Company Dutchwoman of the Eastern Indies

The Compagnie Dutchwoman of the Eastern Indies ( Vereenigde Oostindische Company or Dutch VOC, literally “plain Company of the Eastern Indies”) is a company of trade created by the United Provinces in 1602. It is during nearly two centuries one of the pillars of the power of the Capitalisme and the Impérialisme Dutch. Dissolved at the end of the 18th century, the company remains today one of the capitalist companies most powerful which ever existed.

Created whereas capitalism is still in gestation in a feudal world , it inspired several great characteristics of the modern companies: the model of the Public limit company emitting actions and obligations as well as the model of the Multinational established in countries with the other end of the world. It is most influential of the founded European companies at the 17th century to exploit the richnesses of Asia.

On the political plan, the conquests of the company make it possible the United Provinces then with the Netherlands to lay out of a colonial empire significant in Asia until in second half of the 20th century.

See also: Company of the Indies

historical Remarks of vocabulary: the United Provinces correspond about to the current Netherlands. In the same way, Ceylon is current the Sri Lanka, Batavia and Jacatra current the Jakarta, and Formosa current the Taiwan

Creation of the company

Following the Crusade S opening the roads of the East, the marketing activities and financial support the capitalism incipient from the Italian republics with length from before the trade also does not benefit the England and with the countries of the the North Sea. Two large poles concentrate the trade of Europe, Italy of North and the countries of the Baltique where the Hanseatic League thrives since the Moyen-âge.

The end of the 15th century is marked by the Grandes discoveries: the America by Christophe Colomb in 1492 but especially Asia (the Indies) thanks to the skirting of the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese Vasco de Gama in 1488.

At the dawn of the 16th century, powerful République of Venice dominates the sea the Mediterranean, and by there, thanks to its relations with the counters of the the Middle East the trade of the products come from the Raising and the Indian Ocean. The control of these products come from the Far East by caravan or ship ensures to him the domination of the markets of Europe. This domination starts however to be disputed by the town of Antwerp, become the warehouse of the Poivre imported by Portugal, using the new sea route of the South.

Starting from the Years 1570, the trade of Venice in the Mediterranean is put at evil by the Scandinavian merchants who flood the markets of counterfeited products, going as far as decorating their fabrics of the Venetian Sceau in order to reinforce the attraction with it. Mediterranean industry then loses at the same time its customers and his fame. During this time Spain sets up the trade of the Or coming from the new territories which she discovered while crossing the Atlantique. But she knows in her turn an important decline at the end of the 16th century. In Spain as in many catholic countries, the Church control the diffusion of the ideas associated with the Rebirth and the Reform and blocks any evolution. The Spanish armada is demolished in 1588.

At the beginning of the 17th century, the United Provinces are still in war against the Spanish crown to obtain their independence. The social situation is there different from that of the rest of Europe. The trade is developed there, the nobility lost there its capacity with the profit of a powerful middle-class elite . The country is famous for its tolerance on the religious level and for its advanced agricultural techniques.

At the end of the 16th century, the Dutchmen start to be interested in the Indies. Several spies are sent there on Portuguese ships. Among them, Cornelis de Houtman share in 1592 but it is uncovered on its arrival and jeté in prison. The merchants of Rotterdam pay its ransom and this one returns in Holland. It sets out again at once with four ships of which three return to Amsterdam in 1597, without to have made substantial Profit S. But forwarding is only one precedent with the development of an important trade that the declining Portuguese Empire cannot counter. Between 1598 and 1602, the Dutchmen send 65 ships divided of 14 fleets towards the Indian Ocean. In 1600, Dutch vessels arrive at the Japan, then in China the following year. The fleets which succeed in returning allow benefit reaching up to 265%, but those Ci could be still increased, if there were not a multiplicity of companies being made an unrestrained competition in Asia.

