Description

On June 3, 1621, the States-General, the governing body of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, issued a charter to a group of Dutch merchants to establish the Dutch West India Company. Similar to the Dutch East India Company, which was founded in 1602 in order to promote trade with Asia, the West India Company was granted a 24-year monopoly on all trade by Dutch merchants and inhabitants in a region that included the Americas and West Africa. The text of the charter, published in this 1623 pamphlet, contained 45 ...