands, the former slave-owning class of Brazilians still managed to keep a tight grip on their nation’s wealth. If not for manufacturing, shipbuildings, banking and trading, the cities would be filled with poor and unemployed. Rural Brazilians were worse off; they were the workers who tended the large plantations, with wages a market high in workers and not so high in jobs demanded. Their lives were hard and pockets poor, but never would rural Brazilians sink to the depths of despair that industrialization brought to cities of Britain, the United States and even the Dutch nations and colonies of the mid-Nineteenth Century.
It took a series of agreements for cooperation against Napoleon to drive for Brazilian self-determination and independence. King Maurice II and the exiled members of the Staaten-General knew that 1806 was not a year to be battling kinsmen. Some might argue that Brazil owes its independence to treaties signed under duress, for without Brazilian support, the United Provinces could not hope to free itself, and the entire Dutch colonial empire could have potentially disintegrated. Even after 1815, the Staaten-General of the United Provinces respected and acknowledged the Staaten-General of Brazil. Without the need for Brazilian manpower, the tale of Brazil might have ended quite differently.
Waterloo
Napoleon’s final downfall began in 1812, with his decision to invade the Swedish Empire. Not a single French soldier ever set foot on Swedish soil. Instead, Napoleon’s goal was the former Russian Empire. There was no logical decision to go to war against Sweden. In 1794, following the example of the French, intellectuals and Swedish nobles who have ‘gone native’ rose in rebellion against the recently crowned Charles XV, declaring the Russian Republic. Sweden spent the next five years putting down the rebellion, and played virtually no part in the wars against France.
Even on the eve of Napoleon’s invasion, Sweden looked within. Republican uprisings were down from 1805, when Napoleon showed his true colors and declared himself an Emperor. This crown caused a great deal of trepidation from the Russian commonfolk. When Napoleon moved to liberate the former Russian Empire, many peasants feared he would bring back the Romanovs. A century after their removal, the name Romanov remained a reviled one in parts of their former Tsardom. Though Russian sentiments towards Stockholm were often lukewarm at best, their attitudes towards Napoleon were even colder. Perhaps it could be an irony that the French invasion of Sweden did more to unite the Swedes and Russians, than any reforms to date of the Swedish Crown, even if it were against a common foe.
By 1813, and after the disastrous invasion of Sweden, it was clear to all European nations that France’s strength was all but sapped, its manpower bled nearly dry. It was when the Grande Armee retreated from Swedish territory that the powers of Europe, allied and opposed to Napoleon, joined together in one final coalition to topple the would-be Emperor. In late 1813, Maurice II landed an army of fifty thousand Netherlanders, New Amsterdammers, Brazilians, Ceylonese and even some Formosans, landed on the shores of Zeeland.
Regent Louis of Batavia met the invasion south of Delft, home of the House of Orange, with forty thousand of his own soldiers. Most were French, and loyal to Louis. The remainder were auxiliary units, in lieu of Ancient Rome. Their loyalty was questionable, and they were placed in front of the more loyal French. Sandwiched between their own people and the hated oppressors, the march of the Batavian Auxiliaries is on of the tragedies of Dutch history. Those that attempted to surrender or switch sides were mercilessly gunned down by the French behind them. The few that believed in the Revolution and willingly faced Maurice II, were gunned down by their own kinsmen. Out of the seven thousand Auxiliaries, it is estimated that fewer than one hundred survived.
Louis Bonaparte was indeed a ruthless and effective regent, but he did not inherit the genius of his brother. His army was routed within a day, Louis himself captured. Two days later, Maurice II rode into Delft, and later the Hague at the head of his victorious army. To great him, the populace of both cities draped every building within the city both Dutch Flags and orange banners. At one point, the Hague was awash in the color orange. Banners produced an orange colored sky, and endless ranks of soldiers produced a river of orange uniforms. For days afterward, Netherlanders celebrated their liberation, and dealt retribution to collaborators.
It was not until January 4, 1814, that Maurice rode his army into Amsterdam. Several regiments were sent to each of the Provinces, to flush out any self-proclaimed Batavians and to reestablish to rule of the House of Orange and the Staaten-General. Several months passed before the whole of the Netherlands were under Staaten-General control, and that the heirs of the Provinces were back in their homes. Not all were welcomed either; the Duke of Limburg was forced to abdicate in favor of his nephew, who stayed behind and lead resistance within Limburg.
While the Provinces were brought back under Dutch rule, the Swedes led an army that marched down the avenues of Paris. Napoleon had been toppled, and exiled to the island of Elba. For a moment, it appeared as if the Wars of Napoleon were over. But only for a moment. Napoleon soon escaped exile and returned to his throne in Paris. After the disastrous campaigns of 1813 and 1814, it was unlikely Napoleon would return France to the height of its power, but no nation was willing to take the chance.
Napoleon was corralled once again, this time on June 18, 1815, at the town of Waterloo in Brabant. For the entire day, Britain’s Duke of Wellington battled Napoleon to a stand still. Up until the last moment, it appeared as if Napoleon might escape to fight another day. Though the British and other English speakers give the credit of victory to Wellington, it was really more the arrival of Maurice II and the Dutch Army in the late afternoon, followed by the Prussian Army that forced a final surrender from Napoleon. One of these opponents he could defeat, but not the combined might of all three.
Napoleon was exiled again, this time to the British island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic. There was no pretense of a miniature imperium as was on Elba. This time, Napoleon was a prisoner, and would spend the rest of his days under the watchful eye of British masters. The Dutch offered up their own navy, sending a ship to patrol the waters for weeks at a time. Napoleon escaped once, and nobody dared a repeat of Elba. After more than twenty years of warfare, Europe was ready for some well earned peace.
The Second Anglo-American War
Less than thirty years after officially achieving independence, the United States, now eighteen (the addition of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and Louisiana by war’s declaration) faced off against its former mother country over rights to the high-seas. During its own war with Napoleon, the Royal (British) Navy filled its ranks by impressing sailors. Often these were United States citizens. Britain ignored the diplomatic protests, since its own laws do not recognize the right of its own citizens to switch national allegiance.
Furthermore, enemy tribes in the Ohio Valley put up considerable resistance against Federal and allied Tribal armies. The British armed many of these tribes via Canada, though when confronted with the accusation, they staunchly deny it. The British did arm the Indians, and with good reason. London’s plan was to create a buffer zone between its Canadian colony and the expansionist United States. After its acquisition of Louisiana, the British grew wary of the Americans.
Tensions continued to rise until 1812, when war hawks in Congress and a few general decided the only way to keep the Indians from attacking settlers was to cut-off their trade with Britain, i.e. invade Canada. Since the British have occupied Quebec for the better part of the Napoleonic Wars, the liberation of Quebec was also of national importance. This much was agreed upon, but as for annexing Canada– that was not so clear cut. Canada of 1812 was largely populated by exiles from the former eleven colonies (loyalists) and their decedents.
Siting both Indian attacks and harassment of the American merchant marine, President Madison stood before Congress and asked for a declaration of war, which he received on June 18, 1812. Despite attacks on commerce, all of the New England delegates voted against the war. Bringing the full wrath of the British Navy was far worse than the occasional harassment on the high seas. A full scale blockade would cripple the New England economy.
Almost from the beginning of the war, Britain’s meager forces in Canada successfully swept the Great Lakes region clear of the United States Army. Detroit fell within weeks of the declaration and Fort Dearborne fell without even firing a shot. So disastrous was the army’s actions that Congress immediately began to regret the war. Ohio’s own militia refused to leave the state to pursue the war, and in some cases, the militia even refused to leave their home towns. With the United States Army in retreat, enemy tribes only felt more encouraged to drive back the wave of settlers.
Attempts to cross the Niagra River into Canada met with Disaster. Again, the militia refused to cross the river. Their responsibility was to their homes. The Iroquois militia proved completely unreliable to the regular Army. Indian military doctrine was incompatible with the European model of the Army. The Iroquois would only attack head on if they were certain of victory, otherwise they would remain hidden, launching hit-and-run attacks when the opportunity provided itself. When the British, in turn, cross the river into Iroquois, the Indians’ guerilla tactics frustrated any attempts for a British advance.
The only reason the war was not lost in the first few months was because the bulk of Britain’s armed forces were waging a war in Europe against a far more dangerous opponent than the upstart American nation. Against Napoleon, the British would field armies of tens of thousands. Only a fraction of that could be afforded for the war in American, and even that proved effective against the poorly trained United States Army.
The real bright spot of the whole Great Lakes Theater came from the Navy. Dutch officers were hired to instruct at the Naval Academy in Baltimore. On September 10, 1813, Great Lakes squadrons of both American and British origin clashed upon Lake Erie, near Put-in Bay off the Ohio coast. Under the command of Oliver Perry, the Americans scored a decisive victory over the British, effectively driving them from the lake. It was only the Army’s inability to capitalize on this victory that caused the war to drag on into the disastrous year of 1814.
Once Napoleon was in exile, the British could afford to send its veteran soldiers to fight in America. The British were eager to end the war swiftly, sensing tensions between the victorious allies in Europe, and thus headed to the source of the problems. Five thousand soldiers landed on the Maryland shore of the Chesapeake Bay. With much of the United States Army in the north, the British marched mostly unchallenged towards the city of Washington, meeting only militia units along the way, and easily scattering them.
During the 18th Century, capturing the enemy’s capital usually spelled victory for the attacker. It was here the British hoped to dictate their own peace terms, which called for annexation of land, and independence for many of Britain’s own Indian allies. Though these terms would be reduced by war’s end, it was a sign of confidence from the British that the war would soon be over.
On August 24, 1814, the British met an American Army of some 650 regulars and a few thousand militia at the town of Blandenburg, outside of Washington. The battle was decided even shortly after it began. As with many battles in the Second Anglo-American War, the militia broke and ran before the disciplined British. Of the 650 regulars, eleven were killed and over one hundred captured. The rest retreated to Washington to aid in defending the evacuating government.
On the night of August 24, the British entered the city of Washington, and took the capital building and presidential mansion, but not totally unopposed. Of all of Congress, one Senator from Connecticut refused to flee. When three soldiers attempted to convince him to leave, he was reported to say ‘I never gave one inch of American soil during the last war, and I’ll be damned if I start now’. The Senator was none other than Benedict Arnold.
At the age of 73, the position of Senator was the last in a long line of occupations for Arnold. After the Constitution was ratified, Arnold ran and served one term as representative. Afterwards, he ran for Governor of his own state and won. Just as with his army days, Arnold had the habit of stepping on the toes of professional politicians. His opponents in the state assembly sought ways to remove him. He was popular amongst the people, so it was unlikely he could be voted out of office. When Connecticut’s Senate seat became open, the assembly saw a way to rid themselves of Arnold. They elected him to represent the assembly in Washington, and continued to do so until, as one assemblyman put it ‘he retires for good or dies’.
When the British advanced upon the capital, Arnold took the rifle from the youngest soldier and told him to go aid the others escape. The other two soldiers he ordered to stay and fight. They could have fled, but the sight of an old man ready to take on the British Army shamed them into staying, though they knew the outcome. After a brief shootout, the three defenders were gunned down by the British. Afterwards, Arnold was recognized by the British commander (how exactly still remains unclear) and ordered his men to give him a burial fit for great soldier. Afterwards, they proceeded to have a mock session of Congress were they voted to burn down the building.
