Rotterdam City Hall

The building behind you has been Rotterdam's city hall since 1920, and that was also the year a portrait of Johan van der Veeken was mounted here, meant to honor the city's great entrepreneurial spirit. He earned that reputation, though the full story is considerably more complicated.

Van der Veeken arrived from Antwerp in 1583, part of a wave of Flemish merchants fleeing the advancing Spanish army. He brought capital, connections, and ambition. While local governors dressed with deliberate modesty, he showed up in silks. His ships carried grain and timber from the Baltic, wine and herring across the Mediterranean, and he co-founded Rotterdam's first stock exchange. When the VOC was established in 1602, he made sure Rotterdam had a seat at the table.

He also lent enormous sums to the States General, built an almshouse for widows of sailors, and when he died in 1616, he left a fortune worth roughly 15 million euros in today's money. The bells of the Laurenskerk rang for eleven hours.

But his ships also transported enslaved Africans to plantations in Brazil, already before 1600. When that part of his legacy came under scrutiny, the business award named after him was quietly abolished in 2020. The portrait on the city hall, however, remains.