Dutch East India Company

20 March 1602: six companies become one

On 20 March 1602 the States-General granted the charter that created the Generale Vereenigde Geoctroyeerde Compagnie, known ever since as the VOC. Six existing Dutch pre-companies were converted into its chambers at Amsterdam, Zeeland/Middelburg, Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn, and Enkhuizen.

They had been bidding against one another in Asia and depressing sale prices at home. The Republic, at war with the Spanish-Portuguese monarchy, wanted a single enterprise it could use as both an economic and a military instrument.

Seventeen seats, eight of them Amsterdam's

Central management went to a seventeen-member board, the Heren XVII, representing all six chambers. Amsterdam held eight seats — one short of a majority — and the board's presidency and meeting place periodically shifted to Middelburg.

Johan van Oldenbarnevelt led the political effort to force the competing ventures together, and Maurice, Prince of Orange, intervened to overcome Zeeland's resistance to the merger.

Powers of a state, granted for trade

For 21 years, only the VOC could dispatch Dutch ships or conduct Dutch trade east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan. Overseas it could contract with rulers, build forts, administer justice, hire soldiers, and wage war.

The charter and the money were separate steps. Ships already being prepared by the former companies were combined into a fourteen-ship first fleet, while public subscription followed later in 1602 and reached 6,424,588 guilders across the six chambers.

The largest single entry in the Amsterdam register was 85,000 guilders, invested by Isaac le Maire.