Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T19:22:38.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The VOC as a Company-State: Debating Seventeenth-Century Dutch Colonial Expansion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2014

Arthur Weststeijn
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What was seventeenth-century Dutch expansion in Southeast Asia all about? In the traditional historiography, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was predominantly presented as a multinational corporation and non-state colonial actor. Recent research, however, has significantly challenged this view, stressing instead the imperial aspects of VOC rule. This article aims to break new ground by analysing the vocabularies used in seventeenth-century reasoning about Dutch expansion overseas. Focusing on three critics of the VOC from the 1660s and 1670s, Pieter van Dam, Pieter de la Court, and Pieter van Hoorn, the article shows how voices within and outside of the ranks of the Company tried to make sense of the many-faced VOC as a commercial company that was also, in different ways, a state. In an on-going debate that centred on the issues of colonisation, conquest, free trade, and monopoly, the VOC was characterised as a distinctive political body that operated as an overseas extension of the state (Van Dam), as a competitor of the state (De la Court), or as a state as such (Van Hoorn). Following Philip J. Stern's recent analysis of the English East India Company, the VOC should therefore be considered to be a particular political institution in its own terms, which challenged its critics to think about it as a body politic that was neither corporation nor empire, but rather a Company-State.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , April 2014 , pp. 13 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Arasaratnam, Sinnappah. “Monopoly and Free Trade in Dutch-Asian Commercial Policy: Debate and Controversy Within the VOC.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 4:1 (1973): 1–15.Google Scholar
Armitage, David. “The Elephant and The Whale: Empires of Land and Sea.” Journal for Maritime Research 9:1 (2007): 23–36.Google Scholar
Barreveld, Dirk J. Tegen de Heeren van de VOC. Isaac Le Maire en de ontdekking van Kaap Hoorn. The Hague: Sdu, 2002.Google Scholar
Bertrand, Romain. L'Histoire à parts égales: Récits d'une rencontre Orient-Occident (XVIe-XVIIe siècle). Paris: Le Seuil, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bick, Alexander. “Governing the Free Sea: The Dutch West India Company and Commercial Politics, 1618-1645.” PhD diss., Princeton University, 2012.Google Scholar
Borschberg, Peter. Hugo Grotius, the Portuguese and Free Trade in the East Indies Singapore: NUS Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Boxer, Charles. The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600-1800. London: Hutchinson, 1965.Google Scholar
Burbank, Jane, and Cooper, Frederick. Empires in World History. Power and the Politics of Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Chastelein, Cornelis. “Invallende gedagten ende aanmerkingen over colonien.” Tijdschrift voor Indische taal-, land- en volkenkunde 3 (1855): 63–104Google Scholar
Coen, Jan Pieterszoon. “Discoers.” In Jan Pietersz. Coen. Levensbeschrijving, edited by Colenbrander, H. T., 451–74. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1934.Google Scholar
De Jonge, J. K. J., ed. De opkomst van het Nederlandsch gezag over Java. 10 vols. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1869–1888.Google Scholar
De la Court, Pieter. Interest van Holland, ofte gronden van Hollands welvaren. Amsterdam, 1662.Google Scholar
De la Court, Pieter. Aanwysing der heilsame politike gronden en maximen van de Republike van Holland en West-Vriesland. Leiden, 1669).Google Scholar
De la Court, Johan. Politike Discoursen handelende in ses onderscheide boeken van steeden, landen, oorlogen, kerken, regeeringen en zeeden. Amsterdam, 1662.Google Scholar
Emmer, Piet, and Gommans, Jos, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld. De geschiedenis van Nederland overzee, 1600-1800. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2012.Google Scholar
Gaastra, Femme S.Bewind en beleid bij de VOC. De financièle en commercièle politiek van de bewindhebbers, 1672-1702. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1989.Google Scholar
Gaastra, Femme S.De geschiedenis van de VOC. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2003.Google Scholar
Goor, Jur van. “De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in de historiografie. Imperialist en multinational.” In De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie tussen oorlog en diplomatie, edited by Knaap, Gerrit and Teitler, Ger, 9–33. Leiden: KITLV, 2002.Google Scholar
Hartman, Jan, and Weststeijn, Arthur. “An Empire of Trade: Commercial Reason of State in Seventeenth-Century Holland.” In The Political Economy of Empire in the Early Modern World, edited by Reinert, Sophus and Røge, Pernille, 11–31. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.Google Scholar
Heeres, J. E., ed. Corpus diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum. Verzameling vanpolitieke contracten en verdere verdragen door de Nederlanders in het Oosten gesloten. 5 vols. [Bijdragen tot de taal-, landen volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indiê, 57, 87, 91, 93, 96]. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1907–1938.Google Scholar
Heijer, Henk den. “Het recht van de sterkste in de polder. Politieke en economische strijd tussen Amsterdam en Zeeland over de kwestie Braziliê, 1630-1654.” In Harmonie in Holland. Het polder-model van 1500 tot nu, edited by Bos, Dennis, et al., 72–92. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2007.Google Scholar
