Origins (1590s–1602) In the 1560s, the
Eighty Years' War broke out in the
Habsburg Netherlands. A coalition of rebel provinces united in the
Union of Utrecht declared independence from the
Spanish Empire with the 1581
Act of Abjuration, in 1588 establishing the
de facto independent northern
Dutch Republic (alias the United Provinces), whose sovereignty was recognised by the
Treaty of Antwerp (1609). The eight decades of war came at a massive human cost, with an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 victims, of which 350,000 to 400,000 were civilians killed by disease and what would later be considered war crimes. The war was largely fought on the European continent, but war was also conducted against Phillip II's overseas territories, including Spanish colonies and the Portuguese metropoles, colonies,
trading posts and
forts belonging to the King of Spain and Portugal. The port of
Lisbon in
Portugal had since 1517 been the main European market for products from India, drawing merchants from across Europe to purchase exotic commodities. As a result of Portugal's incorporation in the Iberian Union with Spain by Philip II in 1580, all Portuguese territories became Spanish Habsburg branch territory, and all Portuguese markets were closed to the United Provinces. In 1595, the Dutch set sail to acquire products for themselves, making use of the "secret" knowledge of the Portuguese trade routes, which
Cornelis de Houtman had managed to acquire in Lisbon. The coastal provinces of
Holland and
Zeeland had been important hubs of the European maritime trade network for centuries prior to Spanish rule. Their geographical location provided convenient access to the markets of France, Scotland, Germany, England and the Baltic. By the 1580s, the Eighty Years' War led many financiers and traders to emigrate from
Antwerp, a major city in
Brabant and then one of Europe's most important commercial centres, to Dutch cities, particularly
Amsterdam. Efficient access to capital enabled the Dutch in the 1580s to extend their trade routes beyond northern Europe to new markets in the
Mediterranean and the
Levant. In the 1590s, Dutch ships began to trade with
Brazil and the
Dutch Gold Coast of Africa, towards the Indian Ocean, and the source of the lucrative
spice trade. This brought the Dutch into direct competition with
Portugal, which had dominated these trade routes for several decades, and had established colonial outposts on the coasts of Brazil, Africa and the Indian Ocean to facilitate them. The rivalry with Portugal, however, was not entirely economic: from 1580, after the death of the King of Portugal,
Sebastian I, and much of the Portuguese nobility in the
Battle of Alcácer Quibir, the Portuguese crown had been joined to that of Spain in an "
Iberian Union" under the heir of Emperor Charles V,
Philip II of Spain. By attacking Portuguese overseas possessions, the Dutch forced Spain to divert financial and military resources away from its attempt to quell Dutch independence. Thus began the several decade-long
Dutch–Portuguese War. In the 1590s, the
voorcompagnieën ("pioneer companies") emerged, which were given "express instructions to focus on trade and engage in violence only in self-defense". The Dutch took inspiration from England's many joint-stock companies and private investment, including
Muscovy Company,
Eastland Company,
Levant Company, and
East India Company. The Dutch North Sea fishing fleet needed a great deal of salt to preserve its catch. When the war made Iberian salt inaccessible, from about 1599 the Dutch began illegally loading salt at
Araya Peninsula. The salt here was said to be unusually good and inexhaustible. The Dutch also engaged in smuggling and petty piracy, threatened the pearl fishery on Margarita Island and were too numerous for the local Spanish to deal with. In 1594, the
Compagnie van Verre ("Company of Far Lands") was founded in Amsterdam, with the aim of sending two fleets to the spice islands of
Maluku. The first fleet sailed in 1596 and returned in 1597 with a cargo of pepper, which more than covered the costs of the voyage. The second voyage (1598–1599), returned its investors a 400% profit. The success of these voyages led to the founding of a number of companies competing for the trade. The competition was counterproductive to the companies' interests as it threatened to drive up the price of spices at their source in Indonesia whilst driving them down in Europe. In 1605 a fleet was sent from Spain to the Caribbean sea. They captured a dozen or more dutch ships and sent their crews to the galleys. Next year the Dutch were back. During the twelve years’ truce the Dutch shifted back to Iberia, but when it expired in 1621 they came back. The Spanish established the
Araya Fortress and garrison. In the next two years there were battles and the Dutch were driven out. The Dutch then shifted to places like
Curazao,
Bonaire,
Saint Martin (island) and
La Tortuga Island.
