A Short History

For more than 200 years, from 1604 to 1825, India played an important role in Dutch trade. However, the Dutch presence in India does not stand alone. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) secured a place in a trading network around the Indian Ocean that had existed for centuries, in which the Portuguese had already preceded them from Europe. Spices on the Indonesian archipelago were the centre of Dutch trade, with Batavia, today's Jakarta as the administrative centre. Textiles from India facilitated the VOC's access to the spice trade and thus the Asian network. The spices could be exchanged for Chinese silk, the Chinese silk was exchanged for Japanese bullion, which was exchanged for Indian textiles. Other trade products were found as well, such as ray skin from India that was traded to the Japanese. The Dutch thus conquered a prominent place in the Southeast Asian market.