Chapter 6: The Builder King – 1735–1745
The morning after Cornelius's funeral, Hendrik Van der Berg II walked the ramparts of Fort Nassau alone. The flag of Zeelandia—a silver lion on a field of blue—snapped in the warm wind. Below, the town of Stadthaven, soon to be renamed Koningstad, spread out along the bay. Warehouses lined the quays, and ships from India, Persia, and the Spice Islands crowded the harbour.
Hendrik was thirty years old, but he felt the weight of an old man. His grandfather had bought the island; his father had built the colony; now he had to forge a nation.
"You will need more than a fort to hold this place," said a voice behind him.
He turned to see Magnus Eriksson, now a grey‑bearded man of seventy, leaning on a walking stick. The Swede had spent forty years mapping the island's forests, and his knowledge was unmatched.
"I know," Hendrik replied. "The French have a base in Mauritius. The British are expanding in India. The Dutch resent us. And the island itself is barely tamed."
Magnus pointed toward the eastern hills. "There are coal seams beyond those ridges that could fuel a hundred steam engines. Iron ore that would make a Prussian general weep. Your grandfather's silver mine was only the beginning."
"Then we need people," Hendrik said. "More farmers, more miners, more soldiers. But Europe is at war again. Who will come to a tropical island when they can fight for glory in Flanders?"
Magnus laughed dryly. "Those who are tired of fighting. Or those who have lost."
The War of the Austrian Succession broke out in 1740, engulfing Europe. Zeelandia, half a world away, felt the tremors. Hendrik saw the conflict as both a threat and an opportunity. While the great powers bled each other, his colony could grow in the shadows.
In the spring of 1741, a ship flying no colours anchored off Port Victoria. From it came a gaunt man in an officer's coat that had once been fine. He introduced himself as Karl von Stauffen the Younger—son of the engineer who had built the fort.
"My father died here," he said, standing before Hendrik in the governor's house. "He wrote to me about this place. He said it was the only work he ever did that was not for a king who would later tear it down."
Hendrik studied the man. He saw the same iron jaw, the same piercing eyes. "Your father was a great engineer. What are you?"
"I was a captain in the Prussian army," von Stauffen said. "Until I insulted the wrong general. Now I am nothing. But I can build walls. I can dig mines. I can teach men to fight."
Hendrik extended his hand. "Then you are exactly what we need."
Over the next four years, von Stauffen oversaw the construction of roads linking Koningstad to the silver mines in the east and the coal seams in the north. He drilled a militia of five hundred men, using Prussian tactics adapted to the jungle.
One evening, as they reviewed a new barracks, Hendrik asked, "Do you think we can defend this place against a European power?"
Von Stauffen considered. "Against a full fleet with landing troops? No. But we can make the cost so high that no one will pay it. That is the lesson of your grandfather's fort."
Hendrik nodded. "Then we will become a porcupine. Too prickly to swallow."
That same year, a ship from France brought a package addressed to Hendrik. It was a letter from Voltaire himself, who had heard of Zeelandia through the philosopher's network. The letter read:
Monsieur Van der Berg,
They tell me you have created a haven for freethinkers in a sea of ignorance. If this is true, you have accomplished more than all the kings of Europe. I should like to visit one day, but I am too old for such voyages. Instead, I send you a copy of my latest work. Let your colony be proof that reason can triumph over superstition.
V.
Hendrik read the letter aloud to his wife, Raden Ayu Kartini. She smiled. "Even the philosophers are watching us now."
"Let them watch," Hendrik said. "We have work to do."