On October 10, 1814, delegates from Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts met in Hartford to discuss a way to get out of the war. Some critics condemned the convention as an attempt by New England to secede from the Union, though it was an option in the eyes of the commerce-orientated New Englanders. At the convention, five constitutional amendments were proposed. 1) Prohibiting trade embargoes lasting over sixty days; 2) Requiring two-thirds votes in Congress for declaration of war, admission of states or interdiction of commerce; 3) Removing the three-fifths clause to the Constitution. The clause gave southern states more representation than they deserved since it counted slaves as three-fifths of a citizen, even though they were legal property; 4) Placing a limit on the office of the President for one term; 5) Presidents must be from different states than their predecessor. None of these amendments were ever passed, but the potential of New England seceding and making a separate peace with Britain was enough to convince Congress and the President that it was time to negotiate.
By December of 1814, the two belligerents decided it was time to end the war. Napoleon had returned to France, and Britain was facing troubled relations with other parties at the Vienna Congress, so the British removed several of their demands. Especially after the Americans, even after losing their capital to flames, made it clear they would never except such terms. However, they would have to give up some land to achieve peace.
Britain’s terms were not terribly harsh, and after the treaty was signed, the British would respect America’s right to trade on the high-seas. However, the British used the peace talks to settle disputes in territory between America and the Canadian colony. The United States would cede the northern portion of Upper Massachusetts (present day Maine) along with the Red River Valley (in present day Minnesota).
In return, the British would cease interfering with American trade and no longer impress its citizenry. The treaty was signed, and later ratified by a humbled Congress. Three weeks after the treaty was signed, a battle between British and American armies at New Orleans ended with the British trapped within the city. The siege of the British army was lifted upon hearing the news of peace. The United States would spend decades rebuilding their wounded economy and shattered pride.
Congress of Vienna
After Napoleon’s second fall, the powers of Europe met in Vienna to redefine the borders of nations. For the Dutch, there was little gained, and plenty lost. For the final time, the question of Mons was addressed. The Congress decided that the city would stay under French rule, to which King Maurice II consented. Mons had been under French ruled for two decades, and he was not ready to wage war against all of Europe for just that city. Furthermore, Denmark was granted independence from the United Provinces, and a distant cousin of the last Danish king, Christian IV was put upon its throne.
This was a punitive action, spearheaded by the British delegates to Vienna. The British government had yet to forgive the Dutch for breaking their century long alliance in 1778, and even less so for kicking them out of India. Britain went further in attempts to regain portions of Bengal, but aborted this attempt when Maurice II made it clear his country was ready to wage war over India. They were not, however, prepared to wage war over Denmark. Though nobody backed British claims in India, delegates from Sweden and Prussia backed the restoration of the Danish Monarchy, as means to insure that the United Provinces did not utterly dominate trade in and out of the Baltic. Denmark did not, however, receive Norway. The Grand Principality of Norway remained under Dutch rule. To this day, heirs to the Dutch throne are called Grand Princes of Norway.
The war set other nations on the coarse of ascendance. Prussia, a second-rate kingdom in the Eighteenth Century was now in virtual command of the northern German states. A North German Confederation was established with Prussia at its lead, the predecessor for the modern-day German Empire. Germany was not an immediate concern to the Dutch people and government. The decision to restore the House of Bourbon was initially opposed by the United Provinces. However, after seeing just how chaotic and uncontrollable republican France turned out to be, it was agreed that a constitutional monarchy would be in the United Provinces’s best interest.
With the House of Oranje restored to the United Provinces, and ruling Brazil, and a new order in post-Napoleonic Europe, the stage was set for an expansion unlike any to come before. The organization known as the United Provinces was about to go global in a way it had never managed, even after two centuries of colonialism. With the fall of the French Empire, a golden age of imperialism would consume the Nineteenth Century and much of the world around it.
The Indian Ocean
By 1763, the Indian Ocean was rapidly on its way of becoming a Dutch lake. The VOC ran colonies from southern Africa to India all the way to the Australian coast. Peace might have came to Europe, but in the middle of the Eighteenth Century the VOC sought new markets. New markets might as well mean new conquests. In the preceding century and a half, the VOC managed to expand its Portuguese conquests. French, Danish and Venetian trading posts were gradually muscled out of southern India, with France being the last to be ousted in 1763.
Only the VOC was pleased by the monopoly on foreign trade in southern India. A number of princely states, most notably Mysore, were not pleased by the lack of choices. Though the VOC’s prices were not extortion, they were higher than they would be with competition. A few states closed their borders to the Dutch, but most simply sought out new traders. In response, the VOC simply conquered the states, and installed more complacent princes and kings.
Like many trading companies of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, the VOC wielded powers comparable to that of nations. The VOC’s royal monopoly authorized it to sign treaties, raise armies, levy taxes and even wage war. What started as a small band of sailors and Ceylonese soldiers soon grew into a large, well-organized mercenary force. When veterans of Europe’s wars grew restless in peace, the found employment with their national trading companies. The VOC was no different.
The VOC hired the best soldiers they could find in Europe as well as indigenous soldiers known as Sepoy. Upon establishing itself in southern India, the company began to hire local talent. At first, they only hired locals as guides and translators, but after the VOC’s first conference gave the VOC a new problem; what to do with the prisoners of war? The task of disarming and pacifying conquered states strained the VOC’s resources, and occupying the state was simply not profitable.
In 1643, the governor-general of the East India Company proposed to the shareholders that the VOC simply hire the soldiers it just defeated. Who better to fight Indians than other Indians. He reasoned they were accustom to both land and disease, and hiring local armies would save on shipping Europeans half way around the world. Thus started the VOC tradition of employing those it just vanquished.
One today might wonder what would compel a pre-commonwealth Indian from allying with foreigners against their own nation and people. What one must keep in mind is that many of the soldiers were conscripted, and if paid, it was very little. The VOC offered, in some cases, seven times the salary of a soldiers, and up to twice the annual average income. The allure of better pay and constant work convinced more than a few defeated foes from switching sides. Truth was, the VOC exploited regional rivalries. It would be like Napoleon hiring Austrians to fight Turks, or Spaniards to fight Sardinians.
Aside from greater pay than conscripts and the opportunity to battle old adversaries, employment by the VOC offered Indians the possibility of advancement. In the Hindu states of the south, caste was everything. The idea of advancement, to elevate one’s position on the social ladder was very foreign indeed, and many Indian employees relished the idea. Change was not welcome by everybody, however. For centuries upon centuries, those of the highest castes, such as the Brahmans, ruled with occasional impunity.
In 1767, Mysore began to push back the tide of VOC influence in its region. For a century and a half, the VOC operated trading posts on Mysore’s coast, acting as middleman between the Indian state and foreign buyers. When the VOC began to enact its own tariffs and taxes on Mysore, and Mysoran King was most displeased by what he saw as an act of hubris. Several dozen tax collectors were killed by Mysore, their heads delivered to the local VOC headquarters at Goa. It took some time for word of the ‘massacre’ to reach Amsterdam, but when it did, the VOC gave the only response available; it declared war.
The Dutch-Mysore war was short, but still the bloodiest conflict in southern India during the Dutch Raj. Thousands of VOC employees lost their lives, while tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Indian were killed, either in combat or famine that followed. Native lords took their own taxes of food and gold, and when the VOC overran an estate, the vaults and granaries were taken as spoils of war. Indian employees, particularly those from states hostile to Mysore, looted markets and burnt fields.
The VOC had little regard for the Indians. If Indian killed Indian, that was not their concern. When the United Provinces took direct control over India in 1800, the anti-Dutch mentality gave future governor-generals fifty years of headaches. It took even longer to undo the damage inflicted by the company. When the VOC emerged victorious, the King of Mysore was put to death, and a distant cousin installed on the throne, one that might be more agreeable to VOC policies. By 1771, the government and courts of Mysore answered directly to the Governor-general on Ceylon.
Some of the spoils of the Mysore conquest came in the forms of precious and semi-precious stones found across the Indian sub-continent. Before the invasion, most Netherlanders only had the faintest idea about sapphires and emeralds. Afterwards, the demand for gemstones drove the VOC, and later the Dutch Raj, to expand its sphere of influence throughout India. It also lead to the downfall and near destruction of the VOC, following its prohibitively expensive conquest of British-controlled Bengal during the 1780s.
Empire
Following its defeat of the British East India Company, the VOC commercial empire dominated the Indian Ocean, holding large chunks of land along with millions of Indian, Ceylonese and East Indian subjects liable to company taxes. The VOC used what they taxed and invested it into the area in which it was taxed. Along with road and harbor improvements around the ocean, the VOC ran its own company schools and hospitals within its private empire. Tens of millions of more people were dependent upon the VOC. Across Sumatra and Borneo, small states and sultanates grew dependent upon the VOC for all of its external trade. The Kingdom of Kandy, still nominally independent, could not access the outside world without the use of VOC ships. For all intent purposes, between 1783 and 1799, the VOC was one of the largest Empires in the world.
Like all empires, the VOC’s Indian Ocean operation was not without troubles. The largest trouble came not from native population, but from the Dutch colonists in South Africa. One of the backwaters of the Dutch world and the VOC’s commercial empire oddly enough lay at the most strategic point in the spice trade; southern Africa. Kapenstadt was founded by the VOC in 1617, as an agricultural colony to stock its ships with the food required for long journeys. The VOC hired farmers and other adventurers across the United Provinces with the promise of free land. The first settlers brought with them tried and true crops, such as wheat, barley and grapes (all of which doubled for alcohol productions). The following decades saw the arrival of more exotic crops.
Potatoes from the New World, oranges and limes for battling scurvy, and even attempts to plant sugar. These attempts were quickly squelched by the VOC. The colonists were paid to produce food, not cash crops, and besides, Cape Colony was not the ideal environment for sugar cane. Much protest came out of the issue. “It is my land, and I will grow what I like,’ to which the VOC replied that no, you are our employees and you will grow exactly what we tell you to. Instead of a second Brazil, the Cape became Holland, Flanders or even Limburg transplanted on the opposite side of the world, complete with dairy farms, but minus the liberty.
Cape Colony was unique in the VOC’s holdings. It was the only mostly exclusive Netherlander department that was ruled like a private fief. The colonists considered the VOC tyrants of the worst kind, sons of Spain and not true Netherlanders. The VOC really did not care what the colonists thought, as long as they grew what they were suppose to, and since the company held a complete monopoly on the colony, what it said went.
By the start of the Eighteenth Century, many of the colonists had enough of the VOC’s dictates and upped and moved further inland. Since the company saw little of interest in the interior of southern Africa, it was reasoned that was the perfect place to escape. Word of the South Atlantic Company’s fall angered the colonists further. Former slaves now had more right than Dutch citizens, it was an outrage. Attempts to send word to the Hague failed, since again the VOC controlled the lines of communication. Anyone foolish enough to attempt sending word were eventually discovered and fined.
Up to a hundred families departed Kapenstaat for the bush and for freedom from the domineering VOC. The families, known across history as Boers, took upon the Boer Trek across three hundred kilometers of wilderness before reaching rivers and watering holes in the highland. The first Boer Trekkers left Kapenstadt in August of 1768, after suffering a century and a half of VOC rule. However, after 1768, the VOC cracked down on the colonists, and made every attempt to prevent emigration to the interior. The VOC went as far as to send several expeditions to bring back the Boers.
The Boers lived life in the bush far freer than on the cape, but far harsher. Gone were the luxuries brought in by the VOC, and gone were the luxury crops grown for them. Boers brought with them their sheep and cattle, along with corn and wheat, and a few tomatoes. Not only did their livestock provide food, but wool and cattle hide powered the tanning and weaving industry the Boers built up.
