Decline of The Dutch West India Company
Notwithstanding the strategic location of the settlements, or the discovery of copper, the settlements were not an economic success, and the evidence suggests that van Dyk spent most of his time more profitably engaged in privateering (or piracy, depending upon one's perspective). The lack of prosperity of the territory mirrored the lack of commercial success of the Dutch West India Company as a whole.
The company changed its policy, and it sought to cede islands such as Tortola and Virgin Gorda to private persons for settlement, and to establish slave pens. The island of Tortola was eventually sold to Willem Hunthum at some point in the 1650s, at which time the Dutch West India Company's interest in the Territory effectively ended.
Read more about this topic: Joost Van Dyk
Famous quotes containing the words decline of the, decline of, decline, dutch, west, india and/or company:
“My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“My opposition [to interviews] lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.”
—Luis Buñuel (1900–1983)
“Paradise endangered: garden snakes and mice are appearing in the shadowy corners of Dutch Old Master paintings.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Because hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“India has 2,000,000 gods, and worships them all. In religion other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“We are imprisoned in life in the company of persons powerfully unlike us.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)