ABSTRACT
By the end of the sixteenth century, the English, the French, and the Dutch had developed the capacity to break the Iberian monopolies in the Atlantic Ocean and the Asian seas. This chapter aims to construct the communication patterns within the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie’s (VOC) organization at home and in the empire overseas. The chartered company known as the VOC was established in 1602 by the States General, the highest federal authority in the Dutch Republic. The fourth Governor General, Jan Pietersz Coen, who founded the fortress and city of Batavia, had formulated a ‘blueprint’ for a colonial empire earlier in his career. This empire was, geographically speaking, largely realized by his successors during the rest of the seventeenth century. The communication and information networks of the VOC thus revolved around two nodes: first, the Gentlemen Seventeen in the Republic, and second, the High Government in Batavia.