The first hundred families settled in roughly the same area, founding a new town, Johannesbourg, named for the king at the time of the Trek. The town was little more than a collection of shops and farms clustered around a watering hole. After the first year each of the families lost at least one member to the hazzards of the bush. If not for the effort to establish positive relations with the Bushmen, it is not likely that the first Boers would have survived.
The community established around Johannesbourg struggled to survive for years to come. More Boers braved the elements and VOC, adding numbers to the town. Throughout history, population increases were often viewed as improvements. However, Johannesbourg lacked resources to support the growing community. Trade with the Bushmen supplemented what could be grown on farms and ranches. Boer homes were nothing like the plantations in Brazil and Ceylon or orchards of New Amsterdam. They were subsidence level farming, with simple houses built of stone with dirt floors. In comparison with the rest of the Dutch Empire, the Boers lived in poverty.
When Johannesbourg reached saturation level, Boers branched out to other watering holes and rivers, establishing new towns. Each of these towns, once stable, took to electing their own leaders, village chiefs or town mayors. Trade between towns soon brought the Boer communities closer together, closer to nationhood. Within a hundred years, three Boer republics were established; Johannestaaten, Transvaal and Nieu Oranje.
In 1786, the VOC sacked Johannebourg, taking all livestock back to the Cape, burning the thriving settlement and even poisoning the watering hole. This was the peak of the anti-Boer campaign, as the Board of Directors in Amsterdam decided that pursuing the Boers was simply not worth the expense. After giving the British the boot in India, the Company was in severe debt. Anything that could be cut, was cut. Instead of bringing back the Boers, thousands of new settlers were brought to Kapenstaat from Flanders. These colonists had but one decade to live under the VOC’s rule. To further exasperate their debt, the VOC had the third largest navy in the world, behind the United Provinces and the United Kingdom respectively. The upkeep of such a navy took almost 40% of the Company’s budget in 1798.
Turmoil in North America
While the Boers were struggling on the opposite side of the Atlantic, the New Amsterdammers were thriving. Trade with the American colonies and the Iroquois Confederacy, along with the United Provinces made many of the inhabitants of New Amsterdam wealthy. Where a Boer might live in a shanty, even the poorest of New Amsterdammers lived with wooden floors. The city of New Amsterdam, close to fifty thousand by 1770, was nearly as crowded as old Amsterdam.
Following the end of the Seven Years War, and temporary expulsion of France from North America, tensions began to rise between the United Kingdom and her American colonies. To London, it seemed only logical that the colonies help pay for the war that protected them. However, Americans are funny when it comes to taxation; they simply do not like it. In this regard, the Americans shared a similar relationship to their Mother Country as the Boers did to the VOC, with neither rebellious progeny being very cooperative.
During the 1760s, and early 1770s, various taxes were introduced to help offset the cost of waging war in the New World. Not only did London attempt to tax her colonies, but struggled to control who they could trade with. In 1770, the cities of Boston and Philadelphia were doing as much trade with the Dutch in New Amsterdam as they were with London. This trade impacted the profit of British merchants. Though it was an important market for the United Provinces, the American colonies were hardly vital.
The American justification for refusing to pay taxes was the famed quotation ‘no taxation without representation’. London gradually reduced and repealed most taxes, with the exception of the tax on tea. In eventual response to this final tax, several patriots dressed as Mohawks, likely lead by Samuel Adams, boarded ships of the British East India Company on December 16, 1773, and proceeded to dump ten thousand pounds worth of tea into Boston Harbor. In response, London passed a series of laws now known as the Intolerable Acts, which effectively disbanded Massachusetts’s government and closed the harbor of Boston until the British were compensated for the loss of tea.
By 1775, tensions in New England grew to the point were the British Army deployed contingent in Boston and the surrounding countryside. On April 18, 1775, British general Thomas Gage sent seven hundred soldiers further inland to seize militia stores in Concord. Before the British were to depart Boston, patriots within the city managed to get word out, warning the militia of the regulars’ advance. The first shots of the Revolution were fired in Lexington, on the following day. It is unknown who fired the first shot, but is largely believed to have been a militiaman, since the British Regular Army held far more discipline.
The militia retreated before regular fire, but bough militia in Concord enough time to organize. The Regulars were stopped on the North Bridge over the Concord river, and after a short and fierce fight, were forced back, and eventually returned to Boston. This victory gave the Americans a false sense that the war could be resolved by Christmas, a common enough mistake throughout the history of the world. More over, these two small engagements kicked off the Revolution and was in effect the dawning of United States history.
The Continental Army
Before the Second Continental Congress, the eleven colonies were forced to raise their own militias and generally fend for themselves. With continued encroachment on liberties in Massachusetts, other colonies believed that it was only a matter of time before the fate befell them. It was believed that a united front against the Mother Country could only improve their odds. In order to build a common defense, the Continental Congress established the Continental Army on June 14, 1775. To command this new army, Congress appointed a Virginian plantation owner, perhaps to bring the southern colonies into the cause, George Washington. At the time, the choice was somewhat of a dubious one. Washington fought two battles during the Seven Years War, and was victorious in neither. With hindsight, it is easy to see that Washington was the perfect choice, not only because he was a leader of men, but because when he had power, he let it go and returned home. Few in human history were strong enough to resist the lure of power.
Washington was appalled after his first tour of the ‘army’ by what he saw, and more over, by what he did not see. The Continental Army was camped out around Boston, as if to lay siege. However, it had no artillery to bombard Regular positions. The closest stockpile of cannon were located at the British fortress of Ticonderoga, within the Iroquois country. Washington dispatched Connecticut Brigadier General, Benedict Arnold, and a small contingent to attempt to capture these guns.
Arnold was met part way by one Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys. When Ticonderoga fell without firing a shot, it was Allen who stole the glory. In fact, the hardest fighting was between Arnold and Allen, as to which one of them was really in command. Benedict Arnold was a fighting general, a brilliant tactician, and as undiplomatic as possible. His habit of stepping on the toes of his fellow generals and various politicians would dog him for the rest of his life.
After bringing the guns back to Boston, Gage was amazed to wake up and see numerous cannon aimed at his garrison. Upon the realization that these rebels were at a total advantage, Gage had little choice but to evacuate the several thousand Regulars along with numerous loyalist families to British strongholds in Nova Scotia. It is not known whether or not Gage ever discovered that though Washington had the cannon, he lacked the powder to use them.
Invasion of Canada
Following the ‘victory’ at Boston, the Congress invited the French-Canadians to join them as the twelfth colony. The invitation dated back to 1774, but the Québécois responded to neither invitation. Though they were not pleased by British rule, that did not mean they were sympathetic to the patriot cause. For the most part, apathy reigned in Quebec. Congress authorized General Philip Schuyler to command an invasion of Canada and drive the British from the continent. General Arnold, who was passed over for the command, went to Boston to convince Washington to send him and a support force to aid in conquering Canada.
As it turned out, the initial invasion, and capture of Montreal was done under the command of Richard Montgomery. Schuyler dropped out of the invasion to confer with the Iroquois, to attempt to bring them over to the patriot cause. Though it did most of its trading through New Amsterdam, the Indian nation did have extensive commercial ties with the colonies, more so that with Britain herself, so they had little reason to join the British. However, the tribal leader decided, for the time being, this was a white man’s war, and opted for neutrality.
Montreal fell on November 13, with little resistance. Montgomery expended much of his resources laying siege to Fort St. John, between September and November of 1775, before it finally capitulated ten days before Montreal. Leaving a force to defend the new holdings in Montreal, Montgomery soon began his own march down river to join up with Arnold in an assault on Quebec. For his part, Arnold took the difficult road in reaching Canada. A march along the Kennebec River in Upper Massachusetts, through unbroken wilderness. Though his army experienced many hardships on the march and was not in the best of fighting conditions upon arriving on the banks of the Saint Laurence, the assault on Quebec would still go forth.
On December 31, 1775, on the day before enlistments expired, Arnold and Montgomery launched a joint assault against Quebec. During his own assault, Montgomery was killed by grapeshot, and Arnold later wounded in the leg. The British General, Guy Carleton, pursued the retreating Continentals, breaking a make-do siege laid upon Quebec by reinforcements in the spring of 1776. The Continental Army retreated across Lake Champlain. During spring and summer of 1776, both sides were locked in an arms race, attempting to build a fleet, one to conquer, the other to defend. Arnold and Carleton would meet in combat again on the lake in the autumn of 1776.
Declaration of Independence
Debate raged in Congress since the capture of Boston and retreat from Canada into the summer of 1776. Some wished for reconciliation between colonies and Mother Country. Others wished for complete separation from Britain. Gradually, the faction favoring independence won out. By July 1. 1776, Congress assigned a committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. On this committee were the likes of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the Immortal Benjamin, were given the task of writing the declaration. At the time, the declaration was considered to be little more than a footnote in future histories, and was delegated to the junior member of the committee, Jefferson.
On July 3, the Congress voted to accept the declaration. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, ‘we must hang together or we will most assuredly hang separately’. It was not until the next day that the declaration was signed by all the colonies’ delegates. By signing this blatant act of sedition, each representative knew he was a wanted man. Many lost land and property as a result. Two even lost their lives. News of the Declaration of Independence spread across the colonies, reaching Boston just days before the British landings. On July 15, twenty thousand soldiers, including five thousand Hanoverian and Hessian mercenaries landed in Connecticut. Patriots road day and night, reaching Boston, warning Washington that he was at risk of being trapped with his back against the sea.
Washington’s army began its march westward, intercepting the British along the Connecticut River. Much to Washington’s horror, his own army left the battle prematurely. Rather than risk a total route, and destruction of the Continental Army, Washington was forced to organize a retreat, abandoning New England for the time being. It is one of the tragic ironies in American History, that one of Washington’s most brilliant plans was that of evacuating his army. Trapped against the Connecticut River, the British were in no hurry to dispatch the rebels. In fact, William Howe, General commanding the British forces, decided to let his own army get a good night’s rest before ending the rebellion. During the night, dozens of Americans volunteered to stay behind and keep the fires in camp burning, to fool the British, while Washington and his remaining army escaped across the Connecticut. By the time Howe realized what had happened, the Continental Army reached a safe distance.
Valcour Bay
Aside from Howe’s own invasion, a second invasion from Canada was in the works. This one would travel down Lake Champlain, then the Mauritius River. They would have to build their ships on the river, since the Dutch in New Amsterdam refused to allow the Royal (British) Navy access to the river. Two things stood in the way of the British plan to dominate the Mauritius; 1) lack of a fleet on Lake Champlain; 2) Fort Ticonderoga stood between them and the Mauritius Valley.
Arnold fell back to Ticonderoga after the disaster that was Quebec. Only the lack of a British fleet allowed his army to escape. Some general might retreat further, accepting the impossibility of their position, but not Arnold. Before the Revolution, he was a pharmacists and book seller in New Haven. After the Stamp Act, Arnold did what many traders did; became a smuggler. He had a great deal of experience in maritime affairs, much more so than any of his soldiers. During the spring and summer of 1776, Arnold oversaw the construction of a small fleet, little more than armed rafts by Dutch or British standards.
