Japan's Economy by Proxy in the Seventeenth Century: China, the N ...

In order to mollify various regional demands, the company was divided into six kamers (offices) located in the cities of Amsterdam, Middleburg, Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn, and Enkhuizen. These kamers were semi-autonomous in many respects, including being able to send money to Asia and to outfit their own ships; but the company was the final arbiter of overall policy and was also responsible for overall financial matters, such as the payment of dividends to investors.

The new company was controlled not by the investors, who had little say in company affairs, but by a board of seventeen prominent men called the Herren Zeventien (Gentlemen Seventeen). The number of directors allotted each of the kamers was directly proportional to their contribution of funds to the company, so that Holland and Zeeland naturally had the most, with eight and four directors respectively. The other kamers were allotted one member each, with the final member being rotated between Zeeland and the smaller kamers. The place in which the directors gathered was also rotated between Holland and Zeeland, the former retaining the privilege for six years straight and the latter two. Directly below the Herren Zeventien was a board of directors initially comprising 76 merchants, but soon reduced to sixty, at which level it remained for the rest of the VOC’s history. Here again members on the committee were divided between the six cities, and terms were for life.³⁵ The intimate relationship that existed between the state and the VOC was manifest in the appointment of new directors; when one of the directors either died or retired, it fell to the city government of the outgoing member to appoint a new member to fill the vacancy. Although not as powerful as the Herren Zeventien, the board of directors, by virtue of its members having invested at least 6,000 gulden in the company, had some say in the operation of the company. The fact that these members comprised the political and commercial elite of the United Provinces also ensured that their wishes would not be entirely ignored.

The VOC was different from previous companies, however, insofar as investors did not simply put their money into a single voyage, but rather invested in the company for a specified period of time, in this case ten years.³⁶