Courland colonization of the Americas
Encyclopedia
Duchy of Courland and Semigallia
The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia is the name of a duchy in the Baltic region that existed from 1562 to 1569 as a vassal state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and from 1569...
was the smallest nation to colonize the Americas
European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...
with a colony on the island of Tobago
Tobago
Tobago is the smaller of the two main islands that make up the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located in the southern Caribbean, northeast of the island of Trinidad and southeast of Grenada. The island lies outside the hurricane belt...
from 1654 to 1659, and intermittently from 1660 to 1689.
History
Courland had a population of only 200,000, mostly of German and Scandinavian ancestry, and was itself a vassal of the Polish-Lithuanian CommonwealthPolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a dualistic state of Poland and Lithuania ruled by a common monarch. It was the largest and one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th‑century Europe with some and a multi-ethnic population of 11 million at its peak in the early 17th century...
at that time. Under Duke Jacob Kettler
Jacob Kettler
Jacob Kettler was a Baltic German Duke of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia . Under his rule, the duchy was brought to its greatest peak in wealth and engaged in colonization.- Life :...
, a Baltic German
Baltic German
The Baltic Germans were mostly ethnically German inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which today form the countries of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic German population never made up more than 10% of the total. They formed the social, commercial, political and cultural élite in...
, it established one of the largest merchant fleets in Europe. During his travels to Western Europe, Jacob became the eager proponent of mercantilism
Mercantilism
Mercantilism is the economic doctrine in which government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the prosperity and security of the state. In particular, it demands a positive balance of trade. Mercantilism dominated Western European economic policy and discourse from...
. Metalworking and shipbuilding became much more developed. Trading relations were established not only with nearby countries, but also with England, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and others. Kettler established one of the largest merchant fleets in Europe, with its main harbours in Windau
Ventspils
Ventspils is a city in northwestern Latvia in the Courland historical region of Latvia, the sixth largest city in the country. As of 2006, Ventspils had a population of 43,806. Ventspils is situated on the Venta River and the Baltic Sea, and has an ice-free port...
(today's Ventspils), and Libau
Liepaja
Liepāja ; ), is a republican city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea directly at 21°E. It is the largest city in the Kurzeme Region of Latvia, the third largest city in Latvia after Riga and Daugavpils and an important ice-free port...
(today's Liepāja).
The Duchy's ships were undertaking trade voyages to the West Indies at least as early as 1637, when a Courland ship attempted to found a colony on Tobago
Tobago
Tobago is the smaller of the two main islands that make up the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located in the southern Caribbean, northeast of the island of Trinidad and southeast of Grenada. The island lies outside the hurricane belt...
with 212 settlers. An earlier European settlement on the island, a Dutch colony
Dutch colonization of the Americas
Dutch trading posts and plantations in the Americas precede the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia. Whereas the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600 , the first forts and settlements on the Essequibo river in Guyana and on the Amazon date from the 1590s...
, formed in 1628, had been wiped out a few months earlier by Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. However, the first Courland colony met a similar end, whilst a second attempt was essentially blockaded by Spain and strangled in infancy by 1639. In 1642, two ships under Captain Caroon with about 300 settlers attempted to settle on the north coast near Courland Bay. This colony was again blockaded, but was more successful. Jesuit missionaries among the Carib quickly agitated and armed the tribes into attacking the settlement which was subsequently evacuated to Tortuga
Tortuga
Tortuga is a Caribbean island that forms part of Haiti, off the northwest coast of Hispaniola. It constitutes the commune of Île de la Tortue in the Port-de-Paix arrondissement of the Nord-Ouest Department of Haiti. The island covers an area of 180 km² and its population was 25,936 at the...
and later Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
. Under agreement with other Protestant powers who saw their various individual efforts insufficient to trade and or colonize both the America's, Africa, and the Indies simulteneously, Courland's attention shifted to Africa. In 1651 the Duchy gained its first successful colony
Colony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....
in Africa, on St. Andrews Island in the Gambia River
Gambia River
The Gambia River is a major river in West Africa, running from the Fouta Djallon plateau in north Guinea westward through Senegal and The Gambia to the Atlantic Ocean at the city of Banjul...
and they established Fort Jacob there.
