VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie)

The VOC (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) was the dominant commercial and naval power of Southeast Asia, with the monopoly of cloves and nutmegs and a string of forts from Malaka to Ambon. The Dutch East India Company established astonishingly regular and intensive shipping networks to take a large share of the region's export produce.

The VOC can be characterised as the world's first multinational corporation because of its personnel from many countries and its widely dispersed trading network in Asia. The States General of the Dutch Republic provided the Company's ships with part of guns and ammunition needed to attack the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Asia.

The VOC was governed by 17 directors, known as the "Heren Zeventien" (Gentlemen Seventeen), who represented the sixty-odd directors of the participating chambers of Amsterdam, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Rotterdam, Delft and Zeeland.