Establishment of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) (1602–1609) As a result of the problems caused by inter-company rivalry, the
Dutch East India Company (, VOC) was founded in 1602. The charter awarded to the company by the States-General granted it sole rights, for an initial period of 21 years, to Dutch trade and navigation east of the
Cape of Good Hope and west of the
Straits of Magellan. The directors of the company, the "
Heeren XVII", were given the legal authority to establish "fortresses and strongholds", to sign treaties, to enlist both an army and a navy, and to wage defensive war. The company itself was founded as a
joint stock company, similarly to its English rival that had been founded two years earlier, the English
East India Company. Shortly after the VOC was founded, the problem of justifying attacks on Spanish and Portuguese ships became more acute when in February 1603, the Portuguese
carrack Santa Catarina was captured off the coast of Singapore by three VOC ships under the command of
Jacob van Heemskerck. When Heemskerck returned to Amsterdam in 1604 with the enormous booty from the
Santa Catarina, this caused a major controversy in the Dutch Republic about the legality, utility, and moral permissibility of this act. As a result, in September 1604 jurist
Hugo Grotius wrote a treatise titled
De Jure Praedae Commentarius ("Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty"), later published in 1609 as
Mare Liberum, sive de jure quod Batavis competit ad Indicana commercia dissertatio ("The Freedom of the Seas, Or, The Right Which Belongs to the Dutch to Take Part in the East Indian Trade"), in which the act of aggression was justified. In the meantime, the States-General had already passed a resolution on 1 November 1603, authorising VOC ships "to damage the enemies and inflict harm on their persons, ships and goods by all means possible, so that they may with reputation not only continue their trade, but also expand it and make it grow". This was a "critical" event according to several historical studies, with Borschberg (2013) stating it "marked a major shift in policy of the VOC" and "set the cornerstone for the establishment of the Dutch colonial empire in Asia", because the resolution transformed the VOC "into an instrument of war and colonial expansion that was directed against the Iberian powers in Asia and later, of course, also against local Asian rulers and polities." Pursuing their quest for alternative routes to Asia for trade, the Dutch were disrupting the Spanish-Portuguese trade, and they eventually ranged as far afield as the Philippines. The Dutch sought to dominate the commercial sea trade in Southeast Asia, going so far in pursuit of this goal as to engage in what other nations and powers considered to be little more than piratical activities. During the negotiations for and implementation of the
Twelve Years' Truce in the years 1608–1610, the Dutch sought to secure all sorts of commercially and strategically important positions in Southeast Asia, and the VOC rushed to conclude as many contracts as possible with local monarchs and polities in the so-called frontline regions: the
Malay Peninsula (particularly
Johor),
Sumatra, the
Banda Islands, the
Moluccas,
Timor and southern
India.
Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands (1609–1621) Iberian–Dutch conflicts (until 1661) ended Dutch presence in Brazil. The Dutch attacked most of Portugal's far-flung
trading network in and around
Asia, including Ceylon (modern
Sri Lanka), and
Goa, as well as
attacks upon her commercial interests in
Japan,
Africa (especially
Mina), and
South America. Even though the Portuguese had never been able to capture the entire island of Ceylon, they had been able to keep the
coastal regions under their control for a considerable time before the coming of the Dutch in war. Portugal's South American colony,
Brazil, was partially conquered by the United Provinces. In 1621, the
Dutch West India Company (WIC) was set up and given a 25-year monopoly to those parts of the world not controlled by its East India counterpart: the Atlantic, the Americas and the west coast of Africa. The Dutch also established a trading post in Ayutthaya, modern day
Thailand during the reign of
King Naresuan, in 1604. In the 17th century, the "
Grand Design" of the
West India Company involved attempting to corner the international trade in sugar by attacking Portuguese colonies in Brazil and Africa, seizing both the sugarcane plantations and the slave ports needed to resupply their labour. Although weakened by the
Iberian Union with Spain, whose attention was focused elsewhere, the Portuguese were able to fight off the initial assault before the
Battle of Matanzas Bay provided the WIC with the funds needed for a successful operation.
