Handelskompagnien#
Trading Companies, Privileged, (German: Handelskompagnien) formed in the 17th and 18th centuries in accordance with the principles of Mercantilism to engage in trade with oriental (Turkey) and overseas countries.
The first Oriental Trading Company in Austria was founded in 1667. It
exported ironware and cloths and extended its activities as far as
Persia but failed in the Turkish War of 1683. In the wake of the Peace
of Passarowitz of 1718, which granted Austrian merchants the freedom
of trade and the seas in the Ottoman Empire, freed them from taxation
and enabled the appointment of consuls, a second Oriental Trading
Company was established in Vienna in 1719, which was not only to
resume trade along the Danube but also to operate from the free ports
of Trieste and Fiume for its trade with Spain, Portugal and North
Africa. Its development was stunted by competition on the part of
Venice and obstacles encountered on the land routes. It finally failed
on account of the bankruptcy of a lottery firm.
In 1719 an Austrian East India company was founded in Ostend under the
name of Ostend Company, which founded colonies in the Ganges delta
(Banki Basar, 1722), on the Coromandel coast south of Madras (1719) as
well as in Canton and other places. Regarded by England as a
competitor, it was forced to cease activities in 1727 in return for
England's recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction and was dissolved in
1731. It continued to operate as a bank for trade with India and China
until 1745, since the Indian bases remained in operation up to the
middle of the 18th century.
In 1775 the Dutchman W. Bolts founded an Austrian East-Indian Trading
Company and established forts and trading posts on the coast of
Southeast Africa and in India. It was transformed into an Asian
Trading Company headquartered in Trieste in 1780 and dissolved in
1785.
Literature#
J. Dullinger, Die Handelskompagnien Oesterreichs nach dem Oriente und nach Ostindien, in: Zeitschrift fuer Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 7, 1900; H. v. Srbik, Der staatliche Exporthandel Oesterreichs von Leopold I. bis Maria Theresia, 1907; F. Pollack-Parnau, Eine oesterreichisch-ostindische Handelskompagnie 1775-85, 1927; H. Hassinger, Die 1. Wiener Orientalische Handelskompagnie 1667-83, in: Vierteljahresschrift fuer Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 35; 1942.