Historian launches database of Dutch Atlantic history
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Johan Visser, a historian at Leiden University in the Netherlands, recently launched Dutch Atlantic Sources, a new platform containing over 170,000 digitized pages related to the Dutch West India Company and its role in 17th-century Atlantic trade and slavery.
Visser gathered materials from dozens of institutions, including the national libraries of the Netherlands and Brazil, and the New York State Archive, creating approximately 30 meters of searchable text.
He built the database while researching the West India Company’s struggles to adequately feed enslaved people, soldiers, and colonists. Visser discovered that information about food supply was scattered across various sources like letters, warehouse inventories, and ship logs. The database allows him to connect these fragmented pieces of information, and makes the sources accessible to researchers worldwide, potentially saving them the expense of travel and the effort of deciphering old handwriting.
Visser received a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research at the New Netherland Institute in Albany, New York, where he plans to study perceptions of land fertility in New Netherland and Brazil. He also secured a grant from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences to host a workshop for historians to discuss the history of the Dutch Atlantic world and the impact of technology and artificial intelligence on historical research.
He intends to complete his doctoral dissertation using the new database.
