Fragment menselijke schedel uit het wrak van de Oost-Indiëvaarder Hollandia before 1748

This fragment of a human skull, now residing in the Rijksmuseum, comes from the wreckage of the Dutch East India ship, the Hollandia. Though small – only a few centimeters across – it speaks volumes about the vast, complex, and often brutal history of global trade. The Hollandia sank in 1743. As a vessel of the Dutch East India Company, it represented a massive commercial enterprise, one that projected Dutch power and influence across the globe. But this trade came at a steep human cost, in the lives of sailors, enslaved peoples, and colonized populations. Recovered centuries later, this fragment is a potent reminder of the human lives caught up in these historical currents. Historians like myself use archival sources, maritime records, and archaeological finds to understand the social and institutional forces that shaped the world in which the Hollandia sailed, and the human consequences of its sinking.