Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium. The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.
Why did the Dutch establish the East India Company?
In 1602 the Dutch government set out to monopolize the intercontinental spice trade, establishing the Dutch East India Company as an official colonial agency. The company was given massive financial backing and the legal power to wage war, create overseas settlements, and uphold its own jurisprudence.
What did the British East India Company trade?
Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium. The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India.
When did the first Dutch company start trading in the Indies?
The company received a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600, coming relatively late to trade in the Indies. Before them the Portuguese Estado da Índia had traded there for much of the 16th century and the first of half a dozen Dutch Companies sailed to trade there from 1595.
What was the Dutch West India Company?
In terms of military-political history, the VOC, along with the Dutch West India Company (WIC/GWIC), was seen as the international arm of the Dutch Republic and the symbolic power of the Dutch Empire. The VOC was historically a military-political-economic complex rather than a pure trading company (or shipping company ).
What did the Dutch India company trade?
It was established on March 20, 1602, as a chartered company to trade in pepper and spices with South Asia and Southeast Asia after the Spanish tried to block access to trade routes.
What did Dutch East India export?
Throughout the 1620s the Dutch East India Company further colonized Indonesia's islands and the presence of Dutch plantations growing cloves and nutmeg for export grew across the region. At this time the Dutch East India Company, like other European trading companies, used gold and silver to buy spices.
What was the item the Dutch traded with the Indians?
Ask: How did the Dutch colonists and the Native Americas become dependent on one another? (The natives hunted and delivered fur pelts for the Dutch. They traded these for the tools, cloth, weapons, and alcohol the Dutch imported.)
What goods were the Dutch interested in from the East Indies?
What goods were the Dutch interested in from the "East Indies?" The Dutch were mostly interested in spices from the East Indies such as cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.
What did the Dutch empire trade?
The Dutch traded for coveted luxuries such as Asian tea, coffee, sugar, rice, rubber, tobacco, silk, textiles, porcelain, and spices such as cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg and cloves. The company was able to build forts in the colonies, maintain an army and navy, and sign treaties with Native rulers.
What did Dutch East India Company trade with Japan?
Although China absorbed the bulk of Japan's silver exports, Japanese silver found its way all over maritime Asia. The VOC began exporting it to Tonkin and Ayutthaya early in the seventeenth century. At Ayutthaya, the Dutch merchants would trade the silver for deerskins bound for the Chinese and Japanese markets.
Who did the Dutch trade with?
In the 1590s, Dutch ships began to trade with Brazil and the Dutch Gold Coast of Africa, towards the Indian Ocean, and the source of the lucrative spice trade.
Who did the Dutch trade furs with?
Key termsTermDefinitionFur tradingThe sale and exchange of animal furs (like beaver pelts). French and Dutch colonizers focused on trading furs with Native American tribes in North America.5 more rows
What did the Dutch bring to America?
When the Dutch first came to America, they brought simple foods such as potatoes, cabbage, vegetable soups, fish, Indonesian rice, and holiday pastries with almond paste.
When did the Dutch trade with India?
History. Dutch presence on the Indian subcontinent lasted from 1605 to 1825. Merchants of the Dutch East India Company first established themselves in Dutch Coromandel, notably Pulicat, as they were looking for textiles to exchange with the spices they traded in the East Indies.
What resources did the Dutch East India company exploit?
The company settled down to a trade in cotton and silk piece goods, indigo, and saltpetre, with spices from South India.
What did Dutch East India Company discover?
In 17th-century Europe, globalization was brand new. The mighty Dutch East India Company that brought porcelain, spices and exotica to Europe was the first business entity to link the East and West; indeed, it was the first multinational corporation.
What resources did the Dutch East India Company exploit?
The company settled down to a trade in cotton and silk piece goods, indigo, and saltpetre, with spices from South India.
What did Dutch East India Company discover?
In 17th-century Europe, globalization was brand new. The mighty Dutch East India Company that brought porcelain, spices and exotica to Europe was the first business entity to link the East and West; indeed, it was the first multinational corporation.
How did the East India Company make money?
The East India Company made money by trading spices. But it expanded the range of its commodities into other things like textiles, tea, and coffee.
Why was the Dutch East India Company so rich?
Dutch East India Company It began as a shipping company — with a 21 year monopoly on the Dutch spice market — before branching into almost every aspect of the spice trade, from production to consumer sales, while still keeping a massive footprint in the shipping industry at large for more than 100 years.
