Dutch West India Company

(noun)

Dutch West India Company was a chartered company (known as the "WIC") of Dutch merchants.

Related Terms

Examples of Dutch West India Company in the following topics:

  • The Dutch Empire

    • In 1602, the government of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands chartered the Dutch East India Company with the mission of exploring for a passage to the Indies and claiming any uncharted areas for the United Provinces.
    • In 1609, the Dutch East India Company commissioned English explorer Henry Hudson who, in an attempt to find the fabled northwest passage to the Indies, discovered and claimed for the VOC parts of the present-day United States and Canada.
    • In 1621, a new company was established with a trading monopoly in the Americas and West Africa: the Dutch West India Company.
    • The new company sought recognition for New Netherland as a province, which was granted in 1623.
    • In 1626, the Director of the Dutch West India Company, Peter Minuit, purchased the island of Manhattan from the Lenape and started the construction of Fort Amsterdam, which grew to become the main port and capital, New Amsterdam .

  • The Demographics of the Middle Colonies

    • Munsee inhabited the Highlands, Hudson Valley, and northern New Jersey, while Minquas, also known as the Susquehannocks, lived west of the Zuyd River along and beyond the Susquehanna River.
    • They were erroneously labeled the Pennsylvania Dutch and comprised one-third of the population by the time of the American Revolution.
    • Other groups included the Welsh, Dutch, Swedes, Swiss, Scots Highlanders, and Huguenots.
    • The Dutch West India Company introduced slavery to New Netherland in 1625.
    • When the colony fell to the British, the Company freed all of its slaves, establishing early on a nucleus of free Africans in the Northeast.

  • From New Netherland to New York

    • In 1609, Henry Hudson, an English explorer, was hired by the Flemish Protestants running the Dutch East India Company in Amsterdam to find a northeast passage to Asia.
    • The Munsee inhabited the Hudson Valley highlands and northern New Jersey, while Minquas (called the Susquehannocks by the English) lived west of the Zuyd River along and beyond the Susquehanna River, which the Dutch regarded as their boundary with Virginia.
    • The Dutch West India Company had introduced slavery in 1625.
    • When the colony fell, the company freed all its slaves, establishing early on a nucleus of free blacks.
    • After one of the proprietors sold part of the area to the Quakers, New Jersey was divided into East Jersey and West Jersey—two distinct provinces of the proprietary colony.

  • Freedom in New Netherland

    • The Dutch colony of New Netherland changed hands several times and eventually ceded, transferring permanently to Britain in 1674.
    • They met no resistance; the West India Company that ran the colony had proven uninterested in installing a protective garrison to defend against English encroachment.
    • The surrender of Fort Amsterdam to England in 1664 was formalized in 1667, contributing to the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
    • In 1673, the Dutch re-took the area but the next year, finding itself financially bankrupt, the republic relinquished New Netherland under the Second Treaty of Westminster in November, 1674, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War.
    • Analyze the Anglo-Dutch wars and the transfer of New Amsterdam to the British

  • Conclusion: Patterns of British Settlement in the Colonies

    • Its economic sway ranged from India, where the British East India Company had gained control over both trade and territory, to the West African coast, where British slave traders predominated, and to the British West Indies, whose lucrative sugar plantations, especially in Barbados and Jamaica, provided windfall profits for British planters.
    • In addition to wresting control of New York and New Jersey from the Dutch, Charles II established the Carolinas and Pennsylvania as proprietary colonies.
    • Isaac Royall and his family, seen here in a 1741 portrait by Robert Feke, moved to Medford, Massachusetts, from the West Indian island of Antigua, bringing their slaves with them.

  • New Jersey

    • The Dutch claimed New Jersey first.
    • The Dutch colony of New Netherland consisted of parts of modern Middle Atlantic States.
    • New Sweden was founded in 1638 and taken over by the Dutch in 1655.
    • The British met with little resistance due to the Dutch West India Company's decision not to garrison the colony.
    • The early settlements in West Jersey were Salem and Burlington.

  • French Explorers

    • Competing with Spain, Portugal, the United Provinces (the Dutch Republic), and later Britain, France began to establish colonies in North America, the Caribbean, and India in the 17th century.
    • As the French empire in North America grew, the French also began to build a smaller but more profitable empire in the West Indies.
    • In Senegal in West Africa, the French began to establish trading posts along the coast in 1624.
    • In 1664, the French East India Company was established to compete for trade in the east.
    • Colonies were also established in India in Chandernagore (1673) and Pondichéry in the south east (1674), and later at Yanam (1723), Mahe (1725), and Karikal (1739).

  • Elizabeth I and English Patriotism

    • The outcome was the Treaty of Nonsuch of August 1585, in which Elizabeth promised military support to the Dutch.
    • In 1562, Elizabeth sent privateers Hawkins and Drake to seize booty from Spanish and Portuguese ships off the coast of West Africa.
    • England was stimulated to create its own colonies, with an emphasis on the West Indies rather than in North America.
    • In 1600, the queen chartered the East India Company.
    • It established trading posts, which in later centuries evolved into British India, on the coasts of what is now India and Bangladesh.

  • The American Revolution

    • Later, Spain (in 1779) and the Dutch (1780) became allies of the French, leaving the British Empire to fight a global war without major international support.
    • Dutch possessions in the Caribbean and South America were captured by Britain but later recaptured by France and restored to the Dutch Republic.
    • When word reached India in 1778 that France had entered the war, the British East India Company moved quickly to capture French trading outposts there. 
    • The capture of the French-controlled port of Mahé on India's west coast motivated Mysore's ruler, Hyder Ali  to start the Second Anglo-Mysore War in 1780.
    • France's trading posts in India were returned after the war.

  • Indian Painting under British Imperialism

    • The Company style of paintings became common, created by Indian artists working for European patrons of the East India Company.
    • The merchants of the East India Company provided a large market for native art in the 18th century, and a distinct genre of watercolor painting developed that depicted scenes of everyday life, regalia of princely courts, and Indian festivities and rituals.
    • Referred to as the Company style or Patna style, this style of painting flourished at first in Murshidabad and spread to other cities of British India.
    • Following the influence of Indian spiritual ideas in the West, Havell attempted to reform the teaching methods at the Calcutta School of Art by encouraging students to imitate Mughal miniatures.
    • This caused controversy among some who considered it to be a retrogressive move; however, Havell and Tagore believed the technique to be expressive of India's distinct spiritual qualities, as opposed to the "materialism" of the West.