Trading company

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A trading company ( ital. Compagnia ) was a company whose purpose was the long-distance trade with foreign countries. Trading companies were often given special privileges .

Occurrence

An important prerequisite for founding such a trading company was the existence of a port and suitable ships . Important trading companies were for example the Hanseatic League in Northern Germany , the British East India Company , the Emden East Asian Trading Company and the Dutch East India Company . The trading companies were also instrumental in the conquest of the overseas colonies and in the slave trade . This applies particularly to those in the Netherlands , France and Great Britain .

history

Trading companies had existed in Italy since the 14th century. These operated in the Levant . The Italian states with the most important trading companies at this time included Pisa , Genoa , Venice and Florence . The heyday of the trading companies was mainly in the age of mercantilism . At the beginning of the 16th century, the Republic of Venice dominated the Mediterranean and, thanks to its connections to the Middle East, it dominated trade, in particular the sea ​​route to India , the Levant and the Indian Ocean . This enabled Venice to control products from the Far East and thereby control the European economy. Nevertheless, Antwerp managed to become a bonded warehouse for the pepper imported from Portugal.

In the course of the development of America by Spain and Portugal in the 16th and 17th centuries, the other European states also began to expand their colonial areas and to develop them economically. Trade between the mother countries and the colonies was often controlled by a company called the India Company . At that time, the term “India” largely referred to all newly discovered regions that could be reached either via the east route ( India trade ) or the west route (west India).

In the 1570s the northern countries of Europe grew stronger and Venice's trade faded into the background. In the course of this development, Spain began trading gold from the new colonies in America, but was also unable to counteract an economic decline towards the end of the 16th century. Towards the end of the 16th century the Netherlands began to take an interest in India. Cornelis de Houtman set sail with four ships in 1592; this was the beginning of Dutch trade, which was unparalleled in Europe, despite the largely unsuccessful expedition.

List of trading companies (selection)

This list shows some trading companies with the year of establishment (the abbreviation in brackets):

German states and German empire
English and British crowns
Netherlands
France
Portugal
Russia
Scandinavia
Spain
Austria
North America
Mixed

See also

Web links

Commons : Trading companies  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fernand Braudel : La Dynamique du capitalisme. Arthaud, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-7003-0501-9 .
  2. ↑ Fernand Braudel: Civilization matérielle, économie et capitalisme XVe - XVIIe. Volume 3: Le Temps du monde (= Le Livre de Poche. 413). Armand Colin, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-253-06457-2 , p. 254.