Hont, Istvan. Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Hullu, J. de, ed. “Een advies van Mr. Pieter van Dam, advocaat der Oost-Indische Compagnie, over een gedeeltelijke openstelling van Compagnie's handel voor particulieren.” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Landen Volkenkunde van Nederlands-Indië 74 (1918): 267–98.Google Scholar
Ittersum, Martine van. Profit and Principle. Hugo Grotius, Natural Rights Theories and the Rise of Dutch Power in the East Indies (1595-1615). Leiden: Brill, 2006.Google Scholar
Ittersum, Martine van. “The Long Goodbye: Hugo Grotius' Justification of Dutch Expansion Overseas, 1615-1645.” History of European Ideas 36:4 (2010): 386–411.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Els. Koopman in Azië. De handel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie tijdens de 18e eeuw. Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2000.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Jaap. New Netherland: A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America. Leiden: Brill, 2005.Google Scholar
Knaap, Gerrit. “De Ambonse eilanden tussen twee mogendheden. De VOC en Ternate, 1605-1656.” In Hof en handel. Aziatische vorsten en de VOC 1620-1720, edited by Locher-Scholten, Elsbeth and Rietbergen, Peter, 35–58. Leiden: KITLV 2004.Google Scholar
Looijesteijn, Henk. “Petitioning, Colonial Policy, Constitutional Experiment and the Development of Dutch Political Thought.” Paper for the 10th International Conference on Urban History, Ghent, 1-5 10 2010.Google Scholar
Machiavelli, Niccolò. Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, edited by Vivanti, Corrado. Turin: Einaudi, 2000.Google Scholar
McCuaig, William. Carlo Sigonio: The Changing World of the Late Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Muldoon, James. Empire and Order. The Concept of Empire, 800-1800. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999.Google Scholar
Nierstrasz, Chris. In the Shadow of the Company. The Dutch East India Company and its Servants in the Period of its Decline (1740-1796). Leiden: Brill, 2012.Google Scholar
Octrooi verleend aan de VOC. http://www.vocsite.nl/geschiedenis/octrooi.html.Google Scholar
Overvoorde, J. C., ed. “De Noord-Oostelijke doorvaart naar China.” Bijdragen en mededelingen van het historisch genootschap 47 (1926): 249–331.Google Scholar
Pincus, Steve. “The English Debate over Universal Monarchy.” In A Union for Empire. Political Thought and the Union for 1707, edited by Robertson, John R., 37–62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
“Pointen ende Articulen in forme van Generale Instructie (1650).” In Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakkaatboek, 1602-1811, vol. 2., edited by van der Chijs, J. A., 135–57. The Hague, 1886.Google Scholar
Stapel, F. W. “Het Bongaais verdrag.” PhD diss., Leiden University, 1922.Google Scholar
Stern, Philip J.The Company-State. Corporate Sovereignty and The Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Terrenato, Francesca. “The First Dutch Translation.” In The First Translations of Machiavelli's Principe. From the Sixteenth to the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Pol, Roberto De, 188–226. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010.Google Scholar
Tiele, P, ed. “Documenten voor de geschiedenis der Nederlanders in het Oosten.” Bijdragen en mededelingen van het Historisch Genootschap 6 (1883).Google Scholar
Valentijn, François. Beschryving van Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, bevattende een naauwkeurige en uitvoerige verhandeling van Nederlands Mogentheid in die gewesten, 5 vols. Amsterdam, 1724–1726.Google Scholar
Van Dam, Pieter. Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie. 7 vols. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1927–1954.Google Scholar
Van Goens, Rijckloff. “Extract uyt de missive… gedateert January 1670.” In Dam, Van, Beschryvinge van de Oostindische Compagnie, vol. 4 [book 2, part 2], 405–410. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1932.Google Scholar
Van Hoorn, Pieter. “Preparatoire Consideratien ende advys wegens de Nederlantse Colonie in deze Indische gewesten.” In Opkomst van het Nederlandsch gezag over Java, vol. 3, edited by de Jonge, J. K. J., 130–47. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1872.Google Scholar
Weststeijn, A.Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age. The Political Thought of Johan & Pieter de la Court. Leiden: Brill, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weststeijn, A.. “Dutch Brazil and the Making of Free Trade Ideology.” In The Legacy of Dutch Brazil in the Atlantic World, edited by van Groesen, Michiel, 187–204. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Weststeijn, A.. “‘Love Alone is Not Enough’: Treaties in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Colonial Expansion.” In Empire by Treaty: Negotiating European Expansion, 1600-1900, edited by Belmessous, Saliha. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Weststeijn, A.. “Republican Empire. Colonialism, Commerce, and Corruption in the Dutch Golden Age.” Renaissance Studies 26:4 (2012): 491–509.Google Scholar
Wilson, Eric. The Savage Republic: De Indis of Hugo Grotius, Republicanism, and Dutch Hegemony in the Early Modern World System (c. 1600-1619). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 2008.Google Scholar
Witteveen, Menno. Antonio van Diemen. De opkomst van de VOC in Azië. Amsterdam: Pallas Publications, 2011.Google Scholar