by Simon Black
Sovereign Man
On March 20, 1602, after a few years of painstaking negotiations, a deal was struck amid the cobblestone streets and legendary waterways of Amsterdam that changed the world of finance forever.
The Dutch Republic (as it was known back then) was already a major economic power in the early 1600s; Dutch merchants boasted enormous fleets of thousands of ships and lucrative trading posts around the world. Money was pouring in to the economy.
But at the same time, competition was fierce. England, Spain, Portugal, etc. all wanted in on the vast wealth that Dutch merchants were minting from the spice trade.
So in an effort to fend off international competition, Dutch traders unified their operations; merchants in Amsterdam merged in 1601. And, the following March, the remainder of the country’s prominent merchants joined.