Birthing Empire: The States General and the Chartering of the VOC and the WIC

Abstract

The historiography regarding Dutch maritime expansion is overwhelmingly entrenched in the idea of exceptionalism: the chartering of Dutch commercial companies for long-distance overseas trade is generally presented as a milestone of differentiated policy and behaviour, contrasting with the Iberian empire-building experience. This chapter challenges the assumption that the VOC and the WIC were created as chartered commercial companies for the efficiency of long-distance trade alone and argues that they were instead the mechanisms devised by the Dutch States General for the specific purpose of deploying empire. Antunes demonstrates that the creation and development of a Dutch empire was not a contingent result of the commercial activities of the Dutch chartered companies but rather a conscious political decision taken at the inception of these companies.