#dutcheastindiacompany #voc #history
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Recommended reading:
The Corporation That Changed the World – https://amzn.to/3l6lv5M
The Dutch East India Company: The History of the World’s First Multinational Corporation – https://amzn.to/3TpfCO5
Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters: The Development of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) Shipping Network in Asia 1595-1660 – https://amzn.to/3LhleHS
Visitors to Amsterdam will be familiar with it’s tall, narrow buildings and labyrinth of canals which run past the winding streets with typical Dutch names such as Lindenstraat, Keizersgracht and Damstraat. But away from the well-trodden tourist paths of the city centre, in the eastern district, are some streets with not-so typical Dutch sounding names like Balistraat, Sumatrastraat, and Borneostraat. These are situated within what is known locally as the Indian neighbourhood and are named in reference to what was once the Dutch controlled East Indies.
Constituting much of the modern state of Indonesia, these islands came to be ruled by the Netherlands over 7000 miles away, when the Dutch East India Company established itself in the region some 400 years ago and quickly grew to become the richest company the world had ever seen.
Possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike its own coins and establish colonies, it is often considered to be the world’s first multinational corporation and one which set the precedent for how modern business and international trade are conducted to this day. But what inspired these Dutch merchants to undertake the lengthy and perilous journey to the far side of the world? This is the history of the Dutch East India Company.
The United East India was a chartered company established on 20 March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock company in the world, granting it a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia. Shares in the company could be bought by any resident of the United Provinces and then subsequently bought and sold in open-air secondary markets (one of which became the Amsterdam Stock Exchange). It is sometimes considered to have been the first multinational corporation. It was a powerful company, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike its own coins, and establish colonies.
Statistically, the VOC eclipsed all of its rivals in the Asia trade. Between 1602 and 1796 the VOC sent almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships, and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods. By contrast, the rest of Europe combined sent only 882,412 people from 1500 to 1795, and the fleet of the English (later British) East India Company, the VOC’s nearest competitor, was a distant second to its total traffic with 2,690 ships and a mere one-fifth the tonnage of goods carried by the VOC. The VOC enjoyed huge profits from its spice monopoly through most of the 17th century.
Having been set up in 1602 to profit from the Malukan spice trade, the VOC established a capital in the port city of Jayakarta in 1609 and changed its name to Batavia (now Jakarta). Over the next two centuries the company acquired additional ports as trading bases and safeguarded their interests by taking over surrounding territory. It remained an important trading concern and paid an 18% annual dividend for almost 200 years. Much of the labour that built its colonies was from people it had enslaved.
Weighed down by smuggling, corruption and growing administrative costs in the late 18th century, the company went bankrupt and was formally dissolved in 1799. Its possessions and debt were taken over by the government of the Dutch Batavian Republic. The former territories owned by the VOC went on to become the Dutch East Indies and were expanded over the course of the 19th century to include the entirety of the Indonesian archipelago. In the 20th century, these islands would form the Republic of Indonesia.
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Fun Fact: How the Dutch West India Company (WIC) Contributed to Dutch Wealth
We often hear about the immense impact of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) on the Dutch economy and global trade, but did you know that the Dutch West India Company (WIC) also played a crucial role in shaping the Dutch colonial empire and thereby the wealth of the nation?
Founded in 1621, in an era when the Netherlands was expanding its power and influence across the globe, the WIC was actively involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This dark period in history saw millions of Africans being forcibly transported to the Americas to work on plantations. Although this practice is rightly condemned today, it was a significant source of income and wealth for the Netherlands at the time.
The WIC was also instrumental in colonial expansion in America and West Africa, including establishing colonies in Suriname and the Caribbean. These areas were key to the trade in sugar, tobacco, and other valuable commodities, contributing to the prosperity of the Netherlands.
Besides its economic influence, the WIC also had a lasting social and demographic impact. The slave trade and colonial activities led to the disruption of African communities and the creation of the African diaspora in America, whose effects are still felt today.
While the VOC often gets the spotlight when we talk about Dutch trade history, the WIC played an equally important role in shaping Dutch colonial history and contributing to the economic wealth of the country.
Let's not forget this side of our history as we reflect on the complexity of our historical wealth.
