Dutch East India Company (VOC)

Timeline

1. 1602–1619The Hague · South HollandIn 1602 the Dutch States-General issued a charter merging several previously scattered East India trading companies into the United East India Company, granting a 21-year trade monopoly, powers to wage war and make peace, build forts and mint coin, and publicly issuing shares on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
2. 1619–1660Batavia · JavaAfter conquering Jakarta the company rebuilt it as the Batavia headquarters, controlling nutmeg, clove, and other spice production in the Moluccas, establishing fixed routes and warehousing from Southeast Asia to the Netherlands, and becoming the world's wealthiest commercial organization in the first half of the 17th century.
3. 1661–1670Asian trade network · South AsiaIn the 1660s the VOC maintained dominance over Indian Ocean–Southeast Asia–East Asia routes, maintaining stations in Ceylon, Bengal, Taiwan, and Nagasaki in Japan, contending with the English East India Company and local powers, reaching historic peaks in annual profits and fleet size around 1670.