The Champlain arms race ended on October 11, 1776, off Valcour Island. Arnold chose this narrow spot on the lake to diminish British advantages. The battle itself was a complete loss to the Americans; the British virtually annihilated the small fleet. So bad was the damage to Arnold’s flagship, the Congress was ran aground and burned to deny it to the enemy. It was not a surrender, for Arnold left the flag flying even as he lead his army back to Ticonderoga. One might expect the British to gain an easy victory, but Carleton was a veteran of the Boston campaign, and knew the rebels were formidable. Being October, it was too late in the year to lay siege to the fortress, thus Carleton opted to make winter camp at the north end of the lake. His cautiousness and Arnold’s audacity saved the patriot cause in this greatest battle of that nobody has heard.
Crossing the Mauritius
Washington’s shrunken army camped on the opposite shore of the Mauritius, within Iroquois country during December of 1776. This was the Revolution’s bleakest hour. Come January, enlistments would expire and the demoralized Continental Army would disband itself. Supplies were short, pay was back and victory appeared a distance dream; the soldiers had little incentive to remain. Washington knew that he must score a victory or the Revolution would fizzle out before spring were to arrive. He saw his chance in a small Hessian garrison at White Plains.
On December 25, Washington lead his army in a daring crossing of the ice choked Mauritius, and an all-night march through the cold over many kilometers. It was at dawn of the 26th that Washington initiated the attack against the German mercenaries. The Hessians, for their part, were so complacent, that they had yet to recover from their Christmas celebration. Some soldiers were hung over and all were taken by surprise when the Continental Army attacked. The battle was over before the Hessians could organize, and their commander died shortly after the garrison surrendered.
A second battle was fought further east, this against a garrison of Hanoverian soldiers camped near Deerfield. These soldiers were not as drunk, but the attack did catch them off guard. Again, the Germans were defeated. After the victory, Washington and his army retreated to a highly defensible position for Winter Quarters. These two small victories were enough to force the British back closer to Boston and New Haven for the rest of the winter. More over, it was a morale boost and convinced many soldiers to re-enlist. Because of Washington’s boldness, the British would have to wait until 1777 to crush the rebellion.
The Fall of Philadelphia
In the summer of 1777, the British had a grand plan to crush the rebellion. It also had two separate commands with little to no communication between the two. The grand plan was that one army, under William Howe, would march west from Boston, while another army under John Burgoyne would march south from Lake Champlain, and together they would sever New England from the rest of the colonies. The ancient plan of divide-and-conquer may even have trapped the bulk of the Continental Army between the two British armies and crush it.
However, that was not to be. During the Eighteenth Century, the glory would come to the man who conquered the enemy capital. That was Philadelphia and a notable distance from New England. Without consulting with his counterpart in Canada, Howe boarded most of his army into transports and sailed down into the Chesapeake Bay. Forts Washington and Lee blocked the Susquehanna River south of Philadelphia, forcing the British to attack overland. The Continental Army faced the British repeatedly, attempting to slow down the British.
At Brandywine Creek, Washington attempted to make a stand, only to have the militia break and run. The Americans were driven back, and Philadelphia fell on September 23, 1777. Congress fled the city ahead of the British, setting up a temporary capital in York, Pennsylvania. When the rebel capital fell, patriots fled and loyalist cheered the entry of the redcoats. Though the capital’s loss was not a strategic blow to the Revolution, it would impact diplomatic efforts in the Hague and Paris, making it more difficult for foreign governments to recognize the United States.
Howe attempted to pursue Washington further. The Americans stopped the British advance at Germantown. The battle itself was only a marginal victory for Washington, but it did signal an end to campaigning in Pennsylvania for 1777. Howe was in no great hurry to leave his own comfortable winter quarters in the occupied rebel capital. As for the Continental Army, they would spent their winter at Valley Forge, where one of America’s first German friends would help put the army in Continental Army. The Baron of Steuban not only drilled the Continental Army through the winter at Valley Forge, but later served as Washington’s own chief-of-staff.
Saratoga
While Howe was capturing Philadelphia, Burgoyne battled his way through rebels in the north. Ticonderoga fell without much of a fight, when the British hauled artillery up the aptly named Mount Defiant, forcing the rebels to surrender. After Lake Champlain was secured, the army began its slow march south through the Iroquois Confederacy. The Six Nations wished to retain their neutrality, but the incursion of thousand of British soldiers put a drain on the land. Though they had supply trains, British soldiers still foraged, taking both game and crops as they traveled. British commanders even went as far as to demand provisions from the Iroquois, in return for protecting the Indians from ‘colonial expansion’.
It is still not clear which specific incident precipitated violence, but what is known that some insult sparked an Iroquois war party to attack a British patrol. The British, in turn, retaliated, bringing the Six Nations of the Iroquois into the Revolution on the Patriot cause. Though the Indians were vastly outnumbered, they were aided by many patriot frontiersmen in obstructing and delaying the British advance. Toppling trees and collapsed bridges slowed Burgoyne’s advance to only a couple of miles a day. This allowed the Continental Army enough time to meet the British advance.
Congressional favorite, Horatio Gates, was appointed commander of the Northern Department of the Continental Army, over the head of Arnold, who had fought the British in the north for two years. Arnold was put under the command of Gates, whom he considered inept, despite Gates’s own experience as a soldier in the British Army before the Revolution. Unlike Arnold, Gates was not the fighting general his soldiers loved. The appointment of Gates caused a great deal of conflict between Gates and Arnold, and the two often quailed.
The British were slowed an Bennington, but not stopped, and they clashed with the Continental Army under the command of Schuyler and Arnold. The battle was a delaying action. The two sides clashed again at Freeman’s Farm on September 17. Gates was content to do nothing, but Arnold made his own move against the British. The battle bled the British, who were getting low on ammunition and supplies, forcing Burgoyne to withdraw to Saratoga.
Upon hearing that Arnold acted unilaterally, Gates relieved Arnold of command and confined him to quarters, on the eve of the second battle. Burgoyne launched his own attack, in a desperate bid to reach Albany before winter set in, on October 7. The Battle of Bemis Heights nearly turned into a disaster for the Patriot Cause. Though outnumbered by October, the British assault was strong enough to break the will of some militia units, causing them to flee.
Gates believed the battle would be lost if he did not act. His order was for his army to retreat, however an orderly retreat was difficult to manage. Some units broke and ran from charging British cavalry. If not for Arnold disobeying orders, the battle might well have been lost. Instead of staying confined to quarters, Arnold raced to join the battle. Seeing his own countrymen retreating, Arnold charged forth, rallying them. Given the choice between running away or at the enemy, the Continentals chose to follow Arnold instead of Gates.
Arnold personally lead the charge up Breymann Redoubt. Though seriously wounded in the leg, and taken out of the fight, the Continentals following him took the redoubt, and turned the course of the battle. Facing innumerable casualties, Burgoyne opted to retreat northwards toward Ticonderoga. Having the battle turned for him, Gates lead the army to outflank and cut-off the British plans of escape. Trapped, Gates attempted to demand unconditional surrender of the British, which was flatly refused. The British would sooner fight to the death. The British would accept the plan to be disarmed; taken into captivity, and marched to Boston to be returned to Britain, under the promise they would never fight in America again.
On October 17, after much negotiation, Burgoyne lead his army out of camp and surrendered. However, he refused to surrender to Gates, despite the fact it was he who was negotiating. From his own reports, Burgoyne learned that Gates sounded a retreat. Burgoyne would surrender only to the man who bested him. After much arguing, an aid sympathetic to Arnold lead Burgoyne to Arnold’s temporary quarters.
At the time of surrender, Arnold was fighting another battle, this against the surgeons to keep his leg. Arnold vaguely knew what happened outside the hospital, and believed Gates would steal all the credit. Much to his surprise, on the morning of the 17th, a Redcoat General entered his tent and offered Arnold his sword. Arnold accepted and acknowledged the terms of the surrender. Though he was clearly the Victor of Saratoga, it did not stop Gates from receiving credit. Arnold and part of his army would spend winter quarters in Albany, Arnold healing and promoted to Major General. Congress would reward Gates’s ‘contribution’ by appointing him Commander-in-Chief of the Southern Department of the Continental Army.
Recognition
Much of the history of the recognition of the United States lay with Benjamin Franklin’s exploits in the French court. For the purpose of Dutch history, the focus will be more on John Adams’s quieter mission to the Hague. Despite being dragged into several wars by an alliance with the British, the Dutch were not eager in engaging them in war. Much anti-British sentiment dwelled in the southern Provinces, those ravished by wars with France. Those same wars generated resentment by the Staaten-General towards its British counterpart. The Dutch had little interest in the dynastic wars of the Eighteenth Century. This did not mean the Dutch failed to benefit from its conquests of French colonial possessions in South America.
Trade with Great Britain itself had fallen to a minimal. The British had their own merchant fleet, and a combination of tax-breaks for the British and tariffs on everyone else made Dutch good, though generally higher in quality, too expensive to the relatively poorer British citizenry. Despite sentiment and trade obstructions, there was no real reason to recognize the American’s independence, despite strong trade ties with the colonies, unless the rebels can prove themselves capable of victory.
Though the French were eager to get back Quebec, Dutch recognition came only when the American’s forced the surrender of an entire British army. Oddly enough, John Adams first heard of the victory of Saratoga from Dutch diplomats and not his own people. Word of the victory quickly spread down the Mauritius River to New Amsterdam, then across the Atlantic as soon as the first trader set sail for home. Recognition came in April of 1778, but Adams had yet to secure an alliance. Word that France allied with the Americans made some members of the Staaten-General hesitate. After nearly a century of alliance, the Staaten-General did not jump at the chance to betray Britain. Recognizing the new American Republic was one thing, justified by commercial interests if nothing else. Actively waging war upon an ally, even one that drug the United Provinces to near disaster in the 1740s, was quite another matter.
When the alliance did come, in the summer of 1778, it came from a source very far away from the American Revolution. It was the VOC that pushed the alliance through their members of the Second Chamber and lobbied for the King and First Chamber to declare war upon Britain. The VOC had no interest in the United States. What it did have a great interest in were the British holdings in Bengal. After defeating the Moguls, the British gained dominance over the area. The British East India Company, the British counterpart of the VOC, was the greatest threat to VOC preeminence. When war was declared and the Anglo-Dutch alliance finally broken, it was not America that was the battlefield, but Bengal.
Bengal
All throughout the Eighteenth Century, the United East India Company was plagued by warfare in India. Fighting both their European rivals and the native Princes slowly drained the VOC’s coffers. Management in Amsterdam had little tolerance for lost profits, but the expense of waging war would inevitably lead to the Company’s domination of India itself. The VOC went to war when the United Provinces went to war and against the same enemy. During the wars with France, they attacked the French East Indian Company and its holding in India. The VOC’s own navy did the fighting on the seas, while native allies and mercenaries comprised the bulk of the land forces. Only Dutch officers served in the VOC’s Army. France’s own Indian army launched its own attacks on Company holdings in Goa and along the western coast of India. The bloodshed at the Battle of Nagapatnam in 1758, ending in a Dutch defeat cost the lives of over ten thousand Indian soldiers when the Company officials refused to surrender. One newspaper in Rotterdam put it well when after the battle it declared that the VOC would defend their holdings to the last Indian.
When word of war with Britain reached India, the Company was not ready to take Bengal. Like the VOC, the British trading company also had its own share of enemies in northern India. The Company spent hundreds of thousands of guilders arming these anti-British Princes and bringing them into alliance with the VOC. The British did likewise with the Dutch’s own Indian malcontents. On the seas, the VOC wasted no time in attacking British ships.
