Wars of Dutch Humiliation (1850-1857)

From Roses, Tulips, & Liberty

The War of Dutch Humiliation was a set of two wars simultaneously fought by the Kingdom of the Netherlands during the 1850s. Historians group these two discrete but related events together as the war that effectively ended Dutch hegemony in trade in East Asia and the Americas. It is composed of the Canton War and the 2nd Dutch-Spanish War.

Canton War

The war erupted primarily due to trade disputes in Asia between the British and the Dutch. In an attempt to break the Dutch's two-century monopoly on the Chinese trade, an Anglo-French coalition armed and supported a growing rebellion in Kwangtung against the Great Qing. The "Canton" rebels were able a significant part of Southern China. However, the Qing and the Dutch were able to repel the rebels. Britain and France openly declared war on the Qing and the Netherlands when a Dutch ship had sunk a British ship supplying the rebel troops. The war ended in an Anglo-French victory, splitting the Great Qing and half, creating a new Anglo-friendly nation in southern China: Canton.

2nd Dutch-Spanish War

Seeing that the Dutch were fighting in another war in Asia, the Spanish declared war on the Netherlands in an attempt to seize territory from the Dutch colony of Tussenland. The overextended Dutch were unable to effectively repel the Spanish invasions in from the east. The war ended in a Spanish victory. In the resulting treaty, the Dutch ceded a huge portion of their North American territory to New Spain, and North Maluku which was shortly incorporated into the viceroyalty of the Philippines.

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