Itinerario, Vol. 43, No. 2, 194–217. © 2019 Research Institute for History, Leiden University doi:10.1017/S0165115319000238 The Trade in Domestic Servants (Morianer) from Tranquebar for Upper Class Danish Homes in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century JORGE SIMÓN IZQUIERDO DÍAZ* Email: jsid12@yahoo.dk This paper explores the Danish East India Company’s slave trade practice in Tranquebar in the first half of the seventeenth century. In particular it focuses on a practice of acquir- ing black Morianer (Moors) as prestigious servants for aristocratic homes. The court of the Danish king Christian IV was familiar with the exotic inlay of Morians as represented in pictures, theatre, carrousels, and other artistic manifestations of the upper classes of that time. In this sense, I suggest that Hans Hansson Skonning’s Geographia historica Orientalis (1641) provides seminal clues about ideology justifying slavery and represen- tations of Africa and Asia in Scandinavian countries before they entered the slave trade. Keywords: Ostindisk Kompagni (East India Company), Tranquebar, Morians, slave trade, slavery, othering Introduction It happens to any of us that when we read a book on a new topic all the details seem important and we underline and gloss the new singularities, which we would ignore if it were a matter already known. The same is true when we come across customs of remote people, for as anthropologist Kirsten Hastrup notes, they surprise us and we record their singularities.1 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, trade in prestigious black domestic servants (Morianer) for royal and upper-class homes in Denmark-Norway played a singular role in the Scandinavian history and imagination. In a portrait (Figure 1) hanging at the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle, Queen Sophie Amalie is pictured together with an exotic white cockatoo and with her right hand posed delicately but firmly over the head of a young black man. The young man is a hofMorian, a precious enslaved servant, so popular at European royal courts at the time. The portrait, painted by Abraham Wüchters in 1667, illustrates a hegemonic version of the colonial encounter: conquering the exotic. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 The Trade in Domestic Servants 195 Figure 1. Portrait of Queen Sophie Amalie. Painted by Abraham Wüchters in 1667. Courtesy of the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle (inv. nr. A 4605). Who were the page boys called Mohr or Morian, so popular among the upper classes in early modern Denmark? In the language of the time a man of dark skin was a sorte- mand2 and black servants were called Morianer.3 The presence of Morians in Denmark was a by-product of the colonial enterprise in Southern Asia and Africa. The term was used collectively for all people with dark skin of African, Indian, and Southeast Asian origin. In the case of the latter it was a result of the Danish East India Company’s (Ostindisk Kompagni) activities in Tranquebar. A quote from Kancelliets brevbøger (chancellery’s letter book) testifies about the presence of Morians in the country: “A royal missive to Otte Marsvin asking him to send the Morian, he has had at home, to return [to the royal court].”4 In recent years, historiography has taken an increasing interest in the first colonial encounter in Tranquebar.5 The enrolment of soerte mennesker (black Tamils), free and enslaved, by Claus Rytter to sail from Tranquebar to Copenhagen on Den Forgyldte Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 196 Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz Sol (The Gilded Sun) in the 1640s introduces questions of cultural interactions, differ- ence, and social inequality in a time of historical change in Denmark-Norway. Early seventeenth-century slave trade and the presence of Morians in the streets of Copenhagen has been largely neglected in Danish historiography. The debate in Denmark has been centred on the transatlantic triangle route and African slave trade to the Caribbean, in spite of the fact that the first Morians—people of colour—in Denmark were from South Asia.6 A polyphonic, interdisciplinary approach to the colo- nial encounter can afford new clues to a better knowledge of the period. In this perspec- tive, Hans Hansen Skonning’s Geographia historica Orientalis (1641) presents an important source on cultural encounter with the non-European Other.7 The article investigates the Danish trade of Morians in Denmark in the seventeenth century, tracing this practice to the first contacts of the East India Company with the Tamil population of Tranquebar. Secondly, it describes the employment of domestic servants in the metropolis and the ways Morians have been represented in Danish- Norwegian literature and art of the period. Finally Skonning’s Geographia invites the reader to follow seventeenth-century Lutheran ideology of human differences in Nordic countries. The Danish Overseas Companies on the Asian Route The Danish practice of slavery was linked to commercial activity in the colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. Trade and management of the colonies was carried out by the overseas companies, corporations created with the support of the Crown. Two of the overseas routes operated by these companies involved trade with enslaved persons: the route between the coast of Guinea and the islands in the Caribbean (1660–1845), supply- ing slaves to the plantations, and the Asian route (1616–1830), supplying domestic servants to aristocratic homes. The historiography of the colonial period has primarily focused on the foundation of the companies8 and the triangular trade.9 The Danish presence in Tranquebar in the first half of the seventeenth century and the associated slave trade has been practically tiptoed around by the historians.10 Both the focus on the large-scale African slavery, common in the international historiography on slavery, and the interest in the activities of the more successful eighteenth-century Asiatisk Kompagni (Danish Asia Company) have influ- enced the postponement of the study of the activities of the East India Company.11 This oversight has been attributed, in part, to the commercial failure of the company.12 Most of the contemporary historiography turned indifferent towards the question of slave trade in Asia and the presence of Morians in the country, reducing their social impact to a footnote or an anecdote.13 In the Danish archives there are two sources of information about slave trading in expeditions to Tranquebar: official documents and travel literature. Most of the archives of the first two Danish trading companies have not survived.14 On the one hand, there are published chancellery books (Kancelliets brevbøger) and unpublished material including Admiral Ove Giedde’s archive for the period 1616–1650 (box B244), Captain Claus Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 The Trade in Domestic Servants 197 Rytter’s accounts for the period 1639–1650 (box 245), and documents of the Captain and Governor of Tranquebar Wilhelm Leyel from 1639–1648 (box 246). On the other hand, there is travel literature, including the description of Admiral Ove Giedde’s navigation to India15 and a diary of gunner Jon Olafsson’s navigation to Tranquebar with the East India Company second fleet in 1622.16 After the pioneering example of a Danish sailor Christiern Smeding (1558)17 a number of Danish employees of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) published their accounts of travel. In 1669, Adam Olearius edited two separate diaries of sailors Jürgen Andersen (1644–1650) and Volquard Iversen (1655–1668).18 In 1670, a diary of the sailor Mourits Christensen was published.19 In 1672, Frederik Bolling and J. P. Cortemünde (Kerteminde) published their individual descriptions of their navigation to India20 and in 1684 the story of Jens Mortensen Svejgaard, an accountant employed by the VOC, was published.21 Besides being a his- torical record, these stories provide descriptions of the customs of Asia and the Dutch and Indian trading routes and they make isolated references to the slave trade. The East India Company was the first joint stock company in Denmark, created on 17 March 1616 at the initiative of two Dutch merchants, Jan de Willum and Herman Rosenkrantz, to whom Christian IV granted the privilege of trading with Asia. It involved national potentates in addition to the participation of King Christian IV as the largest shareholder. According to the octroi (1616, Art. 28), it was not a slave company; its goal was to import spices and oriental products. Based in Tranquebar, the Danish trade network included small establishments in Macassar, Bantam, Masulipatam, and Pondichery, where the Danes traded gold, diamonds, spices (ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and pepper), Chinese silk, tin, and nitrate. The first diplomatic expedition, consisting of six ships—three chartered by the king and three by the company—sailed from Copenhagen in 1618, led by the young Admiral Ove Giedde. Despite initial disappoint- ment in Ceylon, the intended destination, part of the expedition, with Roland Crappé commanding, went to the Coromandel Coast, where they reached an agreement with the Nayak of Tanjour, Ragunatha, to create a trading post in the place of Tharangampadi, which the Danish called Tranquebar, a place located in a fertile and densely populated rice-growing region. The company got permission to build the fort of Dansborg in exchange for an annual payment in rent.22 The Employment of Domestic Servants in the Colony of Tranquebar There was no specific Danish legislation regulating the legal status of domestic servants in Tranquebar in the first half of the seventeenth century. Slave ownership and trade was justified in light of the spirit of the times. In principle, the Danes adapted to the local and European customs in the region, within the limits of common sense, although proper treatment was required, including providing for the basic needs (food and clothing).23 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the slave trade in Asia was concentrated along two routes: Indian traffic to Europe, and inter-Asian traffic. Danes and other Europeans participated in both. The main reason for the inter-Asian slave trade was the economic demands of Europeans.24 For the Portuguese, Dutch, and British Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 198 Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz purchasing slaves was cheaper than hiring from the local labour force. The participation of the Danes in the slave trade was a function of demand and economic necessity. Danish sailors employed at the VOC were familiar with the routes crisscrossing the Indian Ocean. In his travel log, Danish sailor Jürgen Andersen (1669) wrote that he sailed to Mocca and the Persian Gulf on the VOC ship Nassau with a cargo of 120 enslaved per- sons. In Geographia historica Orientalis (1641) Hans Hansen Skonning describes how enslaved “Kaffirs,” or African slaves, were being trafficked between Mozambique and India. Remarkably, Skonning described the slave trade before the start of the slave- trading activities by the West India and Guinea Company (Vestindisk-Guineisk Kompagni, established in 1671), reproducing information from Jan Huyghen van Linschoten’s Reysgheschrift.25 A copy of van Linschoten’s Reysgheschrift was part of the inventory of the expedition of Admiral Ove Giedde to Ceylon.26 On the east coast of India, there were two main areas where slave trading took place: one to the north, in the Arakan-Bengal-Orissa area, with a Muslim majority, and the other to the south, in Coromandel, populated by Hindu Tamil groups. The Arakan-Bengal-Orissa area was the main exporting region for slaves purchased by the Portuguese27 and the Dutch28 and transported to their factories and producing centres. The Danes had no production that demanded large-scale slave labour, so the East India Company did not, in principle, take an active part in this cheap labour piracy in the Bay of Bengal during the first half of the seventeenth century. However, the Danes from Dansborg sold soldiers captured in the conflict with the army of the rajah of the neighbouring kingdom of Bengal that took place during the government of Berndt Pessart (1636–1643). These actions were justified on moral and political grounds and by the necessity (debt).29 The other region, Coromandel, occupies a strategic position in the maritime traffic of South Asia. It was an important provisioning point for the ships participating in the inter-Asian trade. The earliest evidence of European slave trade off the Tamil coast cor- responds to the arrival of the Dutch in the first half of the seventeenth century.30 The export of slaves from Coromandel to Batavia was important in 1620–1630,31 and it rebounded in 1640 and 1650 and around 1686.32 Bondage servitude and enslavement was a practice used by poor Asians to overcome life challenges.33 The lower castes of Hindu society entered into domestic forced labour as payment for a debt, or as prisoners of war. As the peasants were subjected to a harsh system of feudal taxation they were often forced to sell themselves into slavery when harvests failed.34 In Geographia historica Orientalis Skonning paraphrases van Linschoten’s Reysgheschrift to say that the slave trade is a part of the wild nature of peo- ple who kill, eat, or sell the slave of war.35 Yet, we must not forget that the practice of slavery still held sway in Europe in the seventeenth century, as Article 24 of the 1641 bilateral agreement between Portugal and Sweden prohibiting mutual enslavement exemplifies.36 Yet, Tranquebar’s position as a centre of slave trade during the East India Company’s period remains unclear, as does the Danes’ attitude and participation in this development. A Dutch Dagh-register (daily journal) from Batavia has registered that in April 1629 an Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 The Trade in Domestic Servants 199 East India Company ship made a stopover in Batavia, on the sail route between Macassar and Tranquebar. The ship was commanded by Roland Crappé. Among the twenty-six prisoners Crappé transported from Macassar was a merchant called Antoni Poulo. The register notes how Crappé volunteered to be a guarantor for Poulo’s freedom after Poulo exchanged himself for a “swarte vrow en de haer kindt” (a black woman and her child) to pay his debt.37 Most governors were involved in the slave trade. Governor Berndt Pessart had personal slaves,38 and Bredsdorff records a cargo of 114 slaves pertaining to W. Leyel.39 Governor W. Leyel, of Dutch origin, collaborated in slave traffic with his compatriots from the VOC, partly to use the profits to repay his debt of 156,000 thalers (rigsdaler) he owed to the Nayak of Tanjore.40 The slave trade continued as part of trading activity until the end of the seventeenth century.41 By 1698, Tranquebar’s governor, Claus Vogdt, allowed the company to make internal trips to Atchin in Sumatra to buy slaves before returning to Copenhagen.42 Gérald Duverdier, using missionary sources, states that the “Danish colony was in fact a slave market” in the eighteenth century.43 Only in 1753 was the slave trade officially prohibited in Tranquebar.44 Despite initial distrust of the local population, social interactions between the Danes and locals developed and resulted in working relations and mixed marriages.45 Some of the Danes lived in free relations with indigenous women. The government eventually