Founding of the English and Dutch East India Companies
- Date
- 1600–1602
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- England and the Dutch Republic; Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
On 31 December 1600 Queen Elizabeth I chartered the Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies, granting a monopoly on English trade east of the Cape of Good Hope.
On 20 March 1602 the States General of the Netherlands amalgamated rival Dutch ventures into the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), capitalised at over six million guilders and empowered to build forts, raise armies, wage war, mint coin and conclude treaties. The VOC's public share offering made it one of the world's first joint-stock corporations and arguably its first multinational. These chartered companies fused commerce with sovereignty, channelling European demand for pepper, spices, textiles and tea into permanent armed trading networks across the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. Over the following two centuries the two companies displaced the Portuguese, fought each other and Asian states, and laid the institutional foundations for Dutch Indonesia and British India, transforming the global economy and the structure of overseas empire.
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Empires active in 1600–1602
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE – 1644 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
Related economy & trade events
- Founding of the Bank of England27 July 1694
- Joint-stock companies and the world's first stock exchange1600–1611 (VOC chartered 20 March 1602; exchange opened 1611)
- Founding of the Bank of Amsterdam (Wisselbank)31 January 1609
- The Manila galleon opens trans-Pacific trade1565
- Discovery of the silver of Potosí (Cerro Rico)1545
- Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations9 March 1776
Further reading
If you read one book
The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company
Bestselling history of the company that conquered India.
Get it on Amazon →Also worth reading
- The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational — Amazon →
The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational
Readable history of the English Company as the first modern multinational.
Get it on Amazon → - Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea — Amazon →
Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea
Lively account placing the chartered East India Companies at the birth of the corporation, co-written with Adrian Wooldridge.
Get it on Amazon →
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