Usuario:Juan Ramón P.C./ Pruebas

New Holland

The part of Australia now known as Western Australia was recognised as in the Netherlands sphere of control and known as New Holland. No formal claim was ever made through an attempt to settle the region, although much of the North West coast have Dutch names and can be traced back to the Dutch. There are many Dutch shipwrecks littered all along the coast, (such as the Batavia) that were wrecked on their way to the East Indies. By the time the British arrived they noticed that there were small pockets of the indigenous population with blonde hair and blue eyes. See the History of Western Australia for more information.

South Africa

In 1652 the Dutch East India Company established a refuelling station at the Cape of Good Hope, situated half-way between the Dutch East Indies and the Dutch West Indies. Great Britain seized the colony in 1797 during the Fifth Anglo-Dutch War, and annexed it in 1805. The Dutch colonists in South Africa remained after the British took over and later made the trek across the country to Natal. They were subjected in the Boer Wars and are now known as Boers.

Dutch West Indies

The colonization of the Dutch West Indies, an island group at the time claimed by Spain, began in 1620 with the taking of St. Maarten, and remains a Dutch overseas territory to this day, as part of the Netherlands Antilles. Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles are organized as two self-governing units whose legal relationship to the Kingdom of the Netherlands is controlled by the "Kingdom Charter."

Suriname

Captured by the Dutch from the English during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, Suriname and its valuable sugar plantations formally passed into Dutch hands in return for New Netherland with the signing of the Treaty of Westminster in 1674. It remained an overseas Dutch territory until independence was granted in 1975.

Guyana

In the 16th century European settlers first arrived in this area of north South America, the Netherlands being the fastest to claim the land. Around 1600 was the first trade route established by the Dutch. Eventually the Netherlands planted three colonies to further mark the territory under the Netherlands rule; Essequibo (1616), Berbice (1627), and Demerara (1752). The British occupied Guyana in the late 18th century. The Netherlands ceded Guyana to the United Kingdom in (1814).

Brazil

In 1624 The Dutch captured and held for a year Salvador, the capital of the Portuguese settlements in Brazil.

From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch West Indies Company controlled a long stretch of the coast from Sergipe to Maranhão, which they renamed New Holland, before being ousted by the Portuguese. A major character from the war was a mestizo named Calabar, who changed sides and changed the course of the fighting in favor of the Dutch, for a while. He was captured and executed by the Portuguese.

Virgin Islands

First settled by the Dutch in 1648, but annexed by England in 1672, later to be renamed the British Virgin Islands.

Tobago

'Nieuw-Walcheren' (1628 - 1677), nowadays part of Trinidad and Tobago

Debate about the usage of the term "Dutch Empire"

• ↑ Esta plantilla está obsoleta, véase el nuevo sistema de referencias.Usage of the term "empire" in relation to all of the overseas activities of the Dutch is debatable, because many of the colonies were in fact trading posts governed by two independent trade companies, the Dutch East India Company and Dutch West India Company. Only after 1815, when the British returned the colonies to the Dutch after occupation during the Napoleonic War, did the kingdom (and from 1848 onwards, the parliament) take charge of the administration of the colonies. Until recently Dutch historians were quite hesitant to use the words 'imperialism' and 'Empire'. Nowadays they use it, but mainly to refer to it in a more European aspect and most of the time only when looking at the period 1880-1940. In 1968, a Dutch historian wrote for an English audience and said: "Dutch colonial policy was never dominated by visions of establishing a Dutch empire in Asia.", S. L. van der Wal in: Bromley and Kossmann (1968; see below)