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Dutch East India Company

1602–1799 Dutch trading company

51 dated entries naming Dutch East India Company, drawn from 40 separate years between 1602 CE and 1800 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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17th century

  • 1602March 20 – The United East India Company is established by the United Provinces States-General in Amsterdam, with the stated intention of capturing the spice trade from the Portuguese.source
  • 1603February 25 – Dutch–Portuguese War: the Portuguese ship Santa Catarina is seized by Dutch East India Company ships off Singapore.source
  • 1605February 25 – Admiral Steven van der Hagen leads a fleet of ships for the Dutch East India Company and makes the first capture of land for the Netherlands in what will become the Dutch East Indies, and later Indonesia. Hagen's men capture the Portuguese citadel of Forte Amboino and the rest of Ambon Island, and make it the capital of the Dutch possessions in Asia.source
  • 1609The Dutch East India Company imports tea to Europe.source
  • 1609April 4 – English explorer Henry Hudson, in the service of the Dutch East India Company, sets out from Amsterdam in the Halve Maen.source
  • 1609April 9 – The Netherlands and Spain agree to the Twelve Years' Truce (which lasts until 1621) in the Eighty Years' War, with the signing of the Treaty of Antwerp, allowing the Dutch East India Company to trade within the Spanish Empire.source
  • 1616December 25 – Captain Nathaniel Courthope reaches the nutmeg-rich island of Run in the Moluccas, to defend it against the Dutch East India Company. A contract with the inhabitants, accepting James I of England as their sovereign, makes it part of the English colonial empire.source
  • 1618July 31 – Lenaert Jacobszoon and the crew of the Dutch East India Company ship Mauritius become the first Europeans to sight what is now the Australian state of Western Australia, landing at the North Cape.source
  • 1621The Dutch East India Company sends 2,000 soldiers, under the command of Jan Pieterszoon Coen, to the Banda Islands, in order to force the local inhabitants to accept the Dutch trade monopoly on the lucrative nutmeg, grown almost exclusively on those islands. The soldiers proceed to massacre most of the 15,000 indigenous inhabitants.source
  • 1622May 13 – The Eendracht, a VOC ship and the second recorded European ship to make landfall on Australian soil, is wrecked off the western coast of Ambon Island, Dutch East Indies.source
  • 1623January 21 – Voyage of the Pera and Arnhem to Australia: Captains Jan Carstenszoon of the Arnhem and Willem Joosten van Coolsteerdt of the Pera depart on an expedition for the Dutch East India Company from Ambon, Maluku (Amboyna) to explore the Australian coast.source
  • 1623March 9 – Amboyna massacre: Ten English merchants in the service of the British East India Company, together with nine Japanese and one Portuguese, are executed by agents of the Dutch East India Company in Ambon, Maluku (Amboyna).source
  • 1624August 4 – The Dutch East India Company agrees to Chinese demands to withdraw its operations from the Penghu islands, and relocates its trading post to Fort Zeelandia and the Dutch-controlled island of Formosa, now Tainan on Taiwan.source
  • 1625February 11 – Dutch–Portuguese War: The Battle of Hormuz, one of the largest naval battles ever fought in the Persian Gulf takes place in the Straits of Hormuz as fleets of the Dutch East India Company and the English East India Company defend Persia against an attack by ships from the colony of Portuguese India.source
  • 1629June 4 – The Dutch East India Company ship Batavia is wrecked on a reef near Beacon Island, off Western Australia, on her maiden voyage to the Indies. Following mutiny among the survivors, two exiled murderers become the first Europeans to settle in Australia. Their subsequent fate is unknown.source
  • 1629October 2 – In what is now the state of Western Australia, administered at the time by the Dutch East India Company, seven members of the crew of the Batavia are hanged on the Abrolhos Islands for their massacre of 125 passengers and crew.source
  • 1633July 7 – the Dutch East India Company fleet, led by Hans Putmans, attacks its ally Zheng Zhilong's base by surprise, near Xiamen.source
  • 1633October 22 – Battle of Liaoluo Bay: A large Ming dynasty fleet under Zheng Zhilong defeats a Dutch East India Company fleet at the island of Quemoy.source
  • 1638March 28 – Dutch merchant Willem Kieft is appointed Director of New Netherland by the Dutch East India Company to succeed Wouter van Twiller.source
  • 1639May 2 – After a 40-day siege, the Dutch East India Company Army captures the Trincomalee Fort on the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from the Portuguese Empire.source
  • 1641January 14 – The Battle of Malacca concludes with the Dutch East India Company ending Portuguese control of Malacca.source
  • 1644January 30 – Dutch explorer Abel Tasman departs from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Jakarta in Indonesia) on his second major expedition for the Dutch East India Company, to map the north coast of Australia. Tasman commands three ships, Limmen, Zeemeeuw and Braek, and returns to Batavia at the beginning of August with no major discoveries.source
  • 1652April 6 – Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp for the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope in modern-day South Africa, thus founding Cape Town.source
  • 1656April 28 – The Dutch East India Company ship Vergulde Draeck, with 193 crew aboard and a valuable cargo is wrecked off Ledge Point, Western Australia, with the loss of 118 members. Another 75 make it to shore, with limited provisions. The ship had been bound from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta in Indonesia).source
  • 1661April 7 – The siege of Fort Zeelandia, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) headquarters on the Chinese island of Taiwan (near modern Taoyuan City) is started by Koxinga and his invading force from China.source
  • 1661March 23 – General Zheng Chenggong of China, known as "Koxinga" leads an invasion of the island of Taiwan, at the time under the control of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), bringing 25,000 soldiers and sailors on hundreds of boats to claim the territory.source
  • 1662February 1 – Chinese general Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong) captures the Dutch East India Company's settlement at Fort Zeelandia (now Tainan) on the island of Taiwan after a nine-month siege, ending the company's rule on the island, then establishes the Kingdom of Tungning. In response, the Kangxi Emperor of the mainland Qing dynasty relocates all residents along the southern coast, by 50 miles.source
  • 1662February 11 – A violent storm in the Indian Ocean strikes a fleet of seven ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as they are traveling back to the Dutch Republic from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia). Three of the freighters— Wapen van Holland, Gekroonde Leeuw and Prins Willem — are lost with all hands. The ships Vogel Phoenix, Maarsseveen and Prinses Royal make their way back to the Netherlands. The other ship, the freighter Arnhem remains afloat and its roughly 80 survivors are able to evacuate in boats to search for land.source
  • 1674March 14 – Third Anglo-Dutch War: Battle of Ronas Voe – The English Royal Navy captures the Dutch East India Company ship Wapen van Rotterdam in Shetland.source
  • 1677February 26 – On the Indonesian island of Java, Amangkurat II of the Mataram Sultanate agrees to bring his kingdom under the protection of the Dutch East India Company to drive out rebels.source
  • 1678August 21 – On the island of Java in modern-day Indonesia, the Kediri campaign begins as Mataram Sultanate and Dutch East India Company (VOC) forces under the command of VOC Captain François Tack begin marching from Jepara toward Kediri to suppress the Trunajaya rebellion that had driven out the Mataram Sultan. They are joined by two other columns of troops over the next fortnight.source
  • 1679December 26 – In modern-day Indonesia, the Trunajaya rebellion comes to an end with the surrender of Prince Panembahan Maduretno to the Sultan Amangkurat II of Mataram, ruler of the entire island of Java. While treated with respect as a prisoner of the occupying forces of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC), Panembahan is killed seven days later by Amangkurat after the VOC allows him to attend a ceremonial visit to the sultan's palace.source
  • 1683March 14 – Ageng Tirtayasa, Sultan of Banten on the island of Java (part of modern-day Indonesia), is captured by soldiers hired by the Dutch East India Company.source

