Indonesia

Abstract

As in the case of the African, the Arctic, and the Mediterranean trade, a description of Dutch commerce in the Orient must begin with the facts that in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the Netherlands trade to the Iberian peninsula was considerably disrupted by war. When the Dutch could no longer trade freely with Portugal, they were largely cut off from the products of the mysterious East, since all of the Eastern trade, as far as Europeans were concerned, was in Portuguese hands, and had been for most of the century. Portuguese penetration into the Orient began with Bartholomeu Dias, who rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, and Vasco da Gama, who passed that promontory and reached India about ten years later. In 1510 Affonso de Albuquerque conquered Goa and made it a center for Portuguese trade. Cities of Ceylon were first occupied by the Portuguese in 1517, Malacca was captured in 1511, and in the same year the Portuguese reached the Moluccas. They later established themselves in China at Macao, and before the middle of the sixteenth century were trading in Japan. One of their important trading centers was the islands of the East Indies, which were the chief source for pepper and spices.