The Area Covered by the Charter of the Westindische Compagnie (W.I.C., West Indies Company) to the Present day

Abstract

Works on this area are much more limited in number than those on the East. Only during the first thirty years of its existence could the West Indies Company (founded in 1621) bear comparison with its East Indies sister in position and prestige. The conflict with the Spaniards originally gave it prestige and provided it with a considerable revenue, but later on this quickly declined; then the possession of part of Brazil could be compared with the territorial possessions of the V.O.C., but in 1654 the last remnant of this was lost; in the immense area covered by the charter, the Company possessed widely dispersed, unconnected establishments (on the coast of Guinea in West Africa, in Brazil, in Guyana, in the Antilles, in North America) and some of these were lost at an early date (Brazil in 1654, New Netherlands, on the River Hudson, 1664), whereas Surinam, on the coast of Guyana was not acquired until 1667. Of the later possessions the areas on the continent of America were plantation colonies and those on the islands trading stations. In 1674 the Company was reorganised in such a way that it was not much more than an administrative body which left the actual operations to others on payment of certain charges. Subsequently the possessions on the coast of Guyana, where large plantations were worked by negro slaves, certainly became so valuable that in the 18th century they could be compared with the V.O.C.’s possessions, and in 1814 in the opinion of some people even ranked more highly, but after that they declined greatly in significance during the course of the 19th century. Whereas in 1949 the Netherlands East Indies was an enormous island territory with between 80 and 85 million inhabitants, the much smaller parts of the realm in America have now less than half a million inhabitants altogether.