29 / 196
30.
SA-Asd. 5061.315 fo. 114, 118.
31.
SA-Asd. 5061.322 fo. 112.
32.
Professionelle lovbrydere kan ofte skelnes fra amatø-
rerne ved deres aliaser eller øgenavne, der også blev brugt i
retten. Øgenavnene kunne referere til deres hjemstavn som
i tilfældet med Maritje Lourense fra Ribe, der blev kaldt
Nortse Maritje, Maritje fra Nord. Kvindernes navne var dog
tit lidt mere saftige end dette som for eksempel Storbrystede
Bertha, Fede Røv og Sødekussen.
33.
SA-Asd. 5061.300 fo. 182, 193, 194-200, 205; 5061.302
fo. 241v; 5061.305 fo. 17-20, 30-34, 175-176, 182A-183A,
247-249; 5061.307 fo. 22, 48; 4061.308: fo. 102; 5061. 577;
5061. 579; 5061.580.
34.
SA-Asd. 5061.536 fo. 43M-Rv; 5061. 614 fo. 38-39.
35.
SA. Asd. 5061.360 fo. 204v-205.
36.
SA-Asd. 5061.415 fo. 41-42, 66.
37.
Erik Gøbel: Danske i det nederlandske ostindiske kom-
pagnis tjeneste i det 17. århundrede, Hans Jeppesen:
Han-
dels- og Søfartsmuseet på Kronborg. Årbog 2003.
Helsingør
2003, p. 12. Lars Henningsen: Horisonternes land,
Slesvig
(online) 2009, nr. 2.
38.
SA-Asd. 5061.307 fo. 251; 5061.313 fo. 161;
5061.630G; 5061.319 fo. 172.
39.
SA-Asd. 5061.292 fo. 7, 13v; 5061.570 fo. 7.
40.
Lotte van de Pol: op.cit., 2011, p. 147-150.
41.
Lotte van de Pol: op.cit., 2011, p. 146.
42.
SA-Asd. 5061.221v-223, 226, 228v-229.
43.
Max Pedersen: op.cit., 2013, p. 83.
44.
Max Pedersen: op.cit., 2013, p. 94.
45.
Torben Tranæs & Lars Pico Gerdensen.
Forbryderen og
samfundet.
København 2008.
Summary
In the 1600s and 1700s, many people in the North Sea re-
gion emigrated to Amsterdam, whose open labour market
was characterised over long periods by a considerable de-
mand for foreign manpower. Many of the immigrants – not
least the Scandinavians – were ordinary people who did not
make any great mark on history. One of the few sources to
provide an insight into the ordinary immigrants’ lives is
Amsterdam’s court records, in which 34 women and 102
men from the Wadden Sea appear. This article concerns
these 136 people.
The 136 Wadden Sea residents were charged – and in
most cases also convicted – of a wide range of offences
ranging from begging to personal violence and murder. But
the most common offences were theft, swindling, smugg-
ling and prostitution. Around 60% of the Wadden Sea resi-
dents were convicted of one of these offences. Given the
brief case descriptions in Amsterdam’s court records, it can
be difficult to determine the reason why the Wadden Sea
residents committed these crimes. However, several cases
indicate that it was often a matter of subsistence crimi-
nality, evidently because the defendants were unemployed
or had difficulty generating enough income to put food on
the table and a roof over their head. The cases thus bear col-
lective witness to the fact that it could be difficult to estab-
lish oneself as an immigrant in Amsterdam, even though the
city was one of Europe’s richest.
A comparison between Amsterdam’s banns register and
the city’s court records shows that the immigrants from
the Wadden Sea were far less criminally inclined than the
immigrants from cities such as Copenhagen and Elsinore.
The article argues that one of the reasons for this was that
the immigrants from the Wadden Sea generally had a bet-
ter social network in the form of family members who had
also immigrated to Amsterdam. This network meant that the
Wadden Sea residents could obtain greater support and as-
sistance in connection with life’s crises such as unemploy-
ment. The immigrants from Copenhagen and Elsinore did
not enjoy the same protection and they were thus compelled
to a higher degree to turn to criminality to survive.
The article is the result of a current charting of all the
Danes who were brought before the court in Amsterdam
in the period from the mid-1500s to the beginning of the
1800s. A total of 843 persons was registered, 815 of whom
were brought before the court in the 1600s and 1700s. The
project is the first of its kind and was undertaken in a part-
nership between the two authors, one of whom is a Dutch
legal historian while the other is a Danish anthropologist.
27