3 - Consolidating the Empire (1635–1685)

Summary

In the first three decades of its existence, the voc put in place the groundwork for a profitable overseas trading operation. It was a period of transition from armed fleets roving the seas to a more permanent centralised organisation with purpose-built bases on land. On those foundations a large empire would be built. In 1636, voc Governor-General Anthony van Diemen launched a determined offensive against the Portuguese on several fronts. In 1648 the Dutch Republic's eighty-year war with Spain came to an end, although the first peace treaty with Portugal was not ratified until 1663. In the meantime, the Company had become the strongest European imperial power in Asia. How can this be explained?

With the signing of peace treaties with Spain and Portugal, one of the major politico-strategic objectives that the voc had been set up to achieve, was gained. But the empire was not established entirely at Iberian expense: it was also the result of overcoming Asian enemies in Ambon and the Moluccas, South Celebes, Ceylon, Formosa and Java. The conflicts in these areas were partly economic in nature, the outcome of goals set in the early decades of the voc's existence, and partly of a regional military-strategic kind. What explains the Company's success and who were its toughest opponents? What did the shift in emphasis to Asian adversaries mean for the mode of warfare and the nature of the empire? For as the voc's battles were increasingly fought on land, and the Company's affairs took it further and further upcountry, the maritime empire began to display more and more territorial traits.

Van Diemen versus Portugal

Anthony van Diemen, who took office on 1 January 1636, was a remarkable figure. Eighteen years before he took over the direction of the voc in Asia, he had entered the Company's service under an assumed name to conceal the fact of his undischarged bankruptcy in Amsterdam. But it was under his own name that he would forge his reputation. In Coen's imperialistic tradition but provided with greater resources than his predecessor, he assailed the Company's commercial rivals on multiple fronts. He attacked Portuguese possessions all over Asia, particularly Malacca but also Goa, the capital of Portugal's Asian empire. In passing he also struck at Portugal's positions in Ceylon. In this period, the Lusitanian empire in Asia was in decline.