Cornelis de houtman biography of christopher

First voyage of Dutch ships to Nusantara in 1595–1597

The First Dutch Expedition to the East Indies (Dutch: Eerste Schipvaart) was an expedition that took place from 1595 to 1597.

It was instrumental in opening up the Indonesian spice trade to the merchants that eventually formed the Dutch East India Company, and marked the end of the Portuguese Empire's dominance in the region.

Background

During the 16th century the spice trade was extremely lucrative, but the Portuguese Empire had a stranglehold on the source of the spices, Indonesia.

For a time, the merchants of the Netherlands were content to accept this and buy all of their spice in Lisbon, Portugal, as they could still make a decent profit by reselling it throughout Europe. However, in the 1590s Spain, which was at war with the Netherlands, was in a dynastic union with Portugal, thus making continued trade practically impossible.^[1] This was intolerable