Dutch colonialism

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, the Dutch were a major imperial power, dominating trade in large parts of the world. Imperialismis the practice of one country taking control of another, usually for the purpose of economically exploiting it. The practice is also called colonialism. At its strongest, the Netherlands rivaled Britain and Spain on the seas and routinely defeated the Portuguese. The Netherlands had trading posts on all five known continents and an extensive network of naval routes to reach them. The Dutch made a fortune trading silver, spices, furs, and cotton until their empire began to decline in the late seventeenth century, and was ended at the end of the eighteenth.

Overview

Unlike other major international players in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, the Dutch rarely intended major colonization. Initially, they had little initial interest in converting or subjugating native peoples or taking large swathes of territory for prestige. But they needed ports at which to trade and people from other countries to trade with. Thus, they colonized many small areas to serve as refreshment stations for their ships. They also gathered raw materials for trade in these places.

The Dutch Colonial period began when three Dutch ships were sent to various locations in an attempt to establish trade. While these ships returned with only modest amounts of spices, the profits from the sale of those spices covered the entire cost of the trip. This garnered great interest in trade; the spice trade in particular. Soon the Dutch set up dozens of trading companies. In this era, trading companies were often set up just for a single voyage. Seeing the success of the British East India Company, the Dutch government combined all Dutch trading companies into one entity: the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), which translates to the Dutch East India Company. At its founding, the Netherlands gave the VOC a twenty-one-year monopoly on trade with certain foreign lands, primarily the East Indies and Asia. The corporation was also given the power to act as a pseudo-government, in that it could make trading and military alliances, create a large standing military force, build forts, and install governors of any territory it took.

The VOC quickly became immensely powerful, utterly eclipsing its nearest rival, the British East Indies Company. It was through the VOC's need for refueling and rest stops on its various trade routes that many Dutch colonies began. Most notable among these was the Dutch colony in South Africa, which was born out of a need for a refueling station for ships on the way to India.

South Africa began with a natural harbor on the southern tip of the African continent. The harbor was populated by African tribes with whom passing ships would trade with while they waited out bad weather in the harbor. After a half-hearted British attempt at colonization—they left ten former convicts at the cape to make a go of it—the VOC brought several hundred settlers and employees who would go on to form Cape Town. The VOC settlers created large-scale fortifications, cultivated more than eight miles of farmland, and subdued the native population into what would become a culture of slavery and routine atrocities. Cape Town became a valuable Dutch colony, and the settlers there flourished. Decades later, as the military power of the VOC waned, South Africa, including Cape Town, became the territory of the British Empire.

The Dutch's dominance of Indonesia was much more gradual than South Africa. It began when the VOC conquered the island of Java. Local leaders were co-opted by the VOC and turned the island into a producer of cash crops and trade materials. From there, they spread their influence throughout the entire region. The Portuguese, the original colonizers of the region, were quickly pushed out by the powerful VOC.

Twenty-one years after the founding of the VOC, a second company called the Dutch West India Company (the WIC) was founded. While still acting as an extension of the Netherlands, the WIC lacked many of the powers of its eastern counterpart. It was not allowed to actively wage war or make treaties. Its founders did not believe monopolies were moral and never pursued them in the area. The purpose of the WIC was to develop the Dutch claim to New Netherland in North America, use it to open trade in North and South America, and disrupt the Spanish operations in that area. Because it was not an extension of the Dutch military, the WIC made heavy use of privateers, which were civilian vessels with a license to attack vessels belonging to certain nations.

The WIC was never as successful as the VOC. Immigration to the colonies was slow, and problems with local Native Americans made it even more difficult to convince people to immigrate to the New World. Business in New Netherland failed to flourish as expected. Still, the colony was prestigious and a good harbor for other trade in the New World, which made it a target for the still-expanding British Empire.

In 1664, King Charles II of England gifted the entire colony to the Duke of York, despite it being Dutch territory at the time. Soon after, four heavily armed British warships filled with soldiers pulled into a harbor in New Amsterdam and declared the territory a part of the British Empire. Despite some initial disagreements, the occupants opted to surrender. They were allowed to keep their individual possessions, and the area was renamed New York. The Dutch Empire never quite recovered from this, and from this point on, its imperial territory steadily declined. The VOC continued to operate around the world until the end of the eighteenth century.

Tyler J. Biscontini

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