Who was the founder of the United East India Company?
The "United East India Company", or "United East Indies Company" (also known by the abbreviation "VOC" in Dutch) was the brainchild of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, the leading statesman of the Dutch Republic.
What was the Dutch polity in the seventeenth century?
(...) The Dutch polity of the seventeenth century was famously unconcerned with territorial expansion: as long as the frontier operated effectively as a defensive shield, no extra land was deemed necessary.
What did the VOC produce?
The VOC's operations (trading posts and colonies) produced not only warehouses packed with spices, coffee, tea, textiles, porcelain and silk, but also shiploads of documents. Data on political, economic, cultural, religious, and social conditions spread over an enormous area circulated between the VOC establishments, the administrative centre of the trade in Batavia (modern-day Jakarta ), and the board of directors (the Heeren XVII [ nl] /Gentlemen Seventeen) in the Dutch Republic. The VOC records are included in UNESCO 's Memory of the World Register.
What was the VOC's experience of slavery?
By the time the settlement was established at the Cape in 1652, the VOC already had a long experience of practicing slavery in the East Indies. Jan van Riebeeck concluded within two months of the establishment of the Cape settlement that slave labor would be needed for the hardest and dirtiest work. Initially, the VOC considered enslaving men from the indigenous Khoikhoi population, but the idea was rejected on the grounds that such a policy would be both costly and dangerous. Most Khoikhoi had chosen not to labor for the Dutch because of low wages and harsh conditions. In the beginning, the settlers traded with the Khoikhoi but the harsh working conditions and low wages imposed by the Dutch led to a series of wars. The European population remained under 200 during the settlement's first five years, and war against neighbors numbering more than 20,000 would have been foolhardy. Moreover, the Dutch feared that Khoikhoi people, if enslaved, could always escape into the local community, whereas foreigners would find it much more difficult to elude their "masters."
What was the first formal stock exchange?
Courtyard of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (or Beurs van Hendrick de Keyser in Dutch), the world's first formal stock exchange. The formal stock market in its modern sense – as one of the potent mechanisms of modern capitalism – was a pioneering innovation by the VOC managers and shareholders in the early 17th century.
Where did Hansken come from?
Hansken, a young female Asian elephant from Dutch Ceylon, was brought to Amsterdam in 1637, aboard a VOC ship. Rembrandt 's Hansken drawing is believed to be an early portrait of one of the first Asian elephants described by science.
What is Cape Dutch architecture?
The Cape Dutch architecture, along with Afrikaans language and Afrikaans literature, is among the lasting legacy of the VOC-era Afrikaans culture in South Africa .
What was the first multinational company?
The Dutch East India Company (VOC; Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie), founded in 1602, is often considered the first truly multinational corporation. From the 17th to the 18th-century trading companies such as VOC (and its British counterpart; the East India Trading Company) acted on behalf of European governments.
When was Cape Town founded?
Cape Town (South Africa) was also founded in 1652 as a crucial stage for the long Europe-Asia voyage. Later, plantations and the introduction of new forms of cultivation, such as coffee in West Java (1723), were established. It resulted in a growing quantity and variety of cargo being traded.
Why did VOC go bankrupt?
By 1750, VOC employed around 25,000 people and was doing business in 10 Asian countries. However, mainly due to corruption and mismanagement, the company faced bankruptcy in 1799, with its holdings transferred to the Dutch Crown.
Why did the East Indies do business with the Dutch?
The East Indies were more than happy to do business with them because it meant a good deal of money for their government. This Dutch East India Company was the beginning of something massive.
What was the Dutch East India Company?
Origins. The Dutch East India Company was a charter trading company established in 1602. It is considered to be the first ever multinational company. It was a huge organization, with a foothold in almost every country, employing more than 200 ships and several thousand men. The Company was notorious for their power plays and harsh dealings.
When did the Dutch government go bankrupt?
The VOC was in business from 1602 to some point in the early 1800s. In 1796, they began to collect debt and the Dutch government, who had been backing them before, could not pay it off. They finally went bankrupt in 1800, and the Dutch government collected all of the excess debt they left behind.
Why did the Portuguese cut off trade with the Dutch?
The Company was notorious for their power plays and harsh dealings. In 1602 the Portuguese had the largest trade in the seas and, due to a political conflict, they cut off all trade with the Dutch. Soon after, the Portuguese began to have trouble supplying as much product as was needed, causing prices to skyrocket.
