Dutch Suratte, officially ''Nederlandse vestiging van Suratte'' (Dutch settlement in Surat), was a directorate of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

between 1616 and 1795, with its main

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

in the city of

Surat Surat (Gujarati Language, Gujarati: ) is a city in the western Indian States and territories of India, state of Gujarat. The word Surat directly translates to ''face'' in Urdu, Gujarati language, Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of t ...

. Surat was an important trading city of the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...

on the river Tapti, and the Portuguese had been trading there since 1540. In the early 17th century, Portuguese traders were displaced by English and Dutch traders. Due to internal unrest in the Mughal Empire, Surat's trade with the Mughal capital of Agra gradually declined in the early 18th century, with most trade shifting to

Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...

, the new capital of the English Western Presidency. The city became part of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

as a consequence of the Third Carnatic War (1756–1763). While traders of the Dutch East India Company continued trading in Surat, they had become subordinate to the English.De VOC site �
Suratte
The Dutch possessions in Surat were occupied by British forces in 1795 by instruction of Dutch stadtholder

William V William V may refer to: * William V, Duke of Aquitaine (969–1030) * William V of Montpellier (1075–1121) * William V, Marquess of Montferrat (1191) * William V, Count of Nevers (before 11751181) * William V, Duke of Jülich (1299–1361) * Will ...

, who wanted to prevent revolutionary France from taking possession of the Dutch holdings in Asia. It was restored to the Dutch in 1818, but again ceded to the English in 1825, owing to the provisions of the

Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, also known as the Treaty of London (), was a treaty signed between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in London on 17 March 1824. The treaty was to resolve disputes arising from the execution of the Angl ...

History

Pieter van den Broecke established a Dutch trading post in Suratte in 1616, after previous efforts had failed in the years before. The

was compelled to form this post after the sultan of

Aceh Aceh ( , ; , Jawi script, Jawoë: ; Van Ophuijsen Spelling System, Old Spelling: ''Atjeh'') is the westernmost Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is located on the northern end of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capit ...

no longer allowed them to buy cheap cotton on the local market. In 1668, Dutch and English traders were joined by the French, who established their first trading post on the Indian subcontinent there. In 1691, Hendrik van Rheede, administrator of the Dutch East India Company, died on his way from

Kochi Kochi ( , ), List of renamed Indian cities and states#Kerala, formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the Ernakulam district, district of Ernakulam in the ...

in Dutch Malabar to Suratte. He was buried with much pomp and circumstance on the Dutch-Armenian cemetery of Surat. By 1759, the Dutch East India Company's trade had fallen substantially. Trade had largely moved to British

, with Suratte playing only a subordinate role. Due to the provisions of the Kew Letters, Dutch Suratte came under English protection in 1795, who promised to restore it to the Dutch upon the restoration of peace in Europe. Initially, the English allowed the Dutch to continue their trade and even permitted them to fly the Dutch flag on their factories, but in February 1797, the English flag replaced the Dutch flag, and three months later, the last Dutch military forces left the city. The Treaty of Amiens of 1802 was supposed to restore Dutch Suratte to Dutch rule, leading the Dutch to send a commission under the leadership of Carl Ludwig Maximilian van Albedyll to take possession of the Dutch factory in Suratte. However, before Suratte could be restored to the Dutch, hostilities in Europe had resumed, and Van Albedyll and his company were made

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

on 30 August 1803. Van Albedyll died less than a year later while still imprisoned, on 12 August 1804. When the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 again restored the Dutch possessions in Suratte to Dutch rule, Van Albedyll's son Conrad Josef Gustaf van Albedyll, who had traveled to Surat as part of the commission under the leadership of his father, was installed as the new resident of Dutch Suratte on 1 May 1818. He remained in office until Dutch Suratte was again relinquished to the British by the

, which divided East Asia into Dutch and British spheres of influence.

Legacy

still has a Dutch-Armenian cemetery, which features the mausoleum of Hendrik van Rheede. Bharuch has remnants of the Dutch lodge and a Dutch cemetery.

Agra Agra ( ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is the ...

features a mausoleum for Jan Willem Hessing (1739–1803), a Dutch soldier who became a military adviser to

Maharaja Maharaja (also spelled Maharajah or Maharaj; ; feminine: Maharani) is a royal title in Indian subcontinent, Indian subcontinent of Sanskrit origin. In modern India and Medieval India, medieval northern India, the title was equivalent to a pri ...

Mahadaji Shinde.

Trading posts

Image gallery

File:Dutch East India Company's warehouse and living quarters in Surat.jpg, "Logie van Suratte", a view of the lodge of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Surat as seen in April 1629 by Pieter van den Broecke (1585–1640), a Dutch cloth merchant in the service of VOC. File:AMH-2625-NA Representation of the lodge at Amadabat.jpg, The Dutch lodge at Ahmedabat. File:AMH-2628-NA Representation of the lodge of the Company at Agra.jpg, The Dutch lodge at Agra. File:THE DUTCH CEMETERIES.jpg, The Dutch-Armenian cemetery in Surat.

Notes

References

External links

* http://www.vocsite.nl/geschiedenis/handelsposten/suratte.html * http://www.swaen.com/antique-map-of.php?id=1214 * http://www.voc-kenniscentrum.nl/prod-suiker.html {{coord missing, Gujarat Dutch Suratte Dutch India Dutch East India Company Former Dutch colonies Former trading posts of the Dutch East India Company Former settlements and colonies of the Dutch East India Company History of Gujarat 1616 establishments in Dutch India 1825 disestablishments 19th-century disestablishments in the Dutch Empire States and territories disestablished in 1825