enforced regulation of this cohabitation. One of such cases was Pastor Niels Andersen Udbyneder, who was forced to get married to his partner, Monica.46 Mixed marriages were beneficial for both partners. In Batavia, these unions offered an escape from poverty for the local women, and an access to the woman’s local networks for the European men.47 A case in point is Herman Clausen, the head of the Danish office in Bantam, who was married to Maria Lopez, a baptized local woman. Clausen made his fortune as a free merchant partly thanks to the connections he was able to establish with his wife’s relatives.48 Slaves were also labouring in Tranquebar. The Danish governors relied on the work- ing capacity of the Tamils, free and enslaved, who were employed as translators, con- struction workers, local police, and even as sailors.49 Ove Giedde did not hesitate to use the Tamil workforce to repair the ship Elephanten in Ceylon.50 At the beginning of the Danish presence in Tranquebar, Nayak’s Indian soldiers, called talliarer (pl.), col- laborated with Danish troops in the patrolling of Dansborg.51 Moreover, in 1676, the Tranquebar garrison was mostly composed of black Indo-Portuguese soldiers, called topaz.52 These topaz were considered of high status because they had access to guns. Between 1640 and 1643, Claus Rytter employed soerte tieneris (coloured servants) as members of the crew on the ship Den Forgyldte Sol in its voyages between Tranquebar and Bantam. Claus Rytter recorded in his accounts the monthly salaries paid in thalers (rigsdaler) to these employees.53 Out of a total amount of 924 rigsdaler in wages paid to the twenty-seven soerti (black) local workers in the period 1641–1643, Tamil workers Rafael, Jouvan, and Arrei received a total payment of 54 rigsdaler 3 mark each, Abdol received for 1641 and 1642 a total payment of 15 rigsdaler 2 mark, and Frantzescho received for 1641 9 rigsdaler 3 mark.54 The ship’s records from 1643 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 200 Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz relating to the long route to Denmark via Madagascar and Pernambuco (Brazil) indicate that Francisco, Manuel, and Antonio, Tamil crew members, received a monthly salary, a Bengali gingang (cotton garment), shirts, and a travel blanket from Maslupatam.55 Rytter’s account shows a difference in treatment given to the Tamil employees and an enslaved man called Bras. He is listed without his last name, in contrast to the record of the Tamil employees: “Francisco Lafer travels enlisted as a cook, Antonio de Marese travels enlisted as a sailor, Bras as an assistant cook.”56 Their names suggest they were baptized Indo-Portuguese, probably Tamils. Claus Rytter paid forty thalers in India for Bras; he acquired him for Christian IV in 1643. “On March 21, 1643 I purchased on behalf of Hermand Clausen for his Majesty the black slave who has to sail with us to Denmark working as an assistant cook on the boat and on the recommendation of Hermand Clausen I have paid 40 thaler”.57 At pre- sent I do not know what happened to Braes, if he died during the travel or whether he ended his life in Europe. According to Slange Den Forgyldte Sol was shipwrecked on the English coast on its way home from India in 1644.58 All its wares were given to Albert Baltser Berndts, one of Christian IV’s main suppliers. Forty thalers was the price of a healthy young male on the Bantam market according to the sailor Mourids Christensen. Market prices varied from trading place to trading place. In Coromandel a male cost twenty thaler but between forty and sixty thaler in Bantam. A “beautiful” woman in Coromandel cost ten to twelve thaler and twenty to thirty in Bantam, the same price as a middle-aged man (gammell karl).59 The Employment of Morians in Denmark Danish law did not regulate the Morians as a specific ethnic group—as it did in case of the Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, or Swedes.60 Morians were employed as domestic servants, and their presence required administrative assimilation. As a worker the Morian was regarded as a personal servant, but it is unclear if Morians had the legal rights of a ser- vant: the right to a wage and the right to voluntary terminate their employment.61 The records show that Morians were loaned between members of the aristocracy.62 Most Morians lived with their owners in countryside mansions, where they performed domes- tic and other duties. An illustration of their tasks and dependencies is provided in the commandments made by Christian IV to the local governors, recorded in the register of the chancellery from 1621 to 1623. In a missive from 1 May 1623 Christian IV urged Otte Brahe Pedersen, bailiff of Koldinghus, “to show the Indian the place where the pearls are in the Varde [i.e., Varde å, or river], so that they may be found.” The Indian, presumably a Morian brought by the expedition of Ove Giedde, is given the Christian name of Peder. He was supervised by Peder Hansen, mayor of the town of Skamstrup, who received a salary of 3½ silver thaler (rigsdaler). It should be noted that nothing is said about the servant’s wages. The Morian was clearly under the surveil- lance of Peder Hansen, but nowhere is it stated that he belonged to the mayor. Peder’s owner was surely the king, and we have to understand the relationship under seventeenth- century conditions. The mayor is receiving a compensation from the king for “taking Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 The Trade in Domestic Servants 201 care” of the Morian, who was working for the crown (the state) as a fisherman. Moreover, we have an idea of the harsh conditions Peder was working under because in a missive of 7 October 1623, it is communicated to the new governor, Gunde Langue, that the “Indian” has died and “it behoves us to now use local farmers to continue with the pearl activity.”63 The discordance between the social practice of slavery and the lack of an adequate administrative and religious law could not be more evident than in the case of the Morians imported by the captains of the East India Company. Christian IV opposed them bringing Asian servants on their ships, a practice popularized by sailors of the VOC repatriated to Amsterdam. He feared that this practice could jeopardize Danish trad- ing affairs in India.64 Despite his opposition, the first sortemænd from Asia came to Copenhagen as early as 1622 on Ove Giedde’s ship returning from Tranquebar. These were the Tamils Cathi and Mari, given to the schoolteacher Anders Christensen for their conversion to Christianity.65 In religious matters, the Morians were living in an administrative limbo before Christian V’s ordinance of 21 March 1693 on weddings and baptisms in the country, which prohibited extramarital residence and required baptism of all children.66 H. D. Lind offers two brief notes with information about the baptism of Morians in Copenhagen’s Holmen Kirke in the period of Christian IV. The ethnic criterion is evident in the baptismal record of Knud, “a child of Morian Ulrik Christian” (“Ulrik Christian Morian”), and his second son, now referred to as “the Indian Ulrik Christian” (“Ulrik Christian Indianer”). The relationship of ownership is evident in the baptismal record of Frans Panirs, “Morian of Ernst Pricker,” baptized on 28 November. Pricker was a cap- tain of the Fortuna, a ship sailing the Asian route. Inside Holmen church, founded by Christian IV, a baptismal font from 1649 decorated with ethnic motifs still remains. The font, made of wrought iron, enamel, and gold, rests on four Morian feet and four busts of Morian galleon faces alternating with the coat of arms of Christian IV which decorate the outside of the vessel.67 The Morians were not in control of their own bodies and destiny, and their