It was well into 1779, that the VOC finally have sufficient forces in place to invade Bengal. The first regiments landed in May of 1779. VOC ships wasted no time in attacking British ships. Losses in trade in 1779 alone drove the British East India Company’s profits so low that bankruptcy was inevitable. They petitioned both Parliament and King for assistance against the invasion. Word of British losses provoked many natives in India to rise up against company rule. Little did they realize they would be trading one corporate master for another.
British control over the land was forever shattered on June 15, 1779, when VOC soldiers decisively defeated the British at Dacca. The battle was one of the few cases of two rival corporations actually coming to blows over a competing market. Never again would companies wield so much power as they did at the Battle of Dacca. The battle marked the end of British East India Company, and the deficit raked up by the VOC marked the beginning of its own decline, though it would eventually recover, but not to its nation state-like status.
Following the battle, company officials surrendered all assets in Bengal to the VOC. It would be three years before the British would feel the full impact to their own economy. Britain’s Royal Navy set sail for India in 1782, with fifty ships and enough soldiers to hopefully drive the Dutch from Bengal. Tragically, the fleet never reached Bengal. It was intercepted by VOC and Royal Dutch ships off the coast of Ceylon. The Battle of Jaffna marked the end of British control over India. British access to its colonies in the Philippines and trade with China was greatly restricted by the Dutch for twenty years following the peace treaty.
Treaty of Paris (1783)
With France and the United Provinces in the war (Spain declared war upon Britain in 1779), the British knew that they would not be able to hold on to all their colonies. The French managed landings in the Saint Lawrence and achieved what Arnold could not; capturing Quebec. Liberation of New France caused a rift between the fragile alliance. The Count of Estaing, a French Admiral and commander of France’s expeditionary force, refused to move south to aid the Americans in New England. Taking back Quebec, and Montreal, cost the French dearly, and they would risk the British retaking it.
Since the British already knew they would loose territory at the peace table (though not as much as they would when the Dutch capture Bengal), George III, took the advice of his generals and ordered the forces in the Americas try and hold on to the colonies loyal to the crown, namely the southern ones. In addition, with France in the war, much of the resources pumped into North America was diverted to save the precious sugar isles. London could afford to lose New England, but not Jamaica, the Bahamas or any of the lesser Antilles and their sugar production. And Louis XVI had his eyes on those islands.
Throughout 1780, the Southern Strategy worked well. Augusta and Charleston were in British hands by 1779, and the Southern Department of the Continental Army was forced to surrender at Camden. The loss of an entire army threatened to leave the southern colonies in the hands of the British, if not for the guerilla war launched by the likes of Nathaniel Greene in North Carolina and Virginia. The loss also forced Washington to march south to fill the gap. New England had little to fear from the British, with the Dutch navy operating out of New Amsterdam and French control of Quebec.
However, due to Gates’s ineptitude at Camden, Washington knew he would need fighting generals to aid him in defeating the British army under the command of Lord Cornwallis. He made a personal detour to New Haven to convince his greatest fighting general to once again take up the Patriot Cause. Arnold managed to rebuild part of his business, which had a great deal of trouble in trading in the Caribbean, as the British kept trying to capture his ships, and lived a bitter life of his own. He kept track of the war, and felt both vindicated and disgusted by the surrender at Camden. Arnold believe that if he were there, it would have been Cornwallis who would have surrendered.
Though he swore never to put on the uniform again, and never to bleed one more drop of blood for a government that did not appreciate him, Arnold was hard-pressed to resist Washington’s offer. Washington offered Arnold command of the entire left wing of the Continental Army, answerable only to himself. Washington waited three days, as long as he could afford to be absent from his army. On the last day, Arnold agreed to the commission.
By October of 1781, Cornwallis’s army was trapped in Virginia with both the Continental Army, and a French army under the command of Rochambeau trapped the British on the York Peninsula. Cornwallis had every intent to withdraw by sea, however, the French fleet battled the British and forced the evacuaters to themselves evacuate, trapping Cornwallis. Between September 28 and October 19, the allied armies laid siege to the trapped British.
On October 17, with many of the surrounding redoubts in American or French hands, and supplies dwindling, Cornwallis sent two officers under the white banner of truce into the American camp to negotiate a surrender. The surrender occurred on October 19, as eighty-five hundred British soldiers and two hundred artillery pieces were taken into American custody. Cornwallis attempted to surrender his sword to Rochambeau. The French General indicated that it was Washington who should surrendered. Washington himself refused, and indicated to one of his generals, Benjamin Lincoln, whom the British humiliated at Charleston. Lincoln accepted the surrender, and with that, the war in America grinded to a halt.
In 1782, The British met with the Americans, French and Dutch delegates in Paris to end the war. By then, the British were all but defeated in America and India, and the French were too well entrenched in Canada to drive them out. To compound difficulties for the British, the three nations insisted on an allied peace. Many in Parliament were regretting not negotiating with the Americans in 1776, for in 1783, the British were going to lose big.
In the end, Britain automatically recognized American independence. For the French, victory was far from complete. They could not be driven from Canada, but they could not secure all of their lost territory. The British held fast in Arcadia, and the French had no hope of regaining Louisiana, not without a war with Spain. George III had hoped his government could use this indecisiveness of the French to drive a wedge between the allied parties, allowing peace with the colonies and his remaining forces in America to storm north. In the end, France regained Quebec. As for the Dutch, the rewards were far richer. The United Provinces walked away from the American Revolution the sole European power in India. As with all of its Indian Ocean possessions, administration of Bengal was left to the VOC, as were all the riches that could be reaped.
Fall of the VOC
The conquest of Bengal depleted the coffers of the VOC, as well as forced them to take out loans in order to finance their war against the British East India Company. Most of these loans were taken from the Bank of Amsterdam, a bank not only chartered by the Staaten-General, but with a majority of the shares owned by both Staaten-General and the Crown, as well as the Dutch government being the largest depositor. The fiscal situation for the VOC could not be offset by its virtual international trade monopoly to India, as well as its spice monopoly to the East Indies. Neither could keep up with rising debt. As a result, the VOC defaulted on its loans in 1798, and later that year declared bankruptcy.
Just how a corporation of such revenue could suddenly become bankrupt was not understood by the general public, or even VOC shareholders. Upon hearing this, those who could sell their shares did just that, bursting the speculator’s bubble. Investors wished to liquidate their holdings in the company, while the company still existed. In early 1799, the Staaten-General refused to renew the VOC’s monopoly. The end of the almost two century old company looked at hand. In order to compensate for defaulted loans, the Bank of Amsterdam seized company property. The Staaten-General received its compensation for lost deposits in the Bank by seizing company lands in India, the Far East as well as the African Coast. The Company began to sell off assets to pay off its debt, and in effect, dissolved itself by 1800.
This was not the end of the VOC, but rather the beginning. The company was no longer a monopoly, nor in the trade of conquest. What remained by 1801, was a few diehard investors, captains and sailors, as well as twenty ships that these men purchased while the company was being liquidated. Despite the risk, they kept the name VOC, for the captains have served the company since they were cabin boys, decades before. Heydrick Doeff became the first chairmen of the new VOC. He would lead the company into fiercely competitive trading market, without the VOC’s previous power or privileges, but with the ghosts of all the enemies the previous company had made during its existence.
The Successful Republic
In 1777, the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, a system of government for the United States. The Articles laid the responsibility of the common government solely in the hands of Congress. The First Republic was little more than a loosely knit confederation of sovereign states who only agree to mutual defense and free passage of its citizens between each state. The states were in fact eleven independent republics.
Flaws were apparent from the beginning. The Articles offered one vote for each state, though the state could have as many as seven delegates. This favored the smaller states, and left the more populous ones at a disadvantage. In order to amend the Articles, the vote must be unanimous, making it very inflexible. It also pressed the states to give up their Western Land Claims, finally making it law in 1787. This caused a great deal of trouble for Virginia, who claimed the entire Ohio Valley.
This largest flaw was that Congress was denied the right of taxation. States levied their own taxes, and if they were feeling generous, would donate a portion to the central government. Within ten years of its creation, many American statesmen knew the government was at risk of collapsing if these flaws were not corrected. Attempts to amend the articles were short lived as Rhode Island continued to block any changes. At the Annapolis Convention in 1786, five states (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Connecticut and New Hampshire) called for a Constitutional Convention, to replace the Articles of Confederation wholly.
On May 25, 1787, the ten states (Rhode Island abstained) plus delegates from the Iroquois Confederacy met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia. Presiding over the Convention was George Washington, a man that all the delegates respected. For four months, Federalists, lead by Alexander Hamilton of Connecticut argued with anti-federalists, consisting of mostly southern delegates over the finer points of the Constitution.
There was a great deal of effort to make the Executive Branch into a monarchy with Washington as King. Washington refused, time and again. Some adjustments would have made the office President-for-Life, which was little more than an elected monarchy. A four year term was settled upon, so that the electors could remove any man who did an inadequate job. Duties of the President were largely designed with Washington in mind. Few Presidents since had been worthy enough to fill Washington’s shoes.
The Congress was redesigned, somewhat along the lines of the Staaten-General of the United Provinces. The lower house, the House of Representatives, would be elected by popular vote and proportioned by population, thus favoring the larger states. Each would serve for two years. To placate the smaller states, a Senate was created, in which the state assemblies would elect Senators to represent the interests of the states. Each would serve six years.
A Supreme Court was created, in which seven Justices would be appointed for life pending good behavior by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Each three branches of government were specifically designed to impede the growth of power in any other. A series of checks and balances was believed to preserve the new republic, and thus far has managed. The final draft was settled upon on September 25, 1787, and went to the legislatures of the eleven states.
Pennsylvania attempted to ratify it first, but was beaten by Delaware (December 7, 1787) but was second to do so (December 12, 1787).Connecticut followed (December 18, 1787). Georgia was the 4th ratifier (January 2, 1788) followed by Massachusetts (February 6, 1788) and New Hampshire (March 9, 1788). When Maryland became the 7th ratifier (April 28, 1788) the Constitution was the law of the land, and preparation were made for the first federal elections.
South Carolina (May 23, 1788) and Virginia (June 25, 1788) where the last to ratify it that year. In 1789, North Carolina ratified the Constitution (December 21, 1789). Last of the Eleven Colonies was tiny Rhode Island (May 29, 1790). The Republic of Vermont was admitted into the Union on March 3, 1791. After much deliberation in Congress, the Iroquois Confederacy was admitted as the 13thState on November 15, 1791.
George Washington was the only man to ‘run’ unopposed for the office of President when he was elected unanimously by the Electoral College in 1788. He was not elected as much as the office was designed with him in mind, then thrust upon him. He took the Oath of Office at the Pennsylvania State House on March 20, 1789. Philadelphia would serve as capital until the new Federal City, located on neutral territory between Maryland and Virginia could be opened– or at the very least, the critical federal buildings completed.
One of the first tests for the Second American Republic came from the western counties of Pennsylvania. After fighting a revolution supposedly over taxation, it came as quite a shock to many whiskey distillers that Congress passed a tax on whiskey. Instead of paying, most of the western part of the state rose up in protest, bordering rebellion. In order to make it clear that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land, President Washington lead ten thousand soldiers of both the small federal army and various militia into western Pennsylvania to put down the ‘Whiskey Rebellion’. He has been the only president to ever personally lead an army while President.
