Maritime Capitalism, Pepper Politics, and the Limits of Corporate Empire: The Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Early Modern Malabar"

Abstract

This article focuses on the transformation of the Dutch East India Company (also known as the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC) through its early years in operation on the Malabar Coast. Instead of looking at it purely as a representation of Dutch capitalism at sea, the article places the growth, ambitions and limitations of the company within the context of Kerala’s pepper economy. Founded in 1602 as a joint stock corporation with quasi-sovereign authority, the VOC was able to use its position as an important company during the Dutch Golden Age to play a large role in overseas trade, navy, new forms of finance and empire building. On the Malabar Coast the VOC tried to replace Portuguese authority, acquire pepper through treaties and monopolistic contracts, strengthen settlements along the coast and integrate local trading networks into Dutch maritime capitalism. The VOC reached the peak of its influence in Kerala when it seized Cochin in 1663 and established Dutch Malabar as an independent command at the end of 1669. At the same time, however, Malabar also illustrated the limitations of the VOC’s power. Its reliance on negotiated monopolies for pepper, inability to dominate inland production, high-cost military obligations, struggles with the Travancore state, and competition from the English East India Company all caused problems for the company. In 1741, the Dutch suffered a crushing defeat at Colachel that symbolised the decline of their political power in south-western India. The events of the 18th Century: corruption, debt, war spending and declining competitiveness all contributed to the breakdown of the VOC's (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or United East India Company) institutions. This article states that the VOC's history within Malabar reveals an even larger paradox: that the VOC's rise was based upon the use of maritime organisation, of monopoly rights and coercive diplomacy, but that their eventual decline was due to the inability of commerce to bring a permanent form of control to the complex regional economies, the existence of local sovereigns and the changing relationship of the VOC to the global capitalist economy.