The United East India Company, commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies, it was granted a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia. Shares in the company could be purchased by any citizen of the United Provinces and subsequently bought and sold in open-air secondary markets. The company possessed quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike its own coins, and establish colonies. Also, because it traded across multiple colonies and countries from both the East and the West, the VOC is sometimes considered to have been the world's first multinational corporation.
The Coromandel Coast is the southeastern coastal region of the Indian subcontinent, bounded by the Utkal Plains to the north, the Bay of Bengal to the east, the Kaveri delta to the south, and the Eastern Ghats to the west, extending over an area of about 22,800 square kilometres. The coast has an average elevation of 80 metres and is backed by the Eastern Ghats, a chain of low lying and flat-topped hills.
Pulicat or Pazhaverkadu is a historic seashore town in Chennai Metropolitan Area at Thiruvallur District, of Tamil Nadu state, India. It is about 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Chennai and 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from Elavur, on the southern periphery of the Pulicat Lake. Pulicat lake is a shallow salt water lagoon which stretches about 60 kilometres (37 mi) along the coast. With lakeside and seashore development as well as several Special Economic Zones (SEZs) including a US$1 billion Medical SEZ, coming up in nearby Elavur, land prices in the area are rising.
Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein was a military man and a colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company and naturalist.
Bengal was a directorate of the Dutch East India Company in Mughal Bengal between 1610 until the company's liquidation in 1800. It then became a colony of the Kingdom of the Netherlands until 1825, when it was relinquished to the British according to the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. Dutch presence in the region started by the establishment of a trading post at Pipili in the mouth of Subarnarekha River in Odisha. The former colony is part of what is today called Dutch India. Bengal was the source of 50% of the textiles and 80% of the raw silk imported from Asia by the Dutch.
Dutch India consisted of the settlements and trading posts of the Dutch East India Company on the Indian subcontinent. It is only used as a geographical definition, as there was never a political authority ruling all Dutch India. Instead, Dutch India was divided into the governorates Dutch Ceylon and Dutch Coromandel, the commandment Dutch Malabar, and the directorates Dutch Bengal and Dutch Suratte.
Philips Baelde or Philippus Baldaeus, was a Dutch minister. He went to Jaffna during the Dutch period in Ceylon with an invading Dutch force. As the second European after Abraham Rogerius, in his illustrated Description of the East Indian Countries of Malabar, Coromandel, Ceylon, etc. he documented the life, language and culture of the Tamil people, living in the north of the island. It was initially published in Dutch and German, while the English translation was published by the Ceylon Government Railway (1960).
The ruins of Alamparai Fort lie near Kadappakkam in India, a village 50 km from Mamallapuram on the land overlooking the sea. Constructed in the late 17th century during the Mughal era, the Alamparai Fort once had a 100-metre long dockyard stretching into the sea, from which zari cloth, salt, and ghee were exported. During 1735 AD it was ruled by Nawab Doste Ali Khan. In 1750, for the services rendered by the famous French commander Dupleix to Subedar Muzaphar Jung, the fort was given to the French. When French were defeated by the British, the fort was captured and demolished in 1760 AD. More recently the structure was damaged in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.
Rijcklof Volckertsz. van Goens was the Governor of Zeylan and Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. He was the Governor of Zeylan from 12 May 1660 to 1661, then in 1663 and finally from 19 November 1664 to 1675 during the Dutch period in Ceylon. He was also served as Council Member of India during 1679. Van Goens’ managed to monopolize the cinnamon trade, get hold of the Malabar pepper and drive away the Portuguese from Ceylon and the Coromandel Coast for the VOC.
The History of Pulicat revolves around the early role of Pulicat as a seaport in one of the few natural harbours on the Coromandel Coast of South India. Pulicat is in Tamil Nadu at the mouth of Pulicat lake. Worth a visit to AARDE Pulicat Museum located in Kottai Kuppam road at Pazhaverkadu will give the detailed account on the history of Pulicat.
Dutch Suratte, officially Nederlandse vestiging van Suratte, was a directorate of the Dutch East India Company between 1616 and 1795, with its main factory in the city of Surat. Surat was an important trading city of the Mughal Empire on the river Tapti, and the Portuguese had been trading there since 1540. In the early 17th century, Portuguese traders were displaced by English and Dutch traders.
Fort Geldria or Fort Geldaria, located in Pulicat, Tamil Nadu, was the seat of the Dutch Republic's first settlement in India, and the capital of Dutch Coromandel. It was built by the Dutch East India Company in 1613 and became the local governmental centre in 1616. It was named for Geldria, the native province of Wemmer van Berchem, the General Director of the company. Regularly protected by a garrison of 80 to 90 men, Fort Geldria was the only fortification in the Indian empire; all other positions of the Dutch Company were trading posts.
Dutch Malabar also known by the name of its main settlement Cochin, were a collection of settlements and trading factories of the Dutch East India Company on the Malabar Coast between 1661 and 1795, and was a subdivision of what was collectively referred to as Dutch India. Dutch presence in the Malabar region started with the capture of Portuguese Quilon, expanded with the Conquest of Malabar (1658-1663), and ended with the conquest of Malabar by the British in 1795. They possessed military outposts in 11 locations: Alleppey, Ayacotta, Chendamangalam, Pappinivattom, Ponnani, Pallipuram, Cranganore, Chetwai, Cannanore, Cochin, and Quilon.
Nagapattinam Port is a port in the South Indian town of Nagapattinam in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a natural port located in the shores of Bay of Bengal. The port came to prominence during the period of Medieval Cholas and served as their important port for commerce and east bound naval expeditions. Nagapattinam was settled by the Portuguese and, later, the Dutch under whom it served as the capital of Dutch Coromandel from 1660 to 1781 CE. In November 1781, the town was conquered by the British East India Company. The port was an important port for the colonial empires until Thoothukudi port became the primary port in the Coromandel Coast.
India–Netherlands relations are the foreign relations between India and the Netherlands. India maintains an embassy in The Hague, Netherlands and the Netherlands maintains an embassy in New Delhi and a consulate general in Mumbai. Both countries established diplomatic relations in 1947 the same year India became independent.
Fort Vijf Sinnen was a fortification made by the Dutch East India Company in Nagapattinam, then part of Dutch Coromandel (1610-1798), now Tamil Nadu. The fortification, also described as a castle, was built to protect the interests of the trading company, which shifted the capital of the Coromandel operation from Pulicat to Nagapattinam in 1690, three years after work began on the fort.
Jacob Gotfried Haafner was a German-Dutch travel writer who lived in and wrote extensively on India and Ceylon. His travelogues were noted for their Romantic undertones, lively descriptions of Indian cultures and peoples, as well as criticisms of European colonialism, slavery, and cultural domination.
Henricus Franciscus von Söhsten, later anglicized to Henry Francis von Söhsten was the last opperhoofd of Dutch Coromandel between 1824 and 1825.
The Conquest of Malabar (1658–1663) encompassed a series of military campaigns led by Rijckloff van Goens with the objective of acquiring Portuguese-controlled territories along the Malabar Coast. The Dutch pursued these campaigns with determination, ultimately achieving success in their endeavor. As a result, the Dutch secured control over various regions along the Malabar Coast, marking a significant shift in the regional geopolitical landscape