Johan Maurits was appointed governor of "
New Holland" and landed at
Recife in January 1637. In a series of successful expeditions, he gradually extended the Dutch possessions from
Sergipe on the south to
Maranhão in the north. The WIC also succeeded in conquering
Gorée,
Elmina Castle, Saint Thomas, and
Luanda on the west coast of Africa. Both regions were also used as bases for Dutch privateers plundering Portuguese and Spanish trade routes. The dissolution of the Iberian Union in 1640 and Maurits's recall in 1643 led to increased resistance from the Portuguese colonists who still made up a majority of the Brazilian settlers. The Dutch were finally overcome during the 1650s but managed to receive 4 million
reis (63
metric tons of gold) in exchange for extinguishing their claims over Brazil in the
1661 Treaty of the Hague.
Dutch colonisation of Asia The war between Phillip II's possessions and other countries led to a deterioration of the Portuguese Empire, as with the
loss of Ormuz to England in 1622, but the Dutch Empire was the main beneficiary. The VOC began immediately to prise away the string of coastal fortresses that, at the time, comprised the Portuguese Empire. The settlements were isolated, difficult to reinforce if attacked, and prone to being picked off one by one, but nevertheless, the Dutch only enjoyed mixed success in its attempts to do so.
Amboina was captured from the Portuguese in 1605, but an attack on
Malacca the following year narrowly failed in its objective to provide a more strategically located base in the East Indies with favourable monsoon winds. The Dutch found what they were looking for in
Jakarta, conquered by
Jan Pieterszoon Coen in 1619, later renamed
Batavia after the putative Dutch ancestors the Batavians, and which would become the capital of the
Dutch East Indies. Meanwhile, the Dutch continued to drive out the Portuguese from their bases in Asia.
Malacca finally succumbed in 1641 (after a second attempt to capture it),
Colombo in 1656,
Ceylon in 1658,
Nagapattinam in 1662, and
Cranganore and
Cochin in 1662.
Goa, the capital of the Portuguese Empire in the East, was unsuccessfully attacked by the Dutch in 1603 and 1610. Whilst the Dutch were unable in four attempts to capture
Macau, from where Portugal monopolized the lucrative
China-Japan trade, the
Tokugawa shogunate's increasing suspicion of the intentions of the Catholic Portuguese led to their expulsion in 1639. Under the subsequent
sakoku policy, from 1639 till 1854 (215 years), the Dutch were the only European power allowed to operate in Japan, confined in 1639 to
Hirado and then from 1641 at
Dejima. In the mid-17th century, the Dutch also explored the western Australian coasts,
naming many places. The Dutch tried to use military force to make
Ming China open up to Dutch trade but the Chinese defeated the Dutch in
a war over the Penghu islands from 1623 to 1624, forcing the VOC to abandon
Penghu for Taiwan. Then Chinese defeated the Dutch again at the
Battle of Liaoluo Bay in 1633. The Dutch colonised
Mauritius in 1638, several decades after three ships out of the Dutch Second Fleet sent to the Spice Islands were blown off course in a storm and landed there in 1598. They named it in honour of Prince
Maurice of Nassau, the
Stadtholder of the Netherlands. The Dutch found the climate hostile and abandoned the island after several further decades. The Dutch established a
colony at Tayouan (present-day
Anping), in the south of
Taiwan, an island then largely dominated by Portuguese traders and known as
Formosa; and, in 1642 the Dutch took northern Formosa from the Spanish by force.
Dutch colonisation of the Americas and
Brazil The Dutch colonisation of the Americas started with many mixed results. In the Atlantic, the West India Company concentrated on wresting from Portugal its grip on the
sugar and
slave trade, and on opportunistic attacks on the Spanish treasure fleets on their homeward bound voyage. In 1605 a Spanish fleet was sent from Cadiz to the Caribbean sea to control piracy. They captured a dozen or more Dutch ships and sent their crews to the galleys. Next year the Dutch were back. During the twelve years’ truce the Dutch shifted back to Iberia. On April 9, 1621, the truce expired resuming the Eighty Years' War. On 3 June 1621, the WIC was granted a charter for a trade monopoly in the
Dutch West Indies on jurisdiction over Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America. When the Dutch came back to the Caribbean the Spanish established the Araya Fortress and garrison. In the next two years there were battles and the Dutch were driven out. The Dutch then shifted to places like Bonaire, Saint Martin (island) and La Tortuga Island.