The various companies trying to open the Indian Ocean with the Dutch trade are finally gathered the March 20th 1602 within a single company, the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC, in French: Plain company of the Eastern Indies).

Organization of the company

The intervention of the General states of the United Provinces and notable Dutch to create a single company then has also a military goal. Indeed, the small preexistent companies were not able to support the effort of war of the United Provinces against the Spain and the Portugal. In fact, the first Flotte S which the company sends towards the the Indies are strongly armed, not for territorial annexations but in the objective to cause the most possible damage with the trade Spanish and Portuguese.

Administration

The VOC was managed by six rooms, each one representing a city and its neighborhoods (Amsterdam, Zealand (Middelbourg), Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn and Enkhuizen) and preserving an autonomous capacity of decision. The intervention of the State was determining to link them. Indeed, the rooms having to constitute the VOC had not accommodated the idea of a union with enthusiasm. Among them, five feared that such a union is done only with the profit of the sixth, most important: Amsterdam.

The unit between the rooms is carried out by an assembly of directors, the Bewindhebbers , initially 73, then 60, appointed for lives by the various gathered companies. Their function is to ensure the communication and collaboration between the VOC and the General states.

The direction of the businesses of the company is entrusted to the Council of the Seventeen, of Heeren Zeventien , composed of seventeen representatives of the six rooms. Each one has a number of representatives proportional at his financial participation. Thus, on the seventeen members, eights are named by the room of Amsterdam which financed half of the expenditure of the organization. The Council thus formed meets three times per annum, the company thus constituting the first large Public limit company of the history. The political power granted to him by a charter the Monopole of the trade with the Indies for 21 years, trades that the company claimed to prohibit to the other European merchants.

In the financial plan, the company is a Public limit company with dimensions in Bourse. It distributes Dividende S which often reach 25 to 30%, so that the value of the stock exchange actions knows a strong flight, passing from 3000 guilders to the creation of the company in 1602 with: 18000 guilders in 1670. For as much the financial organization of the VOC is relatively rudimentary: it does not have a regular Comptabilité and does not emit official results. The financial results presented annually to the General states relate to only the assets and the debts of the company in Europe, being unaware of those of the the Indies.

This disconcerting accountancy which poses problems with the modern quantitative history to apprehend the profits of the company also was very criticized at the time. At the end of the 17th century the president of the Council of the XVII, Johannes Hudde, tries to reform the countable system of the VOC, but this initiative does not succeed. In fact, there exists within the company a conflict of interests between the shareholders and the leaders. The shareholders always wanted accounts and more precise assessments estimating than their dividends were insufficient and than the company benefitted from the absence of system of precise accountancy to hide its Bénéfice S. However, the directors of the company always succeeded in with final maintaining accounts obscure favorable to the good progress of their business, not leaving of another choice to the shareholders to sell their participation if they were not satisfied.

These capacities, the VOC has about it on one of the greatest empires the world, at side of which the United Provinces seem tiny. Although the company remains under the control of the various rooms composing it and remains largely dependant on the diplomacy of the metropolis, it is conscious of its capacity and does not miss arrogance with respect to the State. Thus in the middle of 17th century, directors of company go until to claim that “places and fortresses that the Heeren XVII had conquered in the Eastern Indies were not to regard as conquests national, but like property of merchants private, which was in right to sell them with which they would like, even if it acted of king d' Espagne or any other enemy of the United Provinces. ” It was of course never thus.

Gigantism of the VOC

To evaluate the importance of the VOC, often described like the first multinational, one can advance some statistics.

In two centuries of existence the company armed approximately: 4700 ships, of which: 3000 at only the 18th century. On these ships, the company made travel approximately a million Europeans. The volume of its trade exceeded: 1600 million guilders at the 18th century.

To its merchant fleet, the company can add in time of war more than 40 large vessels, which exceeds the possibilities of many European kingdoms.

