1-271-283 - Peter Thompson/Heritage Images

Replica Dutch East Indiaman at Scheepvaart Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Dutch East India Company was established in 1602 to trade with Dutch colonies in Indonesia, Malaysia, China, India, Ceylon and South Africa. It was the first multinational company and the first to issue stock. By 1669 the company had 150 ships, 50,000 employees and a private army of some 10,000 soldiers. By the end of the 18th century the Dutch East India Company was in financial trouble however, and the British were aggressively expanding their trading operations in the Far East. In 1799 it was dissolved and its remaining territories in Indonesia were awarded to the Dutch crown at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.