When was the Dutch Bengal established?

Concept — how a trading company’s presence in a region is dated. A European company’s establishment in a region is counted from the year its first permanent factory — a fortified warehouse-cum-trading post — began working there, not from the company’s charter or its first voyage. The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC), chartered in 1602, organised its Asian trade into regional directorates, and each directorate is reckoned from the year its first factory opened.

Application — the Bengal directorate. In the Bengal region the VOC’s first trading post with a factory was set up at Pipely (Pipli), on the Bay of Bengal coast near the mouth of the Subarnarekha river in the Balasore tract, in 1627 AD. Standard reference works therefore date Dutch Bengal (Nederlands Bengalen) from 1627 AD, and that is the year this question asks for.

Cross-check — the VOC chronology on either side of the date.

1. 1602 — the VOC receives its charter in the Dutch Republic and begins organising its Asian trade.

2. 1605 — the first Dutch factory on the Indian mainland opens at Masulipatnam; in 1610 Fort Geldria at Pulicat becomes the seat of Dutch power on the Coromandel coast.

3. 1627 — the first factory in the Bengal region opens at Pipely, and Dutch Bengal is dated from this year.

4. c. 1635 — the Dutch shift their Bengal headquarters up the Hooghly to Hugli-Chuchura (Chinsurah), which becomes the directorate’s capital.

5. 1825 — the Dutch settlements in Bengal pass to Britain under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824.

The year sought therefore falls 17 years after Fort Geldria (1610) and about 8 years before the move to Hugli-Chuchura (c. 1635): 1627 AD.

A note on the sources. A few regional chronologies place the earliest Dutch activity at Pipli a year or two on either side of this date, and the Bengal directorate as a separate administrative unit is sometimes counted only from the 1650s. The date standard reference works give for the establishment of Dutch Bengal — and the one this question follows — is 1627 AD.