Dutch East Indies Company – Oldest Share

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Why Doesn’t Indonesia Speak Dutch?? (Documentary)

February 3, 2021. Note to readers: I have noticed that in past few days that this particular blog entry has gotten close to 500 hits, a lot for such a subject. My assumption, I might be wrong, is that some college class either in History or Global Political Economy stumbled across it – and deciding that it might be useful – has shared it with many. Of course I am pleased to be able to share my understanding. For your information – I taught Global Political Economy at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies for 23 years. In that course I often referred to the dramatic rise  (and fall) in hegemony of the United Province (modern day Netherlands). It was a case study and, as it is historic, it is easier to look at the factors that led to the rise and fall of this 16th – 17th century unlikely superpower than looking at more modern examples – UK, USA which are more controversial.

In the broad context – although the details are different, the fate of Great Britain in the 19th and early 20th century and that of the United States in the second half of the 20th and now, beginning of the 21st reflects similar parallels. Anyhow, whomever you are – there is nothing more satisfying for the academic that I was than sharing knowledge, insights.

Best wishes, Rob Prince/ (happily) retired Senior Lecturer of International Studies, University of Denver, Korbel School of International Studies – 1992-2015

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The Rise and Fall of the VOC

1500s – Already by the early 1500s the Dutch were flexing their muscles in the Baltic Sea region controlling more and more of the Baltic trade and taking it away, piece by piece, from the Hanseatic League. In what were known as “the Lubeck Wars” over time, the Dutch wrestled control of the Baltic maritime trade from Lubeck. Lubeck falls into decline; Hamburg with its access to the Atlantic and better relations with the Dutch begins its ascent.

1512  – or there abouts. The Portuguese, after the voyages of Vasco de Gama, dominate the East Indies cloves trade from this date for over a century, until they are expelled by the Dutch.

1568 – The execution of two Dutch nobles, Counts Egmont and Horne, ignites what will be known as “The Eighty Years’ War” between the northern Dutch provinces and the Hapsburg Empire based in Spain. It marks the beginning of the Dutch extraction from Hapsburg control.

1570 – When the Portuguese demanded a monopoly, total domination of Tenate clove trade. The Portuguese kidnapped the island’s sultan, tortured and killed him in a fort Lisbon had established on the island. This triggered an island-wide rebellion. The Tenatians laid siege to the fort for five years. Starvation forced them to surrender. This ended the Portuguese stranglehold on Tenate. Portuguese influence dwindled. The Dutch will soon thereafter take over the Tenate clove trade.

1579 – The Union of Utrecht is concluded between the seven northern Dutch provinces, transforming what was a temporary alliance (against Hapsburg Spain) into the political foundation of the Dutch Republic.

1585 – The fall of Antwerp (to the Hapsburg forces) which resulted in the rise of Amsterdam as the center of the European “carrying trade”.

1588 – The defeat of the Spanish Armada permitted the Dutch fleet to challenge Spanish naval power far afield and opened Dutch maritime commercial trade to greater naval protection. In its aftermath, the Dutch are able to challenge the power of the Hapsburgs internationally in a manner that they could not do previously.

1594 – Compagnie Van Verre is formed (The Company of Trade With Distant Lands)

1595 – Compagnie Van Verre organizes a four ship fleet for the Orient. It arrives near Jakarta on July 22, 1596. Cornelis de Houtman makes a treaty of alliance with the sultan of Bantam. It is the beginning of the Dutch usurpation of Portuguese control of the East Indies trade.

1595 – Dutch ships begin visiting the harbors of the Greater Antilles.

1598 – Compagnie Van Verre dissolved; new companies formed. 22 ships leave for the Orient of which eight returned loaded with spices to turn a profit of 400%

1598 – Dutch salt traders, unable to secure salt in Portugal, began to exploit the immense deposits around the lagoon at Araya, near Cumaná in Venezuela. According to the Spanish governor, from 1600 to 1606 his province was visited every year by 120 foreign ships, most of which were Dutch salt carriers of an average capacity of some 300 tons. Dutch traders also came to Cumaná bringing cloth and hardware, taking Venezuelan tobacco and Margarita pearls. In 1609 with the truce between the United Provinces and Spain, the old Setúbal (Portugal) trade was resumed and the Araya voyages disappeared.

1599 – In this year, the Dutch East Indies Company, which supplied the English market with peppers and spices, felt sufficiently strong against its competitors in the East Indies, the Portuguese, to raise the price of pepper from 3 to 6 shillings a pound. The English resisted “this arbitrary rise in prices of a commodity so essential as pepper and decided to to break the monopoly by going to fetch their own supply. At the time, the English failed to break the Dutch monopoly and were not able to do so until the middle of the 18th century, 150 years on. At the time, 1599, the English were so focused on India that Dutch supremacy of the Malay Archipelago was reluctantly accepted.

1599 – In the Spring of this year, the Dutch reach the Banda Naira, today capitol of the Banda Islands, at that point unique source of the world’s nutmeg. The Dutch had “found the land where gold grew on trees.” That same year they also arrive at Tenate, center of the clove trade. They also dominated the clove trade on Ambon. To dominate the market they decided to limit it therefore pushing up the price in Europe. Ambon would keep its cloves but every single tree on Tenate would be destroyed.

The Dutch told the people of Tenate that the Europeans didn’t want cloves anymore, they wanted whole branches, and then they wanted bark, and then clove tree roots. One by one the clove trees of Tenate started to die apart from one sapling being kept the sultan’s palace. It serves as “an arboreal `up yours’ to the colonizers” because the Dutch are gone but the cloves remain. Tenatians believe that every tree on the island descends from that sapling.

1600 – Amsterdam has a population of 50,000. Read more…