Inside Dutch Ship Batavia 1628 🇳🇱

■ LELYSTAD, NETHERLANDS: In the year 1628, the Dutch Merchant ship Batavia, named after the Germanic tribe the Romans called Batavians who inhabited the lands we today call Netherlands, was launched into the North Sea. Engulfed in an existential struggle with Spain and Portugal at the time, the Dutch Republic had still managed to become one of Europe’s greatest sea-fearing trading nations. The Batavia although a merchant ship were also equipped to be able to mount a substantial defense of her crew and cargo. Merchant ships, although not a part of the Dutch navy in peace time, were capable of fending for themselves and in times of escalating tensions with other imperial, doubled as regular navy ships. Exorbitantly expensive to build, these cargo ships were nonetheless immensely profitable, and was responsible for Dutch living standards living standards being the envy of her larger European neighbors. At the height of what historians have dubbed the Dutch golden age in the, roughly most of the 17th century,