How one of the most profitable companies in history rose to power Adam Clulow
During the 17th century,
the three letters “VOC” formed
the world’s most recognizable logo.
These initials belonged to the
Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie,
or the Dutch East India Company—
widely considered the most profitable
corporation ever created.
Starting in 1602, it cornered
the booming spice market
and pioneered trade routes
between Asia and Europe.
But such success came with an overwhelming
cost in human life.
When the Dutch state created the Company,
it granted the organization
the power to wage war,
conduct diplomacy,
and seize colonies throughout Asia.
The Dutch East India Company
was intended to make money
and battle competing European empires.
The Asian market was the
largest at the time
and spices were in great demand
throughout Europe.
Nutmeg was among the most precious.
But it was only cultivated
on Indonesia’s Banda Islands.
If Dutch officials could seize exclusive
control over nutmeg,
they’d make their investors rich,
ensure the Company’s long-term survival
and deprive their adversaries
of the same gains.
However, their plan hinged
on the submission of the Bandanese people.
This was something Company officials,
like the ruthless Jan Pieterszoon Coen,
were willing to go to great lengths
to ensure.
Home to around 15,000 people,
the Banda Islands were composed
of village confederations
controlled by rich men called orang kaya,
who were expert traders.
They’d retained their virtual monopoly
over nutmeg for centuries,
selling at the highest price
to Asian and European merchants.
When the Dutch East India Company
arrived in the early 1600s,
its officials persuaded a group
of orang kaya to sign a treaty.
It guaranteed protection in exchange
for monopoly rights to their nutmeg.
Bandanese leaders had made similar
agreements before,
but were able to break them
without serious consequences.
The Dutch represented a new threat.
They attempted to build forts
to control trade and stop smuggling,
and insisted that all nutmeg be sold
to them at deflated prices.
Many Bandanese refused
and relations continued to deteriorate.
In 1609, a group of villagers ambushed and
killed a Dutch admiral and 40 of his men.
Over the next decade, tensions escalated
as treaties were broken and re-signed.
The Company and Jan Pieterszoon Coen,
its Governor-General,
began considering new strategies.
The Bandanese, one official wrote,
should be “brought to reason
or entirely exterminated.”
Coen himself believed that there
could be no trade without war.
In 1621, with the approval
of his superiors,
he staged a massive invasion and made
Bandanese leaders sign another document.
But this time, the terms didn’t recognize
the Bandanese as a sovereign people—
they were the Dutch East India Company’s
colonial subjects.
Soon, Dutch officials claimed they’d
detected a conspiracy against them.
Coen used this to eliminate
further resistance.
He ordered his soldiers to torture
Bandanese leaders to extract confessions.
Over the following months,
Company troops waged a brutal campaign
that decimated the population.
Many Bandanese people were
starved to death or enslaved
and sent to distant Dutch colonies.
Others jumped from cliffs
rather than surrender.
Thousands fled,
emptying out whole villages.
Some survivors resettled on other islands,
where they preserved remnants
of Bandanese language and culture.
When the Company’s violent
campaign was over,
the indigenous population had plummeted
to less than a thousand,
most of whom were enslaved.
The Dutch East India Company sliced
the islands into plantations
and imported an enslaved workforce.
It was, by many measures,
an act of genocide.
By securing this global monopoly
over nutmeg,
the Company supercharged
its economic development,
contributing to the Dutch Golden Age.
Although Coen faced criticism,
he was celebrated as a national hero
well into the 20th century.
400 years after the massacre on Banda,
Coen’s statue still stands
in the city of Hoorn—
despite mounting pressure for its removal.
Coen and the Dutch East India Company
brought a prized commodity
under their control and profits soared.
But they achieved this by violently
tearing another society apart.