Commander Cantrell in the West Indies(85)

Jehan de Bruyne had been frowning slightly at the deck throughout the exchange. “I will ask you to reconsider your ruling on slavery one last time, Maarten. I am not sure you understand the degree of dissatisfaction it is causing among our people.”

Oh, I understand Jehan. I even understand the veiled threat in your calm tone. Tromp folded his hands. “Mijn heer de Bruyne, your own council, the Politieke Raad, voted in support of this measure. And I remain unclear how you can conclude that a slave population poses no credible threat to our security here. You have only to look at Thomas Warner’s experience. In the last seven years, he has had to struggle to maintain control over his colony. And why? Not threat from the Caribs: they no longer appear willing to try cases with him. No, his problems arise from resentment and rebelliousness among his slave population.”

Musen sniffed. “That is because the French keep stirring the pot.”

“That may even be true, Hans, but would we be immune to such trouble? The French see the English as interlopers; why should they see us any differently? Indeed, given the presence of our forces on the island, will they not consider us an even greater problem? Because once we arrive and provide both plantation and border security for Thomas Warner, they will have even less chance to displace him—and us. Unless, that is, we bring our own slaves, whom they would no doubt attempt to suborn as well.”

Tromp leaned back and shook his head. “No. People who have no freedom have little to lose. When slaves are being worked to death, they understand quickly enough that soon they will also lose the last thing they value: their lives, and those of their families. At that point, it is only logical for them to risk the probable suicide of unarmed rebellion rather than continue toward the certain suicide of eventually dying of malnourished exhaustion in the fields.”

Haet leaned in aggressively. “And then why are the Spanish so successful using slaves, Tromp? They seem to do well enough and get rich while doing it.”

Tromp studied Haet calmly but very directly. “Because, mijn heer Haet, the Spanish are not hanging on by their fingernails, as we are. They are routinely resupplied, routinely reinforced, and routinely involved in ruthlessly squashing any hint of resistance in their subject populations.”

“And the Dutch East India Company does no less. And thrives!” countered Haet.

Jan van Walbeeck spoke quietly and without any trace of his customary animation. “I have been to those colonies, Haet, have been among their slaves. Have seen, have felt, the hatred for us in their eyes, in their gestures, in their quiet, patient watching. Are those Pacific colonies profitable? Yes, most certainly. Are they safe? Only so long as you have guns trained on the slaves, Haet. And one day—and it will only take one day—we will be weak, or forgetful, and we will stumble. And they will slaughter us and drive us back into the seas which brought us like a curse to their shores.”

Haet snorted. “So you prefer the natives to your own kind, van Walbeeck?”

“Haet, I don’t have to prefer them in order to understand that their feelings about us enslaving them on their own land are identical to our feelings about the Spanish doing the same to us in the Netherlands. And you remember what we did to the Spanish when we finally got the chance.”

Haet was going to speak, but swallowed whatever words he might have spoken.

Tromp exchanged glances with van Walbeeck. Good: the conversation had remained on a practical footing. The ethical discussions over slavery had long ago proven themselves to be emotional morasses which achieved nothing but the expenditure of countless, profitless, hours. And they invariably led to the slaveholding faction accusing their opponents of succumbing to up-time influence (often true) and, by extrapolation, being Grantville’s lackeys (not at all true). Indeed, since adolescence, Tromp had been disquieted by the circuitous rationalizations his countrymen and others employed when resolving their Christian piety with their grasp upon the slaveholder’s whip. But, as an admiral, his life had not had much direct involvement with such matters, or the resolution of such issues.

But here in a New World where the Dutch colonies were hanging on by a thread that only remained uncut because the Spanish had not yet discovered it, the domain of the military and the commercial had begun to overlap. With no help or even news coming from the United Provinces, all choices, all decisions made locally had a bearing upon all other local decisions. And so Tromp had been compelled to weigh both the practical and ethical burdens and benefits of slavery.

Van Walbeeck, having arrived in Oranjestad ahead of him, had been an invaluable interlocutor on the matter, and the smattering of copied up-time texts in his library had been the catalyst for their discussions and grist for much deep thought. Leaving Recife, Tromp had been leaning against slavery for practical reasons, which happily aligned with his largely unstudied ethical misgivings. But the past year at St. Eustatia had confirmed him in the belief that, just as he had felt it his duty to become a church deacon if he was to live a Christian life and not merely profess one, so too he could not truly call himself a Christian without also working to undo the institution of slavery.