Economy & Finance in the 17th century

63 sourced entries, 1600 CE to 1698 CE, oldest first. Also see Economy & Finance across every century or everything else in the 17th century.

• 1600June 13 – Barrister Nicholas Fuller is granted the exclusive right in England to manufacture playing cards.source
• 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
• 1602April 20 – The Danish–Icelandic Trade Monopoly is established.source
• 1603The earliest of eight companies that will eventually merge to form the Kikkoman Corporation, the producers of soy sauce, is founded in Japan.source
• 1604July 7 – King James angrily dismisses the English parliament after failing to get full financial subsidies. He tells the members in his closing speech, "I am not of such a stock as to praise fools."source
• 1606April 10 – Charter of 1606: The First Charter of Virginia is adopted, by which King James I of England grants rights to the Virginia Company (comprising the London Company and Plymouth Company) to settle parts of the east coast of North America.source
• 1607January 13 – The Bank of Genoa fails.source
• 1608May 8 – A newly nationalized silver mine in Scotland at Hilderston, West Lothian is re-opened by Bevis Bulmer.source
• 1609January 31 – The Bank of Amsterdam is established.source
• 1609The Dutch East India Company imports tea to Europe.source
• 1609The municipality of Buenavista in Marinduque, Philippines is founded.source
• 1609Dutch entrepreneur Isaac Le Maire devizes the concept of selling short shares in order to benefit from a falling Dutch East India Company share price.source
• 1614January 27 – The Noordsche Compagnie is founded in the Netherlands at Vlieland as a cartel in the whaling market.source
• 1615The Somers Isles Company is founded to administer Bermuda.source
• 1615The Grolsch Brewery is founded in Groenlo, Netherlands.source
• 1616With small profits to show, the Virginia Company decides to distribute land in Virginia to shareholders according to the number of shares owned. Each stockholder can set up a "particular" plantation and pay associated expenses, receiving 100 acre km2 of land for each share and 50 acre m2 for each person transported (the "headrights" system).source
• 1621June 3 – The Dutch West India Company is founded.source
• 1625The capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo, is founded by King Andrianjaka.source
• 1626May 4 – Peter Minuit becomes director-general of New Netherland, for the Dutch West India Company.source
• 1626May 24 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan from a Native American tribe (Lenape or Shinnecock) for trade goods, valued at 60 guilders ($1,143 U.S. dollars as of 2020).source
• 1627Habsburg Spain suffers an economic collapse.source
• 1628May 13 – In North America, Matthew Cradock is elected by shareholders as the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company.source
• 1628December 3 – The attempt by the Mataram Sultanate to drive the Dutch East India Company from the western part of the island of Java fails after 103 days.source
• 1629Chongzhen, the Chinese emperor of the Ming dynasty, reiterates the state prohibition against female infanticide, while the empire and the Chinese economy begins to crumble. In the same year, a third of the courier stations are closed down due to lack of government funds to sustain them.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
• 1649July 27 – The Commonwealth of England Parliament passes the "Act for the promoting and propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ in New England" to create the "Company for Propagation of the Gospel in New England and the parts adjacent in America" for Christian missionary ministries to Native American tribes. The New England Company will continue to operate more than three and a half centuries later.source
• 1651May 21 – The Sovereign Military Order of Malta purchases the Caribbean islands of Saint Barthélemy, Saint Christopher, Saint Croix and Saint Martin from the France's Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique. The Order will sell the islands in 1665 to the French West India Company.source
• 1653January – The Swiss Peasant War begins after magistrates meeting at Lucerne refuse to hear from a group of peasants who have been financially hurt by the devaluation of the currency issued from Bern.source
• 1656March 3 – Fyodor Baykov, the Russian Empire's first envoy to China, is admitted to the Forbidden City within Beijing, after being sent by Tsar Alexis to negotiate a trade agreement with the Emperor Shunzi.source
• 1656December 17 – King Frederick III of Denmark and Norway decrees that loan repayments and payments of interest to lenders will be made on two specific days, May 29 and June 11, each one nicknamed the Fandens fødselsdag or "Devil's Birthday",source
• 1656The Stockholm Banco, the first bank to issue banknotes, is founded in Stockholm, Sweden.source
• 1656Konoike Zen'amon (son of Konoike Shinroku) founds a baking and money-changing business in Osaka, Japan.source
• 1657England's first chocolate house is opened in London and introduction of tea in England while coffee is introduced to France.source
