Climax of Dutch East India Company

Elimination of Portuguese

In the 17th century, the Dutch also expelled the Portuguese from most parts of India. By 1647, they started trading on the Coromandel Coast.

In 1652 they founded a colony at the Cape of Good Hope and in the same year built a factory at Palakollu. In 1658 they captured Jaffnapatam, which was the last stronghold of the Portuguese in Ceylon.

Between 1661 and 1664 the Dutch wrested from the Portuguese all their earlier settlements south of Goa on the pepper-bearing coast of Malabar. In 1669 they expelled the Portuguese from St. Thome in Madras.

Downfall of Dutch

Despite of the outstanding progress in the Indies, the Dutch colonial empire fell shortly because of the short-sighted commercial policy which was deliberately based upon a monopoly of the trade in spices.

• The Dutch were given a death blow by Robert Clive when in 1759 he attacked the Dutch both by land and water at Chinsura on the Hugli River, near Kolkata (discussed in this document as Battle of Chinsura)