fate remained in the hands of their masters, the monarch, or a provincial authority. In Denmark the Morians were treated as a precious commodity that needed to be taken care of—in the accounts of Frederik III the maintenance expenses of the Morian courtiers included food and appropriate clothing—but ultimately they were regarded as personal possessions. Following the fashion of other European courts at the time, Danish mon- archs found it appropriate and desirable to own an exotic page.68 The Morian pages were under the supervision of a footman from the royal palace, who was obliged to give him or her food and clothes. In 1683, Christian V ordered his footman to buy a pair of shoes for a Morian page named Hercules. A footman was also charged with tak- ing care of him in case of illness (“Valet Voscam for supervision of the little morian, called Hercules, one and a half years 20 rigsdaler and attentions when he had measles 4 r., total 24 r.)”69 Besides serving as page boys, Morians were also employed as valets, mascots, ladies of the court, and specialist workers. At present it is difficult to estimate how many Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 202 Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz Morians were imported to Denmark, but they were popular and fashionable among the upper classes in the seventeenth century. During absolutism, Morians began to play an intermediary role as a gift given by the monarch to his loyal nobility.70An entry in the royal chamber accounts from 1680 shows that Morians were used in royal gift policy in payment for services rendered to the country and reads: “Major Hechman was given a morian as gift by Christian V.”71 The majority of them remain anonymous and only some—Cathi, Mari, Peder, Bras, Knud, Hercules—are known by their names, as recorded in administrative papers. The Morian in Danish Literature and Art A taste for literature, theatre, fashion, porcelain, and portraits was common to the European upper classes in the seventeenth century.72 In all these forms and artefacts Morians are referenced in a direct or indirect way. The former has a biographical conno- tation in one of Ove Giedde’s portraits (1648). The Morian figure, which is engraved on the base of the portrait frame (Figure 2) is probably an idealized image of a Tamil Morian. A clear reference to black slaves is visible in a seventeenth-century chair that decorates the entrance to room 42 in the Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle (Inv. nr. B2009). The piece, which was acquired by the museum in 1910 from the antiquarian Moritz, is of unknown origin. The chair has two distinct parts: the upper part of the backrest is decorated with two heads of black slaves, easily identified by their gold collars, and in the lower part, the front legs are decorated with white angels with blue eyes. It is an object which explicitly shows subordinated otherness. The chair operates with two distinctive categories of white and black. This language of distinction was familiar and operational in a wider society in Denmark and Tranquebar. In the outpost it was a common way in which Danish officials distinguished themselves from the native inhabitants. Already on 17 March, 1632, Mads Rasmussen, army chaplain of the ship Perlen, wrote in his journal that he celebrated his first mass in Dansborg for his countrymen and two hundred “mænd sorte indianer” (black Indians)—note the emphasis on racial difference, repeated in 1670 when the octroi described the frigate Faeroe’s encounter with the two hundred “huide og sorte” (white and black) men of the fortress.73 Skin colour is also reflected upon in Baroque literature. In a poem by Søren Terkelsen, Denne holder med de soerte (This supports the blacks; 1650), the poet praises his beloved white-skinned but dark-eyed woman. The poet does not reject the physical traits that deviate from the Nordic standard, although they are accepted by default: “Naar de hvid’er ‘alle borte, holder jeg mig til de sorte” (When there are no whites, I’ll take blacks) to end with a comment on the beauty of his beloved: “du est kjon / dog den eg, kiønnest / skjøn est du / dog dend eg, skiønest” (you are beautiful, but not the most beautiful). Blackness of the skin was sometimes associated with sin, which could be removed only by divine intervention, as is the message of Michaelis Severini’s popular song of 1625: “En blaamænd omskifte Huden sin. Alting vaar aff til modstand, Hjælpn aff en naade din” (A black slave changed his skin. All resistance Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 The Trade in Domestic Servants 203 Figure 2. Portrait of Ove Giedde. Etching by A. Haelwegh. Original painted by A. Wüchters, before 1650. Reproduced with permission from Det Kongelige Biblotek (The Royal Library). disappears with Your help). The social boundaries delimiting race were impassable for the Morian. In the biblical poem Hexameron (1661), the poet Anders Arrebo writes the following: “Baadsmands viis sin Troje gennembløder. Dog som en Morian ej gjerne sig bespejler (Det giør hans Ansict vidt, hans skønhed Hannem fejler)” (The boatswain shows his soaked shirt but, as a Morian, he does not want to look into the mirror [because his face looks white and this makes him look ugly]).74 Moorish, Indian and African references were incorporated into art exhibited and spec- tacles performed at North European courts. Courtly masquerades featured costumes and characters inspired by Asia and Africa. In a play performed at Whitehall, Ann of Denmark (1574–1619), Christian IV’s sister married to England’s Jacob I, played “The Masque of Blackness,” a court masque written by Ben Jonson and with costumes designed by Inigo Jones.75 Morians, dwarves, and Sami were also incorporated into court scenery as fashionable curiosities and “living art.” The African motifs in Karl van Mander III’s art, including A Morian with a Turban and Armor, in possession of the National Gallery of Denmark, and his cycle of paintings based on Heliodorus’ Aethiopica,76 as well as paintings of prominent African visitors77 represent the exotic glamour of early modern Danish art. Paintings by the Dutchman Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 204 Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz Albert Echkout depicting the peoples of colonial Brazil—Afro-Brazilian women, Tupinamba and Tapuya Indians, blacks and mulattoes—are on display at the National Museum in Copenhagen.78 The figure of the exotic Morian, popularized by the portraits of the Turkish court by the Danish painter and traveller Melchior Lorck (1527–1588), gained a foothold as a motif in portraits of European aristocracy. Paintings of black page boys were popular in the seventeenth century. Prominent peo- ple were portrayed in proud poses and flanked by one or two coloured servants in idea- lized and recognizably European scenes. Danish portraits representing black domestics in servile and even naïve poses follow European conventions of the time. Ann of Denmark was painted with her black page boy by the Flemish painter Paul von Sommer (1576– 1621).79 The richness of the motifs enhanced the splendour of the court not only as a curiosity but as a way to reaffirm the royal power.80 The masters of the genre were Karl van Mander III (1606–1670) and Abraham Wüchters (1608–1682), Flemish painters working in the service of the Danish court. The royal portrait of Prince Jørgen, painted by Abraham Wüchters around 1660, hangs in the National History Museum at Frederiksborg (inv. nr. 2402). It includes the figure of a Morian with boyish features behind his master. Small reproductions of these paintings decorated the houses of the petty provincial bourgeois.81 The fashion of having portraits done with the Morian as a symbol of prestige was