Suratte or Soeratte was a directorate of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

between 1616 and 1795, with its main

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...

in the city of

Surat Surat is a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The word Surat literally means ''face'' in Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of the river Tapti near its confluence with the Arabian Sea, it used to be a large seaport. It is ...

. Surat was an important trading city of the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

on the river

Tapti The Tapti River (or Tapi) is a river in central India located to the south of the Narmada river that flows westwards before draining into the Arabian Sea. The river has a length of around and flows through the states of Maharashtra, Gujara ...

, and the

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

had been trading there since 1540. In the early 17th century, Portuguese traders were displaced by English and Dutch traders. Due to internal unrest in the Mughal Empire, Surat's trade with the Mughal capital of Agra gradually declined in the early 18th century, with most trade shifting to

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

, the new capital of the English

Western Presidency Surat is a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The word Surat literally means ''face'' in Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of the river Tapti near its confluence with the Arabian Sea, it used to be a large seaport. It is now ...

. The city became part of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

as a consequence of the

Third Carnatic War The Carnatic Wars were a series of military conflicts in the middle of the 18th century in India's coastal Carnatic region, a dependency of Hyderabad State, India. Three Carnatic Wars were fought between 1744 and 1763. The conflicts involved ...

(1756–1763). While traders of the Dutch East India Company continued trading in Surat, they had become subordinate to the English.De VOC site
Suratte
/ref> The Dutch possessions in Surat were occupied by British forces in 1795 by instruction of Dutch stadtholder

William V William V may refer to: * William V, Duke of Aquitaine (969–1030) *William V of Montpellier (1075–1121) * William V, Marquess of Montferrat (1191) * William V, Count of Nevers (before 11751181) *William V, Duke of Jülich (1299–1361) * Willia ...

, who wanted to prevent revolutionary France from taking possession of the Dutch holdings in Asia. It was restored to the Dutch in 1818, but again ceded to the English in 1825, owing to the provisions of the

Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, also known as the Treaty of London, was a treaty signed between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in London on 17 March 1824. The treaty was to resolve disputes arising from the execution of the Anglo-D ...

History

Dutch translation of Jahangir's farman 3

Pieter van den Broecke established a Dutch trading post in Suratte in 1616, after previous efforts had failed in the years before. The

was compelled to form this post after the sultan of

Aceh Aceh ( ), officially the Aceh Province ( ace, Nanggroë Acèh; id, Provinsi Aceh) is the westernmost province of Indonesia. It is located on the northernmost of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capital and largest city. Granted a ...

no longer allowed them to buy cheap cotton on the local market. In 1668, Dutch and English traders were joined by the French, who established their first trading post on the Indian subcontinent there. In 1691,

Hendrik van Rheede Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein (Amsterdam, 13 April 1636 – at sea, 15 December 1691) was a military man and a colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company and naturalist. Between 1669 and 1676 he served as a governor of ...

, administrator of the Dutch East India Company, died on his way from

Kochi Kochi (), also known as Cochin ( ) ( the official name until 1996) is a major port city on the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea, which is a part of the Arabian Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of ...

Dutch Malabar Dutch Malabar (Dutch; ''Nederlandse Malabar''. Malayalam; ''ഡച്ച് മലബാർ''.) also known by the name of its main settlement Cochin, was the title of a commandment of the Dutch East India Company on the Malabar Coast between ...

to Suratte. He was buried with much pomp and circumstance on the Dutch-Armenian cemetery of Surat. By 1759, the Dutch East India Company's trade had fallen substantially. Trade had largely moved to British

, with Suratte playing only a subordinate role. Due to the provisions of the

Kew Letters The Kew Letters (also known as the Circular Note of Kew) were a number of letters, written by stadtholder William V, Prince of Orange between 30 January and 8 February 1795 from the "Dutch House" at Kew Palace, where he temporarily stayed after hi ...

