Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 29. Chapters: Dutch colonization of the Americas, Dutch East India Company, Dutch West India Company, Evolution of the Dutch Empire, Coenraad van Beuningen, Liever Turks dan Paaps, Philippus Baldaeus, List of Dutch East India Company trading posts and settlements, Society of Suriname, New Netherland Company, Lambert van Tweenhuysen, Society of Berbice, Senegambia, Kandyan Treaty of 1638, Verwantschapslanden. Excerpt: The Dutch East India Company (Dutch: , VOC, "United East India Company") was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia. It was the second multinational corporation in the world (the British East India Company was founded two years earlier) and the first company to issue stock. It was also arguably the world's second megacorporation, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonies. Statistically, the VOC eclipsed all of its rivals in the Asia trade. Between 1602 and 1796 the VOC sent almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships, and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods. By contrast, the rest of Europe combined sent only 882,412 people from 1500 to 1795, and the fleet of the English (later British) East India Company, the VOC's nearest competitor, was a distant second to its total traffic with 2,690 ships and a mere one-fifth the tonnage of goods carried by the VOC. The VOC enjoyed huge profits from its spice monopoly through most of the 17th century. Having been set up in 1602, to profit from the Malukan spice trade, in 1619 the VOC established a capital in the port city of Batavia (now Jakarta). Over the next two centuries the Company...