i
f
I
f
f
1
1
1
1
addition, the MCC plays a role in the financial market, lending and borrowing
money, with interest payments in the profit and loss ledger accounts.55 Paesie
indicates that the MCC would borrow money at an interest rate between two to
four percent and was considered a reliable debtor with low associated risks. At the
same time the MCC also needed to borrow substantial sums of money to keep the
company alive. However, only MCC shareholders would have the privilege to lend
money to the MCC.56 This means that the surpluses of the company may have
gone to shareholders through interest on loans rather than dividends, which may
be one explanation for the seemingly low profitability of the MCC. If the company
would stay solvent, which it was for more than 150 years, lenders could count on
a reliable stream of interest payments.
The Journal and Beyond: Notes on the Bookkeeping of the MCC Ship Voyages
By 'moving down' to the journal and the individual transactions, we can find out
who benefited from the operation of the MCC. The general structure of the jour
nal is provided in Figure 4. An important difference with the balance and ledger
is that there is no debit-credit division on the opposing left and right pages, the
entry generally indicates whether it is a credit or debit transaction. At first sight
there seems to be an anomaly in the journal in the reference to the ledger ac
counts on the left side of the pages, because not every individual entry refers to
one ledger account number and its contra account, even when a contra account
seems necessary. The reason for this oddity is that in some cases there are several
debit ledger accounts for one credit contra account, or several credit contra ac-
182
Accounting in the Dutch Transatlantic Slave Trade
P Page number
Location: Day-Month-Year
Location: Day-Month-Year
Page number P
Debit
ledger account
number
Credit
contra account
Entry - Extensive description of transaction
3
s
3
Debit
ledger account
number
Debit
ledger account
Number
Debit
ledger account
number
Credit
contra account
Entry - Extensive description of transaction
s
I
Total amount
Total amount
Figure 4. Journal Structure.
55 ZA, MCC, 1720-1889, inv. nr. 1695. 1689-1709 Grootboek, 1720-1889. 21 delen, 1695. 'La G',
1749-1754 (NL-MdbZA_20_1695_0129).
56 Paesie, Geschiedenis van de MCC, 119-121.