specially adopted by the members of the royal administration. The characters in Double Portrait of Hannibal Sehested and His Wife Christiane (Gavnø Castle) by Karl van Mander III are portrayed in a hunting scene with horses and accompanied by black pages wearing turbans and a pearl in the ear. In Family Portrait of Eiler Holck with Wife, Children, and Servants (Holckenhavn Castle), Abraham Wüchters immortalized Kronborg’s gov- ernor. Dressed as a Roman emperor, he is accompanied by his wife, his daughter, a Danish female servant, and a kneeling black servant. In a gesture of power, the governor extends his right hand over her head. In some cases, Morians became involuntary protagonists of political decisions at the highest level. In a picture hanging in Rosenborg Palace (inv. nr. 1042) representing Christian V meeting with members of the supreme court, probably in 1683, the painter included at the bottom of the picture a figure of a Morian looking at the group. One can speculate if the composition is an allusion to the issue of the socially invisible Morians in the context of the new legal code issued by Christian V that year.82 Morians also became popular in decorative arts. The oldest porcelain figurine of a Morian preserved in the Rosenborg Palace catalogue is dated to 1610. With the arrival of Sophie Amalie von Brandenburg, wife of Frederik III, to the court in the mid-seventeenth century the prestigious porcelain factory in Dresden becomes the main supplier of porcelain figurines of Morians. These pieces of porcelain, which become part of the circuit of gifts exchanged between the nobility, are accompanied by other stylized objects incorporating Morians. The figure of a Morian is also incorporated in the imagery and symbolism of the royal Order of the Elephant (Elefantordenen). The much debated pendant features a black man sitting at the head of an elephant (Figure 3).83 The origin of elephant figure is not clear but it is likely that it was inspired by the Danish colonial project in Asia.84 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 The Trade in Domestic Servants 205 Morians and the Ideology of Slavery in Seventeenth-Century Denmark Slavery was a product of the times, but there was no discussion of slavery in Denmark at the beginning of the colonial enterprise that could parallel discussions on Native American freedom in Mexico and Peru conducted by Spanish intellectuals a century before.85 The Morians who arrived in Denmark represent the maximum expression of mercantilism: a luxury consumer product imported to satisfy the desires of the upper classes. What draws our attention to the Morians is their reduction to luxury objects obtained through a sale-purchase transaction. Labour conditions were also harsh for the commoners in the hierarchically organized Denmark, as exemplified by the vorneds- kab servitude, which bound the peasant to the owner of the land estates,86 workhouses, and the use of forced labour at the shipyard of Bremerholm.87 Current research admits that Danish literature from the first half of the seventeenth century generally lacked the necessary depth and insight to engage with an intercultural dialogue. However, the seventeenth-century Danes were well aware of ethnic and cultural differences. The term “ethnic” first appeared as an entry in the dictionary of Christiern Pedersen in 1550. It was then used in the sense of non-Christian by the theologian Niels Hemmingsen in his private collection of Protestant sermons Postilla (the original in Danish is from 1562, the English version is from 1570). In accordance with H. H. Skonning, K. Smeding, and J. Olofsson’s Lutheran worldview, the negative living environment of the non-Christian—its coexistence with the devil—was nothing more than a reflection of the non-Christian ignorance and inability to find God. The Cosmography of Sebastian Münster (1544) was an antecedent of the moralising cosmog- raphy of Northern Europe. Human differences are described from the point of view of religion. Skonning’s Geographia moves the notion of homeland as the centre of the world to a religious plane. In the introductory chapter, Skonning transfers the Lutheran conception of human orders to his cosmography. He distinguishes between a first Christian circle, characterized by the belief in “den sande kundskab om den levende Gud” (the true mes- sage of the living God), and a second outer circle, which is of plural composition. The second circle is composed of not only non-Christians—Jews, Turks (Muslims and Muscovites), and “pagans,” but also of believers in the Virgin, that is, Catholics. He acknowledges the universal legitimacy to seek eternal life, but argues that the inhabitants of the second circle moved astray from this goal by worshipping false gods. He assumes that the erroneous beliefs of the pagans were due to their ignorance, agreeing on this point with the idea of universal principles proposed by another roughly contemporary Danish thinker, Niels Hemmingsen.88 In De lege naturae (1562) Hemmingsen argued that God has planted his seed in all human beings and only ignorance prevents the hea- then from finding the spark of God in his soul.89 The reference to the ignorance of pagans is important in the context of the ideology of slavery. Whenever the subject of slavery appeared in Geographia it was seen as a con- sequence of ignorance. It is interesting to observe how Skonning operates with the lan- guage of a religious conception of human life when he calls the inhabitants of the second Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 206 Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz Figure 3. Chancellor Christen Thomesen Sehested with the Order of the Elephant, oil on canvas painted by Johan Timm in 1635. National History Museum at Frederiksborg Castle (inv. nr. A7773). Reproduced with permission from the museum. circle “unilluminated peoples.”90 For Skonning and Hemmingsen the religious culture is a corollary of difference created by the deviation of sinners, such as “Turks and eth- nics.”91 Those who are outside the Christian circle seek on their own the kingdom of hea- ven but miss their way because they fail to conform to the rules of civilised society. Failure to obey is the cause of their illnesses—degeneration that makes them into slaves Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 The Trade in Domestic Servants 207 of flesh and blood. In Lutheranism, obedience was key to the development of social vir- tues. In Der große Katechismus (Luther’s Large Catechism, 1529), Luther develops a map of social orders that organize Christian personal relationships: Hausregiment (the house), Weltregiment (the state), and Geislichtregiment (the church and school), and whose respective authorities (parents, the government, priests and teachers) the Christian has an obligation to serve, honour, and obey. Skonning did not intend to the- orize about slavery, but he engaged with the subject nonetheless by reproducing Lutheran ideas of human differences and morality based on the recognition of God and obedience. In theory and practice, the attitude of the Danish upper classes towards the Morians oscillated between paternalism of the officials92 and curiosity of the illustrious man.93 The case of the two Tamils, Cathi and Mari, brought to Copenhagen by Giedde is a good example of this attitude. They were baptized and entrusted to the school teacher Anders Christensen and the Rector of the Church of Our Lady. The religious expectations and ideas about ignorance and obedience shaped this cultural encounter and social experi- ment. Ultimately the effort of turning Cathi and Mari into proper Protestant subjects failed. We are told that the baptized Morians did not feel well in Denmark, because they could not take root in the country. The