Some interstate matters also tested the new nation. White settlers from the other states continuously attempted to migrate into the State of Iroquois, much to the displeasure of the state’s largely Indian population. The Iroquois state assembly attempted to pass laws restricting encroachment on their lands, but these were struck down as unconstitutional. Iroquois representatives introduced legislation to Congress concerning making lands in the Ohio Valley cheap, while at home increase various ‘property’ taxes. Since most of the Six Nations’ people did not believe in land ownership, they were exempt. These tactics, plus the bitter coldness of the Iroquois winter, persuaded many settlers to move westward. This brought them into conflict with Indian tribes of the Great Lakes region. The Federal Government would exempt their allies from colonization, but turned a blind eye when an enemy tribe was invaded.
Externally, relations with Revolutionary France were strained at best. The United States, more specifically its merchants, were trapped in the war between Britain and France. Any ship heading to British port was seized by the French, and any ship heading into France was seized by the British. This reached a head during the Jefferson Administration with Congress passing the Embargo Act, forbidding trade with other countries. This hurt American industry far worse than Europe.
Elected in 1800, Jefferson was the first President to reside in the presidential mansion in the new capital. The city of Washington, in what was called the District of Columbia, would serve as the nation’s capital for another eight decades. In its day, it was widely condemned for being built on a swamp, in hindsight, it was a very appropriate location for what would be a stagnate government in future decades.
Jefferson’s election also ushered in America’s first foreign war. During the Adams Administration, Congress and the President found it more practical to pay off the pirate states of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, nominally under Ottoman overlordship. As the year went by, the ‘tribute’ continued to rise, when in 1803, it would have measured twenty-five percent of the annual budget. By then, it was decided that it was cheaper to build and maintain a large navy than to pay extortion. Some American ships sought to cheat by sailing under an orange banner. After the Dutch raised the city of Algiers during the 18thCentury, the Barbary pirates avoided any ship under the Dutch flag.
By 1810, the Barbary threat was largely suppressed by actions against Algiers and Tunis by the navy and a march on Tripoli by the marine corps. The three states signed treaties with America, basically guaranteeing the right of passage on the sea and the freeing of all American sailors captured by the pirates. American actions against Algiers were nowhere nearly as traumatic as those of the Dutch more than a century before, but the actions still weakened the state. Weakened it the point, that in twenty years, the city was firmly in French hands.
Overseas wars were not the United States’ only means of expansion. In 1803, after relations between America and France normalized, Jefferson sent an envoy to Paris to negotiate the purchasing of New Orleans. With that city under American control, farmers in the Ohio Valley and all lands west of the Appalachians would have free access of the Mississippi River. Jefferson and Congress authorized spending as much as ten million dollars to buy the strategically important city (less than what was used to purchase the entire island of Cuba).
France, under Napoleon’s control, was strapped for cash to finance its wars against the European empires. Napoleon knew he could not control all of Louisiana while fighting on Continental Europe, and he had no way of preventing the British from taking it. He raised the price to twelve million, but instead of the city, he offered the Americans the whole of Louisiana. Better to sell it to friends than to be forced to cede it to enemies. Despite the fall of the monarchy, the French remembered the lessons of the Seven Years War, and the loss of New France and French Amazonia to her enemies.
It was a great surprise when the envoys returned and presented the agreement to Congress. There was much debate as to even if this purchase was legal. Jefferson went as far as to draft a constitutional amendment to allow the country to purchase new land. In the end, the Louisiana Purchase was deemed constitutional, eliminating any need for amendments, and doubled the size of the young nation. As to what the United States purchased, it was not known. Several expeditions would be sent forth to chart this land. As for what to do with it, there was a proposal to render the land a vast Indian reservation, a place to deport tribes hostile towards the Federal Government.
The French Revolution
As a direct result of involvement in the American Revolution, France experienced its own revolution. By the late 1780s, tens of thousands of French were fleeing famine northward into the United Provinces. At first, it was believed the vanguard of a peasant army bent on conquering Flanders. Instead, the peasants were only interested in acquiring enough wheat to feed themselves and perhaps passage to overseas colonies. Brazil was, after all, built upon the labors of refugees from all corners of Europe.
By 1789, the French Estates General was summoned for the first time in living memory. However, it was the old Three Estates of France, with the Nobility and Clergy, about one percent of the populations, able to outvote the other ninety-nine percent. However, the French learned not only remember the values of the American Revolution, but have themselves been discussing and debating the ideals of liberty and the enlightenment.
During the revolutionary year of 1789, nobility and clergy renounced their privileges and the old Estates General fell, to be replaced by a unicameral National Assembly. The assembly forced Louis XVI to sign away power after power as the once absolutist state was elevated to the level of constitutional monarchy. Before long, Louis had enough an attempted to organize his own coup against the National Assembly, with the help of his in-laws, the Habsburgs. Upon hearing of this, the King was eventually arrested and put on trial. By 1791, the King was found guilty of treason and executed, transforming France into a kingless state. Shortly after, the Reign of Terror began.
Most Dutch considered themselves safe from France’s problems, but by 1792, almost every monarch in Europe was at war with France. The Dutch opted to stay neutral, and as long as its shipping was not threatened, they were content to let their rivals reduce each other to second- and third-rate powers. It did not work according to their wishes. The first Dutch to feel the force of the Revolution were in Flanders and Artois, were a revolutionary army invaded the United Provinces.
The invasion spread Revolutionary ideas, including reforming the Staaten-General. For the most part, the Dutch wanted only to reform the Second Chamber, to abolish the practice of buying votes, to end dynastic politics and to give the vote to every man. The companies, especially the VOC, opposed this idea, for it would take away their power. In the waning years of the Eighteenth Century, governor-generals and boards of shareholders have grown more autocratic, greedier, and for the only time in its history, placing the VOC before the United Provinces.
Revolutionary France was not content to wait for the Dutch to reform itself. In 1793, the French Republic once again declared war against the United Provinces. For the most part, the Dutch expected repeats of previous invasion. However, the new France proved to be merit-based in its selection of officers and generals. In May of 1793, the Duke of Luxembourg was systematically defeated by the new corp of French generalship. By the end of the year, France’s National Assembly was calling for union with the Dutch Provinces.
Rise of an Emperor
Each nation has its pivotal moment, when everything that happens is either before or after. For the United Provinces, that moment was Napoleon. The United Provinces managed to stay free from Napoleon’s control, mainly because of British activity in the Mediterranean and the Austrians in Italy. Consul Bonaparte had more dangerous foes to defeat first. France sent several expeditions into Dutch territory following its occupation of Luxembourg. The Dutch made several of its own attempts to dislodge the French. For the most part, Napoleon, Emperor in 1804, was content to leave the Dutch and their banks alone, with the exception of the strategic crossroads of Luxembourg. It was vital to his wars in Germany.
Before the campaigning season ended in 1804, Napoleon grew displeased by the Dutch and their resistance. He lead an invasion, at the head of a quarter of a million men, and easily crushed the Dutch at Limburg, Mons and finally crushing the army at Arnhem, in the northern Provinces, opening the road to Amsterdam. For the first time since the Dutch Revolution, the United Provinces were not only defeated in the north, but left completely defenseless before a foreign invader. The Dutch inability to stop the French was not a deficiency of its own officer corp, but rather the fact they faced Napoleon, the greatest general in European history, and the only man who took on the world and nearly won.
By March of 1805, Amsterdam was in French hands, and Napoleon was marching on the Hague. King William V, too old for combat in 1805, learned of Napoleon’s terms; France would annex the lands south of the Rhine, and the remaining United Provinces would become a vassal of the French Empire. When Napoleon began his march, members of the Staaten-General were already loading their ships and preparing to flee.
The King wished to stay and fight the invaders to the death. It was only the intervention of his son and heir that convinced the King he must seek exile for the time being. There was no hope of defeating Napoleon, and should he fall into French hands, it would be a disaster for the Dutch. Just because the Dutch government was going into exile, did not mean it planned to just give its capital to the French. Before evacuating, William V ordered dikes and levies along the Rhine River and the North Sea breached. The floods inundated the land, slowing Napoleon’s advances, allowing enough time for the Dutch government to escape.
Exile
When fleeing the advancing French Grande Armee, the Dutch did not flee aimlessly. Several destinations were proposed. Britain was first proposed due to its proximity, but no self-respecting Netherlander would ask an Englander for sanctuary, even if it was the only nation holding its own against Napoleon. New Amsterdam was offered up, but quickly rejected due to a legal technicality. Technically, the United States were still allied with France, though a great rift developed during the Reign of Terror and the tens of thousands executed, not to mention seizure of American ships trading with the British.
New Amsterdam was too much a security risk for the House of Orange, nor did it have enough manpower to allow for the Dutch to rebuild its forces. The only destination with enough wealth, enough population and sufficient infrastructure to support the Dutch Empire was Brazil. July 27, 1805, King William V debarked his ship in the city of Recife. For the next ten years, Recife would serve as capital to the United Provinces and all Dutch colonies.
William’s first, and last act before his death, was to consolidate Dutch forces in Recife. He ordered couriers to each of the colonies, calling forth men and ships to arms. Even in exile, the Royal Navy was still more than capable of blockading France. France was effectively cut off from its own colonies, and again the British occupied Quebec along with Haiti. Though the Provinces were occupied, the Dutch still managed to cut off France’s entire import-export economy. Blockade was but a mere inconvenience to France, which by 1806 was the master of western Europe. However, not all Dutch escaped to Brazil. Many remained home, to resist the French occupation and terrorize the collaboration government.
Batavian Republic
Once in command of the low countries, Napoleon expanded his legal code to include not only the Provinces annexed to France, but the seven remaining ones. Along with new laws, the northern Provinces were combined into a new nation in the image of France; the Batavian Republic. Revolutionary Netherlanders found positions in the new government, abolishing titles and handing the powers of government into a National Assembly based in Amsterdam. What nobility remained in the Netherlands soon found itself under assault from a milder form of the Terror. The Count of Holland was one of the nobles put to death for ‘crimes against liberty’.
Though the Dutch Revolutionaries declared the new republic, in truth they had little power. For the most part, the Dutch National Assembly did as Napoleon commanded. The Dutch people, living in the light of liberty long before the French ever considered overthrowing its own despots, found the Batavian Republic tyrannical. The Revolutionaries said that to save liberty, they must sacrifice liberty, though the repression was not as severe as the later German occupation.
To control the population, internal passports were issued in 1807. The attempts were largely ineffectual; the guards appointed to border crossings were conscripts and resentful of the Batavian Republic. They made only a lukewarm attempt to enforce the laws. Nor did they attempt to thwart the resistance. The terrorizing of collaborators was the primary cause of the passport laws. To compound matters, the Batavian Army was stocked with either sympathizers to the resistance, or full fledged members.
By 1810, the French had enough of Dutch insolence. Napoleon dissolved the Dutch National Assembly, and placed his brother, Louis as Regent of Batavia. When Louis called forth a new Assembly, it was stocked with members personally picked by the Regent. The Batavian Army was dissolved. Louis instead commanded two divisions of French reserves to police Batavia. Furthermore, he levied an almost suffocating level of taxation upon the nominally low-taxed Dutch people.
What was simple acts of resistance under the National Assembly became full blown ‘insurrection’. Louis’s heavy-handed response only added fire to the raging fury. With rebellion in his rear, Napoleon was forced to divide his forces on the eve of his invasion of Sweden, with dire consequences to the Emperor. To quell the uprising, entire cities were put to the torch. Country village and towns were not the only ones to feel the flame. March 20, 1813, was the day Rotterdam was put to the torch following the assassination of Louis’s general Montier.
