colony · Mesoamerica and the Caribbean
Dutch Tobago
Origins
Merchants of Vlissingen in Zeeland, led by Jan de Moor, sent settlers to Tobago in 1628 under a patent from the Dutch West India Company and called the island New Walcheren. The first colony was destroyed by the Spanish and Kalinago from Trinidad in 1637, but the Dutch returned in the 1650s under the Lampsins brothers, displacing the rival colony of the Duchy of Courland.
Rule and society
The colony centred on Lampsinsburg and a cluster of forts and plantations growing tobacco, cotton, indigo and sugar with the labour of enslaved Africans. In 1662 Louis XIV made Cornelis Lampsins Baron of Tobago, a rare French title over a Dutch-run island. The settlers were mostly Dutch Reformed Protestants, with French, Jewish and other incomers.
Decline and legacy
Tobago changed hands repeatedly during the Anglo-Dutch and Franco-Dutch wars. In 1677 a French fleet under Jean d'Estrées attacked, and a magazine explosion destroyed the Dutch fort and its defenders. The French razed the colony, and Dutch rule ended; the island stayed thinly settled until the British Colony of Tobago of 1763.
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- Dutch Tobago was a colony of Dutch Empire1628 CE – 1677 CE
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Cite this page
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Dutch Tobago. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/dutch-tobago
- MLA
- “Dutch Tobago.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/dutch-tobago. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Dutch Tobago.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/dutch-tobago.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Dutch Tobago’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/dutch-tobago (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