Bahia on the north east coast of Brazil was captured in 1624 but only held for a year before it was recaptured by a joint Spanish-Portuguese expedition., In 1630, the Dutch occupied the Portuguese sugar-settlement of
Pernambuco and over the next few years pushed, annexing the sugar plantations that surrounded it. In order to supply the plantations with the manpower they required, a
successful expedition was launched from Brazil to capture the Portuguese slaving post of
Elmina in 1637, Unlike in Asia, Dutch successes against the Portuguese in Brazil and Africa were short-lived. Years of settlement had left large Portuguese communities under the rule of the Dutch, who were by nature traders rather than colonisers. In 1645, the Portuguese community at
Pernambuco rebelled against their Dutch masters, and by 1654, the Dutch had been ousted from Brazil. In the intervening years, a Portuguese expedition had been sent from Brazil to recapture
Luanda in Angola, expelling the Dutch by 1648. On the north-east coast of North America, the West India Company took over a settlement that had been established by the
Company of New Netherland (1614–1618) at
Fort Orange at
Albany on the
Hudson River, relocated from
Fort Nassau which had been founded in 1614. The Dutch had been sending ships annually to the Hudson River to trade fur since
Henry Hudson's voyage of 1609. To protect its precarious position at Albany from the nearby English and French, the Company founded the fortified town of
New Amsterdam in 1625, at the mouth of the Hudson, encouraging settlement of the surrounding areas of
Long Island and
New Jersey. The fur trade ultimately proved impossible for the company to monopolize due to the massive illegal private trade in furs, and the settlement of
New Netherland was unprofitable. In 1655, the nearby colony of
New Sweden on the
Delaware River was forcibly absorbed into New Netherland after ships and soldiers were sent to capture it by the Dutch governor,
Pieter Stuyvesant. Since its inception, the Dutch East India Company had been in competition with its counterpart, the
English East India Company, founded two years earlier, for the same goods and markets in the East. In 1619, the rivalry resulted in the
Amboyna massacre, when several English Company men were executed by agents of the Dutch. The event remained a source of English resentment for several decades, and indeed was used as a
cause célèbre as late as the
Second Anglo-Dutch War in the 1660s; nevertheless, in the late 1620s the English Company shifted its focus from Indonesia to India. and to extract gold from nearby mines. Uncooperative indigenous peoples, who had
forced the Spanish to leave Valdivia in 1604 contributed to get the expedition to leave after some months of occupation. This occupation triggered the return of the Spanish to Valdivia and the building of
one of the largest defensive complexes of colonial America.
Dutch colonisation of Southern Africa By the middle of the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company had overtaken Portugal as the dominant player in the spice and silk trade, and in 1652 founded a colony at the
Cape of Good Hope on the southern African coast, as a victualing station for its ships on the route between Europe and Asia. Dutch immigration in the Cape rapidly swelled as prospective colonists were offered generous grants of land and tax exempt status in exchange for producing the food needed to resupply passing ships. The Cape authorities also imported a number of Europeans of other nationalities, namely Germans and French
Huguenots, as well as thousands of slaves from the East Indies, to bolster the local Dutch workforce. Nevertheless, there was a degree of cultural assimilation between the various ethnic groups due to intermarriage and the universal adoption of the Dutch language, and cleavages were likelier to occur along social and racial lines. The Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope expanded beyond the initial settlement and its borders were formally consolidated as the composite
Dutch Cape Colony in 1778. At the time, the Dutch had subdued the indigenous
Khoisan and
San peoples in the Cape and seized their traditional territories. In 1661, amidst the
Qing conquest of China, Ming general
Koxinga led a fleet to invade Formosa. The Dutch defense, led by governor
Frederick Coyett,
held out for nine months. However, after Koxinga defeated Dutch reinforcements from Java, Coyett surrendered Formosa. The
Anglo-Dutch Wars were a series of three wars which took place between the English and the Dutch from 1652 to 1674. The causes included political disputes and increasing competition from merchant shipping. The English in the
First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–54) had the naval advantage with larger numbers of more powerful "
ships of the line" which were well suited to the naval tactics of the era. The English also captured numerous Dutch merchant ships.
