As the sun rose over the Río de la Plata on 3 April 1660, Albert Jansen could look out over the river and see two of his ships at anchor. The Goude Leeuw, just arrived from Amsterdam, was carrying merchandise destined not only for Buenos Aires, but also inland as far as Potosí. His other ship, the Vergulde Valk, had been in Buenos Aires for several months and would shortly depart the city for the return journey to Amsterdam. At age thirty, Jansen had already made a small fortune importing textiles, hardware, and other merchandise from Amsterdam to Buenos Aires and exporting hides and, especially, silver. Silver was the primary reason Jansen, and other Dutch merchants like him, were in the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires itself was not a very large market. However, Potosí, with its thriving population, commercial economy, and silver mines, was just two months overland by pack mule and cart. The Spanish trading route to Potosí went the other way, via Lima to the west coast of South America and from there north to the Caribbean and beyond to Seville or Cádiz. Buenos Aires offered merchants a much more direct route, but there was the problem of accessing it as the port was officially closed to unauthorized shipping.

On the morning of 29 July 1599, the Silveren Werelt (Silver World) slowly sailed up the Río de la Plata and anchored off the port of Buenos Aires. The Dutch ship, captained by Cornelis van Heemskerck, was making the first attempt at establishing direct trade between the Dutch Republic and Buenos Aires. The voyage of the ambitiously named Silveren Werelt had begun the previous September, accompanied by the Gouden Werelt (Golden World), captained by Laurens Bicker. The two ships had left Texel (the seaport of Amsterdam) on a journey that took them to the Guinea coast via the Cape Verde Islands. Near São Tomé, the Portuguese attacked them, and van Heemskerck was captured. After a prisoner exchange, the voyage continued, though the two ships were separated by a storm. The Silveren Werelt continued on to the agreed rendezvous point at Maldonado, at the mouth of the Río de la Plata. When the Gouden Werelt failed to arrive, the Silveren Werelt continued up the estuary to within sight of Buenos Aires.2

In the opening of the account of his voyages to the Río de la Plata, Acarete du Biscay described the ravages inflicted on Spanish ships returning from the Americas by the English during the Anglo-Spanish War (1654–1660). Du Biscay recounted how “their Cruisers hovering about Cadiz and San Lucar … intercepted some Ships coming from the Indies richly laden … and afterwards went to the Canaries, where they burnt most of the Flota that were arriv’d there from New Spain.” He then explained, “The Dutch who fought to make their advantage of the Troubles that the Spaniards were embroil’d in, sent several Ships to the River de la Plata, laden with Goods and Negroes, which they took in at Angola and Congo.” According to du Biscay, “the Inhabitants of the place [Buenos Aires] who had a long time been depriv’d of the Supplies which they had us’d to receive by the Spanish Gallions … and were beside in want of Negroes and other things” pleaded with the governor to allow trade. Consequently the Dutch found that, “the Governor [Baygorri], ... for a Present which they [the porteños] oblig’d the Hollanders to give him, and satisfying the Customs due to the King of Spain, ... were permitted to Land and Trade there.” A gift for the governor, taxes for the king, and goods for the merchants opened up a seaport supposedly closed to unlicensed ships.

As discussed in Chapter 1, in the early 1650s the international conditions evolved in a way that made possible the expansion of Dutch trade in Spanish America. At the same time, the Río de la Plata underwent changes on a regional level that affected the areas connecting Potosí to Buenos Aires (Chapter 2). In that context, the agency of Governor Baygorri made possible the connections between the Silver World and the Silver River. In this chapter, I discuss how various governors managed trade with foreigners. Although the chapter focuses on Baygorri, the governor during whose administration Dutch trade in Buenos Aires was most significant, his role can only be understood in contrast to his predecessor and successors.