The Empire of Brazil
Across the Atlantic, while the Provinces suffered beneath both puppet rulers and foreign, a new Staaten-General was formed in Recife. Though the First Chamber remained largely unchanged, minus the inclusion of Brazilian peerage, the Second Chamber took on a whole new dimension. The members that did manage to escape, few had ever left the United Provinces, and even fewer had ever set foot in Brazil before 1805. As with tradition, members of the Second Chamber must be elected from the populace. Since the fall of the South Atlantic Company, Brazil has been ruled directly from the Hague. It had little experience in self-rule or elections, or so the Netherlanders believed.
When it came to democracy, the Brazilians did not look east, but rather north, to the United States of America. To them, the words ‘all men are created equal’ held more value than to a Netherlander, who took liberty for granted. By 1806, more than a third of Brazil’s population were descendant from slaves brought over from Angola during the Seventeenth Century. Few members of the Second Chamber had ever seen a black man before arriving in Brazil. This seeming aloofness by the government of the Mother Country created a great deal of contradictions in the Brazilians’ feelings. They were loyal to their crown, but they were also their own people.
Before Napoleon, Brazilians were contemplating their own revolution. The Americans had it right ‘no taxation without representation’ nor should a people be ruled without their consent from across the ocean. However, with the Dutch Government in exile, the Brazilians had the perfect opportunity for reform. If the government was to be in Recife, then there shall be Brazilians in it. Unlike the Americans, the Brazilians never felt ill towards the Dutch King, their King. When William V arrived in Recife, the Brazilians welcomed him with all the respect a monarch commands.
When the Staaten-General attempted to return to business as usual, the Brazilians soon felt as if their own King was not leading their nation, but rather occupying it. Brazilians at first demanded equal representation in an assembly upon their own soil, but when their words were ignored, they began to demand their own government, separate from the Hague. Again, the Staaten-General ignored them. The Netherlanders looked down upon the Brazilians as unsophisticated children, the colonists needed guiding from the parent nation.
After two centuries of ‘guidance’ the Brazilians decided they could stand on their own. Amsterdam and the Hague were not the only cities in which words of liberty were discussed in cafes and pubs. Citizens in Recife, Mauristadt and Natal organized nation-wide strikes and protests. At the head of this quasi-rebellion was former professor at the University of Pernambuco, Johann Valckenaer.
Like many American revolutionary leaders, Valckenaer was born to a well-to-do family in the city of Salvador. He was well educated, traveled, charismatic, and above all, he genuinely cared about the ills of his fellow countrymen. He tried to lead a non-violent protest, not wanting to spark the level of violence seen in the American colonies. He loved his country and king, and had misgivings about striking during a time when the mother country was beneath foreign heels, but if the Dutch aristocracy and merchant-class wanted Brazil’s help in their war, then they were going to give Brazil the respect it deserved.
Valckenaer made no attempt to declare independence, and invested much energy in stopping the extremist factions from tearing a rift between Brazil and the United Provinces. If Brazil was to lead the Dutch fight against Napoleon, then in must do so as its own nation, separate from the Hague but not from the King. He petitioned William Frederick, the heir-apparent, to hear his grievances. He shall be king of Brazil the same as the Provinces, but the Brazilians wanted to handle their own affair, without interference from the Hague. More to the point, if the Dutch were to stay in Brazil, then they must form a government of Brazilians.
Maurice already had an enemy in front of him, he could scarcely afford to have a rebellion behind him. If the Dutch were to prevail over Napoleon, they must remain a unified front. In the End, Maurice II and the Netherlander transplants had little choice but to give in to Brazilian desires. Along side the United Provinces’ Staaten-General, and Brazilian Staaten-General was established. In return for their cooperation against Napoleon, the Brazilians would be permitted to attend their own affairs, though foreign affairs were tightly controlled by the U. P. Staaten-General. One of the Brazilian Staaten-General’s first acts was to locate a suitable monarch to take the as of yet made Brazilian Throne.
King Maurice II
Upon taking the thrones of the United Provinces and Brazil, Maurice went to work on forming a new government. The Brazilian Staaten-General shall be independent of the United Provinces in all affairs internal, however, it would still be a realm within the Dutch Empire. Brazil also adopted the first written constitution within the Dutch world. Since 1609, the United Provinces operated under an unwritten, sacred agreement on how to govern a realm of seventeen independent states. Brazil would be united from the get go, and the Brazilian drafters of its constitution borrowed heavily from the United States.
The Staaten-General was to be divided into two chambers. The first chamber shall be called the Senaat, and its members will either be hereditary nobles of the Brazilian provinces, such as the Count of Natal and Duke of Pernambuco, or otherwise elected by provincial government to represent their own interests in Recife. The second chamber, called the House of Electors shall be elected from districts within the provinces for terms of two years. Senators, if inherited, will be in for life, where as elected officials shall hold office for six year terms.
Unlike the United States Constitution, Brazil’s made specific articles addressing the monarchy. Brazil shall be in personal union with the United Provinces, and its ruler shall be bestowed the title of Emperor. The title amused Maurice, and he quite enjoyed being known as Emperor Maurice, now standing on equal level as the upstart Corsican. Brazil was an empire in the continental sense; it controlled a large portion of South America. With Spain so weak from its own involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, Brazil could have annexed any of the Spanish colonies it desired.
The head of the Brazilian government, and representative of the Emperor, who assuredly would return to the Hague eventually, would not be given to a Governor-General, but be bestowed upon a Prime Minister, one Johann Valckenaer. He would be the first of Brazil’s many Prime Ministers, elected by the Brazilian Staaten-General, which would do so at the Emperor’s blessing. Unlike future Prime Ministers of future Dutch realms, the length of time required to send message across the Atlantic in the early Nineteenth Century prohibited any sort of direct control by the Hague. To rectify this, the Emperor would travel to Brazil and reside within his palace in Recife on a regular basis; once every five years according to the bare minimum requirements of the Constitution.
Brazilians
Whereas the Brazilian Constitution would be groundwork for the future Dutch Constitution, the foundation of the Empire drastically altered the way Brazilians conducted business. Before the Staaten-General fled the Hague, the Brazilians had little in the way of self-determination. City councils and town halls about covered it. The provincial and overall colonial government was handled first by the South Atlantic Company, then directly as a Crown Colony.
Before 1806, the average Brazilian, a person whose culture was a fusion of Dutch, West African with a pinch of Portuguese, lived a political life far different than the average Netherlander. Though both lived in a largely middle-class society, the Brazilian people had no say in how their nation was ran. On the other hand, the Netherlander could petition for their representatives in the Staaten-General, or failing that, simply replace him at the next election. Brazilians had no such option; they policies were decided thousands of kilometers away.
The mother country, through its governor-generals and bureaucrats, governed and taxed Brazilians without their own consent. When the United Provinces declared themselves to be home of the freest people, obviously they did not consider citizens in the colonies as ‘its people’. To a large extent, colonial citizens were not ethnic Netherlanders. They were Ceylonese, Indian, Javanese and Chinese. Only colonies in the New World, whose indigenous population surrendered to European diseases when Portugal ruled Brazil, could claim to be truly Dutch.
Governing conquered peoples without consent was one thing, but after suffering for over a century under Spanish suzerainty, the Dutch in Brazil could not understand why their own cousins across the sea now govern them as such. In truth, colonial rule was far less brutal as that of Spain. Brazilians could come and go as they pleased, to trade in goods, and (provided it was not overtly subversive) in ideas without duties or occupying soldiers looking over their shoulder. Nor did they have to fear the inquisition. Brazil was as divided in issues of religion as the United Provinces, though geographically opposite; in Brazil it was the Protestants who lived mostly in the south, and Catholics mostly in the north.
Brazil did have a sizable wealthy class, mostly plantation owners spread out across eastern Brazil. In the larger cities, the Brazilians lived largely as their cousins in the Old World lived; middle-class, but with many more local luxuries available. One might think that every home in Recife would have large quantities of sugar, coffee and cocoa. Not true, even in Brazil the prices were only half they would be in the Netherlands. Most of what was grown by the wealthy was intended for markets in Europe, where low supply and massive demands would make them even richer. Even with a century’s worth of hired-hands, the former slave-owning class of Brazilians still managed to keep a tight grip on their nation’s wealth. If not for manufacturing, shipbuildings, banking and trading, the cities would be filled with poor and unemployed. Rural Brazilians were worse off; they were the workers who tended the large plantations, with wages a market high in workers and not so high in jobs demanded. Their lives were hard and pockets poor, but never would rural Brazilians sink to the depths of despair that industrialization brought to cities of Britain, the United States and even the Dutch nations and colonies of the mid-Nineteenth Century.
It took a series of agreements for cooperation against Napoleon to drive for Brazilian self-determination and independence. King Maurice II and the exiled members of the Staaten-General knew that 1806 was not a year to be battling kinsmen. Some might argue that Brazil owes its independence to treaties signed under duress, for without Brazilian support, the United Provinces could not hope to free itself, and the entire Dutch colonial empire could have potentially disintegrated. Even after 1815, the Staaten-General of the United Provinces respected and acknowledged the Staaten-General of Brazil. Without the need for Brazilian manpower, the tale of Brazil might have ended quite differently.
Waterloo
Napoleon’s final downfall began in 1812, with his decision to invade the Swedish Empire. Not a single French soldier ever set foot on Swedish soil. Instead, Napoleon’s goal was the former Russian Empire. There was no logical decision to go to war against Sweden. In 1794, following the example of the French, intellectuals and Swedish nobles who have ‘gone native’ rose in rebellion against the recently crowned Charles XV, declaring the Russian Republic. Sweden spent the next five years putting down the rebellion, and played virtually no part in the wars against France.
Even on the eve of Napoleon’s invasion, Sweden looked within. Republican uprisings were down from 1805, when Napoleon showed his true colors and declared himself an Emperor. This crown caused a great deal of trepidation from the Russian commonfolk. When Napoleon moved to liberate the former Russian Empire, many peasants feared he would bring back the Romanovs. A century after their removal, the name Romanov remained a reviled one in parts of their former Tsardom. Though Russian sentiments towards Stockholm were often lukewarm at best, their attitudes towards Napoleon were even colder. Perhaps it could be an irony that the French invasion of Sweden did more to unite the Swedes and Russians, than any reforms to date of the Swedish Crown, even if it were against a common foe.
By 1813, and after the disastrous invasion of Sweden, it was clear to all European nations that France’s strength was all but sapped, its manpower bled nearly dry. It was when the Grande Armee retreated from Swedish territory that the powers of Europe, allied and opposed to Napoleon, joined together in one final coalition to topple the would-be Emperor. In late 1813, Maurice II landed an army of fifty thousand Netherlanders, New Amsterdammers, Brazilians, Ceylonese and even some Formosans, landed on the shores of Zeeland.
Regent Louis of Batavia met the invasion south of Delft, home of the House of Orange, with forty thousand of his own soldiers. Most were French, and loyal to Louis. The remainder were auxiliary units, in lieu of Ancient Rome. Their loyalty was questionable, and they were placed in front of the more loyal French. Sandwiched between their own people and the hated oppressors, the march of the Batavian Auxiliaries is on of the tragedies of Dutch history. Those that attempted to surrender or switch sides were mercilessly gunned down by the French behind them. The few that believed in the Revolution and willingly faced Maurice II, were gunned down by their own kinsmen. Out of the seven thousand Auxiliaries, it is estimated that fewer than one hundred survived.
Louis Bonaparte was indeed a ruthless and effective regent, but he did not inherit the genius of his brother. His army was routed within a day, Louis himself captured. Two days later, Maurice II rode into Delft, and later the Hague at the head of his victorious army. To great him, the populace of both cities draped every building within the city both Dutch Flags and orange banners. At one point, the Hague was awash in the color orange. Banners produced an orange colored sky, and endless ranks of soldiers produced a river of orange uniforms. For days afterward, Netherlanders celebrated their liberation, and dealt retribution to collaborators.
