Dutch West India Company

Origins

When the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was founded in 1602, some traders in Amsterdam did not agree with its monopolistic policies. With help from Petrus Plancius, a Dutch-Flemish astronomer, cartographer, and clergyman, they sought for a northeastern or northwestern access to Asia to circumvent the VOC monopoly. In 1609, English explorer Henry Hudson, in employment of the VOC, landed on the coast of New England and sailed up what is now known as the Hudson River in his quest for the Northwest Passage to Asia. However, he failed to find a passage. Consequently, in 1615, Isaac Le Maire and Samuel Blommaert, assisted by others, focused on finding a south-westerly route around South America's Tierra del Fuego archipelago in order to circumvent the monopoly of the VOC.

One of the first sailors who focused on trade with Africa was Balthazar de Moucheron. The trade with Africa offered several possibilities to set up trading posts or factories, an important starting point for negotiations. It was Blommaert, however, who stated that, in 1600, eight companies sailed on the coast of Africa, competing with each other for the supply of copper, from the Kingdom of Loango. Pieter van den Broecke was employed by one of these companies. In 1612, a Dutch fortress was built in Mouree (present day Ghana), along the Dutch Gold Coast.

Trade with the Caribbean, for salt, sugar and tobacco, was hampered by Spain and delayed because of peace negotiations. Spain offered peace on condition that the Dutch Republic would withdraw from trading with Asia and America. Spain refused to sign the peace treaty if a West Indian Company would be established. At this time, the Dutch War of Independence (1568–1648) between Spain and the Dutch Republic was occurring. Grand Pensionary Johan van Oldenbarnevelt offered to suspend trade with the West Indies in exchange for the Twelve Years' Truce. He took the proposal of founding a West-India Company off table. The result was that, during a few years, the Dutch sailed under a foreign flag to South America. However, ten years later, Stadtholder Maurice of Orange, proposed to continue the war with Spain, but also to distract attention from Spain to the Republic. In 1619, his opponent Johan van Oldenbarnevelt was beheaded, and when in April 1621 the truce expired, the West Indian Company could be established.

The West India Company received its charter from the States-General in June 1621, granting it a 24-year monopoly on trade and colonisation that included the American coast between Newfoundland and the Straits of Magellan. One of the promotors was Reynier Pauw, who went on to appoint two of his sons as the first managers in 1621; both Pieter and Michiel Reyniersz Pauw were in place for fifteen years. Reynier Pauw II, Cornelis Bicker, and Samuel Blommaert were appointed in 1622.

Reformation

Becauseof the Peace of Westphalia, the attacks on Spanish shipping were forbidden to the GWC. The Portuguese succeeded in the recapture of Angola. Many merchants from Amsterdam and Zeeland decided to work with marine and merchants from the Holy Roman Empire, Denmark–Norway, England, and other European countries. In 1649, a competing Swedish Africa Company was founded; the GWC obtained a monopoly on gold and enslaved Africans with the kingdom of Accra (present-day Ghana). Elmina Castle was the main port. In 1654, the Dutch were thrown out of Brazil after the recapture of Recife. In 1656, the company signed the Treaty of Butre (Dutch Gold Coast). In 1659, the Danish West India Company, an undercover Dutch enterprise, was founded. In 1660, the Royal African Company was founded, led by the Duke of York.

In 1662, the GWC obtained several asiento subcontracts with the Spanish Crown, under which the Dutch were allowed to deliver 24,000 enslaved Africans. The GWC made Curaçao a centre of the Atlantic slave trade, bringing slaves from West Africa to the island, before selling them elsewhere in the Caribbean and Spanish Main. The influence of the GWC in Africa was threatened during the Second and Third Anglo–Dutch Wars, but English efforts to displace the Dutch from the region ultimately proved unsuccessful.

The first West India Company suffered a long agony, and its end in 1674 was painless. The reason that the GWC could drag on for 27 years seems to have been its valuable West African possessions, due to its slaves.

Settlements in the Americas

There were conflicts between directors from different areas of the Netherlands, with Amsterdam less supportive of the company. Non-maritime cities, including Haarlem, Leiden, and Gouda, along with Enkhuizen and Hoorn were enthusiastic about seizing territory. They sent a fleet to Brazil, capturing Olinda and Pernambuco in 1630 in their initial foray to create a Dutch Brazil, but could not hold them due to a strong Portuguese resistance. Company ships continued privateering in the Caribbean, as well seizing vital land resources, particularly salt pans. The company's general lack of success saw their shares plummet and the Dutch and the Spanish renewed truce talks in 1633.

In 1629, the GWC gave permission to a number of investors in New Netherland to found patroonships, enabled by the Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions which was ratified by the Dutch States General on 7 June 1629. The patroonships were created to help populate the colony, by providing investors grants providing land for approximately 50 people "upwards of 15 years old", per grant, mainly in the region of New Netherland. Patroon investors could expand the size of their land grants as large as 6.5 km (4 mi), "along the shore or along one bank of a navigable river..." Rensselaerswyck was the most successful Dutch West India Company patroonship.

The New Netherland colony, which included New Amsterdam, covered parts of present-day New York, Connecticut, Delaware, and New Jersey, with Manhattan and Fort Amsterdam serving as the first capital. Other settlements were established on the Netherlands Antilles, and in South America; in Dutch Brazil, Suriname and Guyana.

In Africa, posts were established on the Dutch Gold Coast (now Ghana), the Slave Coast (now Benin), and briefly in Dutch Loango-Angola. It was a neo-feudal system, where patrons were permitted considerable powers to control the overseas colony.

In the Americas, fur (North America) and sugar (South America) were the most important trade goods, while African settlements traded the enslaved (mainly destined for the plantations on the Antilles and Suriname), gold, copper, and ivory.