Dutch Colonialism – iTopper IAS Academy

The Dutch competed and fought for control of the Indian Ocean trade routes and spice production with the British, through their respective East India Companies.
In the end, the Netherlands lost Sri Lanka to the British, and in 1662, lost Taiwan (Formosa) to the Chinese, but retained control over most of the rich Spice Islands that now make up Indonesia.
For the Dutch, this colonial enterprise was all about money.
There was a very little pretense of cultural improvement or Christianization of the heathens, the Dutch wanted profits, plain and simple.
As a result, they showed no qualms about ruthlessly capturing locals and using them as enslaved laborers on the plantations, or even carrying out a massacre of all the inhabitants of the Banda Islands to protect their monopoly on the nutmeg and mace trade.