• 1659March 28 – The Danish Africa Company (Dansk afrikanske kompagni) is chartered to Hendrik Carloff for the purpose of capturing Africa slaves from the area around Denmark's colony on the Danish Gold Coast for use in the West Indies.source
• 1660December 18 – The Company of the Royal Adventurers into Africa, planned by Prince James, brother of King Charles II to capture persons along the coast of West Africa for resale as slaves, receives its charter. Prince James, later King James II, had started asking for investors (at 250 pounds sterling per share) starting on October 3, 1660.source
• 1661The first modern bank notes are issued in Stockholm, Sweden.source
• 1662May 19 – Royal assent is also given to England's new hearth tax law, with one shilling charged for each stove or fireplace in a building, to be collected on 29 September and on 25 March each year in order to provide the £1,200,000 annual household income for King Charles II. The unpopular tax is abolished in 1689.source
• 1662December 20 – Nicolas Fouquet is banished from France.source
• 1663January 10 – The Royal African Company is granted a Royal Charter by Charles II of England.source
• 1664January 7 – Indian entrepreneur Virji Vora, described in the 17th century by the English East India Company as the richest merchant in the world, suffers the loss of a large portion of his wealth when the Maratha troops of Shivaji plunder his residence at Surat and his business warehouses.source
• 1664April 14 – All grants to the Compagnie des Isles de l'Amerique for development of French-claimed islands in the Caribbean Sea are revoked by King Louis XIV, including the rights to the islands of Martinique and Saint Lucia that had been sold to Marie Bonnard du Parquet prior to her death in 1659.source
• 1664May 28 – King Louis XIV of France establishes the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales by royal decree to replace the recently cancelled Compagnie des Isles de l'Amerique.source
• 1664June 9 – Kronenbourg Brewery (Brasseries Kronenbourg) is founded in Strasbourg.source
• 1664August 27 – The French East India Company (Compagnie des Indes Orientales) is founded.source
• 1664December 3 – The English warships HMS Nonsuch and HMS Phoenix are wrecked in a storm at Gibraltar.source
• 1665October 21 – Louis XIV and Jean-Baptiste Colbert found the Manufacture royale des glaces of Saint Gobain, which is the oldest French company of the CAC 40, with 350 years in 2015.source
• 1668One of the world's earliest central banks, the Sveriges Riksbank, is founded in Stockholm, Sweden.source
• 1669Okaya & Co. is founded as Sasaya, a trading company in Nagoya, Japan.source
• 1671March 11 – The Danish West India Company, a charter ship company whose operations include human trafficking of African slaves to the Western Hemisphere by its Danish Africa Company subsidiary, is founded.source
• 1672November 28 – After more than five years of administration of the Treasury of England by a five-member commission, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, one of the commission members, becomes the Lord High Treasurer of England.source
• 1672Richard Hoare becomes a partner in the London goldsmith's business which, as private banking house C. Hoare & Co., will survive through to the 21st century.source
• 1673The Mitsui family's trading and banking house is founded in Japan.source
• 1674January 2 – The French West India Company is dissolved after less than 10 years.source
• 1674The first Dutch West India Company is dissolved.source
• 1683August 25 – The Earl of Limerick, Irishman Thomas Dongan, takes office as the new British Colonial Governor of the Province of New York and makes major reforms to restore public order and rescue the province from bankruptcy.source
• 1690November 17 – Barclays, which will continue to be active into the 21st century as a multinational bank and lending institution, is founded in London by John Freame and Thomas Gould as Freame & Gould. The bank changes its name in 1736 when James Barclay becomes a partner.source
• 1695July 17 – The Bank of Scotland is founded.source
• 1695In Amsterdam, the bank Wed. Jean Deutz & Sn. floats the first sovereign bonds on the local market. The scheme is designed to fund a 1.5 million guilder loan to the Holy Roman Emperor. From this date on, European leaders commonly take advantage of the low interest rates available in the Dutch Republic, and borrow several hundred millions on the Dutch capital market.source
• 1696November 12 – Hand in Hand Fire & Life Insurance Society, as predecessor to Aviva, is founded in England.source
• 1696Window tax was introduced in England and Wales and remained in force until 1851.source
• 1696The Bank of Scotland becomes the first bank in Europe to successfully issue paper currency.source
• 1698September 5 – A charter is granted by King William III of England to the new East India Company of England, called "the New Company" or "the English Company" to break the monopoly that has existed in India since 1689 with the existing British East India Company.source
• 1698Shepherd Neame Brewery founded.source