New Netherland Company and Dutch West India Company

On March 17, 1614, the States General, the governing body of The Netherlands, proclaimed it would grant an exclusive patent for trade between the 40th and 45th parallels. This monopoly would be valid for four voyages, all of which had to be undertaken within three years after it was awarded. Block's map, and the report which accompanied it, were used by the New Netherland Company (a newly formed alliance of trading companies) to win their patent, which would expire on January 1, 1618.

The New Netherland Company also ordered a survey of the Delaware area. This task was undertaken by skipper Cornelis Hendricksz of Monnickendam, who explored the Zuyd Rivier (the Delaware River) from its bay to its northernmost navigable reaches in 1614, 1615, and 1616. His observations were preserved in a map drawn in 1616. Hendricksz's voyages were made aboard the Onrust (Restless), a vessel that Block ordered built before he returned to the Netherlands; it was a replacement for the yacht Tyger, which had been lost to fire in January 1614. Despite the survey, the company was unable to secure an exclusive patent from the States General for the area between the 38th and 40th parallels.

The issue of patents by the States General in 1614 turned New Netherland into a private, commercial venture. Soon thereafter Fort Nassau was constructed on Castle Island, up Hudson's river, in the area of present-day Albany. The primary purpose of the fort was to defend river traffic against interlopers and to conduct fur trading operations with the natives. The location of the fort proved to be impractical, due to repeated flooding of the island in the summers, and the fort was abandoned in 1618, which coincided with the patent's expiration.


The West India House in Amsterdam, headquarters of the West India Company from 1623 to 1647.The Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie, or Chartered West India Company (WIC), was granted a charter by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on June 3, 1621. It gave the exclusive right to operate in West Africa (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Cape of Good Hope) and the Americas. In New Netherland, profit was originally to be made from the North American fur trade.

Among the founders of the WIC was Willem Usselincx who, between 1600 and 1606, had promoted the concept that a main objective of the company should be the establishment of colonies in the New World. In 1620, Usselincx made a last appeal to the States General, which rejected his principal vision as a primary goal. The formula of trading posts with small populations and a military presence to protect them, which was working in the East Indies, was preferred over mass immigration and the establishment of large colonies. Not until 1654, when forced to surrender Dutch Brazil and forfeit the richest sugar-producing area in the world, did the company belatedly focus on colonization in North America.