same happened to the Greenlanders brought by the 1605– 1607 polar expedition commissioned by Christian IV.94 In 1628, six years after Cathi and Mari arrived in Copenhagen, the church requested the withdrawal of its care of the two Morians. In the clothes, the tasks, and the upper class social environment there is vio- lence and sovereign power over the Morian, and I hope that new sources and perspectives will allow researchers to start considering the Morians’ awareness of themselves.95 Conclusion The streets of the residential neighbourhood of Nyboder in Copenhagen, built in 1631 on the initiative of Christian IV for the sailors of the royal fleet, have names that suggest the realities of the time: Elefantgade (Elephant Street), Kamelgade (Camel Street), and Nellikegade (Clove Street). In this social environment, Morians were another luxury commodity, as valuable as pepper, indigo, cotton, coffee, and tea imported to the metrop- olis by the trading companies. The Morians became prestigious and valuable gifts first brought from Asia via the trading post in Tranquebar to be sold, gifted, and exchanged between the upper classes, a fashion that ran parallel to the colonial enterprise of the seventeenth and the following centuries. That the destination of this trade was Copenhagen and not Amsterdam or London implies that the origins of the Danish slave trade should be moved in time and space to the Tranquebar of the first half of the seventeenth century. Nordic historical thought about racial differences predates the entry into the triangular slave trade in 1660. The first half of the seventeenth century was a seminal period for developing the ideology of slavery in Denmark. Skonning’s Geographia distilled Lutheran ideological representations and constructed qualitative differences based on faith and obedience, and considered the supposed innate ignorance of the natives as a condition of enslavement. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 208 Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz Besides the narrative of slavery, the consulted material on Tranquebar speaks about the colonial encounter between people with disparate cultural backgrounds and expecta- tions.96 Servitude was a European as well as an Asian tradition. Already in the seven- teenth century, Tamil workers were employed by Danish colonial administration and ruling classes, while others were subjected to mistreatment as enslaved people. We can identify a continuity in attitudes that justified the cultural encounter in pragmatic terms. 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Pondicherry: Navajothi Publishing House, 1998. Struwe, Kamma. “Dansk Ostindien 1732–1776: Tranquebar under kompagnistyre.” In Vore gamle tropekolonier, edited by J. Brøndsted, G. Olsen, and K. Struwe. Copenhagen: Fremad. Vol. 6. 1966. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. “The Coromandel Trade of the Danish East India Company, 1618–1649.” Scandinavian Economic History Review 37:1 (1989): 41–56. Thyssen, Ole. Det filosofiske blik. Copenhagen: Informations Forlag. 2012. Vink, Markus. “The World’s Oldest Trade: Dutch Slavery and Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of World History 14.2 (2003): 131–77. Wade, Mara. “The Coronation of King Christian IV of Denmark, 1596.” In Europa Triumphans: Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe, vol. 2, edited by J. R. Mulryne et al., 245–68. Farnham: Ashgate, 2004. Willerslev, Richard. “Danmarks første aktieselskab.” Historisk Tidsskrift 10:6 (1944): 609–36. Worm, Ole. Breve fra og til Ole Worm. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1968. Notes * Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz holds an MA which is called bengelen) Ove Giedde degree in anthropology from Copenhagen Fortegnelse, 103. University and is currently completing a 3 Morians, in English plural form. PhD in anthropology at the Universidad 4 “Miss. til Otte Marsvin om at sende den Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain. His thesis Morian, som han for nogen tid siden har is about kinship relationships in the Andes, haft hos sig herved ( … )” Kancelleriets with fieldwork in Bolivia. He has previ- brevbøger, 19 Sept. 1620, 909. ously published on Holberg, Strindberg, 5 Fihl, “Introduction”; Fihl, “Shipwrecked”; and Skonning. Venborg Pedersen, Luksus; Nordin, “The 1 Hastrup, “Postscript I.” World in a Nutshell,” 1–20. 2 “Den 29. Dec (1620) var de sortes nyaars- 6 For the most part, Danish historiography dag, som kaldes bengelen” (On Dec. 29 has limited the research on Danish slavery it was the blackmen’s New Year’s day, to the West Indian slave traffic and Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 The Trade in Domestic Servants 213 abolition in the period 1792–1803. The time to time, the company needed to classic C. Alberti’s “Den danske slavehan- recruit Asian crew members, to substitute delks historie,” begins with the triangle Danish and Norwegian death losses. They route in 1657. Current scholars, such as returned home in the next ship.” Danish Olsen, “Disse vilde karle”; Gøbel, The original: “Langt de fleste af dem, der blev Danish Slave Trade; and Jensen and bragt til Danmark som tjenestefolk, der Martens, “Slavery,” put focus on Africans være sig frie eller slaver, kom fra De as well. Dansk-vestindiske Øer. Der var kun få fra 7 Skonning, Geographia. de danske besiddelser i Østasien, der i 8 Willerslev, “Danmarks første aktiesels- længere tid opholdt sig i det europæiske kab”; Gøbel, “Danske oversøiske handels- Danmark, en ikke så få, der gjorde rejsen kompagnier”; Gøbel, Danske i det fra Østasien til Danmark som søfolk på nederlandske. Asiatisk Kompagnis skibe. Der døde på 9 Larsen, Dansk Vestindien. hver ekspedition et vist antal af de danske 10 Subrahmanyam, “The Coromandel Trade.”, og norske søfolk, der var forhyret i 41. København, og indimellem blev skibenes 11 After several commercial expeditions, mis- besætninger til hjemrejsen suppleret med management and lack of capital led the asiatiske søfolk, der så returnerede med Ostasiatisk Kompagni to bankruptcy in næste skibe.” (Olsen, “Fra Danmark,” 255). 1650. The company could not compete 14 Subrahmanyam “The Coromandel Trade,” with the strength of the neighbouring trad- 42. ing posts, the Portuguese Nagapatam 15 Giedde, “Fortegnelse paa alt.” (founded in 1507), the Dutch Pulicat 16 Blöndal et al., Jon Olafssons oplevelser. (founded in 1600), and Masulipatam 17 Smeding and Høiris, En sandfærdig (founded in 1616). The company was res- beskrivelse. urrected in 1670–1729. In 1730 the 18 Olearius, Des Welt-berühmten Adami Asiatisk Kompagni was created, which in Olearii. 1779 passed into the hands of the king of 19 Christensen, Skildringer. Denmark. Until its liquidation in 1830, 20 Bolling, Friderici Bollingii. its biggest source of income was freight 21 Gøbel, Jens Mortensen Sveigaards. traffic with China. In 1845 the crown 22 Feldbæk, Danske handelskompagnier, sold Tranquebar to the English East Asia 37n2. Company. 23 Vink, “The World’s Oldest Trade,” 134. 12 Hansen, Sources; Højbjerg, Tranquebars; 24 Arasaratnam, “Slave Trade”; Allen, Feldbæk, “Den danske Asienhandel.” European. 