Dutch East India Company

Dutch East India Company 1602-1798, chartered by the States-General of the Netherlands to expand trade and assure close relations between the government and its colonial enterprises in Asia. The company was granted a monopoly on Dutch trade E of the Cape of Good Hope and W of the Strait of Magellan. From its headquarters at Batavia (founded 1619) the company subdued local rulers, drove the British and Portuguese from Indonesia, Malaya, and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and arrogated to itself the fabulous trade of the Spice Islands. A colony, established (1652) in South Africa at the Cape of Good Hope, remained Dutch until conquered by Great Britain in 1814. The company was dissolved when it became scandalously corrupt and nearly insolvent in the late 18th cent., and its possessions became part of the Dutch colonial empire in East Asia.

Bibliography: See A. Hyma, The Dutch in the Far East (1942, repr. 1953); study by B. Gardner (1972).

Dutch East India Company A CHARTERED COMPANY established (1602) under the aegis of Prince Maurice of Nassau to coordinate the activities of companies competing for trade in the East Indies and to act as an arm of the Dutch state in its struggle against Spain. It was involved in attacks on the Portuguese (then part of the SPANISH EMPIRE), and warfare with native rulers, and created a virtual monopoly in trade in fine spices (for example cloves, nutmeg, and mace) grown under its supervision in the Moluccas and the Banda Islands. In 1619 it made Batavia its headquarters. It ousted the Portuguese from Ceylon, set up trading posts in India, Persia, and Nagasaki, and made the Cape of Good Hope a base for Dutch ships en route to and from the East. In 1799 it was liquidated, its debts, possessions, and responsibilities being taken over by the Dutch state.