Holmes's Bonfire was a raid on the
Vlie estuary in the Netherlands, executed by the English Fleet during the
Second Anglo-Dutch War on 19 and 20 August 1666. The attack, named after the commander of the landing force, Rear-Admiral
Robert Holmes, was successful in destroying by fire a large Dutch merchant fleet of 140 ships. During the same action, the town of
West-Terschelling was burnt down, which caused outrage in the
Dutch Republic. The Second Anglo-Dutch War was precipitated in 1664, when English forces moved to capture
New Netherland. Under the
Treaty of Breda (1667), New Netherland was ceded to England in exchange for the English settlements in Suriname, which had been conquered by Dutch forces earlier that year. Though the Dutch would again take New Netherland in 1673, during the
Third Anglo-Dutch War, it was returned to England the following year, thereby ending Dutch rule in continental North America, but leaving behind a large Dutch community under English rule that persisted with its language, church and customs until the mid-18th century. In South America, the Dutch seized
Cayenne from the
French in 1658 and drove off a French attempt to retake it a year later. However, it was returned to France in 1664, since the colony proved to be unprofitable. It was recaptured by the Dutch in 1676, but was returned again a year later, this time permanently. The
Glorious Revolution of 1688 saw the Dutch
William of Orange ascend to the throne, and win the English,
Scottish, and
Irish crowns, ending eighty years of rivalry between the Netherlands and England, while the rivalry with France remained strong. During the
American Revolutionary War, Britain declared war on the Netherlands, the
Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, in which Britain seized the Dutch colony of Ceylon. Under the
Peace of Paris (1783), Ceylon was returned to the Netherlands and
Negapatnam ceded to Britain.
Napoleonic era (1795–1815) trading post in Japan, c. 1805 In 1795, the
French Revolutionary Army invaded the Dutch Republic and turned the nation into a satellite of France, named the
Batavian Republic. Britain, which was at war with France, soon moved to occupy Dutch colonies in Asia,
South Africa, and the Caribbean. Under the terms of the
Treaty of Amiens signed by Britain and France in 1802, the Cape Colony and the islands of the
Dutch West Indies that the British had seized were returned to the Republic.
Ceylon was not returned to the Dutch and was made a British
Crown Colony. After the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and France again in 1803, the British
retook the Cape Colony and the Dutch West Indies. The British also
invaded and captured the island of Java in 1811. In 1806, Napoleon dissolved the Batavian Republic and established a monarchy with his brother,
Louis Bonaparte, on the throne as King of the Netherlands. Louis was removed from power by Napoleon in 1810, and the country was ruled directly from France until its liberation in 1813. The following year, the independent Netherlands signed the
Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 with Britain. All the colonies Britain had seized were returned to the Netherlands, with the exception of the
Dutch Cape Colony,
Dutch Ceylon, and part of
Dutch Guyana.
Post-Napoleonic era (1815–1945) After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, Europe's borders were redrawn at the
Congress of Vienna. For the first time since the
declaration of independence from Spain in 1581, the Dutch were reunited with the
Southern Netherlands in a constitutional monarchy, the
United Kingdom of the Netherlands. The union lasted just 15 years. In 1830, a
revolution in the southern half of the country led to the
de facto independence of the new state of
Belgium. The bankrupt Dutch East India Company was liquidated on 1 January 1800, and its territorial possessions were nationalized as the
Dutch East Indies. Anglo-Dutch rivalry in Southeast Asia continued to fester over the port of
Singapore, which had been
ceded to the British East India Company in 1819 by the sultan of Johore. The Dutch claimed that a treaty signed with the sultan's predecessor the year earlier had granted them control of the region. However, the impossibility of removing the British from Singapore, which was becoming an increasingly important centre of trade, became apparent to the Dutch, and the disagreement was resolved with the
Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. Under its terms, the Netherlands ceded
Malacca and their bases in India to the British, and recognized the British claim to Singapore. In return, the British handed over
Bencoolen and agreed not to sign treaties with rulers in the "islands south of the Straits of Singapore". Thus the
archipelago was divided into two spheres of influence: a British one, on the
Malay Peninsula, and a Dutch one in the East Indies. For most of the Dutch East Indies history, and that of the VOC before it, Dutch control over their territories was often tenuous, but was expanded over the course of the 19th century. Only in the early 20th century did Dutch dominance extend to what was to become the boundaries of modern-day Indonesia. Although highly populated and agriculturally productive
Java was under Dutch domination for most of the 350 years of the combined VOC and Dutch East Indies era, many areas remained independent for much of this time including
Aceh,
Lombok,
Bali, and
Borneo. In 1871, all of the Dutch possessions on the
Dutch Gold Coast were
sold to Britain. The Dutch West India Company was abolished in 1791, and its colonies in Suriname and the Caribbean brought under the direct rule of the state. The economies of the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean had been based on the smuggling of goods and slaves into
Spanish America, but with the end of the slave trade in 1814 and the independence of the new nations of South and Central America from Spain, profitability rapidly declined. Dutch traders moved
en masse from the islands to the United States or other parts of the Americas, leaving behind small populations with little income and which required subsidies from the Dutch government.
