The
Dutch Empire consisted of the overseas territories controlled by
the Netherlands from the 17th to the 20th century. The Dutch followed
Portugal and
Spain in establishing an overseas
colonial empire, aided by their skills in
shipping and
trade and the surge of
nationalism accompanying the struggle for independence from Spain. Alongside the
English, the Dutch initially built up colonial possessions on the basis of indirect state capitalist
corporate colonialism, via the Dutch
East and
West India Companies. Dutch exploratory voyages such as those led by
Willem Barents,
Henry Hudson and
Abel Tasman revealed to Europeans vast new territories.
With Dutch naval power rising rapidly as a major force from the late 16th century, the Netherlands dominated global commerce during the second half of the 17th century during a cultural flowering known as the Dutch Golden Age. The Netherlands lost many of its colonial possessions, as well as its global power status, to the British when the metropole fell to French armies during the Revolutionary Wars. The restored portions of the Dutch Empire, notably the Dutch East Indies and Suriname, remained under Dutch control until the decline of European imperialism following World War II.
Today, the Netherlands are part of a federacy called the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with its former colonies Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles.
The territories that would later form the Dutch Republic were originally part of a loose federation of seventeen provinces, which Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain had inherited and brought under his direct rule in 1543. In 1567 the predominantly Protestant north revolted against rule by Roman Catholic Spain, sparking the Eighty Years War. Led by William of Orange, independence was declared in the 1581 Act of Abjuration. However, Spain did not officially recognize Dutch independence until 1648.
