History
When the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was founded in 1602, some traders in Amsterdam did not agree with its monopolistic politics. With help from Plancius Peter, a Flemish minister who was engaged in producing maps, globes and nautical instruments, they sought for a northeastern or northwestern access to Asia to circumvent the VOC monopoly. In 1609 Henry Hudson, on behalf of the VOC, outwitted his competitors by landing on the coast of New England in his quest for the Northwest Passage to Asia. Consequently, in 1615 Isaac Le Maire and Samuel Blommaert, assisted by others, focused on finding a south-westerly route around Tierra del Fuego, in order to circumvent the monopoly of the VOC.
One of the first sailors who focused on trade with Africa was Balthazar de Moucheron. The trade with Africa offered several possibilities to set up trading posts or factories, an important starting point for negotiations. It was Blommaert, however, who stated that in 1600 eight companies sailed on the coast of Africa, competing each other with the supply of copper, possibly from the kingdom of Loanga. Pieter van den Broecke was employed by one of these companies. In 1612, a Dutch fortress was built in Mouree, along the Dutch Gold Coast.
Trade with the Caribbean, for salt, sugar and tobacco, was hampered by Spain and delayed because of peace negotiations. Spain offered peace on condition that the Dutch Republic would withdraw from trading with Asia and America. Spain refused to sign the peace treaty, if a West Indian Company would be established.
Grand Pensionary Johan van Oldenbarnevelt offered to only suspend trade with the West in exchange for the Twelve Years' Truce. The result was that during a few years the company sailed under a foreign flag in South America. However, ten years later, Stadtholder Maurice of Orange, proposed to continue the war with Spain, but also to distract attention from Spain to the Republic. In 1619, his opponent Johan van Oldenbarnevelt was beheaded, and when two years later the truce expired, the West Indian Company was established
Read more about this topic: Dutch West India Company
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