Why were these trips risky to invest in?
These trips were risky to invest in because so many things could go wrong: piracy, shipwreck, disease, or any number of other things. When the Dutch took over, however, they founded an actual shipping company on a much larger scale than anything ever seen before.
Where was the East India Company shipyard?
The shipyard of the Dutch East India Company in Amsterdam, circa 1750. Public domain image. As time went on their lust for power and money grew. Under the guise of a simple trading company, their empire on the sea went virtually unnoticed as a threat, so no one ever tried to stop them.
When was the duit coin minted?
Two sides of a duit, a coin minted in 1735 by the VOC. Public domain image. After joining with the British, the fledgling company decided that they didn’t want any competition and set out to destroy other trading groups. Since they had rapidly grown to be the largest trade on the sea, this was not hard to do.
Why did the Dutch have their own fleet?
Their fleet purposely sailed around the Dutch Republic, restricting trade between the Low Countries and the rest of Europe. Threatened by this embargo the Dutch decided to commission their own fleet in order to undermine the Portuguese.
What was the influence of the Portuguese Empire on the European spice trade?
During the 16th century the Portuguese Empire controlled the European spice trade and used Lisbon to disperse goods across the continent.
What did the Dutch government do in 1602?
In 1602 the Dutch government set out to monopolize the intercontinental spice trade, establishing the Dutch East India Company as an official colonial agency. The company was given massive financial backing and the legal power to wage war, create overseas settlements, and uphold its own jurisprudence.
How did the profits of colonial trade fall over the next 50 years?
The profits of colonial trade gradually fell over the next 50 years, as the spice market became oversaturated due to the new trade links formed with South America. The Dutch continuously clashed with the British, entering two wars that devastated both sides.
When did the Dutch start their first expedition?
Their first expedition launched in 1595 and successfully returned from Indonesia with a large haul of spices. The Dutch fleet increased exponentially over the next three years, and eventually led to the formation of the East India Company.
What was the name of the city that the Portuguese explorers stormed in 1619?
After years of conflicts with the Portuguese navy, the company began to surpass its main competitor, and in 1619 stormed Jakarta to establish its city-spanning headquarters, Batavia. This trading outpost gave the company a stronghold in the Pacific, allowing it to exert its influence over surrounding trade routes.
Why did the British condemn the East India Company?
British leaders condemned the East India Company for permitting the events to occur. In the aftermath of the Rebellion, under the provisions of the Government of India Act 1858, the British Government nationalised the company.
When did the East India Company start?
The East India Company's archives suggest its involvement in the slave trade began in 1684, when a Captain Robert Knox was ordered to buy and transport 250 slaves from Madagascar to St. Helena. The East India Company began using and transporting slaves in Asia and the Atlantic in the early 1620s, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, or in 1621, according to Richard Allen.
What is EIC trading?
1947– 0000. v. t. e. The East India Company ( EIC ), also known as the East India Trading Company ( EITC ), the English East India Company or (after 1707) the British East India Company, and informally known as John Company, Company Bahadur, or simply The Company was an English and later British joint-stock company founded in 1600.
What did the Adventurers do in 1599?
On 22 September 1599, a group of merchants met and stated their intention "to venture in the pretended voyage to the East Indies (the which it may please the Lord to prosper), and the sums that they will adventure", committing £30,133 (over £4,000,000 in today's money). Two days later, "the Adventurers" reconvened and resolved to apply to the Queen for support of the project. Although their first attempt had not been completely successful, they nonetheless sought the Queen's unofficial approval to continue. They bought ships for their venture and increased their capital to £68,373.
What did Drake trade for?
In return for linen, gold and silver, a large haul of exotic spices including cloves and Nutmeg were traded – the English initially not knowing of their huge value.
What did Francis Drake do in the East Indies?
In 1577, Francis Drake set out on an expedition from England to plunder Spanish settlements in South America in search of gold and silver. In the Golden Hind he achieved this but also sailed across the Pacific Ocean in 1579, known then only to the Spanish and Portuguese. Drake eventually sailed into the East Indies and came across the Moluccas, also known as the Spice Islands, and met with Sultan Babullah. In return for linen, gold and silver, a large haul of exotic spices including cloves and Nutmeg were traded – the English initially not knowing of their huge value. Drake returned to England in 1580 and became a celebrated hero; his eventual circumnavigation raised an enormous amount of money for England's coffers, and investors received a return of some 5000 per cent. Thus started what was an important element in the eastern design during the late sixteenth century.
