Dutch West India Company

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  The Hudson

  A History

  • Tom Lewis(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Yale University Press

    (Publisher)

  ÷ e Dutch West India Company would trade in places like Guiana (called the Wild Coast), Brazil, and the New Netherlands, and its backers believed it would garner great pro fi ts. Like its model, the Dutch East India Company, it could sail the high seas in search of Spanish merchant vessels and harry Spanish strongholds in the Americas. And some directors of the new company, though not all, believed that it would enable the Dutch to share in the colonization of the New World. ÷ e Dutch East India Company served as a shining example of all that merchants could accomplish for the state and for themselves. To preserve the fl ow of trade, the company had subsidized occasional military exploits of privat Õ ring. Its pro fi ts, as much as 162 percent return on investment, Opposite: Detail Ï om Arnold Colom’s map of “Nieu Nederlandt,” Ï om 1658, showing the Hudson (le Ó ) and Connecticut rivers. ÷ e famed cartographer labeled the Hudson as the “Groote Rivier,” along with several other names, and also showed the locations of “Nieuw Amsterdam” and “Fort Orangie.” ÷ e map was included in his Z Õ Atlas, one of the most important compilations of Dutch sea charts of the time. (I. N. Phelps Stokes Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs, ÷ e New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations) the colonizers arrive 58 warmed the hearts of every trader on the Bourse. Recently it had established a major trade center at Batavia (now Jakarta), and in 1659 it would take control of the Cape of Good Hope. Chartered in June 1621, the Dutch West India Company was to be man-aged Ï om Amsterdam by ninet Õ n directors, known as the “Assembly of XIX” or simply as “the Ninet Õ n.” In North America the company was to control the province of New Netherland be ÚÕ n the Delaware and Con-necticut rivers (then called the South and Fresh rivers), and New France to the north.

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  Outsourcing Empire

  How Company-States Made the Modern World

  • Andrew Phillips, J. C. Sharman, Jason Sharman(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  The Dutch Moment: War, Trade and Settlement in the Seventeenth Century Atlantic World by Wim Klooster (Cornell University Press, 2016).

  Nearer the expiration of the truce, shifts in power between Dutch hawks and doves renewed the impetus to open another front against the Habsburgs in the Americas and the Atlantic using the same institutional model as the VOC. Once chartered in 1621 for a term of 24 years, the West India Company set about raising its initial capital of 7.1 million florins, slightly larger than the 6.5 million VOC had begun with, but an order of magnitude greater than the English East India Company, let alone the Royal African or Hudson’s Bay Companies fifty years later.17 Where the VOC had reached its target in a month, however, the newer company took two years. This rather tepid support reflected concerns among investors about the extent to which the new company would pursue piracy and conquest over profits and dividends.18 These concerns were later shown to be well-founded.19

  Notwithstanding the differences indicated above, the charter otherwise followed the precedent of the VOC in the suite of legal and sovereign powers conferred, including powers to make war and peace, engage in diplomacy, and carry out administrative and judicial roles in the lands it conquered. “Once again, commerce, capital, and state power worked hand in hand to produce another weapon in the struggle for Dutch independence, profit and influence, and once again a company seemed to provide the proper and necessary means.”20 The WIC was granted a monopoly on trade from Newfoundland to the Cape of Good Hope, but also in the Pacific from the west coast of the Americas to New Guinea. Thus trading rights in the whole extra-European world were divided between the two Dutch company-states.21

  The company was to be run by a board of 19 directors, the Heeren XIX. The distribution of directorships among different chambers reflected both the United Provinces’ confederal structure, but also the financial and political power of Holland and Amsterdam in particular. The latter received eight votes on the board; Zeeland, four; the Northern Quarter, Maas, and Gronigen, two each; while as noted the representative of the States-General held the nineteenth vote. Although Amsterdam was clearly the most powerful, its dominance was somewhat less pronounced than in the VOC, or for that matter the States-General, where Holland provided over 58 percent of the total revenue.22 Despite their formal rights, as with the VOC, the WIC often rode roughshod over the wishes of its shareholders, refusing audits and only reluctantly distributing dividends.23

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  The Modern World-System II

  Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600–1750

  • Immanuel Wallerstein(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • University of California Press

    (Publisher)