The Antilles were combined under one administration with Suriname from 1828 to 1845. Slavery was not abolished in the Dutch Caribbean colonies until 1863 (this day is called
Keti Koti), long after those of Britain and France, though by this time only 6,500 slaves remained. In Suriname, slave holders demanded compensation from the Dutch government for freeing slaves, whilst in
Sint Maarten, abolition of slavery in the French half in 1848 led slaves in the Dutch half to take their own freedom. In Suriname, after the abolition of slavery, Chinese workers were encouraged to immigrate as
indentured labourers, as were Javanese, between 1890 and 1939. The Dutch presence in the Caribbean and South America was minimal. The
Netherlands West Indies included the possessions of
Aruba,
Bonaire,
Curaçao,
Saba, and
Sint Eustatius and
Sint Maarten. Just to the south lay
Surinam. At the Netherlands' entrance into the war in 1940, the West Indies was only defended by local police and militia. The only Dutch naval vessel stationed there was the
sloop Van Kinsbergen. Surinam was protected by a single 200-strong company of Army infantry, supplemented by a militia rifle company and an old station ship. Surinam was one of the most important
bauxite suppliers. Aluminium was vital to the American airplane industry. In September 1941, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt offered American troops to help protect the colony. In November 1941, the first 1,000 American troops arrived in
Paramaribo. In 1942, protection of Aruba and Curaçao was transferred to the United States. By then a Dutch motor whaleboat patrolled Aruba while Curaçao was defended by several light craft. The latter were detached for use as convoy escorts in July 1942.
Decolonization (1942–1975) Indonesia , leader of the Indonesian independence movement In January 1942,
Japan invaded the Netherlands East Indies. The Dutch surrendered two months later in Java, with Indonesians initially welcoming the Japanese as liberators. The subsequent
Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies during the remainder of World War II saw the fundamental dismantling of the
Dutch colonial state's economic, political and social structures, replacing it with a Japanese regime. However, the
Indonesian Communist Party founded by Dutch socialist
Henk Sneevliet in 1914, popular also with Dutch workers and sailors at the time, was in strategic alliance with
Sarekat Islam (q.v.) as early as 1917 until the
Proclamation of Indonesian Independence and was particularly important in the fight against Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies in the Second World War. The Japanese encouraged and backed Indonesian nationalism in which new indigenous institutions were created and nationalist leaders such as
Sukarno were promoted. The internment of all Dutch citizens meant that Indonesians filled many leadership and administrative positions, although the top positions were still held by the Japanese.
Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles In 1954, under the "
Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands", the Netherlands, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles (at the time including Aruba) became a composite state, known as the "Tripartite Kingdom of the Netherlands". The former colonies were granted autonomy, save for certain matters including defense, foreign affairs and citizenship, which were the responsibility of the Realm. In 1969,
unrest in Curaçao led to Dutch marines being sent to quell rioting. In 1973, negotiations started in Suriname for independence, and full independence was granted in 1975, marking the end of the Dutch colonial empire, with 60,000 emigrants taking the opportunity of moving to the Netherlands. == Legacy ==