Heart and Soul: Navigating Emotions aboard Dutch Ships, 1670 - 1800

The thesis examines how seafarers in Dutch imperial networks between 1670 and 1800 practised emotion. It draws on two underused archives: personal correspondence known as sailing letters, seized by the British in the Third and Fourth Anglo-Dutch Wars and held at Kew, and criminal court records of the Dutch East India Company in the Dutch National Archives.

These sources offer insight into the emotional lives of merchants, preachers and working-class sailors moving between the Dutch Republic and maritime networks. The study asks what emotional habits can be identified among seafarers on VOC and West India Company ships, and how those habits changed as they travelled through imperial networks linking the homeland to colonies, forts and outposts. It also considers how such feelings were taught, expected or sometimes compelled.