Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 123, Issue 4, 2010

Analyzing long-term evolutions in the discourse on the closure of the river Scheldt in Antwerp comes down to unlocking an often overlooked but persistent and pervasive rhetoric on the blessings of free trade and seaborne navigation. This so-called ideology of commerce had its origins in the golden sixteenth century, but remained firmly interwoven with the city’s social fabric and institutions, even after its ideological tenets ha Read More

As one of the main ports of Europe, Antwerp had during its Golden Age (the sixteenth century) adopted a rich repertoire of mythological and allegorical figures that represented the River Scheldt (Scaldis) and the seas (Neptune acompanied by tritons and nereids, etc.), as well as commerce (Mercury). These were presented in works of art as well as in pageantry and public festivities, and emphasized the city’s com Read More

Deserted quays, ramshackle warehouses, rusty cranes, dilapidated houses, and pavements speckled with rank weeds: the stereotypical images used by early modern travellers to illustrate the decline of Antwerp after the Spanish Recapture (1585) and the closing of the Scheldt are well known. Deriving new insights from recent literature on heritage travel and lieux de mémoire, and by using a select body of Dutch travel Read More

After more than a hundred years of mourning for past splendour, and dreams of a reopening, the blockade of the river Scheldt was finally lifted in 1792. The French authorities, who were responsible for the reopening, did not hesitate to exploit the political potential of the local historical narrative concerning the river. During the twenty years of French occupation, the Scheldt narrative was used as a means to legitimize Fr Read More

In 1795 the river Scheldt was formally reopened to all maritime imports, but not until 1863 was there stable duty-free access to the sea. During this period of economic transformation and political instability, the Antwerp Chamber of Commerce played a key role in bringing together the business elite and advising the authorities on economic policy. The Chamber not only struggled for a (duty)-free access to the sea, as in the past, Read More

Scheldt is frequently quoted in illustrated travel guides of the first half of the nineteenth century. The economic greatness of Antwerp as a sixteenth-century metropolis is a reference point for comparison with the image of nineteenth-century Antwerp. The empty city of the late eighteenth century still reflects the earlier splendour. Under the Napoleontic regime and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands the tem Read More

The case of the river Scheldt estuary shows well where identities and economic and other interests are complementary and where they are not. The new treaty on the Scheldt negotiated after World War I between Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as other issues concerning the river, revealed Belgium as a country with conflicting identities. During the first half of the twentieth century the conflict crystallized between th Read More