Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie

Properties2
tagsorganization, company, colonial, dutch, atjeh, banda, malaka, monopoly, 17th-century, voc, aceh, trade, east-indies, acheh
aliasesVOC, Dutch East India Company, Vereenigde O.I. Compagnie, Geoctroyeerde Oostindische Compagnie, Heeren Compagnie, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, United East India Company, Dutch East India Company (VOC), Dutch East India Co., Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, Edele Compagnie, O.I. Compagnie, Oost-Indische Compagnie, Heeren Zeventien, Bewindhebbers, the Company

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The Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) — the Dutch East India Company, chartered by the Staten-Generaal of the United Provinces on 20 March 1602 for a period of twenty-one years (renewable in ten-year accounting periods), with a monopoly of Dutch trade east of the Cape of Good Hope and through the Strait of Magellan — was the principal Dutch commercial and political instrument in the East Indies for two centuries and the institutional framework within which the Dutch-Atjeh relationship unfolded from 1602 to the Company’s dissolution in 1799. The VOC is the central institution of Van der Woude’s Van der Woude (1948).

The charter of 20 March 1602

The full account of the founding is given in the entry on the founding itself. In summary: the charter (octrooi) of 20 March 1602 — printed by Van der Woude as Bijlage I — created the VOC as a company with a monopoly of Dutch trade east of the Cape of Good Hope and through the Strait of Magellan for twenty-one years. The Company’s capital was divided among six kamers (chambers): Amsterdam (half), Zeeland (a quarter), the Maze (Rotterdam and Delft), Hoorn and Enkhuizen (each an eighth). The supreme governing body was the Heeren Zeventien (Lords Seventeen): eight from Amsterdam, four from Zeeland, two from the Maze, two from the Noorderkwartier, and a seventeenth member chosen in rotation by the smaller chambers. The charter’s most consequential clauses granted the Company the right to build fortifications, to maintain armed forces, to conclude treaties with native rulers, and to wage war in the name of the States-General.

The early VOC at Atjeh

The early VOC inherited the diplomatic framework that the voorcompagnieën had established at Atjeh. The Atjeh embassy of 1601 had produced a treaty of friendship and commerce between the sultan and the States-General; the VOC inherited this treaty and continued to operate under its terms. The Company’s factors at Atjeh continued to buy pepper, though in declining quantities as the trade shifted to the west coast of Sumatra and to Bantam. The sultan of Atjeh’s death in 1604 and the eventual succession of his son preserved the same balancing policy.

The first VOC fleet to arrive at Atjeh after the charter was that of Cornelis Matelieff in 1606 on his way to Malaka — by which time the Atjeh trade had lost most of its significance for the Dutch. The Zeeland lodge “Zeelant” that the Zeeland Company’s mission of 1601 had founded had burned down on 13 January 1602 — three months before the charter — and was not rebuilt; the VOC preferred to operate at Atjeh through visiting fleets rather than a permanent factory.

The monopoly-by-force policy (1608-1614)

The monopoly-by-force policy that would define the VOC’s conduct at Banda and elsewhere was inaugurated by the secret instruction of 11 April 1608 — “de eylanden van Banda op ‘t allerhoochste gerecommandeert” — and the further instruction of 4 May 1609. The instructions, dispatched after the Verhoeff fleet had already left Texel, committed the Company to the new policy: the Twelve Years’ Truce with Spain had just been signed; the Dutch were to use the truce to entrench the Company’s position before Spain could regain its strength. The Verhoeff fleet’s Malaka expedition of 1608 and its Banda expedition of 1609 — in which Verhoeff was murdered with forty-six of his men on 22 May 1609 — were the first operations under the new policy.

The Coen Discours of 1 January 1614 completed the policy framework. Coen’s argument — “Van Banda connen ons meester maken, dezelvige eylanden met macht aantasten; sulcx moeten nootelijcken doen ende de plaetse populeren, ofte het landt verlaten, want ‘t en sal anders met Banda nyet zijn” — was the working-out of the bewindhebbers’ instructions of 1608-1609 and the foundation of the Coen programme of monopoly-by-force that would define VOC policy for the next two centuries.

The institutional framework

The VOC’s institutional framework — the Heeren Zeventien in Amsterdam, the Governor-General in the Indies, the system of factories (factorijen) and forts, the dual bookkeeping (the grootboek and the rekeningen-courant of the Indies versus the retouren-generaal and equipage-generaal of patria) — was the institutional framework within which the Dutch-Atjeh relationship and the broader Dutch-Indies trade would unfold. Van der Woude treats the dual bookkeeping as the principal institutional failure of the VOC: “de gescheiden administratie symboliseert de tegenstelling tusschen de inzichten in Holland en de consequenties daarvan in Indië”, and the failure to maintain a unified general-trade account would, in Van der Woude’s analysis, contribute to the Company’s “smadelijke ondergang” at the end of the eighteenth century.

