The Dutch Empire is a term comprising different territories that were controlled by the Netherlands from the 17th to 20th centuries. They settled outside Europe with skills in trade and transport. In the late 16th century, the Netherlands reclaimed their lead at sea, and by the second half of the 17th century, dominated it. This hundred-year period is called the Dutch Golden Age. The Dutch built their empire with corporate colonialism by establishing the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Dutch West India Company (GWC), following Britain's footsteps, which led to war between both empires. After the French Revolutionary Wars, the Netherlands lost most of its power to the British after the French armies invaded the Netherlands and parts of the Dutch colonies. Hence, Dutch leaders had to defend their colonies and homeland. Between 1795 and 1814, the French restored the VOC in Indonesia and Suriname which remained under Dutch control.

The global expansion of the Dutch Empire

By the 17th century, there was a beginning of revolutionary thought in Europe. This had an impact on the European politics, culture, and science, eventually leading to the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. Due to Enlightenment thinking and science, European economies developed faster than the rest of the world. Therefore, a primary consequence was the beginning of modern imperialism and the rise of the colonial states. This led to the rise of the Dutch Empire. The Dutch Empire lasted for three and a half centuries, both in the east and west of the globe. The majority of the Dutch Empire's economy was concentrated on the East Indies and only a small part of their focus was on the West Indies. By the 19th century, the Netherlands started losing most of its possessions in Asia, while Great Britain managed to become the undisputed successor that took over most of the Dutch East India Company's assets. For that reason, Dutch trade in the East Indies weakened while the British took control of Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.

Dutch East India Company (VOC)

The VOC name came from the Dutch East Indies Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compangnie). This trading company was founded in the Dutch Republic, started in 1602 to protect their trade along the Indian Ocean. The VOC main trade location was in Indonesia. The company became the only power of the peninsula. According to the Dutch colonial archive, the communication between Batavia and the government in Hague were disrupted during the British captured and occupied the Dutch East Indies. However, it was restored when Java returned to the Dutch in 1816, after five years under British rule. The structure of the company factories was to control the supplies of some products such as cloves, nutmeg and mace. They used a forceful system as a form of tax, to control the locals to sell at a set price. The purpose of this system was to bring all these products to Europe; and VOC profits were only for the company not to the indigenous traders.

Dutch West India Company

The GWC name came from the Dutch West India Company (Geoctrooieerde Westindische Compagnie). When the VOC took control in the eastern shores, Amsterdam decided to establish the GWC. The Dutch arrival in Africa and the Americas had a great effect on the political culture of both countries. According to historians, the Dutch played an important role in the Atlantic countries. They brought their culture and politics to Africa and the Americas. The Dutch were at war with Spain; but Amsterdam was only interested in taking over the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and South America, the reason behind the war with Spain, due to the Spanish invasion of the southern Netherlands between the 15th and the 16th centuries. The government did not care about investment or trade, which angered the merchants because they did not have any financial guarantees. It was obvious that the West India Company was interested in war more than trade. On the other hand, Spain did not intend to wage war against the Dutch, as a result, the Spanish made them sign a truce to force the Dutch to withdraw from the Americas. The Dutch were not impressed with the Spanish ban on their trade, except the Dutch were more knowledgeable in map-making across the globe. The most famous Dutch cartographer of the 17th century was Hessel Gerritsz.

Economy The demand for wool could not meet with the native production in the Netherlands. By the 12th century, Flemings imported a large amount of English wool. Textile industries in the southern Netherlands became the largest manufacturers of cloth as well as being front-runners of crafts in the thirteenth century. The Dutch Republic was more successful in cloth-making, with Flanders being the most favoured throughout all of Europe. Whereas, in the other European countries, they used fake textiles trying to copy Flanders work, most of the Dutch textile industry were mastered by Romans. By the end of the 15th century, Flanders was not the sole manufacturer anymore. When the demand grew for textile, the English imported wool which was the high-quality product and the most demanded all over Europe. Flanders lost its position in textile industries. However, the economy was built on fishing. Agriculture and fishing were the most essential for the Dutch economy. The Dutch were successful in the fishing industries in the Baltic and North Seas between the 15th and 16th centuries, nearly a hundred years before they established their empire in the 17th century. As the urban population increased during the 17th century, there was a dramatic rise in demand for fruit and vegetables. As a result, many farmers turned to gardening as well as animal production, considering Holland's weather and soil was ideal to grow cattle. Agriculture was the biggest section of Dutch economy. Though grain production could not cover the demands, due to migrations from the southern provinces. Consequently, the Dutch started to import grains from the Baltic, and sure enough the main trade considered the main source of the Dutch employment in the eighteenth century. Due to the early success that the Dutch had with the Baltic trade, Dutch ships expand their trade to east Russia, south to the Mediterranean. By the 17th century, they moved their trade to the American and Asian markets. They also expanded to Guinea trade ignoring the slave trade, as it was the Portuguese trade. There was a big rivalry between trade companies from European Asia to America. The Dutch trade faced stark competition from the Portuguese in Asia and English in Africa and America. As they controlled the trade road from the Indian to Atlantic Oceans. Until the VOC was formed, it became the first and biggest merchant ships in Asia. Even then they had stiff competition with the English East India company. Although the economy was built on fishing, the agriculture during the fifteenth century, animal farming was another reason for building the Dutch economy. Dutch cattle were well cared for, during that period urban population grew and farmers grew fruits and vegetables to supply the cities. The success they built in the Baltic trade gave the Dutch the ability to increase their trade to Asia and the Americas.