Territorial expansion

The first complete fleet of the VOC takes broad the December 18th 1603 with commercial objectives and soldiers. The latter, directed against the Portuguese already installed on the coasts of Africa, in the Indian Ocean and in insular Southeast Asia, appear initially unrealizable for the fleets Dutchwomen. Only the fort of Ambon to the Moluques goes in 1605.

Seeking a strategic point from where to organize its trade in Asia, the company settles with Java where are already present the English and the tradesmen Chinese. It establishes in 1610 a fort with Jayakarta, vassal of the sultanate of Banten. In 1613, the company names Jan Pieterszoon Coen managing director of its trade in Asia. That Ci wishes to make of Jayakarta the center Dutch commercial in the area. Banten, suzerain de Jayakarta, are opposed to it. In 1619 Coen, just become general governor of the VOC, takes the head of a fleet left Moluques and takes Jayakarta. It shaves the city to found the capital of the VOC in Asia, Batavia.

Batavia and Indonesia

But the territorial expansion of the company is especially centered on Batavia. The process of colonization starting from Batavia is progressive and is spread out over more than one century. In 1620, the Agung Sultan of Mataram, most powerful of the kingdoms of Java, launches out in an expansionist policy and threatens, in vain, Batavia. After the death of Agung, the company takes part in the conflicts of successions on the throne of this kingdom and obtains the control of the Pesisir , the northern coast of Java. Arguments on the throne of Java lead to new territorial expansions of the VOC so that about 1755 what remains of Mataram is divided into two kingdoms. At the end of the XVIIIe century, the VOC controls the island of Java, the island of Célèbes and in addition to Moluques.

As at Ceylon, the company preserves at the beginning the traditional organization of the local companies by taking the place granted to the former sovereign and by preserving the local Aristocratie, before developing a European bureaucracy gradually.

South Africa

See also History of South Africa - the arrival of Europeans

In 1647, a ship of the VOC, the Haarlem run aground in South Africa and the crew remains on the spot during several months before being able to regain the Holland. The account of their adventure inspires the VOC. The company, wishing to halfway establish a port allowing the supply of its ships of the Indies, sends a task force towards the Cape of Good Hope which unloads on April 7th, 1652 there. At its head, Jan van Riebeeck founds the colony of the Cape.

The colony of the Cape which cannot become a profitable commercial counter, the company gradually decides to make a colony of settlement of it. Starting from the end of the 17th century the encouragement with immigration causes the arrival of colonists of other nations, causing an important European settlement in the country. The colony, disputed at the end of the 18th century becomes British in 1814.

Structure of the trade

The function of the company consists in establishing a junction between what Fernand Braudel calls of the economy-worlds, i.e. geographical spaces forming each one a coherent and autonomous economic whole: Europe on the one hand, Asia on the other hand. Consequently the trade of the company is done in two times: the voyage from Amsterdam with Batavia and the voyage of Batavia to Amsterdam.

For as much, the company does not become the simple instrument of an commercial exchange between two areas of the world. It does not export almost any European richness towards Asia. In fact, it practices in Asia a trade of India in India which provides him the products necessary to the purchase of the food products intended to be sold in Europe.

Trade of India in India

The trade of India in India has the aim of binding between them the various areas of the Asian economy-world, each one having its resources and its needs which the Cabotage of long distance can answer. The installation of this trade makes it possible to accumulate the noble metals necessary to the local expenditure of the company without making necessary to import them in excess since the European metropolis.

The Netherlanders had in the Far East two monopolies, that of the access to the Japanese market and that of fine spices: Mace, Nutmeg, Cloves and grooves. Each one of these monopolies were narrowly controlled by the company which confined the production on a restricted insular territory and made sure that no other territory came to dispute the monopoly. If need be, the Dutchmen paid the local sovereigns so that they tear off their cultures or made sure by the military invasion that such area would not produce such spice.

