Dutch East India Company, a trading company chartered in 1602 by
the Netherlands States-General (assembly). It was organized to
protect and control Dutch trade in the Indian Ocean and to help
in a war against Spain and Portugal. Money was raised by selling
shares and the company was governed by representatives from the
separate Dutch states. The company was given a monopoly of trade
in the East Indies and could import into the Netherlands free of
duty. Soon it had replaced the Portuguese as master of the
commerce between Europe and the East Indies. It had almost
absolute ruling power in Dutch colonies from Africa east across
the Pacific.  The East India Company was at its strongest and
richest in the late 1600's. It then declined because of
mismanagement and foreign competition and went out of existence
in 1798 when the French conquered the Netherlands. The company's
South African colony at the Cape of Good Hope, founded in 1652,
was ceded by the Netherlands to Britain in 1815. Its island
colonies in the Paci