Comments by "Lynott Parris" (@DenUitvreter) on "The History Chap"
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This is far too anglocentric. The Dutch were in an 80-year war for independence, Portugal was the enemy, not a competitor. The VOC was founded to take the war overseas, also in the West were the other part of the Iberian enemy Spain was active. By the 1660s Spain had already admitted defeat and finally recognized the independent Dutch Republic, so New Netherland had lost it's initial purpose.
Owning and conquering land just for the sake of it, for prestige, was a typical British desire, not a Dutch one. Besides that trade with now New York just could go on and the Dutch living there only suffered a mild regress in rule, it wasn't importanat to the Dutch. The Dutch did more than half of Europe's trade, the English could only somewhat compete in the high risk high reward trade with other continents where guns mattered a lot more than efficiency. For the British the colonial trade was almost the only trade left, for the Dutch the colonial trade was only a tiny cherry on a huge cake, that started for war reasons.
Just having for the sake of having so you could name it after some duke was not high on the list of Dutch priorities, spices otoh were not just valuable but also a currency in the trade with Asian nations who were too sophisticated to take an interest in European goods, only in silver. Over 2 thirds of the VOC's trade remained within Asia and the spices where the backbone of a much larger trade.
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