Tfie Wor{i( of tfie Dutch East India Company In 2 002, the Netherlands celebrates the 400th anniversary of the Dutch East India Company. The Maritime Museum Rotterdam and the Netherlands Maritime Museum Amsterdam collaborated on exhibits exploring Asian influence on European culture. This article is adapted from a piece from the Netherlands Maritime Museum based on the exhibits. our hundred years ago, on 20 M arch 1602, the Vereenigde Oost-Indische C ompagnie (VO C), or U nited East India Company, was es tablished by the States General of the Dutch Republic to unite the disparate Dutch companies that were competing with each other fo r the lucrative trade with Asia. T he overseas co mmercial activities of the company made a deep impression on its contemporaries, and the history of the company speaks to the imagination of a present-day audience. T he United Eastlndia Company quickly expanded to become the greatest commerci al enterprise in the world, a position that it managed to maintain for almost 200 years. T he VO C had thousands of emp loyees based in no fewer than thirty posts in Asia-the primary one in Batavia (now Jakarta), on the island of Java-and six in the Dutch Republic, each with its own offices, warehouses, and wharves . Over 200 years, their ships made nearly 5,000 voyages to Asian ports, returning with goods sold for almost two billion flor ins.
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Spices Spice fever led European traders-first the Portuguese, then th e Spanish, and thereafter the English and the Dutch- to Asia. T here were immense profits to be had from selling spices to the European elite who used them as both a curative and a fl avo r enhancer and we re prepared to pay a steep price for them. Nonetheless, it was not easy to make real money in the spice trade. T he fitting out of ships for such a long voyage was costly, the passage around the tip of Africa was dangerous, and conductin g business in far-off foreign ports was difficult. The pepper, cloves, mace, and n utm eg were cultivated and prepared by local populations and cam e into the hands of Europeans through the agency of native prin ces or merchants. Only a small quantity of a spice was
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necessary to flavor a stew, soup , or apple tart. If spices arri ving simultaneously in Europe ensured a broader ma rket, it also meant that sales wo uld be in smaller quantities. T he market was soon saturated, leading to a fall in prices . There was thus no furth er chance to make the huge profits necessary to cover the risks of the trade. H ence, whoever wanted to make money in spices had to ensure that the market at home was never oversupplied , and es tablishing a monopoly was the best guarantee of this. Th e Portuguese enj oyed that position from the beginning of the 1500s, but one hundred years later, the Dutch and the E nglish encroached upon and eventually too k over the Portuguese monopoly.
Ceylon T he VOC pitted themselves against European co mpeti to rs and the islanders of the Banda Sea, monopolizing the spice trade by fo rce. O ne island thus wrested from the Portuguese, Ceylon, was the only place where the finest cinnamon could be found in commercial quan tities. In 1637 the king of Ka ndy-th e only native monarch wh o had not been deposed-as ked for Dutch mil itary support to drive the Portuguese from the island. In exchange the Dutch wo uld be granted a trade monopoly in cinnamon and elephants. When the Portuguese finally departed in 1658, the kin g and the voe disputed the terms of their agreement. The king wanted undi vided sove reignty over the island , offering to repay Dutch military expenditures in cinn amon and elephants. Bu t the VOC set the king's war debts so high that he was unable to liquidate them in the short term . Thus, the Dutch held the cinnamo n-producin g areas taken from the Portuguese as securi ty. T he VO C undertook several military expeditions against the king between 1660 and 168 0 but never managed to break native resistance. Only in the late 1600s did king and co mpany hit upon an arrangement: the Dutch wo uld retain their possessions in Ceylon, but wo uld manage the terri to ries (completely at their own discretion) in th e king's name. T he acknowledgmen t of the king as sovereign authority over the enti re island took the form of a yearly voe delegation to the royal court, the company paying tribute with Persian horses or porcelain .
Over time, the company became increasingly dependent fo r cinnamon on the king, who became less disposed to cooperate. T his simmering conflict came suddenly to the boil in 1760 , wh en the Kandy War broke out. T he VO C initially could not co unter native guerrilla forces but eventually won the war. Under the Treaty of Colombo (1 766), the king reigned in his kingdom in the interior, but all coastal areas fo rmally came under voe administration. Dutch Profit from Intra-Asian Trade D uring the ti me of th e VO C, the C hinese and Dutch were the only outsiders allowed to enter Japan. H ence, the VOC had a great co mpetiti ve adva ntage over the ir European rivals. T he co mpany could acqui re silve r and go ld from Japan in exchange for products such as textiles from India, deerskins from Fo rmosa (T aiwan) and Siam (Thailand), and skate skins from India and Siam. The Dutch used th e Japanese precious metals as a medium of exchange th ro ughout Asia, making Japan a crucial link in the VO C's tradin g system, while other trad ers had to brin g precious metals all the way from Europe. In the Dutch Eas t India C ompany's trade with China, for example, they could pay for tea with silver or pepper acquired elsewhere in Asia, giving them more fl exibility than competitors wh o had to co me from Europe carrying gold and silver. After 1760, however, the co untry traders, pri vate English merchants trading independently in Asia, took over the VO C's successfu l methods. T hey worked closely with England's East India Company, and th e voe found itself unequal to such a powerful combination . The Dutch were obliged to leave the tea trade in English hands. In India, the VOC' s fo rtified warehouses and military posts stood in the center of bustling ports such as Surat in the northwest, along the Coromandel Coas t, and in the northeast, spread ac ross the Ganges delta in Bengal. It was only thanks to special privileges granted by the G reat Mogul that the Dutch and other Europeans could maintain their positi on aga inst local merchants. The VOC was the mos t powerful trader in India for decades, bu t experienced strong competition from Asian merchants and from their European rivals. Eventually, the British East India Com-
SEA HISTORY 102, AUTUMN 2002