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Dutch Republic awards charter to the Dutch East India Company.

1621

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The company is "awarded" a 24-year monopoly on trade and colonization of the Atlantic coast between what is known today as Newfoundland (Canada) and the Straits of Magellan (the southern tip of South America). The company, a private stock-based corporation, is given the right to maintain a military force and amass vast political and economic power, including: "the power to appoint and remove governors, officers of justice and other public officers, for the preservation of the places, keeping good order, police and justice in like manner for the promoting of trade.”