Introduction

Dutch whaling masters had steered their ships toward the “old,” familiar whaling grounds east and west of Greenland in the early years of the nineteenth century. The resumption of war in 1803 hindered these captains in their attempts to resume whaling in the Arctic region. As had been the case with South Seas whaling, Dutch whaling entrepreneurs had to wait for peace and for the incentives from King Willem I before they could devote their time and finances to whaling expeditions to the North. In this chapter, companies and individuals working in the Arctic will be discussed. Their activities and catches will be scrutinized and analysed in order to present an idea of scope and intensity of Dutch whaling and sealing in the coastal waters of Jan Mayen Island, Spitsbergen, and Greenland.

Arctic whaling and sealing

Amsterdam: Barend van Spreekens (1815-1819)

Immediately after King Willem I published his KB of 19 March 1815, which eventually resulted in an increase of premiums, Amsterdam merchant Barend van Spreekens was one of the first to realise the importance of a revitalisation of the whaling industry.

On 24 April 1815, at an auction in Dordrecht, Van Spreekens paid ƒ16,700 for a fluitschip of 200 lasts (about 400 tons). It is likely that this sale concerned Groenlandia, formerly owned by the firm of Frank van den Schoor & Sons in Dordrecht. This ship must have been at least fifty years old at the time, as the announcement in the newspaper mentioned that the ship had been completely refurnished (‘uitgehaald’) in 1764, and again in 1788.

In 1815, well experienced Captain Jacob Broertjes from Amsterdam took the vessel, appropriately named Groenland, to the coastal waters of the vast territory bearing this name. As stated earlier in Chapter 1, Broertjes had been involved in several whaling expeditions during the period between 1802 and 1805. This ship carried seven boats and a crew of 43. Its crew list was compiled on 5 April.

One year later, on 7 April 1816, the vessel with a crew of 50 left again from Texel for Greenland, again under Jacob Broertjes. The ship returned on 15 August, having caught two whales that yielded 40 kwartelen of oil. Broertjes took Groenland to the whaling grounds in 1817, and again in 1819.