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 Map of colonialIndia, distributed by theBritish Information Services (1942) | ||||||||||||||
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Dutch India (Dutch:Nederlands Voor-Indië) consisted of the settlements and trading posts of theDutch East India Company on theIndian subcontinent. It is only used as a geographical definition, as there was never a political authority ruling all Dutch India. Instead, Dutch India was divided into the governoratesDutch Ceylon andDutch Coromandel, the commandmentDutch Malabar, and the directoratesDutch Bengal andDutch Suratte.
The Dutch Indies, on the other hand, were theDutch East Indies (present-dayIndonesia) and theDutch West Indies (present-daySuriname and the formerNetherlands Antilles).
Dutch presence on theIndian subcontinent lasted from 1605 to 1825. Merchants of theDutch East India Company first established themselves inDutch Coromandel, notablyPulicat, as they were looking for textiles to exchange with the spices they traded in the East Indies.[1]Dutch Suratte andDutch Bengal were established in 1616 and 1627 respectively.[2][3] After the Dutch conqueredCeylon from the Portuguese in 1656, they took the Portuguese forts on the Malabar coast five years later as well, as both were major spice producers, to create a Dutch monopoly for the spice trade.[4][5]
Apart from textiles, the items traded in Dutch India includeprecious stones,indigo, andsilk across the Indian Peninsula,saltpeter andopium in Dutch Bengal, andpepper in Dutch Malabar. Indian slaves were exported to theSpice Islands and theCape Colony.
In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Dutch lost their influence more and more following theTravancore–Dutch War. TheKew Letters relinquished all Dutch colonies to the British, to prevent them from being overrun by the French. Although Dutch Coromandel and Dutch Bengal were restored to Dutch rule by theAnglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814, they returned to British rule owing to the provisions of theAnglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. Under the terms of the treaty, all transfers of property and establishments were to take place on 1 March 1825. By the middle of 1825, therefore, the Dutch had lost their last trading posts in India.
Dutch mints inCochin,Masulipatnam,Nagapatnam,Pondicherry (for the five years 1693–98 when the Dutch had gained control from the French), andPulicat issued coins modeled on local Indian coinages.[6] Coins struck included:
The Dutch also imported coins struck in the Netherlands, including:
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