J: Joint Stock Companies

In 1595, lured by spices so rare and valuable that a single pouch could purchase a herd of livestock, the first Dutch ships sailed south to Africa, then east around the Cape of Good Hope and across thousands of miles of Indian Ocean, arriving at the Indonesian island of Java. By the time they returned home with little in the way of cargo, two-thirds of that first expedition's crew was dead. But the trail was blazed, and trading concerns quickly sprang up. In 1601 alone, Dutch companies sent 65 ships to the Far East in search of cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and turmeric. The profits they realized were astounding. In the centuries prior, trade routes to Europe meandered from the Far East into the Hindu lands of India and Muslim Western Asia, across the Indian Ocean to Egypt, then north to the Mediterranean and eventually into the rest of Europe. Every merchant along the way added his percentage. “By the time the spices reached Europe,” Stephen Bown writes in Merchant Kings, “what could be had for a basket of rice [in Indonesia] ... might be worth a fortune in silver.”

In 1619 the company renamed Jacatra Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) and used it as a base to conquer Java and the outer islands. By the late 17th century the company had declined as a trading and sea power and had become more and more involved in the affairs of Java. By the 18th century the company had changed from a commercial shipping enterprise to a loose territorial organization interested in the agricultural produce of the Indonesian archipelago. Toward the end of the 18th century the company became corrupt and seriously in debt. The Dutch government eventually revoked the company’s charter and in 1799 took over its debts and possessions. 

At its height, if you adjust for inflation, the value of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) might have been the history's wealthiest organization! 

The English East India Company, was formed for the exploitation of trade with East and Southeast Asia and India, incorporated by royal charter on December 31, 1600. Starting as a monopolistic trading body, the company became involved in politics and acted as an agent of British imperialism in India from the early 18th century to the mid-19th century.

The company was formed to share in the East Indian spice trade. That trade had been a monopoly of Spain and Portugal until the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588) by England gave the English the chance to break the monopoly. The company’s defeat of the Portuguese in India (1612) won them trading concessions from the Mughal Empire. The company settled down to a trade in cotton and silk piece goods, indigo, and saltpetre, with spices from South India. 

The company began to hire local mercenaries (Sepoys) and engaged itself into the local politics of India. After winning the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the company started taxing local Indians

After the mid-18th century the cotton-goods trade declined, while tea became an important import from China. Beginning in the early 19th century, the company financed the tea trade with illegal opium exports to China. Chinese opposition to that trade precipitated the first Opium War (1839–42), which resulted in a Chinese defeat and the expansion of British trading privileges; a second conflict, often called the Arrow War (1856–60), brought increased trading rights for Europeans.

Robert Clive, leader of the compnay, receives from Shah Alam, the Mughal Emperor of India, a decree conferring upon the East India Company the administration of the revenues of Bengal, Behar and Orissa.