Netherlands: Notable Groups, Organizations, and Movements

States General (All Facts)

• Term used to refer to the bicameral Parliament of the Netherlands in the Hague

• In 1581, they deposed King Philip II as ruler of the United Seven Provinces of the Netherlands and thus declared war on Spain (the Eighty Years’ War that was ongoing but initiated by Spain) and independence from Spain

• In 1602, they established the Dutch East India Company

1602 - Dutch East India Company (All Facts)

• Company chartered during the reign of Maurice of Nassau and established by the States General of the Netherlands as a joint-stock company, one of the first in the world, which was granted a 21-year monopoly to carry out Dutch trade and navigation activities in Asia, east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan

• Company which was

  • governed by a court of 17 directors, drawn from the Dutch states (provinces)

  • able to conclude treaties

  • able to wage defensive war

  • able to build “fortresses and strongholds” in the East Indies

  • essentially, “a state within a state”

• Company which

  • introduced the world to the term “share”

• Company which

  • had booming sea trade from Dutch ports, which ensured good revenues

1609 - 1820 - Bank of Amsterdam / Wisselbank (All Facts)

• Founded during the reign of Maurice of Nassau

• It had a monopoly over currency exchange, but was also deposit-based

• It made large advances to the Dutch East India Company, in which booming sea trade from Dutch ports ensured good revenues

• It was modelled on the Rialto in Venice in Italy

Arminians (All Facts)

• Dutch anti-Calvinists who followed the namesake theologian and drew up their “Remonstrances” against the states (provinces) of Holland

• They fiercely defended human free will, conditional predestination, and resistible grace

Gomarists (All Facts)

• Dutch Calvinists who followed the namesake theologian and drew up their “Counter-Remonstrances” against the Arminians

• They fiercely defended strict Calvinist predestination and supralapsarianism against the teachings of Jacobus Arminius