Significance

The VOC is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the central institution of the early Dutch-Indies trade and the institutional framework within which the Dutch-Atjeh relationship unfolded from 1602 to the Company’s dissolution in 1799. The charter of 20 March 1602 — with its grant of quasi-sovereign powers (fortification, war, treaty-making) — was the legal foundation of the Coen programme of monopoly-by-force that would define VOC policy from 1609 onward. The early VOC inherited the diplomatic framework of the voorcompagnieën at Atjeh — the treaty of 1601, the lodge “Zeelant”, the practice of buying pepper from visiting fleets — and continued to operate within it for the first decade of its existence, while the strategic centre of Dutch-Indies policy shifted south and east to Banda and Jacatra. The Company’s monopoly-by-force policy, inaugurated by the secret instruction of 11 April 1608 and completed by the Coen Discours of 1 January 1614, would define the Dutch-Indies trade for the next two centuries and would, in the long run, lead to the Atjeh-oorlog of 1873-1903.

Sources

De geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Korps Mariniers van 1665‑1945, OCR text, pp. 43‑46 (20260707_232246_DLP-55-De_geschiedenis_van_het_Nederlandsche_Korps_Mariniers_van_1665_1945_OCR.txt).

De geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Korps Mariniers van 1665‑1945, OCR edition, pp. 76‑78. 20260707_232246_DLP-55-De_geschiedenis_van_het_Nederlandsche_Korps_Mariniers_van_1665_1945_OCR.txt.

De Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Korps Mariniers van 1665‑1945, OCR transcription, pp. 212‑214, 20260707_232246_DLP-55-De_geschiedenis_van_het_Nederlandsche_Korps_Mariniers_van_1665_1945_OCR.txt.

De geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Korps Mariniers van 1665‑1945, OCR text, pp. 266‑269, 20260707_232246_DLP-55-De_geschiedenis_van_het_Nederlandsche_Korps_Mariniers_van_1665_1945_OCR.txt.

De geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Korps Mariniers van 1665‑1945, OCR text, p. 275.

20260707_232246_DLP-55-De_geschiedenis_van_het_Nederlandsche_Korps_Mariniers_van_1665_1945_OCR.txt, pp. 287‑290.

DLP-84-Atjeh.pdf, pp. 4-5. Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapters X–XII, XXXII–XXXIV, passim, pp. 33–47, 114–125 of the numbered-letter sequence. De geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Korps Mariniers van 1665‑1945, OCR transcription, pp. 24‑32. Nederlanders over de Zeeën: 350 Jaar geschiedenis van Nederland buitengaats, onder redactie van Dr. H. J. de Graaf, met medewerking van Prof. G. Gonggrijp, W. R. Menkman en Prof. Jhr Dr P. J. van Winter, 2e geheel herziene druk (Utrecht: W. de Haan N.V., MCMLV), pp. 156-157, 163.

See Also

Source

Coen, Koopman van Heeren Zeventien. Geschiedenis van den Hollandshen Handel in Indië (1598-1614), by Johan van der Woude (Amsterdam: C.V. Uitgeverij v/h C. De Boer Jr., 1948), passim and Bijlage I “Het Octrooi der Vereenigde O.I. Compagnie” (pp. 365-374).

The Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) — the Dutch East India Company, chartered by the Staten-Generaal of the United Provinces on 20 March 1602 for a period of twenty-one years (renewable in ten-year accounting periods), with a monopoly of Dutch trade east of the Cape of Good Hope and through the Strait of Magellan — was the principal Dutch commercial and political instrument in the East Indies for two centuries and the institutional framework within which the Dutch-Atjeh relationship unfolded from 1602 to the Company’s dissolution in 1799. The VOC is the central institution of Van der Woude’s Van der Woude (1948).

The charter of 20 March 1602

The full account of the founding is given in the entry on the founding itself. In summary: the charter (octrooi) of 20 March 1602 — printed by Van der Woude as Bijlage I — created the VOC as a company with a monopoly of Dutch trade east of the Cape of Good Hope and through the Strait of Magellan for twenty-one years. The Company’s capital was divided among six kamers (chambers): Amsterdam (half), Zeeland (a quarter), the Maze (Rotterdam and Delft), Hoorn and Enkhuizen (each an eighth). The supreme governing body was the Heeren Zeventien (Lords Seventeen): eight from Amsterdam, four from Zeeland, two from the Maze, two from the Noorderkwartier, and a seventeenth member chosen in rotation by the smaller chambers. The charter’s most consequential clauses granted the Company the right to build fortifications, to maintain armed forces, to conclude treaties with native rulers, and to wage war in the name of the States-General.

