VOC goods for sale at high prices
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| Galle Fort |
The emblem of the state is as important to a state as the emblem of its company to a silk company. There are many company logos that are very popular and remembered by the people of the world.
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| Dutch ships |
It originated in 1602. The company was established to trade in the region from the Japanese border to Cape Town in South Africa. As the Dutch East India Company expanded its jurisdiction, it established its headquarters in Batavia.
Batavia is the current city of Jakarta on the Indonesian island of Java.
The Dutch spread their power over Batavia to all the surrounding countries, built forts and factories in the areas under their control, and took spices, elephants and pearls from the East to Europe. The company sought to bring in civilian and military personnel from the Netherlands as permanent staff to manage the cities it had created, and the officers' contacts with women in Asian countries led to the emergence of Dutch-Asian mixed communities.
Their clothing, religion, law, language, and even thought were rooted in the indigenous peoples of the Asian region over the decades, and not only Dutch words but also personal names were added to the native languages.
Our history states that the first Dutchman set foot in Sri Lanka in the year 1602, the year the company was founded. That's Joris Fun Spielberg. At that time the Portuguese were occupying the coastal areas of Asian countries including Sri Lanka and India and maintaining a trade monopoly in the East. But the Dutch king has given the company a complete trade monopoly in the East for 21 years.
The company was given not only military powers but also judicial powers.
Accordingly, the Dutch East India Company has started trading in the Asian region by recruiting military personnel and administrators to build ships with the money invested by the Dutch rich. It was not a peaceful trade.
The Dutch, who first came to each country and established diplomatic relations with their local rulers and tried to take over trade in a friendly manner, promised them that they would drive out the Portuguese who had been harassing the local rulers at the time. The company did not hesitate to use its ships with modern weapons and a small army to wage fierce battles to drive out the Portuguese with the help of an army of local leaders. After several years of fierce battles, the Dutch East India Company, which had previously occupied the empire built by the Portuguese, sought to cover its expenses and make huge profits. As a result, they too became an enemy of the local rulers of the Asian region.
The company also paid dividends to the wealthy who had invested money in the company, saving another profit by covering all the expenses of maintaining the army and building forts. In addition to selling merchandise in the East, the company also plundered valuables.
According to the Dutch East India Company, the company owned 4,785 ships from 1602 to 1796, when it fell to the British. The company directly and indirectly employed 882,412 people at the time. They have shipped 2.5 million tons of cargo.
In 1638, after an agreement signed between King Rajasinghe II and the Dutchman Westerwald, the Dutch East India Company was given the opportunity to trade in Ceylon.
From then on, the Dutch era began in Sri Lanka and they did not forget to put the VOC logo of their company on everything they built and used, on the place and on the equipment. One of the most famous and exquisite VOC logos is the stone engraved on the back wall of the old gate of the Galle Fort.
The company used the VOC logo on everything it financially produced, and also used the logo as a symbol of its sovereignty over all the countries in the Asian region it conquered. In the past, Sri Lankan currency used the emblem of the king who issued the money.
During Dutch rule, they used their company's logo as a currency for their currency, just as they now use the country's emblem for their currency. So the VOC logo is placed everywhere, not only on the forks and spoons used during Dutch rule, but also on dishes and buildings.
Article 14 of the Treaty of 1683 between Adam Wester Wold of the East India Dutch Company and King Rajasinghe of Kandy also mentions the printing of money. It states that no one appointed by the Sinhala king or the Dutch government has the power to print, make or distribute coins.
Although the Dutch were allowed to use the Portuguese coins in circulation until the early days of their rule in the coastal region of Sri Lanka, the coinage was made very quickly and the Portuguese coins were removed. They then banned the use of coins without the VOC seal or the Kandyan King seal.
However, a report in 1693 states that counterfeit coins were made in Sri Lanka and that coin makers were even brought from India to separate these counterfeit coins from the real ones.
In 1713, the Dutch also banned the movement of copper coins. The announcement also stated that such coins would be confiscated. In 1722, the export of silver coins was also banned.
The word "Doithuwa" and "Tuttu Deka" which are still used in Sinhala today have come into use due to the use of these VOC coins. The coins of the Dutch company are known as Doits. They are small copper coins. Due to the difficulty of counting these small copper coins, the eight denominations were multiplied by 8, 16, and 24. The dots were values as 2, 4, 6. That's how the two tips came into use. This happened around 1737.
Since then, the Dutch company has faced another problem in Sri Lanka. The shortage of copper coins was due to the reluctance of the merchants in Kandy to accept any other type of coin except Doitu. As a result, the Dutch company's business activities have been disrupted. As a solution to this they have collected the coins of the people of this country and given them silver coins instead. After that, the transfer of dowries is prohibited. Due to the occasional issuance of various coins, several coins used by the Dutch can still be seen in Sri Lanka today. They are not only in museums but also in the possession of some coin collectors.
A special type of coin is the so-called thick coin. These coins are good evidence that coins were minted locally in their forts. Coins made at a coin factory in Cayman Door, Colombo, have the letter C in addition to the VOC logo. Coins in Galle have the letter G, Trincomalee coins have the letter T and Jaffna coins have the letter J.
Meanwhile, Sinhala letters have also entered the Dutch coins. The Dutch word STUIVER is used in Sinhala as "Isthribi" and is replaced by the letter "e" on the coin.
A coin called RYKSDAALDER in Dutch was popularly known in Sri Lanka as the 'flag' in Sinhala. The value here is 48 rupees. In terms of value at the time, the flag was a large sum. A word derived from it is still used in Sinhala today as "Padasaya". An area is called a large area.
From the beginning to the end of Dutch rule, a large number of coins used in our country were used in other states controlled by the Dutch East India Company. These coins are still in abundance among our coin collectors.
The same is true of other Dutch goods. Many VOC products made in different countries are still in the possession of various people in Sri Lanka as well as in museums. Excavations at the Galle Fort have uncovered a number of broken pottery bearing the Dutch company logo.
Archaeologists are still struggling to gather enough evidence before reaching the final conclusions about the value of the money.
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