Soon afterward, the Protestant powers felt sufficiently organized and prepared to launch several colonial expeditions in the Caribean against Spanish interests. However, the alliance between England and Netherlands against Spain began to sever under England's new trading program. The Dutch were primary competitors to Courland who decided to support the English in the brewing conflict. Therefore, Courland received permission from its Protestant English allies to make still another attempt at a colony on Tobago. On May 20 1654, the ship Das Wappen der Herzogin von Kurland ("The Arms of the Duchess of Courland") arrived carrying 45 cannons, 25 officers, 124 Courlander soldiers and 80 families of colonists to occupy Tobago. Captain Willem Mollens declared the island "New Courland" (Neu-Kurland). A fort was erected on the south-west of the island, also called Fort Jacobus (Fort James) with the surrounding town called Jacobsstadt (Jamestown). Other features were given Courland names such as Great Courland Bay, Jacobs (James) Bay, Courland Estate, Neu-Mitau (New Jelgava
Jelgava
-Sports:The city's main football team, FK Jelgava, plays in the Latvian Higher League and won the 2009/2010 Latvian Football Cup.- Notable people :*August Johann Gottfried Bielenstein - linguist, folklorist, ethnographer...
), Libau
Liepaja
Liepāja ; ), is a republican city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea directly at 21°E. It is the largest city in the Kurzeme Region of Latvia, the third largest city in Latvia after Riga and Daugavpils and an important ice-free port...
Bay and Little Courland Bay. An Evangelical Lutheran church was built by the Courlanders in their first year on the island. The colony was successful, but the Netherlands were not willing to accede to losing the West Indies and replied by establishing their colony nearby a few months later. Thus, the small Courland colony soon became overshadowed by a second Dutch colony. While 120 Courland colonists had come in 1657, the Dutch colony reached a population of 1,200 by the next year when 500 French Protestan refugees fleeing Catholic persecution joined them.
Goods exported to Europe included sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
, tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
, coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
, cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
, ginger
Ginger
Ginger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale, consumed as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It lends its name to its genus and family . Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal....
, indigo
Indigo dye
Indigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color . Historically, indigo was a natural dye extracted from plants, and this process was important economically because blue dyes were once rare. Nearly all indigo dye produced today — several thousand tons each year — is synthetic...
, rum
Rum
Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane by-products such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice, by a process of fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak barrels...
, cocoa, tortoise
Tortoise
Tortoises are a family of land-dwelling reptiles of the order of turtles . Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise...
shells, tropical birds and their feathers.
The Duchy of Courland was a focus of interest for both Sweden and Poland-Lithuania. In 1655, the Swedish army entered the territory of the Duchy and the Northern Wars
Northern Wars
Northern Wars is a term used for a series of wars fought in northern and northeastern Europe in the 16th and 17th century. An internationally agreed nomenclature for these wars has not yet been devised...
(1655–1660) began. Duke Jacob was held captive by the Swedish army in 1658–1660. Even so, during this period, both colonies continued to thrive. During this period, both colonies were taken by more numerous Dutch colonists, and the merchant fleet and factories were destroyed. The Dutch settlers on the island surrounded Fort James and forced Hubert de Beveren, Governor of the Courlanders, to surrender. Courland officially yielded New Courland on December 11 1659. This war ended with the Treaty of Oliwa (signed near Gdańsk
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
) of 1660, on the basis of which Tobago was returned to Courland. However, although peace had been established between the Courlanders and the Dutch, there still remained Spain. Thus, following several attacks by Buccaneers seeking new harbors and an expeditionary fleet of Spanish vessals, the Courlanders left Tobago in 1666. In 1668 a Courland ship attempted to reoccupy Fort Jacobus but was driven off by the Dutch. Tobago was regained again just for a short period at the end of Jacob's rule with an attempt in July 1680 at a new colony which also later failed. He began to restore the fleet and factories, but the Duchy never again reached its previous level of prosperity. The island was abandoned except for visiting Buccaneers from March 1683 to June 1686, before again being occupied by a collection of scattered Courlanders from throughout the Dutch, French, and English West Indies, as well as fresh settlers from the home country. However, in May 1690, shortly after the island was sold by Courland the previous year, the Courlanders government permanently left Tobago, and those who remained essentially joined the buccaneers or other Anglo-Dutch colonies. Nonetheless, absentee governors would continue to be appointed until 1795, thereby facilitating the continued use of covert privateering Letters of Marque and Reprisal in the region.
The Courland Monument near Courland Bay commemorates the Duchy's settlements.
Governors of New Courland (Tobago)
| 1642–1643 | Edward Marshall |
| 1643–1650 | Cornelius Caroon |
| 1654-165? | Adrien Lampsius |
| 1656–1659 | Hubert de Beveren |
| 1660–1689 | ? |