Dutch East India Company

Dutch East India Company
The United East Indian Company, referred to by the British as the Dutch East India Company, was originally established as a chartered company in 1602, when the Dutch government granted it a 21-year monopoly on Dutch spice trade. Wikipedia
Founder: Johan van Oldenbarnevelt
Founded: March 20, 1602
Headquarters: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Ceased operations: December 31, 1799
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC, known in English as the Dutch East India Company. The VOC dominated the spice trade between Asia and Europe for two hundred years,

BBC Radio 4

More powerful than most sovereign nations at the time.






In Our Time - The Dutch East India Company

The largest global corporation of the seventeenth century.

BBC.IN

with the British East India Company a distant second. At its peak, the VOC had a virtual monopoly on nutmeg, mace, cloves and cinnamon, displacing the Portuguese and excluding the British, and were the only European traders allowed access to Japan.