Dutch West Indiesball

The Dutch West India Company was a chartered company (known as the "GWC") of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors. Among its founders was Willem Usselincx (1567–1647) and Jessé de Forest (1576–1624). On 3 June 1621, it was granted a charter for a trade monopoly in the Dutch West Indies by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and given jurisdiction over Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America. The area where the company could operate consisted of West Africa (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Cape of Good Hope) and the Americas, which included the Pacific Ocean and the eastern part of New Guinea. The intended purpose of the charter was to eliminate competition, particularly Spainball or Portugalball, between the various trading posts established by the merchants. The company became instrumental in the largely ephemeral Dutch colonization of the Americas (including New Netherlandball) in the seventeenth century. From 1624 to 1654, in the context of the Dutch-Portuguese War, the GWC held Portugalball territory in northeast Brazilball, but they were ousted from Dutch Brazilball following fierce resistance.