Evolution of the Dutch Empire

The Evolution of the Dutch Empire can be traced through the history of the various territories which it comprised. This list gives a brief history of the various territories and trading factories that were under the political control of the Netherlands or of the Dutch East and West India Companies. Collectively, these territories are referred to as the Dutch Empire.

In 1652 the Dutch East India Company established a refuelling station at the Cape of Good Hope, situated halfway between the Dutch East Indies and the Dutch West Indies. Great Britain seized the colony in 1797 during the wars of the First Coalition (in which the Netherlands were allied with revolutionary France), and annexed it in 1805. The Dutch colonists in South Africa remained after the British took over and later made the trek across the country to Natal. They were involved in the Boer Wars against the British and are now known as Boers.

The Dutch had several possessions in Western Africa. These included the Dutch Gold Coast, the Dutch Slave Coast, Dutch Loango-Angola, Senegambia, and Arguin. They built their first two forts on the Gold Coast in 1598 at Komenda and Kormantsil (in present day Ghana). They expanded their presence in the following centuries. In 1872 they sold the Dutch Gold Coast to the British.

The Dutch East Indies comprised and formed the basis of the later Indonesia. The first Dutch conquests were made among the Portuguese trading posts in the Maluku "Spice Islands" in 1605. The Spice Islands were out of the way for the Dutch trade routes to China and Japan, so Jayakarta on Java was captured and fortified in 1619. As "Batavia", it became the Asian headquarters of the East India Company (VOC). The company administered the islands directly on a for-profit model that restricted most of its attention to Java, southern Sumatra, and Bangka. English incursions were curtailed by the 1623 Amboyna massacre but the attack left bad blood and prompted a series of Anglo-Dutch wars. The company and its territories were nationalized during the Napoleonic Wars after British attacks effectively bankrupted it. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Dutch expanded throughout the archipelago. Following the 1940 German occupation of the Netherlands and the 1942 Japanese occupation of Indonesia during World War II, Indonesian independence was declared in August 1945 and – following a prolonged revolution – recognized in December 1949.

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