European Trading Companies / Stocks and Bonds
Dutch East India Company (VOC)
- Ostend Company - Swedish
East India Company - China trade
It was to be the end of the 17th century or even
the beginning of the 18th before all the West European maritime
powers were represented by companies on the new trade routes to the
Far East, to which the then all-embracing term East Indies was
applied. The East Indies comprised all the new discovered regions
east of the Cape of Good Hope, which included: East Africa and the
islands along its coast, the basin of the Red Sea, India west and
east, the Malay Archipelago, China and Japan. The increase in the
number of contestants in the new mercantile traffic between Europe
and Asia made for a new equilibrium and redistributed the world
into new spheres of influence. Smaller powers with access to the
sea, such as Denmark, Sweden, the Austrian Netherlands and Prussia
got the chance to make a place for themselves, next to old Spain
and Portugal and to the even strongly established England, the
Dutch Republic and France, which meanwhile had expanded to become
world powers.
VOC
- Dutch East India Company(1602-1799)
From the second part of the 16th century, Dutch
ships sailed to the Caribbean, particularly to fetch salt, which,
as a preservative for fish, meat and other foodstuffs, was of great
importance. Several companies, each of which specialized in a
certain area, existed independent from one another. In 1602 the
small trading companies merged into the Vereenigde Oostindische
Compagnie (i.e. the United Netherlands East India Company) which
was to become an important power until 1799.
The Ostend East-India Company (1722-1731)
The trade from Ostend in the Austrian Netherlands
to Mocha, India, Bengal and China started in 1715. Some private
merchants from Antwerp, Ghent and Ostend were granted charters for
the East-India-trade by the Austrian government that had recently
come to power in the Southern Netherlands. Between 1724 and 1732,
21 company vessels were sent out, mainly to Canton in China and to
Bengal. Thanks to the rise in tea prices, high profits were made in
the China-trade. In May 1727 the charter of the company was
suspended for seven years and in March 1731 the second treaty of
Vienna ordered the definitive abolition. The flourishing Ostend
Company had been sacrificed to the interests of the Austrian
dynasty.
The Swedish East India
Company ( 1731-1807)
The Swedish East India
Company, established 1731 on the initiative of private merchants
but with the caution of the central government, profited from the
vain attempts of building new companies in some countries and from
the short lived companies' existence in other as well. Both the
Swedish and reformed Danish company were profiting from the vacuum
created by the disappearance of the Austrian East India Company or
commonly called Ostend Company because based in Ostend, itself
dissolved under pressure from the great powers.
 Introduction - English text version
The China
Trade (1497-1905)
Silks, spices, tea and porcelain. These and other exotic products
of China had been eagerly sought by Europeans since Roman times.
But the land route through the Euroasian deserts along the "Silk
Route" allowed only a trickle of Oriental products to reach the
Western World. In the 16th century the sea route to the Orient was
discovered. In the centuries that followed the seafaring nations of
Europe vied for control of the China Trade. In the early 18th
century, the collection of Oriental products became an obcession
among the European aristocracy. Separate rooms and castles were
built to display the collections
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