Erik Ødegård
Biographic Data
| ID | 4461697 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Erik Ødegård |
| GIVEN NAMES | Erik |
| FAMILY NAME | Ødegård |
| SIGNATURE | ØDEGÅRD E |
| AFFILIATIONS | International Institute of Social History |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2675-3647 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
L’Amérique Méridionale: The Map that Shaped Brazil in the 18th Century, written by Junia Ferreira Furtado
Oorlog en ongelijkheid op zee en overzee
This brief article discusses prof. Marjolein ‘t Hart’s recent book Oorlog en ongelijkheid, focusing on her analysis of the war at sea and outside of Europe. In her treatment of these two topics, ‘t Hart makes a number of valuable interventions in the debate, and raises some new questions. The argued efficiency of the Republic’s navy is a matter that requires more scholarly work. ‘t Hart argues cogently for a reassessment of the WIC. For while the…
The Best Timber in India: Shipbuilding Supplies and the Dutch East India Company in Cochin, 1663–1795
The Dutch East India Company (VOC) maintained a presence in the present-day Indian state of Kerala from the 1660s until the British conquest of the Dutch positions in the 1790s. The company maintained a shipyard in the Dutch capital of Cochin (present-day Kochi). This article examines the use of local forest products for shipbuilding and as export products, with a special focus on shipbuilding timbers. The presence of teak in the forests of the W…
Western European Long-Distance Mobility
Volume 1 of The Cambridge History of Global Migrations documents the lives and experiences of everyday people through the lens of human movement and mobility from 1400 to 1800. Focusing on the most important typologies of preindustrial global migrations, this volume reveals how these movements transformed global paths of mobility, the impacts of which we still see in societies today. Case studies include those that arose from the demand for free,…
L'Indien and the Gilded Plaice: Building American Frigates in Amsterdam, 1777–1782
In 1777, the American commissioners in Paris, Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, contracted with French naval captain Jacques Boux to design two frigates for the Revolutionary cause. The design was the first of a new concept of very large frigates, able to outgun anything they could not outrun. The ships were to be built at a private yard in Amsterdam. One of these vessels, laid down as L’Indien, would ultimately serve the American cause in the S…
Companies in the Early Modern World: A Review of Recent Literature
Chartered companies provided one solution for the problems posed by long-distance trade in the early modern world. Accordingly, these organisations have been studied exhaustively. Yet the field is by no means depleted, as the books reviewed here attest. These six books cover questions ranging from whether the chartered companies acted as real business organisations or rather as appendages of state power, the relations between companies and states…
Investing in Engenhos: Credit, Claims, and Sugar Mills in Dutch Brazil
This article examines the issue of private investment in the seventeenth-century Dutch colony in Brazil. For the first time, new archival discoveries allow for a reconstruction of the size of private investment in the colony, as well as a breakdown into distinct investment activities. The article argues that private investment was an absolute necessity for the West India Company in the hope of making its colony successful, as it could not provide…
Maritime India in Dutch sources: The Dutch East India Company port records of Cochin and Bimilipatnam
Dutch port records are a valuable source to study the development of shipping in the Indian Ocean in the eighteenth century, especially the important but elusive local short-sea trades. This article presents data from the Dutch port records of Cochin (Kochi) and Bimilipatnam (Bheemunipatnam)
In search of sepoys: Indian soldiers and the Dutch East India Company in India and Sri Lanka, 1760–1795
Unlike the French and English India, the Dutch East India Company did not shift to recruiting predominantly Indian soldier personnel for service in India, sepoys, from the 1740s onwards. Although Dutch Company (VOC) remained much more reliant on European recruitment, it did in fact also recruit sepoys in India. These soldiers remain little noted in the sources and the historical record. This article will explain why the VOC did not follow the Fre…
Slavery at the Court of the ‘Humanist Prince’ Reexamining Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen and his Role in Slavery, Slave Trade and Slave-smuggling in Dutch Brazil
From 1630 until its fall in 1654, the Dutch West India Company maintained a colony in northeastern Brazil where it tried to profit from the cultivation of sugar using enslaved African labor. Count Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen served as this colony’s governor-general from 1636 until 1644, this being the most heavily studied period of the colony’s existence. But the role of Johan Maurits in the transatlantic slave trade and enslavement in Brazil…
