Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), popularly known as the Dutch United East India Company, was formed in 1602 AD. It was a national undertaking and was granted an exclusive right to trade with India and the East Indies for twenty-one years. The company was vested with ample powers of attack and conquest by the state.
It was the first multinational company to issue stocks. The skillful administrative system and the enthusiastic national support which the company enjoyed enabled it to monopolize the entire spice trade to Europe.
DUTCH SETTLEMENTS IN INDIA
The Dutch settlements in India, except the Fort of Geldria at Pulicat, were all unfortified trading posts and did not constitute the center or a practical field of their power in the East, either strategically or economically, or even administratively.
What took them to India, in the first instance, were rather the requirements of the archipelago than of the European market. In other words, it was a distinctly subsidiary interest. The spices of the archipelago were exchanged for cotton goods from Gujarat and the Coromandel coast,
The Dutch dislodged the Portuguese from India’s maritime trade and they also gave a new direction to India’s foreign trade. The Dutch promoted the export of textiles instead of spices. This greatly promoted the export of Indian textiles to the world market.
THE SETTLEMENTS ON MALABAR COAST
Like the Portuguese and the English, the Dutch did not settle at Malabar. Since the pepper trade of Malabar was considered to be less valuable than the Coromandel cloth trade, the Dutch ignored the Malabar coast. The only port belonging to them on this side was Vengurla, to the North of Goa. After a bitter struggle for power, the Dutch were finally defeated by the English in the Battle of Bedara, in 1759.
SETTLEMENTS AT COROMANDEL COAST
After an earlier abortive attempt to start trade at Surat and on the Malabar coast, Admiral Van der Hagen started to trade with the Coromandel coast and set up a permanent factory at Masulipatnam (early in 1605).
Soon, another factory was founded at Devanampatnam (Tegnapatnam) or Fort St David, as it came to be called later (under English occupation).
In 1610 AD, upon negotiating with the king of Chandragiri, the Dutch established another factory at Pulicat, named Fort Geldria in honor of the home province of Van Berchem, the Director-General of the Coromandel factories.
Till 1689 AD, Pulicat was the main center of the Dutch on the Coromandel coast, when it was superseded by Negapatam, acquired from the Portuguese in 1659 AD.
TRADE FROM BENGAL
In Bengal, the Dutch first established a factory at Pipli but soon abandoned it for Balasore, which was in turn neglected, when a firm footing was obtained at Chinsura on the Hoogli in 1653 AD. The Dutch constructed Fort Gustavus at Chinsura. Subsequently, they established factories at Kasimbazar and Patna.