The Dutch East India Company

Protectorate of the United Provinces.

There are no limitations to the amount of members in this group.

The Dutch East India Company was a first of its kind in Northern Europe, having taken trade routes away from the Germanic Hanseatic League. It was a joint stock company formed by investors. This type of company had been used somewhat in Italy. But in Spain and Portugal, the leading countries of exploration at the time, it was unheard of.

The Dutch had already had great success trading in and around Europe. They bought goods in bulk and could rarely be undersold by competitors. Building on this success, the Dutch East India Company sought a way to bypass the Portuguese stronghold on the spice trade with the Far East. To help make their trading more efficient (something the Portugese weren’t) the Dutch set up factories in Bandar, on the Persian Gulf, and in Bantam on the Malay Archipelago. They also had a factory at Zeelander (modern day Taiwan) but were expelled by Chinese forces in 1662. By 1620, the Dutch East India Company was the biggest trading corporation in all of Europe and a force to be reckoned with.