In a 1672 summary of the original purpose for the establishment of an audiencia in Buenos Aires, the government of Carlos II (1661–1700) wrote that, in 1660, reports “were being received from England and Holland about how much the vassals of those states were engaged in commerce with the Ports of the Indies and particularly with that of Buenos Ayres.” These reports included the information concerning “the great returns of silver that they [the English and Dutch] gained from the exchanges that they carried out, and about the growing profits that they were having due to the tolerance of the Governors; each day the excess was becoming greater.” Referring to the situation in the early 1660s, the summary continued, “It was recognized that where the most excess had occurred had been Buenos Ayres, during the time that Pedro de Baygorri governed that city.” Under Baygorri’s governorship, “there had been many English, French, and Dutch ships … admitted, introducing goods to Spaniards and carrying away great sums of silver … extracted at the mines of Potosí.” Finally, it was estimated that “There was imported more than twelve million pesos in merchandize on which were paid very little taxes for the Royal Treasury but great sums to the Governors on the pretext of permitting ship repairs, all very malicious.…”

Upon their return to Spain in 1660, Acarete du Biscay and Ignacio Maleo were summoned to Madrid by the Consejo de Indias to report on the conditions they found in Buenos Aires. Maleo described to the Council what “he had observ’d in the River of Plata, but also [spoke] of the means that might be us’d to hinder Strangers [foreigners] from having the least thoughts of Trading there.” Maleo recommended “keeping Two good Men of War at the Mouth of the River, to dispute and hinder the Passage of such Merchant Ships as should attempt to go up to Buenos Ayres.” He also recommended that two navíos de registro should be sent yearly, “loaded with all things the People of those parts have occasion for. That being sufficiently supply’d, they might have no thoughts of favouring the descent and entrance of Strangers, when they should come thither.” More fundamentally, Maleo “made a proposal of changing the usual Way of carrying Goods, which are sent to Peru, and brought … by the Way of the Gallions; that it might be settled on the River of Plata, from whence, he assur’d ’em, the Carriage of ’em by Land to Peru, would be more conveniently perform’d, and at a cheaper Rate, as well as with less Risque, than any other Way [via Lima and the Pacific Ocean].” Of these suggestions, du Biscay recounted that the Consejo de Indias “relish’d only that of sending to Buenos-Ayres Two Vessels laden with Commodities proper for the Country.”

The Dutch presence on the Río de la Plata in the mid-seventeenth century cannot be fully understood without a discussion of the commercial links the city of Buenos Aires had established since late in the sixteenth century with the Alto Peruvian provinces; the provinces of Tucumán, Cuyo, and Paraguay; and Spain, Brazil, and Western Africa. The trading networks that connected Buenos Aires to Potosí linked the urban centers in the governorships of Tucumán and Río de la Plata and brought silver to the seaport and, to a lesser extent, the commodities needed to engage in commerce in the South Atlantic. Complex networks of trade and credit integrating this broad space converged in Buenos Aires, despite the multiple attempts on the part of the crown to limit the role of Buenos Aires, a competitor to Lima. Stimulated by Spanish legislation, but primarily in violation of it, merchants, commodities, and financial instruments continued linking the regional economies that lay between Buenos Aires and Potosí to the Atlantic throughout the seventeenth century. This chapter reviews the Spanish policies that encouraged the growth of trade through Buenos Aires and the changes in international policies and politics that affected the Río de la Plata. The focus is not just on direct trade in slaves and merchandise into Buenos Aires, but also on the mechanisms that legalized that trade and made possible its transshipment inland.

In early April of 1660, the Nuestra Señora del Destierro y San Juan Bautista, a 250–300-ton ship carrying 850 slaves and valuable merchandise from Luanda, sailed up the Río de la Plata on a journey that had begun in Amsterdam. Waiting in the estuary was the León Dorado, a Dutch merchant privateer. Reports differ as to exactly what happened next but, in short, the León Dorado captured the slave ship. As it turned out, the capture of the San Juan Bautista was the easy part for the captain of the León Dorado. By analyzing the conflicting Dutch and Spanish claims over who was entitled to the San Juan Bautista, this chapter discusses the extent of Dutch trade in Buenos Aires, the organization of that trade, the role of local officials and merchants in facilitating it, and the changing official attitudes toward Dutch connections in Buenos Aires.

The wheels of justice in the Consejo de Indias (Council of the Indies) turned slowly. It was only in May of 1663 that the case and lawsuit initiated by Governor Villacorta in Buenos Aires in 1660 began to play out in Madrid. On 6 May 1663, Alberto Yansen signed a power of attorney giving Juan Perez de Aller and Francisco Bermejo the authority to represent him before the Council. Bermejo immediately sought the release of Yansen, complaining that he already had been imprisoned in the royal jail for 36 months. Four days later, the prosecutor rejected that request out of hand, pointed to the “severity of his [Yansen’s] guilt,” and requested “severe corporal in addition to material punishment [fines].”