  The story of the East Indies trade is of course the story of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC). It was a model of a capitalist trading com-pany, part speculative enterprise, part long-term investment, part col-onizer. 63 It had sober directors in Amsterdam, De Heeren Zeventien, the seventeen gentlemen, and hard-to-control proconsuls in Batavia, hrst among them Jan Pieterszoon Coen. 64 In some ways the Dutch backed into the East Indies trade. When Antwerp fell to the Spanish in 1585, the Euro-58 Even among grains, which were a relatively minor agricultural product, there was a shift in the seventeenth century from barley to wheat, a crop of more exacting production requirements (J. de Vries, 1974, 148). 59 This expression of the time is reported in Clark (1960, 14). 80 The quote is from I.ipson (1956, II, liii). See also Lipson (1956, III, 10-11), Parry (1967, 176, 210), Glamann (1974, 452), and Minchinton (1974, 164). Bowman says that as of 1650, Dutch ships numbered 15,000-16,000 out of the 20,000 ships in the world carrying trade (1936, 338). fil From A Man of the English Commerce, p. 192, cited in Wilson (1941, 4). 82 Coornaert (1967, 244). M For a description of the legal structure of the VOC, see Rabe (1962, 351-366). 64 Despite the claim of Werner Sombart and the outward similarity of names, Coen is not Cohen, and he was not Jewish. For the speculation about why Coen's father changed the family name from van Twisk to Coen, see Masselman (1963, 229-230). 2: Dutch Hegemony in the World-Economy 47 pean spice market was transferred to Amsterdam. But since Spain had annexed Portugal in 1580 and Lisbon was the European port of entry for spices, the Dutch sought to bypass the Spanish.

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  A History of Holland

  • George Edmundson(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Ozymandias Press

    (Publisher)

  THE EAST AND WEST INDIA COMPANIES. COMMERCIAL AND ECONOMIC EXPANSION

  AN ACCOUNT OF THE foundation, constitution and early efforts of the Dutch East India Company has been already given. The date of its charter (March 20, 1602) was later than that of its English rival (Dec. 31, 1600), but in reality the Dutch were the first in the field, as there were several small companies in existence and competing with one another in the decade previous to the granting of the charter, which without extinguishing these companies incorporated them by the name of chambers under a common management, the Council of Seventeen. The four chambers however—Amsterdam, Zeeland, the Maas (Rotterdam and Delft) and the North Quarter (Enkhuizen and Hoorn)—though separately administered and with different spheres, became gradually more and more unified by the growing power of control exercised by the Seventeen. This was partly due to the dominating position of the single Chamber of Amsterdam, which held half the shares and appointed eight members of the council. The erection of such a company, with its monopoly of trade and its great privileges including the right of maintaining fleets and armed forces, of concluding treaties and of erecting forts, was nothing less than the creation of an imperium in imperio; and it may be said to have furnished the model on which all the great chartered companies of later times have been formed. The English East India Company was, by the side of its Dutch contemporary, almost insignificant; with its invested capital of £30,000 it was in no position to struggle successfully against a competitor which started with subscribed funds amounting to £540,000.

  The conquest of Portugal by Spain had spelt ruin to that unhappy country and to its widespread colonial empire and extensive commerce. Before 1581 Lisbon had been a great centre of the Dutch carrying-trade; and many Netherlanders had taken service in Portuguese vessels and were familiar with the routes both to the East Indies and to Brazil. It was the closing of the port of Lisbon to Dutch vessels that led the enterprising merchants of Amsterdam and Middelburg to look further afield. In the early years of the seventeenth century a large number of expeditions left the Dutch harbours for the Indian Ocean and made great profits; and very large dividends were paid to the shareholders of the company. How far these represented the actual gain it is difficult to discover, for the accounts were kept in different sets of ledgers; and it is strongly suspected that the size of the dividends may, at times when enhanced credit was necessary for the raising of loans, have been to some extent fictitious. For the enterprise, which began as a trading concern, speedily developed into the creation of an empire overseas, and this meant an immense expenditure.

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  The Atlantic Economy during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

  Organization, Operation, Practice, and Personnel

  • Peter A. Coclanis(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • University of South Carolina Press

    (Publisher)

  23 Until the fall of the republic the Dutch colonial empire was privately held (albeit subject to public pressure because of the periodic need to renew company charters). 24 With few exceptions public funds did not directly support either the East or West Indian ventures, a fact that placed Dutch empire builders at a distinct disadvantage vis-à-vis their com-petitors. 25 In view of the WIC’s early financial debility, its unpopularity with the mer-chant community, and the early abandonment of Atlantic monopoly companies by England and France, it is a wonder that the Dutch persisted so long with an institutional form manifestly unsuited to the New World environment. The WIC’s bankruptcy in 1674 was a good opportunity to be rid of this chartered monopoly company; instead the States General pressured the holders of the com-pany’s worthless shares and bonds into injecting an additional 1.2 million guilders in order to float the second WIC. 26 It would appear that the Dutch Repub-lic, a state with few central government powers over its constituent provinces, was not yet prepared to contemplate direct rule of its colonies. 27 Ironically, the inability of the Dutch to project military power in the Atlantic zone after 1674 offered them some advantages. Spain turned to the Dutch as sup-pliers of slaves and commercial services to her colonial empire. The WIC and its 10 Jan de Vries Curaçao trade center, its teeth having been drawn by British and French protec-tionism, prospered in the 1680s and 1690s as holder of the Spanish asiento, or slave supply contract, and as tolerated supplier of manufactured goods and ship-ping services to Spain’s empire. This Spanish connection provided a relatively stable setting in which the sec-ond WIC could actually pay some modest dividends (ranging between 2 and 8 percent; in 1687, 10 percent).