For the Dutchmen, the control of fine spices gave access to many markets of Asia. But the company is also devoted to simple activities of intermediary of the exchanges, buying to exchange further and so on. For example, the company exports coast of Surate textile towards Ceylon and Batavia. Always in Surate, it buys enormous volumes of Indian textiles, and it then exchanges them in Sumatra against Poivre, Or and Camphre. The Dutchmen sell with the Siam spices, pepper and Corail against the tin, of which they reserved the trade, but also of gold, of the skins of stag S intended for the Japanese, of the elephant S for the Bengal. The latter country provides to the company the Soie, the Riz, the Salpêtre, while the Japanese provide the Cuivre… It is only one enumeration partial of many flows that orchestra the company, everywhere where an occasion of profit is profiled.

“In this coastal traffic with long distance, given goods order some another, this one goes ahead of of a third and so on. We are there inside the Asian economy-worlds which form an alive unit. ” Fernand Braudel

This “coastal traffic” knows its apogee in the middle of the 17th century before starting a decline, and with him that of the company in Asia ( cf table below).

Trade with the United Provinces

In Amsterdam, the loadings of ships of the company returning of the Indies are sold with small purchasers or trade unions of merchants. Those buy sometimes the whole cargo. These last operations return within the framework of very precise contracts, prohibiting for example the company from reselling in Amsterdam the same goods during a certain time in order to ensure the trade union of merchants that it would have quasi a monopoly enabling him to fix a relatively high price. |style=" vertical-align: top" width=" 70%" | |} |}

Maritime means of the VOC

Vessels

As for each European company intended to trade with the Eastern Indies, the ships are not simple tradind ships, they have their own denomination, " retourschepen" for the VOC, like the British name the their " East Indiamen" and their construction is relatively standardized, as the standards established by Heeren XVII testify some.

The length of the voyage and the risks incurred bring to build ships solid and able to be defended by themselves. The warships are used as model, but, according to the wanted size, the vessel to be built takes as a starting point a frigate or by a ship of the line.

Tonnage increases with the passing of years, but the majority of the vessels measure between 600 and 1200 barrels. For the latter, dimensions are close to those of the ship of the lines of 64 guns, i.e. among most powerful of the naval armies of the time. In 1697, Heeren XVII enact a construction standard which will remain in force until the end of the 18th century. Thus, a vessel of 1000 barrels or more will have to be 160 feet length, dimension equivalent to that of one 64 guns. But when the 64 guns becomes obsolete, to yield the place to the 74, the vessels of the company will not follow the movement.

Their appearance is similar to that of the men-of-war, to the armament; for example, in 1645, the Jonker raises 42 parts of guns, of the 36 pounds to the 3 books. However, with the passing of years, the number of parts will be able to decrease, of number as in gauge. Ports of the low battery not sheltering more guns.

Inside, all is made to release a great volume of hold. For example, what is called the " false-pont" do not exist any more. One of the most notable modifications is the site of the drinking water hold. It is placed all with front, always with the aim of release the maximum of space. This choice will result in to influence nautical qualities of the ship.

Beside the types of described vessels, one finds also flutes, smaller ships, adapted to the trade of India in India, even, as from 1788, of the Paquebot S having to rejoin the Cape in three months and Batavia into five.

Each room preserved a shipyard for the VOC. For smallest, it will be even their only point of meeting with the oceanic big business. The decisions of construction are made each year, in spring, by Heeren XVII, for the 18 following months. Then, these constructions are distributed between the various building sites.

Out of Europe, the VOC has a building site, supplied well, in Batavia. But it will be confined with the maintenance of the ships, the near total of constructions coming from Europe.

Thus, in two centuries, the Dutch building sites will have produced 1367 vessels, of which the half in Amsterdam and a fifth in Zealand.

In 1730, to build a vessel of 600 barrels totals 85.000 guilders. It is used during approximately 10 years, except accident, and makes approximately four voyages. But, after each voyage, a repair, whose cost is assembled to approximately 1/3 of the price of construction, is necessary.