Recapitalization or Reform? The Bankruptcy of the First Dutch West India Company and the Formation of the Second West India Company, 1674
The Dutch West India Company (WIC), founded in 1621, was, in the words of the States General, “disbanded and destroyed” in September 1674 due to bankruptcy. In its stead, a second West India Company was founded, with a charter largely taken over from the first. This article explores how the dissolution of the first company and the conflicting interests of stockholders, bondholders, and company directors were managed. As it turns out, the old comp…
Construction at Cochin: Building ships at the VOC-yard in Cochin
The port of Cochin on the Malabar Coast of India had always been a centre of shipbuilding. After the Dutch conquest in the port in 1663, the Dutch East India Company (VOC), too, established a shipyard there. At this yard, the VOC experimented with building ocean-going ships until the management of the company decreed that these were to be built solely in the Dutch Republic itself. During the first half of the eighteenth century, the yard focused …
Designing a New Fort on the Gold Coast: Johan Fredrik Trenks, the WIC, and the New Fort at Takoradi, 1774–1791
This article examines the decision-making process for a new fort which the Dutch West India Company proposed to build near Takoradi in present-day Ghana in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. By closely following the process of design, evaluation, and redesign of the fort, this article argues that the WIC was institutionally incapable of coordinating and carrying out such a complex project. The original design for the new fort was made i…
The sixth admiralty: The Dutch East India Company and the military revolution at sea, c. 1639–1667
In February 1665, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) agreed to equip 20 ships for the Dutch fleet, six of which were specifically named Indiamen. This article will focus on this episode as the culmination of 25 years of VOC involvement in the Republic’s wars in Europe. During this period, the VOC acted at times as a sixth admiralty board. This article will argue that the ships that the VOC provided in 1665 should not be seen as armed merchantmen,…
Designing a New Fort on the Gold Coast: Johan Fredrik Trenks, the WIC, and the New Fort at Takoradi, 1774–1791
This article examines the decision-making process for a new fort which the Dutch West India Company proposed to build near Takoradi in present-day Ghana in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. By closely following the process of design, evaluation, and redesign of the fort, this article argues that the WIC was institutionally incapable of coordinating and carrying out such a complex project. The original design for the new fort was made i…
The sixth admiralty: The Dutch East India Company and the military revolution at sea, c. 1639–1667
In February 1665, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) agreed to equip 20 ships for the Dutch fleet, six of which were specifically named Indiamen. This article will focus on this episode as the culmination of 25 years of VOC involvement in the Republic’s wars in Europe. During this period, the VOC acted at times as a sixth admiralty board. This article will argue that the ships that the VOC provided in 1665 should not be seen as armed merchantmen,…
Designing a New Fort on the Gold Coast: Johan Fredrik Trenks, the WIC, and the New Fort at Takoradi, 1774–1791
This article examines the decision-making process for a new fort which the Dutch West India Company proposed to build near Takoradi in present-day Ghana in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. By closely following the process of design, evaluation, and redesign of the fort, this article argues that the WIC was institutionally incapable of coordinating and carrying out such a complex project. The original design for the new fort was made i…
Recapitalization or Reform? The Bankruptcy of the First Dutch West India Company and the Formation of the Second West India Company, 1674
The Dutch West India Company (WIC), founded in 1621, was, in the words of the States General, “disbanded and destroyed” in September 1674 due to bankruptcy. In its stead, a second West India Company was founded, with a charter largely taken over from the first. This article explores how the dissolution of the first company and the conflicting interests of stockholders, bondholders, and company directors were managed. As it turns out, the old comp…
Construction at Cochin: Building ships at the VOC-yard in Cochin
The port of Cochin on the Malabar Coast of India had always been a centre of shipbuilding. After the Dutch conquest in the port in 1663, the Dutch East India Company (VOC), too, established a shipyard there. At this yard, the VOC experimented with building ocean-going ships until the management of the company decreed that these were to be built solely in the Dutch Republic itself. During the first half of the eighteenth century, the yard focused …
