Dutch Empire/The Beginning

“	You probably have to have redundant levee systems with canals in between them, like the Dutch have, to make sure that incoming water is channeled off to areas where you deal with it rather than have it drown you.	”
—Billy Tauzin

As a result of the problems caused by intercompany rivalry, the Dutch East India Company (or VOC, from the Dutch Verenigde Oost-Indische) was founded in 1602. The charter awarded to the Company by the States-General granted it sole rights, for an initial period of twenty-one years, to Dutch trade and navigation east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan. The directors of the company, the "Heeren XVII" were given the legal authority to establish "fortresses and strongholds", to sign treaties, to enlist its own army and navy, and to wage defensive war. The company itself was founded as a joint stock company, similarly to the English East India Company, that had been founded two years earlier. In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was set up and given a twenty-five year monopoly to those parts of the world that were not controlled by its East India counterpart: the Atlantic, the Americas and the west coast of Africa.

Dutch Empire

Introduction • Bibliography • Authors • Glossary • Print Version

Origins of an Empire • Dutch Revolt • The Beginning of an Empire • Asia • The Atlantic • Culture During the Golden Age • Anglo-Dutch Wars • Wars With Sweden • Later Wars • Batavian Republic • Kingdom of Holland • Under the French • Belgian Revolution • Expansion in the East Indies • Suriname and the Caribbean • German Invasion of the Netherlands • Japanese Invasion of the East Indies • Indonesian National Revolution • Suriname Independence • Language • Place Names • Architecture • Kings and Queens • Stadtholders of Holland • Governors-General of the Dutch East Indies • Director-Generals of New Netherland • Governors of Cape Colony • Maps and Pictures