HIST363: Global Perspectives on Industrialization

A bond issued by the Dutch East India Company, dating from November 7, 1623, for the amount of 2,400 florins

 

Dutch colonial possessions, with the Dutch East India Company possessions marked in a paler green, surrounding the Indian Ocean plus Saint Helena in the mid-Atlantic.

The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC in old-spelling Dutch) 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 East of the Cape of Good Hope and West of the Straits of Magellan. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock. 

It remained an important trading concern for almost two centuries, paying an 18 percent annual dividend for almost 200 years, until it became bankrupt and was formally dissolved in 1800, its possessions and the debt being taken over by the government of the Batavian Republic. The VOC's territories became the Dutch East Indies and were expanded over the course of the nineteenth century to include the whole of the Indonesian archipelago, and in the 20th century would form Indonesia. The Dutch East India Company impacted on European life, changing its food (adding spice). It also stimulated the development of scholarly interest in the languages, cultures and religions of the territories it acquired within the Dutch academy, to a degree almost unrivaled elsewhere in Europe. It enhanced the status of Holland within Europe, despite the nation's modest size.

Source: New World Encyclopedia, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Dutch_East_India_Company
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