The early VOC at Atjeh

The early VOC inherited the diplomatic framework that the voorcompagnieën had established at Atjeh. The Atjeh embassy of 1601 had produced a treaty of friendship and commerce between the sultan and the States-General; the VOC inherited this treaty and continued to operate under its terms. The Company’s factors at Atjeh continued to buy pepper, though in declining quantities as the trade shifted to the west coast of Sumatra and to Bantam. The sultan of Atjeh’s death in 1604 and the eventual succession of his son preserved the same balancing policy.

The first VOC fleet to arrive at Atjeh after the charter was that of Cornelis Matelieff in 1606 on his way to Malaka — by which time the Atjeh trade had lost most of its significance for the Dutch. The Zeeland lodge “Zeelant” that the Zeeland Company’s mission of 1601 had founded had burned down on 13 January 1602 — three months before the charter — and was not rebuilt; the VOC preferred to operate at Atjeh through visiting fleets rather than a permanent factory.

The monopoly-by-force policy (1608-1614)

The monopoly-by-force policy that would define the VOC’s conduct at Banda and elsewhere was inaugurated by the secret instruction of 11 April 1608 — “de eylanden van Banda op ‘t allerhoochste gerecommandeert” — and the further instruction of 4 May 1609. The instructions, dispatched after the Verhoeff fleet had already left Texel, committed the Company to the new policy: the Twelve Years’ Truce with Spain had just been signed; the Dutch were to use the truce to entrench the Company’s position before Spain could regain its strength. The Verhoeff fleet’s Malaka expedition of 1608 and its Banda expedition of 1609 — in which Verhoeff was murdered with forty-six of his men on 22 May 1609 — were the first operations under the new policy.

The Coen Discours of 1 January 1614 completed the policy framework. Coen’s argument — “Van Banda connen ons meester maken, dezelvige eylanden met macht aantasten; sulcx moeten nootelijcken doen ende de plaetse populeren, ofte het landt verlaten, want ‘t en sal anders met Banda nyet zijn” — was the working-out of the bewindhebbers’ instructions of 1608-1609 and the foundation of the Coen programme of monopoly-by-force that would define VOC policy for the next two centuries.

The institutional framework

The VOC’s institutional framework — the Heeren Zeventien in Amsterdam, the Governor-General in the Indies, the system of factories (factorijen) and forts, the dual bookkeeping (the grootboek and the rekeningen-courant of the Indies versus the retouren-generaal and equipage-generaal of patria) — was the institutional framework within which the Dutch-Atjeh relationship and the broader Dutch-Indies trade would unfold. Van der Woude treats the dual bookkeeping as the principal institutional failure of the VOC: “de gescheiden administratie symboliseert de tegenstelling tusschen de inzichten in Holland en de consequenties daarvan in Indië”, and the failure to maintain a unified general-trade account would, in Van der Woude’s analysis, contribute to the Company’s “smadelijke ondergang” at the end of the eighteenth century.

Significance

The VOC is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the central institution of the early Dutch-Indies trade and the institutional framework within which the Dutch-Atjeh relationship unfolded from 1602 to the Company’s dissolution in 1799. The charter of 20 March 1602 — with its grant of quasi-sovereign powers (fortification, war, treaty-making) — was the legal foundation of the Coen programme of monopoly-by-force that would define VOC policy from 1609 onward. The early VOC inherited the diplomatic framework of the voorcompagnieën at Atjeh — the treaty of 1601, the lodge “Zeelant”, the practice of buying pepper from visiting fleets — and continued to operate within it for the first decade of its existence, while the strategic centre of Dutch-Indies policy shifted south and east to Banda and Jacatra. The Company’s monopoly-by-force policy, inaugurated by the secret instruction of 11 April 1608 and completed by the Coen Discours of 1 January 1614, would define the Dutch-Indies trade for the next two centuries and would, in the long run, lead to the Atjeh-oorlog of 1873-1903.

See Also

Source

Coen, Koopman van Heeren Zeventien. Geschiedenis van den Hollandshen Handel in Indië (1598-1614), by Johan van der Woude (Amsterdam: C.V. Uitgeverij v/h C. De Boer Jr., 1948), passim and Bijlage I “Het Octrooi der Vereenigde O.I. Compagnie” (pp. 365-374).

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