VoC- Verenigde Oost-Indisch Compagnie
Welcome to Indonesia stealer
I dont think you pronounced a single dutch name correctly 😂
Growing up Indonesian, I didn't learn much about the world history instead we were taught about VOC until I was sick of it 😂 I don't want to study them anymore!! But here I am unable to free myself from it 😢
Well, it's nice to watched the history of VoC from another perspective excluding Daendels and his controversial Heerendiensten. Besides my great-granny would laugh if I told her that VoC is a trader 😂
The first governor was jewish coen
Coen is forth governor of VOC
Dutch People arrive at Banten Indonesia on June 1596
De houtman did not have war with banten, they reach madura and bali, they got the pepper from Bali.
Bs
The Major Company of Slavery, they still have two millions of hands cutted to Congolese!
Most older cities in the Netherlands have an “Indische Buurt”, so it’s not something you only see in Amsterdam. Mostly build in the 1920’s 1930’s and have their own distinct architecture.
You have forgotten about the “Rampjaar”, Year of Disaster 1672. We were attacked by the British, French and the Germans (Munster) together in a pact. This had a devastating effect on the Netherlands which would take decades to overcome.
The VOC and The Dutch colonisers owe the South Africa, Malaysia, India, China reparations
The Dutch West India Company was founded in 1621 mainly to carry on economic warfare against Spain and Portugal by striking at their colonies in the West Indies and South America and on the west coast of Africa. The Dutch intended to continue their monopoly on the sugar production business.While attaining its greatest success against the Portuguese in Brazil in the 1630s and ’40s. Even after the Dutch capitulated to the Portuguese in 1654, the Dutch kept slavery and trade control until the company was dissolved in 1794.
The Dutch WIC was granted a monopoly of the trade with the Americas and Africa and the Atlantic regions. With military and financial support from the States General (the Dutch national assembly), the company acquired ports on the west African coast to supply slaves for sugar plantations in the West Indies and South America. In 1641 Holland invaded Angola, on August 25, when Admiral Cornelis Jol invades the territory supported by 18 ships, because the Dutch West India Company needed more slaves to take to the Northeast of Brazil, a region they had occupied since the beginning of the 17th century. Only when Brazil was Dutch and sugar plantation became an ultra lucrative business, thus needing a huge force of arms, did the slave trade become a multibillion business, which financed the banks, insurance and finance of Amsterdam and later expanding to London, France and US.
The West Indian Company which overlooked its territories in the Americas and the VOC (EIC "East Indias Company") for Asia. The two companies came to be among the largest Atlantic slave traders between the 17th and the 19th centuries, shipping and trading more than two million Africans to Brazil and more to the rest of the Americas to work on plantations, including in the WIC territories of Surinam and the Antilles. Unknown to many, however, the Dutch were just as active in Asia. While slavery in Dutch colonies in America is a known historical fact, hardly anyone is aware that up to a million people were bought, sold and had to endure slavery in Holland's largest possession: Indonesia.
In Suriname, even if slavery was officially abolished in 1863, it did not mean that the practice of coerced labour came to an end in Dutch Suriname. Between 1863 and 1873, the ‘formerly’ enslaved were not allowed to leave the plantation system, receiving only a small percentage of the wage rate for free labourers.
It was for the notorious slave trade that the Dutch were best known in Asia.
The indigenous peoples of the Dutch colonies were not spared. In Asia, enslaved people were sold and transported to areas governed by the United Dutch East India Company (VOC). For generations, people were born into slavery and forced to work on Dutch plantations their entire lives. Slavery enabled the Netherlands to become an economic world power.
Praising the West and the East India Company for the economic success, when it was based on slavery, the exploitation of human beings, their imprisonment, torture and death, it is the greatest compliment to racism and inhumanity that anyone can give. The eternal shame of being rich!
The decline of the Dutch East India Company actually started with The Glorious Revolution when influence began to shift from Amsterdam to London.
Nice video! The dutch pronunciations, tho 😂😂😂
I would love a VOC based assassins creed
The Dutch was the weakest of the global empires.
Luckily our government decided to give it all to ZelenSSky
Gekoloniseerd
The DEIC was a gang of terrorists, murderers, thieves, drug dealers & marauders, not a company. The records of their terror campaigs against millions of Asians, East & Southern Africans, make ISIS look like Mickey Mouse
This channel is actually glorifying terrorism …. clearly trying promote a false version of world history.
Proving that DEI screws up everything
Good effort on the Dutch version of the company