Sailing and secrecy Information control and power in Dutch overseas companies in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century

In 1693 Pieter van Dam, advocaat (secretary) of the Dutch East India Company, was asked to write an ‘accurate description’ of the history of the company. Van Dam’s work – the content as well as its form – makes us think about secrecy. In hindsight, Dutch overseas exploration, expansion, and power started; several companies were established in the 1590s and the famous Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in 1602. Overseas companies are particularly interesting in relation to secrecy, because they exercised power and accumulated information. The chapter focuses on top-down secrecy, typically exerted by institutions. It draws on the overseas companies and their power and information, also remarkably interesting through the lens of secrecy. The Dutch geographer and clergyman Petrus Plancius obtained several maps from the Portuguese cartographer Bartolomeo Lasso; information also referred to as ‘secrets’ by the Dutch. This could be seen as Dutch success, but it can also be attributed to less severely maintained Portuguese regulations.