13 The morians appear here and there in aris- 25 Chapter 50 of Skonning’s Geographia is tocratic and military contexts. French trav- an unedited copy of chapter 41 of eller Jacques Vrigny writes about a little J. H. van Linschoten’s Reysgheschrift morian in a military parade in 1702. “Je (Itinerary) from 1595. Skonning amply remarquai pourtant parmi un petit more cites van Linschoten in the chapters de 14 ou 15 ans, qu’on m’a dit avoir ète describing Ceylon (chap. 39), Sumatra a la reine mere quien asoin” (Seerup, (chap. 41), and the Cape (De nigritter “Jacques-Philippe Vrigny,” 118). ”Most eller caffres, chap. 50). J. H. van of them, who were brought to Denmark Linschoten’s Reysgheschrift was a popular to work as servants, free or slave, came work at that time and had been translated from the Caribbean. There were only few into German (1598), English (1598), of them from Danish outposts in East Latin (1599), and French (1619); see Asia, not so many who travelled from Koeman, Jan Huygen. East Asia to Denmark as sailors in the 26 Abd-el Dayem, Det ostindiske eventyr, 57. ships of the Asiatisk Kompagni. From Van Linschoten benefited from the Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 214 Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz privileged information taken from the 39 Bredsdorff, Willem Leyels liv, 149. Portuguese roteiros that he copied in Goa 40 Ibid, 148; Larsen, Den dansk-ostindiske. when he was employed in the service of 41 Struwe, “Dansk Ostindien.” the Archbishop; see Koeman, Jan 42 Larsen, Den dansk-ostindiske. Huygen. Ove Giedde and H. H. Skonning 43 “Car la colonie danoise était un marché may have acquired their copies at the popu- d’esclaves,” Duverdier “Portugais,” 116. lar market in Børsen, Copenhagen, where 44 Mentz, “Handelsstationen.” the well-known Dutch bookstore and pub- 45 Distrust was mutual. This is what a local lisher Elzevir was located. Alternatively, begger answered to Olafsson and his they may have acquired their copy through Danish fellows, when they refused to their contact with the theologian Holger give him some alms money: “I lader Rosenkrantz from Aarhus. Eder kalde kristne og Sennores, men er 27 Campos, History of the Portuguese. saa karrige, at I ej kan afse et cash, men 28 Raychaudhuri, Jan Company. I burde kaldes Hunde og ikke mennesker” 29 Niebuhr in Nogle efterretninger reports the (You let yourselves be called Christians exchange of accusations: the Rajah of and Lords, but you are so stingy that you Bengal accused the Danes of piracy and do not even give a coin. You should be the Danes accused the Rajah of being a tyr- called Hounds and not Human beings” ant (pg. 153). On page 153 he describes an (my transl.) (Olafsson, Oplevelser, 86). episode of the sale of captured Bengali 46 Bredsdorff, Willem Leyels liv, 117. ship crew by the Danes for a price of 47 The benefits of mixed marriages, Jan van between 5 and 10 piasters per head. Campen points out in “The Hybrid 30 Stephen, Portuguese, 156; Allen, European. World,” were presumably the same in 31 Raychaudhuri Jan Company, 150–51. other European trade ports within the region. 32 Raychaudhuri Jan Company, 166. 48 Bredsdorff, Willem Leyels liv, 129. At pre- 33 Reid, Slavery. sent, the social origin of Maria Lopez is 34 Raychaudhuri, Jan Company; Bredsdorff, unknown to me. Further research on the Willem Leyels liv, 148. status of the women who married the 35 Skonning, Geographia, 692. The authors Europeans is needed. of the time find cannibalism and piracy 49 Bredsdorff, Willem Leyels Liv, 152. more disgusting. “Within the limits of 50 Abd-el Dayem, Det ostindiske eventyr. Barbary live man eaters, who cook men 51 Olafsson Oplevelser, 87. on a grill to eat them as food” (“I udkant 52 Baldaeus, A True and Exact Description, af Berberiet boer der Menneskeædere, 156. der lægger Mennesker på Jernrister og ste- 53 Dansk Kancelli; B245A: “Here follow ger dem til fode”) writes Jan Olafsson, black boats men’s wages, who have sailed gunner of the Ostindisk Kompagni in his and served in the ship while we were in memoirs of 1622 (Blöndal et. al, Jon India; it begins in fol. 89, and it ends in Olafssons oplevelser, 35). And in 1548 fol. 103.” the sailor Karsten Smeding wrote to his 54 Salaries are presumable in accordance to friend Hans Eliebeke that in Goa “live treaty with the Nayak. Ostindik Kompagni’s dark-skinned people and in some places salaries for European sailors varied accord- they eat men” (“Der er sorte mennesker, ing to their position and tasks. Den forgyldte og nogle Steder Aeder de mennesker”); sol’s sailor Fredrich Smidt Stetin (Fol. 62r) see Smeding and Høiris, En sandfærdig received for 1641, 1642, and 1643 a salary beskrivelse). of 17 rigsdaler 2 mark 22½ skilling, and car- 36 Andrade e Silva, “Tratado.”, July 29th. penter Eschilt Olsen (Fol. 55v) received for 1641, art. 24. 1641, 1642, and 1643 a total salary of 25 37 Colenbrander, Dagh-register, 13. rigsdaler 2 mark 13½ skilling. The differ- 38 Larsen, Den dansk-ostindiske. ences in salary between European and Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 The Trade in Domestic Servants 215 Tamil employees is unclear, and needs fur- 64 Olafsson explains the situation: “Due to ther research. the strong prohibition from Denmark, no 55 “21st. Marts. These black servants’ Indian shall be taken home (to Denmark), monthly salary and food allowance debit because this could have a negative effect for 258 real in Achten, ( … ) monthly pay- on our business in India, if one of them ing to these black servants who have later runs his way and comes back to served us in our lodges in Maslepatan his fatherland. Therefore I got no permis- and Bantam, and the black servants food sion to take my servant with me (to allowances, for having kept guard over Denmark). Me and him were too sorry our people at night in the lodge ( … ) about that ( … ) I miss him too much” from December 5th, year 1640 and to (my translation) (Danish original: ”På Marts 21st., a total amount of 258 thaler.” grund af de strænge forbud, som generalen Dansk Kancelli, B245A. ført med sig fra Danmark, at ingen Indiere 56 Dansk Kancelli, B245A. maatte bringes med hjem, thi man mente 57 Danish original: “Ao. 1643 21 Marti, haf- det kunde være til skade for vor Handel i fuer ieg kiøbt paa hands Mayts. Wegne Indien, hvis en af dem senere løb sin vej aff Hermand Claußen, denne Soerte og kom tilbage til sit Frædeland, fik jeg Slaue, som schal fare med oß hiem til ikke lov til at medtage min tjener, hvorover Dannemarck, for Kocks Maet paa schibet, han og jeg blev meget bedrøvede ( … ) Jeg haffuer ieg gieffuit for ham som Hermand har ofte savnet ham”), Blöndal et. al, Jon Claußens beuiß vduiser 40 Richs dr.” Olafssons oplevelser, 123–4. Dansk Kancelli, B245A. 65 Rørdam, “De tidligste spor,” 157. 58 Slange, Den stormægtigste konges 66 “Forordning om de reformeredis brudeviel- Christian den Fierdes, 1291. ser saa og om deris og de catholiskes 59 Christensen, Skildringer, 69. børnedaab” (Regulation of Catholic wed- 60 The old Danish word morian or mohr is dings and christenings). Christian V’s used to designate a man of colour or an ordinance of March 21, 1693. African man. The Danish sources employ 67 Lind, “Daab,” 577. morian and indianer indistinctly. These 68 Kuhlmann, “Ambiguous duty.” words are part of the colonial language of 69 “Købte et par sko til morianen for 3 m 8s the time: Dutch/Danish/English: moore/ … kammertienner Voscam til dend liden morian/mohr, indianer/indier/indian, swarts/ mor, Hercules kaldit, hans information soerte/black. In the sagas the inhabitants udi 1 1/2 aar 20 r saa oc for hans opvart- of North Africa are called blaamænd ning, der hand hafde mæsling r. 4r, er 24 (blue men). “Blå” (blue) as synonymous r,” Marquard, Kongelige kammerregnskaber. to “sort” (black) is still used by travellers 70 By changing into hereditary the succession in the seventeenth century to describe iso- system in 1660, Frederik III introduced lated groups of people who live away in Absolutism in Denmark, eliminating the the mountains. Cortemünde used the Council of the Realm, and giving the abso- word: “Ellers opholder sig ikke langt fra lute power to the monarch. dette bjerg en slags små mennesker med 71 “major Hechman blev foræret for en blå hud, meget vilde” (Not far from that morian,” Marquard, Kongelige mountain, there live small people with kammerregnskaber. blue skin, very wild), Cortemünde, 72 Pedersen, Luksus. Dagbog, 129. 