The robustness is required in the construction industry, but the costs are supervised. Thus, the Heeren XVII , will refuse copper doubling of the hulls, that the British carry out as much to support the speed of their buildings that to protect them from the tarets. Another difference with the British company, the VOC forever recourse to the hiring of vessels.

Sailors

The fleet of the VOC mobilizes each year of the thousands of men, even if the number of sailors per barrel with tendency to decrease with the passing of years, of 45 for the decade 1630 to 25 for the decade 1780. But this evolution is compensated by the increase in tonnage.

Officers

The officers are recruited by the VOC which draws up each year a table of loading. It is captains about the role or the new ones promoted among the officers as a second, even of captains coming from the navy of Dutch war.

Although the wages are equivalent to those of the other commercial naval officers, this employment is very required. Because, as in the other companies, the officers profit from a right of " pacotille". I.e. the company authorizes each officer to transport personal goods. For the VOC, that results in a volume corresponding to one or more trunks, of which the number and the size are fixed by a payment. If the officer is free filling of his trunks, the sale will be carried out by the company which will transfer the amount obtained. This to prevent that the officer does not privilege his own interests with the detriment of those of the company.

Sailors

The VOC has important requirements as sailors; one counts approximately 7500 sailors per annum (of which 3000 only will return and be able to set out again, more because of the desertions deaths). Although the national sailors are privileged, the company is obliged to recruit where it can it. What does not prevent the restrictions, as that which states: " … in the same way neither English will be allowed neither French nor Scot, even not as sailors, soldiers or differently. All the other nations must be preferred, as far as possible, with these… ".

There are thus recruiters who traverse Europe to recruit sailors. They convoient them in Holland where they are paid on the commitment premium poured with the new sailors. In 1730, the Dutchmen ensure nothing any more but 40% of the crews.

The wages are lower of almost a third compared to that of a workman. But there are compensations, since the sailors also profit from the right of shoddy goods.

The sailors will frequently desert to find loadings paid better and a discipline less marked than on the vessels of the company.

Other people

The soldiers are of big number. They are also mainly mercenaries. They are charged to defend the vessel against a possible enemy but also against a claiming crew. One counts some from 80 to 300 per convoy, representing nearly 30% to embarked. To give an example, the fleet of Christmas of 1644 includes/understands 5 vessels and 835 sailors for 320 soldiers.

They sign a 5 years engagement, voyages not included/understood. The pay is of 9 guilders per month (1745); it is less than one workman, but it is placed and nourished. They ensure the garrison of the vessel on which they are placed, but also are used for defense of the counters.

Beside the soldiers, one finds many people embarked with different titles, passengers with the chaplains, while passing by all the essential specialities (of the wet cooper to the butcher, for example).

The voyage

To profit from the best conditions of navigation, the departures take place between October and March. The VOC gives 3 successive departures. It there with the “fleet of the Fair” at the end of the fair of Amsterdam, at the beginning of October, the “fleet of Christmas”, at the end of December and the “fleet of spring”, at the beginning of April.

The voyage return ticket, takes a score of month. The fleets are in general gathered with the Texel, then, according to the military conditions weather and circumstances, cross the English Channel or sail round British Isles. The first stopover is often with the Cape Verde. It makes it possible to be restocked with water and to embark fresh vivres. The second stopover is in the Cape and hard 3 to 4 weeks.

In the Indian Ocean, there are traditionally three roads. The VOC privileges that of the south which follows it parallel of the Cape, in the howling 40e, then goes back to north towards the strait of the Probe when the islands Saint-Paul or Amsterdam are recognized. This road is longer, of almost one month if one goes to Canton, but offers the advantage of being less sensitive to the effects of monsoon and thus usable by all times. The VOC offers premiums at the speed. The captain who makes the way in 6 months, receives a premium of 500 guilders; 300 per 7 months, 150 per 8 months.

