Willem de la Palma
Willem de la Palma (unknown – 17 October 1705) was a Dutch merchant and colonial administrator who served twice on the Dutch Gold Coast in the service of the Dutch West India Company (WIC), ultimately rising to the position of director-general of the Company's African possessions from 1701 until his death in 1705.
Early life
De la Palma was born into a regent family of Middelburg, Zeeland, descended from a Spanish-origin lineage that had settled in the province generations earlier and had produced numerous local officials and administrators. His brother Marcus de la Palma held municipal office in Middelburg. Willem, lacking sufficient political standing to obtain a comparable post at home, sought his fortune instead with the West India Company. With his brother's help he came to the attention of the WIC's Zeeland chamber directors, who judged him suited to a post in West Africa and appointed him assistant bookkeeper in 1682–1683.
First period on the Gold Coast (1683–1691)
De la Palma sailed for West Africa in January 1683 aboard the ship Krijgsman and arrived at Elmina Castle, the WIC's headquarters on the coast, a few months later. He rose quickly through the Company ranks, benefiting from the high mortality among Company personnel in the region, which created frequent opportunities for promotion. Within a year he became paymaster and then head of Fort Saint Sebastian at Chama, where he was tasked with restoring the Company's damaged relations with local rulers and countering the newly established Brandenburg African Company in the area.
In 1686 he was sent to investigate and restore the Company's disrupted slave trade at the Offra trading post on the Slave Coast, in the kingdom of Allada, following mismanagement and embezzlement by a subordinate official. He successfully revived and expanded trade there before being appointed head of Fort Nassau at Moree, one of the Company's most important stations after Elmina, which also gave him a seat on the ruling Council in Africa. He was later promoted to opperkoopman (chief merchant), the second-highest Company rank on the coast, but after nine years in Africa he requested repatriation and returned to the Dutch Republic in 1691, where he was elected to Middelburg's municipal council.
Director-general (1701–1705)
In 1701 the WIC's directors appointed De la Palma director-general of the Company's African possessions, succeeding Joan van Sevenhuijsen. He returned to Elmina in 1702, immediately criticising his predecessor's administration and blaming him for a sharp decline in the gold trade and a breakdown of discipline among Company personnel. He proclaimed a day of prayer for the entire staff, attributing the coast's troubles to immorality and corruption.
His tenure was marked by increasing conflict with the Council and Company personnel, accusations of self-enrichment and secret trading with smugglers, and growing suspicion toward colleagues, some of whom he believed were plotting against him. His health, undermined by heavy drinking and the tropical climate, deteriorated from 1704 onward, and contemporaries reported symptoms consistent with tuberculosis. In his final months he became increasingly paranoid and erratic, on occasion firing on and threatening Company staff, and was refused entry to several of the Company's own forts by subordinates wary of him.
De la Palma died at Elmina on 17 October 1705 and was buried there with ceremony beside a previous director-general, Jacob Ruychaver. He was succeeded, after a brief interim, by Pieter Nuijts, who—following the customary practice of denouncing one's predecessor—accused De la Palma of abuse of power, mismanagement, and self-enrichment. An inventory of De la Palma's estate found it worth more than 77,000 guilders, an amount far exceeding what his salary and legitimate emoluments could have produced during his roughly three-and-a-half years as director-general, pointing to significant illicit gain. He left no wife or children in the Dutch Republic; his estate was divided among relatives in Zeeland, with small bequests of gold to trusted Company colleagues, including the chaplain Ernest Phillip Sluijter.
References
Den Heijer, Henk (2006). "Troebelen op de Kust. Leven en werken van Willem de la Palma in West-Afrika, 1683–1705". In Ebben, Maurits; Wagenaar, Pieter. De cirkel doorbroken. Met nieuwe ideeën terug naar de bronnen. Opstellen over de Republiek. Leidse Historische Studiën 10. Leiden: Instituut voor Geschiedenis. pp. 116–129. ISBN 90-75301-13-8. Search this book on 
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