It was not until January 4, 1814, that Maurice rode his army into Amsterdam. Several regiments were sent to each of the Provinces, to flush out any self-proclaimed Batavians and to reestablish to rule of the House of Orange and the Staaten-General. Several months passed before the whole of the Netherlands were under Staaten-General control, and that the heirs of the Provinces were back in their homes. Not all were welcomed either; the Duke of Limburg was forced to abdicate in favor of his nephew, who stayed behind and lead resistance within Limburg.
While the Provinces were brought back under Dutch rule, the Swedes led an army that marched down the avenues of Paris. Napoleon had been toppled, and exiled to the island of Elba. For a moment, it appeared as if the Wars of Napoleon were over. But only for a moment. Napoleon soon escaped exile and returned to his throne in Paris. After the disastrous campaigns of 1813 and 1814, it was unlikely Napoleon would return France to the height of its power, but no nation was willing to take the chance.
Napoleon was corralled once again, this time on June 18, 1815, at the town of Waterloo in Brabant. For the entire day, Britain’s Duke of Wellington battled Napoleon to a stand still. Up until the last moment, it appeared as if Napoleon might escape to fight another day. Though the British and other English speakers give the credit of victory to Wellington, it was really more the arrival of Maurice II and the Dutch Army in the late afternoon, followed by the Prussian Army that forced a final surrender from Napoleon. One of these opponents he could defeat, but not the combined might of all three.
Napoleon was exiled again, this time to the British island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic. There was no pretense of a miniature imperium as was on Elba. This time, Napoleon was a prisoner, and would spend the rest of his days under the watchful eye of British masters. The Dutch offered up their own navy, sending a ship to patrol the waters for weeks at a time. Napoleon escaped once, and nobody dared a repeat of Elba. After more than twenty years of warfare, Europe was ready for some well earned peace.
The Second Anglo-American War
Less than thirty years after officially achieving independence, the United States, now eighteen (the addition of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and Louisiana by war’s declaration) faced off against its former mother country over rights to the high-seas. During its own war with Napoleon, the Royal (British) Navy filled its ranks by impressing sailors. Often these were United States citizens. Britain ignored the diplomatic protests, since its own laws do not recognize the right of its own citizens to switch national allegiance.
Furthermore, enemy tribes in the Ohio Valley put up considerable resistance against Federal and allied Tribal armies. The British armed many of these tribes via Canada, though when confronted with the accusation, they staunchly deny it. The British did arm the Indians, and with good reason. London’s plan was to create a buffer zone between its Canadian colony and the expansionist United States. After its acquisition of Louisiana, the British grew wary of the Americans.
Tensions continued to rise until 1812, when war hawks in Congress and a few general decided the only way to keep the Indians from attacking settlers was to cut-off their trade with Britain, i.e. invade Canada. Since the British have occupied Quebec for the better part of the Napoleonic Wars, the liberation of Quebec was also of national importance. This much was agreed upon, but as for annexing Canada– that was not so clear cut. Canada of 1812 was largely populated by exiles from the former eleven colonies (loyalists) and their decedents.
Siting both Indian attacks and harassment of the American merchant marine, President Madison stood before Congress and asked for a declaration of war, which he received on June 18, 1812. Despite attacks on commerce, all of the New England delegates voted against the war. Bringing the full wrath of the British Navy was far worse than the occasional harassment on the high seas. A full scale blockade would cripple the New England economy.
Almost from the beginning of the war, Britain’s meager forces in Canada successfully swept the Great Lakes region clear of the United States Army. Detroit fell within weeks of the declaration and Fort Dearborne fell without even firing a shot. So disastrous was the army’s actions that Congress immediately began to regret the war. Ohio’s own militia refused to leave the state to pursue the war, and in some cases, the militia even refused to leave their home towns. With the United States Army in retreat, enemy tribes only felt more encouraged to drive back the wave of settlers.
Attempts to cross the Niagra River into Canada met with Disaster. Again, the militia refused to cross the river. Their responsibility was to their homes. The Iroquois militia proved completely unreliable to the regular Army. Indian military doctrine was incompatible with the European model of the Army. The Iroquois would only attack head on if they were certain of victory, otherwise they would remain hidden, launching hit-and-run attacks when the opportunity provided itself. When the British, in turn, cross the river into Iroquois, the Indians’ guerilla tactics frustrated any attempts for a British advance.
The only reason the war was not lost in the first few months was because the bulk of Britain’s armed forces were waging a war in Europe against a far more dangerous opponent than the upstart American nation. Against Napoleon, the British would field armies of tens of thousands. Only a fraction of that could be afforded for the war in American, and even that proved effective against the poorly trained United States Army.
The real bright spot of the whole Great Lakes Theater came from the Navy. Dutch officers were hired to instruct at the Naval Academy in Baltimore. On September 10, 1813, Great Lakes squadrons of both American and British origin clashed upon Lake Erie, near Put-in Bay off the Ohio coast. Under the command of Oliver Perry, the Americans scored a decisive victory over the British, effectively driving them from the lake. It was only the Army’s inability to capitalize on this victory that caused the war to drag on into the disastrous year of 1814.
Once Napoleon was in exile, the British could afford to send its veteran soldiers to fight in America. The British were eager to end the war swiftly, sensing tensions between the victorious allies in Europe, and thus headed to the source of the problems. Five thousand soldiers landed on the Maryland shore of the Chesapeake Bay. With much of the United States Army in the north, the British marched mostly unchallenged towards the city of Washington, meeting only militia units along the way, and easily scattering them.
During the 18th Century, capturing the enemy’s capital usually spelled victory for the attacker. It was here the British hoped to dictate their own peace terms, which called for annexation of land, and independence for many of Britain’s own Indian allies. Though these terms would be reduced by war’s end, it was a sign of confidence from the British that the war would soon be over.
On August 24, 1814, the British met an American Army of some 650 regulars and a few thousand militia at the town of Blandenburg, outside of Washington. The battle was decided even shortly after it began. As with many battles in the Second Anglo-American War, the militia broke and ran before the disciplined British. Of the 650 regulars, eleven were killed and over one hundred captured. The rest retreated to Washington to aid in defending the evacuating government.
On the night of August 24, the British entered the city of Washington, and took the capital building and presidential mansion, but not totally unopposed. Of all of Congress, one Senator from Connecticut refused to flee. When three soldiers attempted to convince him to leave, he was reported to say ‘I never gave one inch of American soil during the last war, and I’ll be damned if I start now’. The Senator was none other than Benedict Arnold.
At the age of 73, the position of Senator was the last in a long line of occupations for Arnold. After the Constitution was ratified, Arnold ran and served one term as representative. Afterwards, he ran for Governor of his own state and won. Just as with his army days, Arnold had the habit of stepping on the toes of professional politicians. His opponents in the state assembly sought ways to remove him. He was popular amongst the people, so it was unlikely he could be voted out of office. When Connecticut’s Senate seat became open, the assembly saw a way to rid themselves of Arnold. They elected him to represent the assembly in Washington, and continued to do so until, as one assemblyman put it ‘he retires for good or dies’.
When the British advanced upon the capital, Arnold took the rifle from the youngest soldier and told him to go aid the others escape. The other two soldiers he ordered to stay and fight. They could have fled, but the sight of an old man ready to take on the British Army shamed them into staying, though they knew the outcome. After a brief shootout, the three defenders were gunned down by the British. Afterwards, Arnold was recognized by the British commander (how exactly still remains unclear) and ordered his men to give him a burial fit for great soldier. Afterwards, they proceeded to have a mock session of Congress were they voted to burn down the building.
On October 10, 1814, delegates from Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts met in Hartford to discuss a way to get out of the war. Some critics condemned the convention as an attempt by New England to secede from the Union, though it was an option in the eyes of the commerce-orientated New Englanders. At the convention, five constitutional amendments were proposed. 1) Prohibiting trade embargoes lasting over sixty days; 2) Requiring two-thirds votes in Congress for declaration of war, admission of states or interdiction of commerce; 3) Removing the three-fifths clause to the Constitution. The clause gave southern states more representation than they deserved since it counted slaves as three-fifths of a citizen, even though they were legal property; 4) Placing a limit on the office of the President for one term; 5) Presidents must be from different states than their predecessor. None of these amendments were ever passed, but the potential of New England seceding and making a separate peace with Britain was enough to convince Congress and the President that it was time to negotiate.
By December of 1814, the two belligerents decided it was time to end the war. Napoleon had returned to France, and Britain was facing troubled relations with other parties at the Vienna Congress, so the British removed several of their demands. Especially after the Americans, even after losing their capital to flames, made it clear they would never except such terms. However, they would have to give up some land to achieve peace.
Britain’s terms were not terribly harsh, and after the treaty was signed, the British would respect America’s right to trade on the high-seas. However, the British used the peace talks to settle disputes in territory between America and the Canadian colony. The United States would cede the northern portion of Upper Massachusetts (present day Maine) along with the Red River Valley (in present day Minnesota).
In return, the British would cease interfering with American trade and no longer impress its citizenry. The treaty was signed, and later ratified by a humbled Congress. Three weeks after the treaty was signed, a battle between British and American armies at New Orleans ended with the British trapped within the city. The siege of the British army was lifted upon hearing the news of peace. The United States would spend decades rebuilding their wounded economy and shattered pride.
Congress of Vienna
After Napoleon’s second fall, the powers of Europe met in Vienna to redefine the borders of nations. For the Dutch, there was little gained, and plenty lost. For the final time, the question of Mons was addressed. The Congress decided that the city would stay under French rule, to which King Maurice II consented. Mons had been under French ruled for two decades, and he was not ready to wage war against all of Europe for just that city. Furthermore, Denmark was granted independence from the United Provinces, and a distant cousin of the last Danish king, Christian IV was put upon its throne.
This was a punitive action, spearheaded by the British delegates to Vienna. The British government had yet to forgive the Dutch for breaking their century long alliance in 1778, and even less so for kicking them out of India. Britain went further in attempts to regain portions of Bengal, but aborted this attempt when Maurice II made it clear his country was ready to wage war over India. They were not, however, prepared to wage war over Denmark. Though nobody backed British claims in India, delegates from Sweden and Prussia backed the restoration of the Danish Monarchy, as means to insure that the United Provinces did not utterly dominate trade in and out of the Baltic. Denmark did not, however, receive Norway. The Grand Principality of Norway remained under Dutch rule. To this day, heirs to the Dutch throne are called Grand Princes of Norway.
The war set other nations on the coarse of ascendance. Prussia, a second-rate kingdom in the Eighteenth Century was now in virtual command of the northern German states. A North German Confederation was established with Prussia at its lead, the predecessor for the modern-day German Empire. Germany was not an immediate concern to the Dutch people and government. The decision to restore the House of Bourbon was initially opposed by the United Provinces. However, after seeing just how chaotic and uncontrollable republican France turned out to be, it was agreed that a constitutional monarchy would be in the United Provinces’s best interest.
With the House of Oranje restored to the United Provinces, and ruling Brazil, and a new order in post-Napoleonic Europe, the stage was set for an expansion unlike any to come before. The organization known as the United Provinces was about to go global in a way it had never managed, even after two centuries of colonialism. With the fall of the French Empire, a golden age of imperialism would consume the Nineteenth Century and much of the world around it.