Chartered in 1602 and given the powers of a state — to wage war, sign treaties, mint coins, and govern territory in Asia — the VOC was a private company whose shares traded on the Amsterdam exchange in what is often called the first modern stock market. For two centuries it pursued a spice monopoly from its base at Batavia, enforcing it with force. In 1621 its governor-general destroyed most of the population of the Banda Islands to control the nutmeg supply. Corruption and debt dissolved it around 1799, but its joint-stock form became the template of the modern corporation.
In 1602 the Dutch handed a private business the powers of a government. The Dutch East India Company, the VOC, could raise armies, fight wars, sign treaties, mint its own coins, and rule territory in Asia, all in pursuit of profit for its shareholders. It became a new kind of joint-stock company: shares could be bought and sold early on, while permanent capital and fuller limited-liability protections took shape across its first decades. Those shares traded on the Amsterdam exchange, which grew into what many call the first modern stock market. By some speculative modern estimates the VOC became the most valuable company ever to exist. That valuation is guesswork across four centuries, but the underlying fact is not: a corporation built to enrich investors acquired the powers of a state, and used them to seize a spice monopoly by force. When it wanted the nutmeg of the Banda Islands, its governor had most of the islanders killed, enslaved, or driven out. This is a prototype of the modern corporation, fused with violence.