The risks are initially related to the state of the sea. Thus, in 1737, seven ships disappear from a blow on the way of the return after the stopover of the Cape. The captures, by pirates, enemies or other companies, are about stable for the VOC with XVIIe and XVIIIe centuries, with less than 10% of losses. Let us note that this percentage is quite lower than that of the French company, but that takes account of periods of belligerency much longer.

Decline

Why more the large company of the world did go bankrupt? Several theses, moreover noncontradictory, were advanced. Some stress the importance of the corruption of the agents of the company, others the increasing costs of the management of the territorial empire, the transformation of the request on the European markets, the emergence of British capitalism, or the animated history of the United Provinces at the 18th century.

Profits and dividends

A first explanation of the decline of the VOC is in the division of the benefit of its trade. According to calculations of B. Van der Oudermeulen carried out a score of years before the disappearance of the company, its Profit S Nets remained relatively modest beside the Dividende S poured with its shareholders. As of its beginnings, between the 1612 and 1654 company carried out an average annual benefit of: 440000 guilders, is 3 times less than the dividends which it poured with its shareholders. In spite of the weight of the dividends, she manages to increase her profits until the end of the 17th century, period as from which begins the decline. According to the same source, it would not carry out any more benefit as from 1724, then would start to be involved in debt, going as far as borrowing to pay dividends with the shareholders. At the end of the 18th its debt rises to 105 million guilders.

From which do these debts come? It seems that the pole of Batavia was the first to be involved in debt, not because the commercial economic situation is bad, but because the VOC is competed with by the alien companies, in particular East India Company, and because it did not know to include/understand the transformations of the world commerce starting from the end of the 17th century.

Evolution of the trade

As from 1670, the importance of pepper on the European markets tends to decrease, that of fine spices is stable while new goods are essential, the such The, the Café, the Laque and the Porcelaine of China. To these changes of the demand for Europe an upheaval of trade route in Asia is added, and the VOC did not adapt the organization of its trade. Main development lies in the trade of the and the opening of China on the European trade. Only the English set up a direct trade with China implying the, the Coton and later the Opium. The VOC does not break with its practices, limiting its relation with China to the trade carried out with Batavia by the jonques arrivals of Canton. Attempts at direct trade are however made, but they do not meet same success as the English. The internal wars in India in addition weaken the Dutch trade with the coast of Coromandel.

Corruption

The difficulties of the company also hold of the endemic Corruption which reigns in its rows. Contrary to the East India Company, the VOC does not authorize its agents to make trade of India in India for their own account, limiting the personal success appropriatenesses then. The corruption of the agents of the company is announced as of the Années 1650.

The social transformations of colonial with Batavia explain also this rise of the traffic of Contrebande which comes to meet the needs for the expenditure from luxury for the Dutchmen installed with Batavia. In fact, the Dutchmen throw themselves in individual traffics which cause wrong to the businesses of the company.

This corruption does not save Amsterdam. The Council of the XVII does not have in theory not the right to buy goods sold by the company, but their families or their entourage do it. This prohibition does not strike besides the directors of the company. Also the sale contracts of the products are often done with the disadvantage of the company and the profit of its leaders, related to the various mediums of businesses of Amsterdam. The lack of being able of the shareholders prevent them from being opposed to such practices. In fact, more than to the shareholders, the leaders of the company are more or less with the service of tall the capitalist who buy in mass the cargoes of the VOC to distribute them in the United Provinces but also through the Europe. “the VOC is a machine which stops where begins the benefit of the commercial monopolies. ”

These practices are often denounced. Thus since 1629, the room of Zealand had refused to deliver some of its goods sold by the company, and its delegates had declared in front of the General states that the policy of the leaders of the company took into account neither the interests of the shareholders, nor even those of the company.

See too

Related articles

External bonds

  • F.S. Gaasra "Voc - Organization"
  • Dr. Thomas Crump '' The History off the Dutch East Indies Company ''
  • the oldest action - the oldest action in world (VOC 1606)

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