73 “(…) oc befantis dend tiid voris Skib 61 Danske Lov, 1683: Book 3, Chapter 19, Feröe did ankom, i det Ringeste sterck Articles 9, 10, and 14. 200 Mand huide och sorte” ( and upon 62 Marquard, Kongelige kammerregnskaber, its arrival, our ship Feröe meet not less 81. than 200 men, white and black). 63 Kancelliets brevbøger, 593–4. Ostindiske Compagnie Octroye. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 216 Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz Christianus Qvintus. 1670. In Feldbæk, 82 The image of the black man in Western art Danske handelskompagnier, 37. is inseparable from Western political 74 Anders Arrebo: Hexaëmeron, 1618: 233, in dynamics. This is Alain Locke’s argument Hexaëmeron. Lejlighedsdigte. Breve. (The Negro in Art, 139), who blames Udgave af Vagn Lundgaard Simonsen. slavery for having “clamped on the Munksgaard. 1965: 229. The Danish poet Negro subject the stigma of inferiority.” L. Holberg uses the term Morian or sorte- 83 A Morian sits on the elephant Christen mand in his work. In Jeppe på bjerget Thomesen Sehested wears on his chest. (1722) Jeppe says: “Speak Danish, you Christian IVs own version of the elephant black dog” (Tal Dansk, din sorte Hund”). with a Morian is from 1634. The word Morian as an equivalent to sinister 84 Münter, Undersøgelse; Bartholdi, appears in a description of the days of the “Broderskab.” Karsten Smeding describes month in the comedy Sganarels reyse til the Asian elephant with a Morian guide: det philosophiske land (Sganarel’s trip to “A naked man like a child sits on the the country of philosophy), 1758, 6V, and elephant that obeys him” (Smeding and in his memoirs Holberg writes that one Høiris, En sandfærdig beskrivelse, 18). day “Solen var blevet saa brun som en 85 Danish Franziscan Frair Jacobo Daciano Morian” (the sun was as black as a (or Johannes Gottorpius) (1484-1566) Morian). (“Holbergs tre breve til en fornem fought against sacramental inequality Herre. Holbergs levnetsbeskrivelse”. Ludvig within the Iberian-Catholic natural law Holberg udvalgte skrifter. Vol 1. R. L. tradition of Francisco de Vitoria (De Jure Rahbek (ed.). Copenhagen. 1814: 324). belli Hispanorum in barbaros, 1532) and 75 Wade, “The Coronation,” 245; Jones, Bartolomé de las Casas (Brevísima Festival Designs, fig. 4. relación de la destrucción de las Indias, 76 The cycle is composed of 9 pictures, which 1552). He did this in his writing were ordered by Christian IV from van ‘Declamación del pueblo bárbaro de los Mander III in 1640s. Spicer, Heliodorus’s. indios, que habiendo recibido el bautismo 77 E.g., Jasper Beckx’s Portrait of Don desean recibir los demás sacramentos” Miguel de Castro, Ambassador of Congo, (Declamation of the Barbarous People of ca. 1643, National Gallery of Denmark. the Indians, who having received the 78 Albert Eckout’s paintings came to Baptism wish to receive the other Copenhagen in 1654 as a gift from Johan Sacraments) (my translation). (Rasmussen Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, Dutch governor Fray Jacobo, 90). Otherwise, Danish of Brazil, to his cousin Frederik III of authors followed their neighbor countries’ Denmark. In reciprocation, Frederik III Reformation tradition referring to the awarded Johan Mauritz with the insignia of Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius, De jure belli the Order of the Elephant (Elefantordenen), ac pacis, 1625. (Sten Ebbesen and Carl which was included in his blazon. Koch. Dansk filosofi i Renæsancen, 52.) 79 Portrait of Laura Dianti, painted by Titian Both natural law traditions reject the idea in 1523, is considered to be the first picture of natural slavery. Danish author Ludwig of an aristocratic lady with black slave in Holberg elaborates on Samuel Pufendorf the history of European art. She was idea of natural law (De iure naturae et married to Duke Alphonso de Ferrara. gentium, 1672), and publishes the book The picture is now held in the H. Kisters Introduction til Naturens og Folke Rettens Collection at Kreuzlingen (Switzerland). Kundskab in 1716. (Introduction to the See Bindman, “Introduction.” knowledge of natural law and people), a 80 Kopplin, “Amoenitates exoticae,” 318–415; book that founds modern Danish natural Reindel, Kronborgtapeterne; Schreuder, law. (Jens Anker Jørgensen (ed.). “Zwarten,’” 21–31. Hovedsporet, 216). “Ingen (siger Albutius 81 Eller, Kongelige portrætmalere, 136. hos Senecam) er fød frie, ey heller nogen Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238 The Trade in Domestic Servants 217 fød en Slave, men saadane Navne har til deres Underholdning.” (Academiske acta Lykken givet Enhver” (Nobody (says consistori, 1623, 14. Feb., in Rørdam “De Albutius in Seneca) is born free, and tidligste spor,” 158. The two mohrs are nobody is born slave, but these names are Cathi and Mari. given by fortune) (Holberg, Introduction, 93 “It suggests a praiseworthy curiosity to cap. VI, 1,89). investigate the rarities that both the 86 Ordinances of 1522, Chapter 111, issued Indians (people from India) and the other by the last Catholic king, Christian II, pro- foreign peoples bring forth.” Danish hibited the sale of the peasants by the land- original: “Det tyder paa prisværdigt lord, but the change of religious regime the Videbegær at undersøge de sjældenheder, following year turned the law into a dead som begge Indier og de andre fremmede letter. Frederik I and Christian IV wanted Folkeslag frembringer.” (Worm, “Breve to eliminate the vornedskab, but gave up til Thomas Bartholin i Roskilde,” 3.3. because of the pressure from the big land- 1653, in Worm, Breve). owners. It was eliminated in 1702, only to be 94 “The next we hear from them, is that the replaced by the stavnsbånd (the obligation schoolteacher does not get anywhere with of young people between 17 and 36 years them.” “As we have seen so many times of residence in a fixed parish). Johannes in the old times with similar experiments, C. H. R. Steenstrup: “Vornedskabet hos this is what happens when you plant wild den danske Bonde”, 339-462. shots: they do not grow in the foreigner 87 Ole Mortensøn, De danske galejer, 15-18. soil, and it results in a waste for their 88 In De lege naturae (1562) Hemmingsen body and spirit.” Danish original: “De argued that God has planted his seed in næste vi hører om dem, tyder ikke paa, at all human beings and only ignorance pre- Deres skolemester kunde komme nogen vents the heathen from finding the spark Vej med Dem.” “Men det gik her, som det of God in his soul, see Ebbesen and saa ofte i ældre tid, er gaaet ved lignende Koch “Filippisme.” velmente forsøg paa at omplante saadanne 89 Ebbesen and Koch “Filippisme.” vilde skud: de have ikke kunne trives i den 90 Skonning, Geographia, introduction. fremmede jordbund og ere enten legemlig 91 “If they were to the turcs and ethnikes eller aandelig sygnede hen og forkom- should be saved, of whom many have mede” (Rørdam, “De tidligste spor,” 158). obeyed their teachers” (Hemmingsen. A 95 As Fihl and Puri (15) point out, the one- Postilla. Eight Sunday after Pentecostes). sided, and teleological construction of the 92 “Rector has recognised that he has talked past encounter has to do with method- to the Chancellor about the two mohrs, that ology. No Morian testimony is at hand, other churches also contribute to their sub- and at present historical Danish sources sistence.” Danish original: “Gav Magnificus are scarce. tilkjende, at han talede med hr. Canceller 96 Fihl, “Shipwrecked,”19. om de tvende Morer, at de andre kirker 97 Marquard, Kongelige kammerregnskaber, besvære sig at give nogen udlæg for dennem 12 October 1697. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, on 13 Nov 2020 at 12:15:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0165115319000238