What was the main commodity of the 1700s?
Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade during the mid-1700s and early 1800s, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, sugar, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium.
Where was the Dutch East India Company located?
To students of Japanese history, the Dutch East India Company, or VOC, is forever associated with a quaint little trading post on an island in Nagasaki harbor, where the traders were confined under Tokugawa policies limiting contact with the outside world. But the Dejima factory was just one of many hubs in a maritime trading network ...
What was the Dutch government's first outpost?
Fearing that excessive domestic competition would drive down profits, the Dutch government moved in 1602 to amalgamate these groups into a single chartered company, Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (literally, “United East India Company”). The VOC set up its first permanent outpost in 1603 in Banten in western Java.
Where did the Chinese trade silk?
To substitute for Chinese silk, for which there was high demand in Japan, both the VOC and the Chinese traders under control of the Zheng family brought silk from Tonkin (northern Vietnam) and Bengal to sell in the port of Nagasaki (where the Dutch, at the shogunate’s orders, had moved from Hirado in 1641).
Why did the VOC send ships to Maluku?
In 1613 the VOC began to send provisions, arms, and even Japanese warriors to Maluku to help the Dutch forces there battle the English and Spanish. The VOC also sent ships to attack Spanish and Portuguese ships off the coast of Manila and Macau and capture Chinese junks.
Why was Hirado important to the Dutch?
Hirado was already an important hub for trade with southern coastal China, and the Dutch saw the trading post as a means of breaking into that lucrative trade while keeping a safe distance from the Portuguese at Nagasaki. The Golden Age of Piracy.
What is the most sought after commodity in Maluku?
One of the most sought-after commodities, not only in Maluku but throughout Indonesia, was dyed cotton textiles from India. To acquire fabrics for trade, the VOC quickly extended its trading network to India.
Why did the Shogunate institute a new set of trade regulations?
In the early part of eighteenth century, the shogunate instituted a new set of trade regulations out of concern that the nation’s wealth was draining away. In 1715 it imposed a quota on Dutch and Chinese ships calling at Nagasaki, and in 1730 it began restricting exports of copper.
Overview
The Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC, "United East India Company") was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia. It is sometimes considered to have been the first multinational corporation in the world and it was the first company to issue
Company name, logo, and flag
In Dutch, the name of the company is Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, literally the "United East Indian Company", which is abbreviated to VOC. The company's monogram logo consisted of a large capital 'V' with an O on the left and a C on the right half and was possibly the first globally recognised corporate logo. It appeared on various corporate it…
History
Before the Dutch Revolt, Antwerp had played an important role as a distribution centre in northern Europe. After 1591, however, the Portuguese used an international syndicate of the German Fuggers and Welsers, and Spanish and Italian firms, that used Hamburg as the northern staple port to distribute their goods, thereby cutting Dutch merchants out of the trade. At the same time, th…
Organisational structure
The VOC is generally considered to be the world's first truly transnational corporation and it was also the first multinational enterprise to issue shares of stock to the public. Some historians such as Timothy Brook and Russell Shorto consider the VOC as the pioneering corporation in the first wave of the corporate globalisation era. The VOC was the first multinational corporation to operate of…
Shareholder activism and governance issues
The seventeenth-century Dutch businessmen, especially the VOC investors, were possibly history's first recorded investors to seriously consider the corporate governance's problems. Isaac Le Maire, who is known as history's first recorded short seller, was also a sizeable shareholder of the VOC. In 1609, he complained of the VOC's shoddy corporate governance. On 24 January 1609, L…
Main trading posts, settlements, and colonies
• Amsterdam (global headquarters)
• Delft
• Enkhuizen
• Hoorn
• Middelburg
Conflicts and wars involving the VOC
The history of VOC commercial conflict, for example with the British East India Company (EIC), was at times closely connected to Dutch military conflicts. The commercial interests of the VOC (and more generally the Netherlands) were reflected in military objectives and the settlements agreed by treaty. In the Treaty of Breda (1667) ending the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch were fin…
=Arts and culture
During the Dutch Golden Age, the Dutch – using their expertise in doing business, cartography, shipbuilding, seafaring and navigation – traveled to the far corners of the world, leaving their language embedded in the names of many places. Dutch exploratory voyages revealed largely unknown landmasses to the civilised world and put their names on the world map. During the Golden Age o…