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  A History of Holland

  • George Edmundson(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Jovian Press

    (Publisher)

  THE EAST AND WEST INDIA COMPANIES. COMMERCIAL AND ECONOMIC EXPANSION

  ~

  AN ACCOUNT OF THE FOUNDATION, constitution and early efforts of the Dutch East India Company has been already given. The date of its charter (March 20, 1602) was later than that of its English rival (Dec. 31, 1600), but in reality the Dutch were the first in the field, as there were several small companies in existence and competing with one another in the decade previous to the granting of the charter, which without extinguishing these companies incorporated them by the name of chambers under a common management, the Council of Seventeen. The four chambers however—Amsterdam, Zeeland, the Maas (Rotterdam and Delft) and the North Quarter (Enkhuizen and Hoorn)—though separately administered and with different spheres, became gradually more and more unified by the growing power of control exercised by the Seventeen. This was partly due to the dominating position of the single Chamber of Amsterdam, which held half the shares and appointed eight members of the council. The erection of such a company, with its monopoly of trade and its great privileges including the right of maintaining fleets and armed forces, of concluding treaties and of erecting forts, was nothing less than the creation of an imperium in imperio; and it may be said to have furnished the model on which all the great chartered companies of later times have been formed. The English East India Company was, by the side of its Dutch contemporary, almost insignificant; with its invested capital of £30,000 it was in no position to struggle successfully against a competitor which started with subscribed funds amounting to £540,000.

  The conquest of Portugal by Spain had spelt ruin to that unhappy country and to its widespread colonial empire and extensive commerce. Before 1581 Lisbon had been a great centre of the Dutch carrying-trade; and many Netherlanders had taken service in Portuguese vessels and were familiar with the routes both to the East Indies and to Brazil. It was the closing of the port of Lisbon to Dutch vessels that led the enterprising merchants of Amsterdam and Middelburg to look further afield. In the early years of the seventeenth century a large number of expeditions left the Dutch harbours for the Indian Ocean and made great profits; and very large dividends were paid to the shareholders of the company. How far these represented the actual gain it is difficult to discover, for the accounts were kept in different sets of ledgers; and it is strongly suspected that the size of the dividends may, at times when enhanced credit was necessary for the raising of loans, have been to some extent fictitious. For the enterprise, which began as a trading concern, speedily developed into the creation of an empire overseas, and this meant an immense expenditure.

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  The French Struggle for the West Indies 1665–1713

  • Nellis M. Crouse(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Columbia University Press

    (Publisher)

  •*• J THE GREAT WEST INDIA COMPANY D URING the second half of the seventeenth century the history of the West Indies is marked by the struggle between Great Britain and France for supremacy. Besides these two nations there were also two others which played a minor part in the conflict: Spain and the United Netherlands. Spain, we might say, played a passive part. Her position was naturally a defensive one. Ruler of the Spanish Main, Mexico, and the Greater Antilles (save Jamaica), she was content to enjoy her wealth unmolested and had by this time consented to the presence of strangers in what she once re-garded as her own particular domain. The Dutch were traders. Their colonial possessions in this part of the world were insig-nificant; nor had they any desire to increase them. They wished merely to enrich themselves by exchanging their merchandise for the agricultural produce of the islands. The struggle for colonial possessions was therefore reduced to the French and the English settlers who occupied that part of the West Indian archipelago known as the Lesser Antilles, or Caribbee Islands, and sometimes called by the English the Leeward Islands. England also owned Jamaica. The conflict was directed by the home governments; in £act the West Indian struggle was but a reflection of the series of wars raging in Europe at this time, the colonists lining up with or against each other according to the wars or alliances of the mother countries. Thus we have English against Dutch and French, French against Spaniards, French and Spaniards against English, and various other combinations. On the whole the colonists apparently gained little by these wars. Their conquests were frequently used at the conference table as pawns in the great game of European politics and world empire; and a hard-won territory was often 1 WEST INDIA COMPANY returned to the original owner in exchange for some concession in another part of the world.