Africa South Africa

In 1652, the Dutch East India Company under Jan van Riebeeck established a resupply station at the Cape of Good Hope, situated halfway between the Dutch East Indies and the Dutch West Indies. Great Britain seized the colony in 1797 during the wars of the First Coalition (in which the Netherlands were allied with revolutionary France), and annexed it in 1805. The Dutch remained in South Africa until the Boer Wars broke out. The Dutch colonists in South Africa remained after the British took over and later made the trek across the country to Natal. They were involved in the Boer Wars against the British and are now known as Boers.

West Africa The Dutch had several possessions in West Africa. These included the Dutch Gold Coast, the Dutch Slave Coast, Dutch Loango-Angola, Senegambia, and Arguin. They built their first two forts on the Gold Coast in 1598 at Komenda and Kormantsil (in present-day Ghana). They expanded their presence in the following centuries. In 1872, they sold the Dutch Gold Coast to the British.

East Africa Mauritius is an island east of Madagascar, off Africa's southeast coast. Dutch Mauritius was an official settlement of the Dutch East India Company on the island of Mauritius between 1638 and 1710.

Asia Dutch East Indies

The Dutch East Indies comprised and formed the basis of mostly the later Indonesia. The first Dutch conquests were made among the Portuguese trading posts in the Maluku "Spice Islands" in 1605. The Spice Islands were out of the way for the Dutch trade routes to China and Japan, so Jayakarta on Java was captured and fortified in 1619. As "Batavia" (now Jakarta), it became the Asian headquarters of the East India Company (VOC). The company administered the islands directly on a for-profit model that restricted most of its attention to Java, southern Sumatra, and Bangka. English incursions were curtailed by the 1623 Amboyna massacre but the attack left bad blood and prompted a series of Anglo-Dutch wars. The company and its territories were nationalized in 1795 after British attacks effectively bankrupted it. The Dutch Malacca was part of the Dutch East Indies governorate between 1818 and 1825. However, the Dutch preferred Batavia (present-day Jakarta) as their economic and administrative centre in the region and their hold in Malacca was to prevent the loss of the city to other European powers and, subsequently, the competition that would come with it. In 1825, based on the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, the Dutch have ceded Malacca to the United Kingdom that have consolidated modern-day rule to the Malacca state of Malaysia. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Dutch expanded throughout the archipelago. Following the 1940 German occupation of the Netherlands and the 1942 Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies during World War II, Indonesian independence was declared in August 1945 and following a prolonged revolution recognized in December 1949.

Dutch New Guinea was retained separately until 1962, when it was transferred to Indonesia under pressure from the United States amid the escalation of the Vietnam War.

Dutch India

Dutch India was also composed of colonies and trading posts administered initially by the East Indies Company (VOC) and then directly by the Dutch government after the VOC's collapse.

Coromandel was the major Dutch colony on the mainland. It grew from the fort at Pulicat (Geldria) captured from the Portuguese in 1609. It comprised India's southeastern Coromandel coast across from Ceylon. Surat (Suratte) administered Dutch outposts in Gujarat after 1616. Outposts in Mughal Bengal (Bengalen) were consolidated after Chinsura (Gustavius) was fortified in 1635. Malabar was conquered from the Portuguese in the 1660s and administered from Cochin.

Amid the Napoleonic Wars, Malabar and Suratte were yielded to the British in 1795; Ceylon in 1802; and Bengal and Coromandel in 1824.

Ceylon Ceylon (Zeylan; modern Sri Lanka) was the principal interest of the Dutch in India: it provided cinnamon and elephants and serviced trade between South Africa and the East Indies. Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus were struggling against the Portuguese who were trying to convert the people to Christianity. Where the Dutch were interested in trade more than religion, as a result, they took over and made Ceylon their major trading post. The VOC successfully wrested it from Portuguese control during the 1630s, 1640s, and 1650s although, like the Portuguese, they were never able control the interior of the island. In 1796, Britain took control of all the Dutch positions.

Formosa