220chrisTian wrote:GeorgieFanI know a little Dutch history. I know they "discovered" New York. Didn't NYC belong to them at some point? And I know they rivaled the British fleet in the 16th and 17th centuries. I read about a few naval encounters between the two countries. I also know the Brits started their empire to rival the Dutch's, you know the "East India Company."
Of course for the Dutch, the company was in Java or Sumatra or something. For the Brits, India. And in the early 1600s, some pilgrims left England for the Netherlands on their way to America. But it occurred to me a few years ago that the reason some contemporary Brits didn't like this, even though the Dutch were friendly, was because of the heated rivalry between them and the Dutch.
The Dutch were the original settlers of New York, yes, but it was swapped to Great Britain for something I cannot remember now,the Island of Run according to Wikipedia.
The Honourable East India Company wasn't founded to rival the Dutch, at least not specifically, but they were rivals, yes, but so were the French and Portuguese.
In general though, because of their common Protestant heritage and a few other factors, after the Anglo-Dutch wars, the British and Dutch Empires were generally on the same side where possible. It was in British interests for the Low Countries to remain independent from any large rivals, the Channel ports in the hands of France or another major European nation would have facilitated an attempt to remove the superiority at sea the Royal Navy had acquired by the mid 1700s. This is what prompted the abortive attempt to support the Netherlands against Napoleon, and even our entrance into the Great War.
It did not hurt that William III came from the Netherlands, and the famous campaigns of the Duke of Marlborough were fought on behalf of the Netherlands. (And you guys say the American Civil War had some fancy marching and fighting.
)
The Empire itself wasn't exactly founded to rival anything either, it was rather accidentally and haphazardly acquired, only a few things like Aden, Gibraltar, Malta, and some parts of India, plus islands for coaling stations, were picked up for strategical use, mainly to guard the routes to India. The Suez Canal also comes to mind in that category.
The Dutch had some possessions in India also, Ceylon stands out, it only being taken over by the British when the Netherlands came under Napoleonic rule. The borders in the Indonesia area were only settled in the 1820s with the British swapping their small possessions in Sumatra for exclusive rights on the Malay peninsula. But you are right, the Dutch were the major presence in the area, Sumatra, Java, the southern portion of Borneo and other smaller holdings, the British being next with northern Borneo, Malay, Singapore Island and so on.
The Dutch were fine seafarers though to be sure, but being overrun by Napoleon and consequently aligned against the United Kingdom and the Royal Navy certainly didn't help matters.