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  Management History

  • Bradley Bowden, David Lamond(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Information Age Publishing

    (Publisher)

  INTRODUCTION As the first joint stock company in the world and a pioneer of several key capitalist practices (Gelderblom, De Jong, & Jonker, 2013), the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie—VOC) was the most suc- cessful European trade merchant of its time (Meilink-Roelofsz, Raben, & Spijkerman, 1992). Over the course of its lifespan (1602–1795), the VOC acquired a central place in the Dutch economy (De Vries & Van der Woude, 1997), rendering it not only a landmark in the history of the Netherlands, but also a template for other trade merchants such as the English East India Company (EIC) and the French Compagnies des Indes Orientales. The VOC is therefore a key to understanding the formation of the global colonialism in the seventeen century and its failure in the 18th century (Adams, 1996). Most historical work tends to conceptualize the VOC in terms of “rise and fall” (e.g., Gaastra, 2009; Klerk de Reus, 1894). Set up as a chartered company, the VOC was essentially a patrimonial organization that conjoined economic and sovereign political goals at the behest of a merchant elite’s discretion (Adams, 1996). It is commonly accepted that the social structures and practices that made the company a success in the 17th century remained unchanged throughout (e.g., Adams, 1996; Jacobs, 2006; Van Goor, 2002), rendering it too rigid to address the 18th century’s changing competitive landscape. As a result, the VOC gradually degenerated from an institutional innovation (Steensgaard, 1982) into a financial burden (Enthoven, 2002). However, studies of the VOC’s inner organization do not seem to charac- terize the company’s agents as one-dimensional figures. On the contrary— the general verdict seems to be that the company was in the hands of pro- fessionals with a good feeling for trade and Asian politics (Van Goor, 2002).

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  The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1815

  • Johannes Postma(Author)
  • 1990(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  8 The Dutch plantation colonies under WIC monopoly 1616-1738 The first two chapters of this book describe how the Dutch got involved in the Atlantic slave trade during the seventeenth century, first to supply their new plantation colony in northern Brazil, and then to make profits by supplying the Spanish mainland colonies with slaves either through the asiento or by means of illicit trade. As the asiento slave trade declined toward the end of the seven- teenth century, Dutch slavers found a growing demand for their human car- goes in the various Dutch plantation colonies of Guiana, then also known as the Wild coast, in northwestern South America, between the river deltas of the Amazon and the Orinoco. The next two chapters will focus on the slave traffic to Surinam and the settlements in present-day Guyana: Berbice, Essequibo, and Demerara, as the Dutch identified their plantation colonies there. The Guiana coast, which today includes the countries of Guyana, Surinam, and French Guiana (as well as portions of Brazil and Venezuela), had been the object of numerous colonization attempts during the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries by Dutch, English, and French settlers. The Dutch may have been pioneers in the area by establishing a settlement on the Essequibo River in the second half of the sixteenth century. But this, like many similar attempts afterward, had failed as a result of the hostile physical environment or the op- position of the indigenous population, the Caribs and the Arawaks. The Por- tuguese also eliminated a number of Dutch settlement attempts in the Amazon River delta. Most of these early settlements ended in disaster, and they have left very little documentary evidence for historians to scrutinize. 1 Settlement and trade on the Guiana coast Dutch interest in the Guiana region was initially twofold: settlement and commerce with the indigenous people.

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  Mutiny in the Danish Atlantic World

  Convicts, Sailors and a Dissonant Empire

  • Johan Lund Heinsen(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  Soon, the Danish East India colony was left to its own devices, and by the 1640s colonial aspirations had been more or less abandoned. However, in the following decades Danish merchants continued to partake in the burgeoning Atlantic trade. In the middle of the 1650s, serious plans emerged to add a Caribbean colony to the empire, and a West India Company was established with a base in Copenhagen. A further rekindling of Danish ambitions came as war between Denmark and Sweden spread to the Atlantic theatre and a Swedish slave-trading fortress on the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) was conquered by a Swedish privateer in Danish service. It was handed over to the Danes in 1658 and a trading company for African trade was established, operating out of Glückstadt (now in Germany, but formerly Danish) on the Elbe River, where several well-connected foreign merchants were based. 13 Across the Atlantic, the first real push came in 1665 when an expedition arrived at the small volcanic island of St Thomas in the Leeward Islands, hoping to turn its steep slopes and ancient forest into a Danish plantation colony. 14 The initial attempt failed, but in 1671 a new West India Company (heavily subsidized by the king) was established in Copenhagen and two ships left the Danish capital heading for the Leewards. They arrived in the spring of 1672, and successfully settled at St Thomas. Around the same time, Introduction 5 contact was re-established with the outpost on the Coromandel Coast, which was – incredibly – still Danish. The Company colony of St Thomas was conceived as a tightly controlled plantation complex built on the coerced labour of indentured servants and convicts. Underpinning its establishment was a vision of a closed loop of goods and people circulating between metropole and colony to the dual benefit of Company investors and the state.

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