West India Company's First Decade
1620-1630
Timeline of New Netherland and the Atlantic World in the West India Company’s First Decade (1620–1630)
The decade from 1620 to 1630 was one of remarkable experimentation and expansion for the Dutch abroad. During these years, the Dutch outfitted numerous fleets for the Americas and Asia, while the newly formed West India Company tested the reach of its carefully gathered capital. Although the Company’s most ambitious efforts were directed toward Portuguese Brazil and Luanda, New Netherland was among several colonies founded in this period. Far from marginal, it was the colony that received the Company’s closest attention, with families, livestock, and religious personnel sent to establish a lasting presence. New Netherland also became a destination for enslaved people, who, under the Company’s violent coercion, played critical roles in building the colony.
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2nd June 1621
West India Company
(WIC) granted charter for a terade monopoly by the States General.
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1621
End of the Twelve years' truce with Spain
The war against Spain resumes under the leadership of Maurits of Nassau, Prince of Orange.
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1622
English Ambassador in The Hague
...protests the Dutch activities in New Netherland. Dudley Carleton lodges a protest in the States General against Dutch encroachment on “English” land
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1622
First Company Daughters
...arrive in the Dutch colony of Batavia/Jacatra, Java. The Dutch East India Company attempts to colonize Batavia by subsidizing the migration and dowries of single women. This policy would be discontinued in 1632.
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April, 1623
The Nassau Fleet departs
...the Dutch Republic April under the command of Jacques l’Hermite sets out on its mission to attack the West coast of South America and disrupt the flow of silver into Spain. It continues on to Asia to trade. Sponsored by the Dutch East India Company, the States General and the stadtholder, the three year mission would be a failure.
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July, 1623
First WIC ship leaves for New Netherland.
Although the WIC was chartered in 1621, its first ship bound for New Netherland, the yacht Mackreel, departed two years later, in 1623. The Mackreel would spend a year in New Netherland and return to patria in the summer of the 1624.
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October, 1623
Jesse de Forest
and his Colonists arrive in Wiapoco on the Wild Coast leaving the Dutch Republic with the Mackreel in July, the Duyf would take Jesse de Forest and his colonists to the Wild Coast to found a colony. The people who remained behind would be rescued by a passing Dutch ship in 1625.
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1623
The WIC plans the “Grand Design”
The West India Company’s directors decide to send a fleet to conquer Salvador da Bahia in Brazil and a second fleet to capture the Portuguese slave trading port of Luanda in Africa. The fleet departs for Bahia at the end of December 1623.
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1624
First colonists arrive in New Netherland
where they are settled at Fort Orange (Albany), the mouth of the Connecticut River, on High Island (Burlington Island) in the Delaware River, and on Governors Island. Forts are built on Governors Island and on the upper Hudson ( Fort Orange). Cornelis May, as senior skipper, is considered first director of New Netherland.
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1624
Birthplace of New York State on Governors Island 1624
Birthplace of New York State by de facto transformation of the New Netherland territory into a province by imposing the Republic's legal-political infrastructure with the planting of the first settlers on Governors Island (then named Noten Eylant or in English, Nutten Island until 1784); the locus of New York's cultural patrimony of toleration.
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1624
First Religious Personnel arrive in New Netherland
Bastiaen Jansz Krol arrives in Fort Orange to take up the position of ziekentrooster or comforter of the sick. He would only continue in the position for two years.
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1624
The West India Company briefly captures Salvador da Bahia
On May 10, 1624, the WIC takes the city of Salvador. The Company would surrender the city to a Spanish- Portuguese force on April 30, 1625.
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1624
The Dutch East India Company
...establishes Fort Zeelandia in Taiwan. The Dutch establish Fort Zeelandia so they can engage in trade with China. They would lose the fort and the island to Koxinga in 1661
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1624
First recorded auction of WIC
...goods coming from New Netherland December.The Company auctions furs from New Netherland in Amsterdam.
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1625
Johannes de Laet publishes
... Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinighe van West- Indien, uit veelerhande Schriften ende Aen-teekeningen van verschedyen Natien
De Laet, a West India Company director, produces an early description of New Netherland as well as other parts of the Americas, relying on earlier travel accounts and other documents.
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1625
Publication of De Jure Belli et Pacis 6 Sep
The publication of De Jure Belli et Pacis, by Dutch statesman and jurist Hugo Grotius, lays the foundation for the science of international law.
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1625
Prince Frederik Hendrik
...becomes stadholder upon death of Prince Maurits. Prince Frederik Hendrik, the youngest child of Willem the Silent, becomes stadholder upon the death of Prince Maurits.
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1625
Willem Verhulst
... arrives as director of New Netherland. Willem Verhulst arrives as director of New Netherland.
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1625
Kiliaen van Rensselaer
...becomes a West India Company director. Van Rensselaer, who would found a patroonship in New Netherland, takes a leadership role in the WIC.
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1625
Arrival of the “Animal Fleet”
The ships Schaep, Koe, and Swarte Paert, which were retrofitted and provisioned specifically to carry farm animals to New Netherland arrive with their cargo.
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1626
Daniel van Crieckenbeeck
...killed by Mohawks. Daniel van Crieckenbeeck, commander at Fort Orange, and three WIC soldiers were killed while supporting a Mahican war party against the Mohawks.
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1626
Peter Minuit
... replaces Verhulst as director Peter Minuit replaces Verhulst as director, purchases Manhattan Island; moves settlers from Fort Orange, Connecticut, and Delaware to Manhattan.
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1627
First Africans
...arrive in New Netherland.The ship Bruin Visch brings approximately two dozen enslaved people captured from a Portuguese ship off the coast of Trinidad.
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1627
Founding of Berbice and Tobago
Abraham van Pere receives permission from the WIC to start Berbice, and Jan Marsen and Jan de Moor found Tobago.
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1628
Isaac de Rasieres
...reports on a visit to New England. De Rasieres explains English government to the WIC director Samuel Blommaert. He may have told the English about the value of wampum on this visit.
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1628
Piet Heyn
...captures Spanish silver fleet for the WIC Piet Heyn, a Dutch naval officer, captures Spanish silver fleet for the Dutch West India Company.
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1628
First Minister Arrives in New Netherland
Jonas Michaelius arrives and establishes a Calvinist consistory in New Amsterdam.
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1629
Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions
The Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions, establishing the patroonship plan of colonization and laying the ground rules and expectations.