18th century

  • 1702April 3 – The Dutch East India Company ship Merestein strikes rocks and sinks in Saldanha Bay off Jutten Island, Africa with the loss of 101 of the 200 people on board.source
  • 1702November 22 – The Dutch East India Company ship Amsterdam (1691) founders en route from Bombay to Basra during a storm with the loss of all hands.source
  • 1711August 1 – The Dutch East India Company trading ship Zuytdorp leaves the Netherlands on an ill-fated voyage to Indonesia bearing a load of freshly minted silver coins. The wreck site remains unknown until the mid-20th century, on a remote part of the Western Australian coast between Kalbarri and Shark Bay.source
  • 1711November 7 – The Dutch East India Company ship Liefde runs aground and sinks off Out Skerries, Shetland, with the loss of all but one of her 300 crew.source
  • 1722November 20 – The Dutch East India Company cargo ship Schoonenberg runs aground in South Africa's Struis Bay and is looted by most of its 110 crew, beginning a legend and questions of whether the wreck was part of a conspiracy or simply an accident. Almost 300 years later, the event is reconstructed in detail by investigators.source
  • 1724January 18 – The Dutch East India Company cargo ship Fortuyn, on its maiden voyage, departs from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa after a layover of 16 days following its arrival from the Netherlands. With a crew of 225 commanded by Pieter Westrik, the ship departs for Batavia in the Dutch East Indies and is never seen again.source
  • 1724November 19 – The Dutch East India Company frigate Slot ter Hooge strikes rocks and sinks off Porto Santo Island, Madeira, with the loss of 221 of the 254 people on board.source
  • 1725October 19 – Joan Paul Schaghen is appointed by the Dutch East India Company to serve as the Governor of Ceylon after the death of Johannes Hertenberg.source
  • 1726January 27 – On its maiden voyage, the Dutch East India Company frigate Aagtekerke departs from the Dutch Cape Colony on the second leg of its journey to the Dutch East Indies across the Indian Ocean and is never seen again. Aagtekerke carried a crew of 200 men.source
  • 1730December 27 – The Dutch East India Company ends an almost 11-year effort of trying to maintain a colony around Delagoa Bay in southern Africa in modern-day Mozambique. The entire population of the settlement, Fort Lydzammheid (near modern-day Maputo) is evacuated by the ships Snuffelaar, Zeepost and Feyenoord and the group returns to Cape Town.source
  • 1735February 3 – All 256 people on board the Dutch East India Company ships Vliegenthart and Anna Catherina die when the two ships sink in a gale off of the Netherlands coast. The wreckage of Vliegenthart remains undiscovered until 1981.source
  • 1740January 8 – All 237 crewmen on the Dutch East India Company ship Rooswijk are drowned when the vessel strikes the shoals of Goodwin Sands, off of the coast of England, as it is beginning its second voyage to the Indies. The wreckage is discovered more than 250 years later, in 2004.source
  • 1740October 9–22 – Batavia Massacre: Troops of the Dutch East India Company massacre at least 10,000 Chinese Indonesians in Batavia.source
  • 1741August 10 – Raja Marthanda Varma of Travancore defeats the Dutch East India Company in the Battle of Colachel, ending the Dutch colonial rule in India and marking the first "major" defeat of a European colonial military power in India.source
  • 1749November 9 – Battle of Penfui on Timor: A large Topass army is defeated by a numerically inferior Dutch East India Company.source
  • 1766February 18 – Meermin Slave Mutiny: Captive Malagasy people seize a Dutch East India Company slave ship in the Indian Ocean.source
  • 1799December 31 – The Dutch East India Company's charter is allowed to expire by the Batavian Republic.source
  • 1800January 1 – The Dutch East India Company dissolves.source

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