Abstract
This article investigates the reason why groups of merchants operating from the Dutch Republic, particularly from Amsterdam, decided to take part in the exploitation of the Spanish Empire, through a very particular type of activity, that of the slave trade. We argue that Amsterdam-based merchants were heavily engaged, through various organizational forms, in supplying Spanish American markets with enslaved Africans. This participation was rewarded with a path for access to Spanish American silver, at the time the essential exchange mechanism for entry and expansion in the Mediterranean and Asian trades.
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