2 - The Founding of an Asian Empire (1602–1635)

Summary

As we have seen in Chapter 1, in March 1602 the Dutch East India Company was founded. The Dutch Republic's political and economic leaders had reviewed the results of the voorcompagnieën, which while initially moderate were nonetheless promising, and eventually decided to combine the resources and activities of those companies into a single chartered entity, the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or voc. It was not only to be a trading body but also a political and military organisation possessing quasi-governmental powers. Trade monopolies, particularly of spices, were to be pursued in tandem with the war against Spain and Portugal, united under a single crown in the Iberian Union, a conflict which the Republic could now take beyond its own borders.

This chapter examines the dual character of the voc as well as the role that the Heren XVII or ‘Gentlemen Seventeen’ — the directors of the Company in the Dutch Republic — envisaged for the organisation in the first policy documents. We then describe how the admirals of the first fleets and later the governors-general carried out that policy in practice on the other side of the world, often on the spur of the moment and with a good deal of improvisation. By far the most visionary of those individuals was Jan Pietersz Coen, who began his first term as governor-general in 1618 and whose decisions largely determined the direction the voc would take. His Discoers, written in 1614, provided a blueprint for the voc's empire. He laid the foundations for later expansion, including the establishment of Batavia as the capital and the hard-won monopoly on nutmeg and mace in the Banda Islands. By 1635, six years after his death, the voc was firmly established in the Asian maritime world. The key questions addressed in this chapter are how did the voc build the foundation of that empire, and, above all, what military endeavours were involved in doing so? What else characterised actions on land and at sea and what explains Dutch success in attacking Portuguese possessions in Asia, in the competition with the English, and in dealing with indigenous allies and enemies?