, Dutch Suratte came under English protection in 1795, who promised to restore it to the Dutch upon the restoration of peace in Europe. Initially, the English allowed the Dutch to continue their trade and even permitted them to fly the Dutch flag on their factories, but in February 1797, the English flag replaced the Dutch flag, and three months later, the last Dutch military forces left the city. The

Treaty of Amiens The Treaty of Amiens (french: la paix d'Amiens, ) temporarily ended hostilities between France and the United Kingdom at the end of the War of the Second Coalition. It marked the end of the French Revolutionary Wars; after a short peace it s ...

of 1802 was supposed to restore Dutch Suratte to Dutch rule, leading the Dutch to send a commission under the leadership of

Carl Ludwig Maximilian van Albedyll Carl may refer to: * Carl, Georgia, city in USA * Carl, West Virginia, an unincorporated community *Carl (name), includes info about the name, variations of the name, and a list of people with the name * Carl², a TV series * "Carl", an episode of ...

to take possession of the Dutch factory in Suratte. However, before Suratte could be restored to the Dutch, hostilities in Europe had resumed, and Van Albedyll and his company were made

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...

on 30 August 1803. Van Albedyll died less than a year later while still imprisoned, on 12 August 1804. When the

Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 (also known as the Convention of London; nl, Verdrag van Londen) was signed by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in London on 13 August 1814. The treaty restored most of the territories in Java that ...

again restored the Dutch possessions in Suratte to Dutch rule, Van Albedyll's son Conrad Josef Gustaf van Albedyll, who had traveled to Surat as part of the commission under the leadership of his father, was installed as the new resident of Dutch Suratte on 1 May 1818. He remained in office until Dutch Suratte was again relinquished to the British by the

, which divided East Asia into Dutch and British spheres of influence.

Legacy

Surat still has a Dutch-Armenian cemetery, which features the mausoleum of

Bharuch Bharuch (), formerly known as Broach, is a city at the mouth of the river Narmada in Gujarat in western India. Bharuch is the administrative headquarters of Bharuch District. The city of Bharuch and surroundings have been settled since ti ...

has remnants of the Dutch lodge and a Dutch cemetery.

Agra Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra ...

features a mausoleum for Jan Willem Hessing (1739–1803), a Dutch soldier who became a military adviser to

Maharaja Mahārāja (; also spelled Maharajah, Maharaj) is a Sanskrit title for a "great ruler", "great king" or " high king". A few ruled states informally called empires, including ruler raja Sri Gupta, founder of the ancient Indian Gupta Empire, a ...

Mahadaji Shinde.

Trading posts

Image Gallery

File:Dutch East India Company's warehouse and living quarters in Surat.jpg, "Logie van Suratte", a view of the lodge of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Surat as seen in April 1629 by Pieter van den Broecke (1585-1640), a Dutch cloth merchant in the service of VOC. File:AMH-2625-NA Representation of the lodge at Amadabat.jpg, The Dutch lodge at Ahmedabat. File:AMH-2628-NA Representation of the lodge of the Company at Agra.jpg, The Dutch lodge at Agra. File:THE DUTCH CEMETERIES.jpg, The Dutch-Armenian cemetery in Surat.

Notes

References

External links

* http://www.vocsite.nl/geschiedenis/handelsposten/suratte.html * http://www.swaen.com/antique-map-of.php?id=1214 * http://www.voc-kenniscentrum.nl/prod-suiker.html {{coord missing, Gujarat

Dutch Suratte Suratte or Soeratte was a directorate of the Dutch East India Company between 1616 and 1795, with its main factory in the city of Surat. Surat was an important trading city of the Mughal Empire on the river Tapti, and the Portuguese had been tradi ...

Dutch India Dutch East India Company Former Dutch colonies Former trading posts of the Dutch East India Company Former settlements and colonies of the Dutch East India Company History of Gujarat 1616 establishments in Dutch India 1825 disestablishments in Dutch India