The Dutch West Indies Company thought the primary value of the New Netherlands was to

So how rich was the Dutch East India Company (VOC)? If you’re wondering what paid for all those pretty canals and houses in Amsterdam, Leiden, and Utrecht, well, this might explain it all a bit. 

Let’s dive into the facts and figures, as shockingly rich as this company was — it certainly wasn’t great for everyone!

The Dutch East-India Company — Apple didn’t have anything on it!

The Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), better known as the Dutch East India Company was set up in 1602 and head-quartered in the Oost-Indisch Huis (East-India House) in downtown Amsterdam, which still stands today.

It was founded as a private merchant company that was granted a two-decade-long monopoly by the government for spice trading mainly in the Dutch East-Indies, known today as the Republic of Indonesia.

And if you think Amazon is thrifty with deliveries, the VOC sent over one million voyagers across Asia, which is more than the rest of Europe combined. This, in a time where a trip from Amsterdam to Batavia (Djakarta) would last no shorter than eight to 10 months and many ships, or individual passengers, would never return.

Many of the massive sailing ships perished in storms, fell prey to piracy or infectious disease. Travelling at the time came at a huge risk, but once on location and with the right knowledge and attitude, there was a great chance of becoming wealthy. As a result, many took the odds.

The company was also the first official company to issue stocks, which peaked during the Dutch “Tulip Mania”, a craze for tulip bulbs that are seen as the world’s first true financial bubble.

The VOC’s stocks pushed the company’s worth to a massive 78 million Dutch guilders, which is a pretty solid business (even today) but translates to a whopping $7.9 trillion USD worth now… Yes, really, trillion. That’s 7,900 billion — or 79,000 million!

Modern-day companies don’t even compare (and that’s a good thing!)

At its peak, the VOC was worth the equivalent of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, ExxonMobil, Berkshire Hathaway, Tencent, and Wells Fargo put together. This means that the world’s most valuable company, Apple, is worth about 11% of the peak value of the VOC. Eat that, Steve Jobs!

It was also worth, roughly, the same amount as the GDPs of Japan and Germany of today added together. Can you dig it?

The company also employed 70,000(!) people across the globe, making it a textbook multinational by definition, and this was nearly four centuries ago!

The Dutch East India Company was also pretty evil

Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games with the Dutch East India Company. Despite bringing the Netherlands prosperity and successfully connecting the world, it also brought horrendous suffering for an endless number of people. For two centuries the VOC did whatever it had to make sure its assets were protected and profit was high.

That included slave trading, colonial oppression, and absurd mistreatment of employees. If you think your job is tough today, try being a deckhand on a year and a half VOC round-trip or, even worse, a slave living in the dark belly of a ship.

The VOC is thought to have transported, or rather displaced, as many as 50,000 people from Africa to serve or trade as slaves in its colonies. It’s a staggering number, worse however is that many countries subjected even more people to slavery per individual nation than the Dutch and VOC ever managed to — creating a permanent “involuntary” change in demographics around the globe.

The success of international trading companies like the VOC has forever put a stain on Europe’s colonial past.

Regardless of its endless exploitation, these trading companies and colonies have shaped the world and are at the foot of today’s “multiculturalism” and the modern-day economy.

A past that must be recognised

Still, many people are in denial about their country’s colonial past. Holland, for one, definitely gained its historic wealth and fortune over the heads of others, which is not to say that it’s the fault of the modern Dutchies — it’s hard to blame someone for something they never had a hand in. But denial or downplaying it is flat-out ignorant and inexcusable.

READ MORE | 7 things the Dutch don’t talk about, but should

It’s always wise to speak with some discretion to people of colour, even in “multi-culti” Holland, as many Indo and Moluccan people are direct descendants of the VOC-days and Black Surinam and Antillean-people are African slave descendants. Their Hindu counterparts were often “contract labourers” from the Indian subcontinent which was hardly better than being a slave.

There are some interesting facts to be learned when we consider the history of the VOC, but it would be irresponsible for us not to have mentioned the downsides that came with it. That much, in the least, is what every Dutchie owes the world, especially given that people of a colonial past are of such vital importance to modern Holland as we know it today.

Were you as shocked by these figures as we were? Tell us your thoughts on the VOC in the comments below!

Feature Image: Anonimo (XVIII sec. )/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in December 2017 and was updated in November 2021 for your reading pleasure.

The Dutch colony of New Netherland, between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers, was the beginning of colonization in New York and New Jersey.