Slavery at the Court of the ‘Humanist Prince’ Reexamining Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen and his Role in Slavery, Slave Trade and Slave-smuggling in Dutch Brazil
From 1630 until its fall in 1654, the Dutch West India Company maintained a colony in northeastern Brazil where it tried to profit from the cultivation of sugar using enslaved African labor. Count Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen served as this colony’s governor-general from 1636 until 1644, this being the most heavily studied period of the colony’s existence. But the role of Johan Maurits in the transatlantic slave trade and enslavement in Brazil…
In search of sepoys: Indian soldiers and the Dutch East India Company in India and Sri Lanka, 1760–1795
Unlike the French and English India, the Dutch East India Company did not shift to recruiting predominantly Indian soldier personnel for service in India, sepoys, from the 1740s onwards. Although Dutch Company (VOC) remained much more reliant on European recruitment, it did in fact also recruit sepoys in India. These soldiers remain little noted in the sources and the historical record. This article will explain why the VOC did not follow the Fre…
Companies in the Early Modern World: A Review of Recent Literature
Chartered companies provided one solution for the problems posed by long-distance trade in the early modern world. Accordingly, these organisations have been studied exhaustively. Yet the field is by no means depleted, as the books reviewed here attest. These six books cover questions ranging from whether the chartered companies acted as real business organisations or rather as appendages of state power, the relations between companies and states…
Investing in Engenhos: Credit, Claims, and Sugar Mills in Dutch Brazil
This article examines the issue of private investment in the seventeenth-century Dutch colony in Brazil. For the first time, new archival discoveries allow for a reconstruction of the size of private investment in the colony, as well as a breakdown into distinct investment activities. The article argues that private investment was an absolute necessity for the West India Company in the hope of making its colony successful, as it could not provide…
Maritime India in Dutch sources: The Dutch East India Company port records of Cochin and Bimilipatnam
Dutch port records are a valuable source to study the development of shipping in the Indian Ocean in the eighteenth century, especially the important but elusive local short-sea trades. This article presents data from the Dutch port records of Cochin (Kochi) and Bimilipatnam (Bheemunipatnam)
Western European Long-Distance Mobility
Volume 1 of The Cambridge History of Global Migrations documents the lives and experiences of everyday people through the lens of human movement and mobility from 1400 to 1800. Focusing on the most important typologies of preindustrial global migrations, this volume reveals how these movements transformed global paths of mobility, the impacts of which we still see in societies today. Case studies include those that arose from the demand for free,…
L'Indien and the Gilded Plaice: Building American Frigates in Amsterdam, 1777–1782
In 1777, the American commissioners in Paris, Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, contracted with French naval captain Jacques Boux to design two frigates for the Revolutionary cause. The design was the first of a new concept of very large frigates, able to outgun anything they could not outrun. The ships were to be built at a private yard in Amsterdam. One of these vessels, laid down as L’Indien, would ultimately serve the American cause in the S…
Oorlog en ongelijkheid op zee en overzee
This brief article discusses prof. Marjolein ‘t Hart’s recent book Oorlog en ongelijkheid, focusing on her analysis of the war at sea and outside of Europe. In her treatment of these two topics, ‘t Hart makes a number of valuable interventions in the debate, and raises some new questions. The argued efficiency of the Republic’s navy is a matter that requires more scholarly work. ‘t Hart argues cogently for a reassessment of the WIC. For while the…
The Best Timber in India: Shipbuilding Supplies and the Dutch East India Company in Cochin, 1663–1795
The Dutch East India Company (VOC) maintained a presence in the present-day Indian state of Kerala from the 1660s until the British conquest of the Dutch positions in the 1790s. The company maintained a shipyard in the Dutch capital of Cochin (present-day Kochi). This article examines the use of local forest products for shipbuilding and as export products, with a special focus on shipbuilding timbers. The presence of teak in the forests of the W…
L’Amérique Méridionale: The Map that Shaped Brazil in the 18th Century, written by Junia Ferreira Furtado
Economics (8 works) · History (8 works) · History (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories (7 works) · Economy (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade (5 works) · Engineering (5 works) · Law (5 works)