In 1609, the Dutch East India Co. sent out Henry Hudson, an English navigator, to look for a route to the Indies that was not controlled by Spain. Like explorers before him, Hudson, on the Half Moon, traveled west looking for the Northwest Passage through North America. On September 10, he sailed up the river that now bears his name to Albany. The desired passage was not found, but Hudson's exploration gave the Dutch claim to lands in North America to found New Netherland. Dutch settlement progressed slowly as Dutch nationals, without political, economic or religious motivation duress at home, were not eager to travel across unchartered waters for a virtual wilderness. 

In 1621, the Estates-General of the Netherlands founded the Dutch West India Company to develop its American claims. Its purpose was to open trade in North and South America and to build forts, maintain troops, and challenge Spanish trade, especially in the West Indies. Three years later, the company sent Cornelius J. May to colonize its land claims on both sides of the Hudson River. After 1624, it established forts at Manhattan Island, Fort Orange (Albany) and Long Island, and Fort Nassau on the Delaware River. It also developed a settlement on the western shores of the Hudson River that became early Pavonia and Bergen Township, the beginnings of present-day Jersey City.

Peter Minuit, known for the purchase of Manhattan from the Manahatta Native Americans, became the director-general of New Netherland in 1626. According to the Dutch West India Company, settlers were considered servants of the company and subject to the directors of the colony. They were expected to be members of the Dutch Reformed (Calvinist) church. However, an atmosphere of religious freedom did prevail and permitted settlement by Puritans, Pilgrims, Anglicans, Jews, and Lutherans into the colony.

General satisfaction with conditions at home in The Netherlands continued to stem the flow of immigrants to the colony. Early settlers who arrived worked in grain production, furs, breweries, and plundering Spanish fleets traveling to the Caribbean. To encourage the agricultural development of the colony, the Dutch West India Company offered an incentive called the "patroonship."

Under the land-for-settlement incentive plan, members of the Dutch West India Company were eligible to receive a feudal estate in America if the patroon settled it with fifty adults, over age fifteen, in four years. The patroon became, in effect, a landlord and local lawgiver. The settlers were his tenants who paid rent during the length of a lease. The patroons were granted an eight-year exemption from taxes and the settlers a ten-year exemption. However, of the five patroonships in New Netherland, only that of Kiliaen Van Rennselaer in Albany County was successful. His patroonship was called Rennselaerswyck and was over one million acres. Overall, the program did not produce the desired effect of promoting settlement. Troubles with the indigenous settlers, beginning in 1640, further hampered the program.

In 1630 Michael Reyniersz Pauw, a member of the Dutch West India Company, was granted an estate on the western shore of the Hudson River. He named it Pavonia, meaning "Land of the Peacock,"  a variation of his name. He did not meet the obligation of a patroon to obtain the required number of settlers and never left Amsterdam to supervise his land grant. The positive outcomes of the Pauw grant were the construction of two houses at Pavonia, the first homes on the west side of the Hudson River, and the appointment of a superintendent, Cornelius Van Vorst, who remained as a settler and "founding father" of the future community of Jersey City.

Fort/New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island was the center of governance of New Netherland. There its selected members of the governor's council received orders from the Dutch West India Company. It was the location of the governor's residence, barracks, church, and marketplace. "Bouweries" or farms were outside the fort. After Minuit's tenure (1626-1633), three governors succeeded him: Wouter Van Twiller (1633-38); William Kieft (1638-1646); and Peter Stuyvesant (1647-1664).

Van Twiller reportedly offered no direction for the settlement, had a reputation for being quarrelsome, and was only noted for expanding the brewery business in New Amsterdam. Kieft embroiled New Netherland in Native American warfare that nearly dismantled the colony, and Stuyvesant, while somewhat cantankerous, worked to stabilize the Dutch settlements and established Bergen Township. Over the years, the Dutch West India Company tried to reorganize the colony by permitting the trading of enslaved people to boost the labor supply and economy.

After some forty years, the Dutch failed to establish a successful colony in New Netherland. Several factors contributed to its takeover by England in 1664. First, insufficient incentives for Dutch nationals to leave their homeland brought colonists, without strong Dutch allegiance, from other countries and colonies into the colony. Secondly, commerce was a priority for the Dutch West India Company. Agriculture, which might have attracted more settlers, was not considered profitable. Finally, autocratic rulings from New Amsterdam and the lack of local participatory democracy discouraged loyalty to the colony. The governor had an unofficial advisory council, but this did not compensate for the tradition of local representative government experienced by settlers in the surrounding colonies.