French East India Company

French East India Company
Native name
Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales
Company typePublic
State-owned enterprise
IndustryTrade
Founded1 September 1664
FounderJean-Baptiste Colbert
Defunct1794 Edit this on Wikidata
FateDissolved and activities absorbed by the French Crown in 1769; reconstituted 1785, bankrupt 1794
HeadquartersLorient

The French East India Company (French: Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales) was a joint-stock company founded in France on 1 September 1664 to engage in trade in India and other Asian lands. As such, it competed with the English (later British) and Dutch trading companies in the East Indies.[1] Planned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, it was chartered by King Louis XIV for the purpose of trading in the Eastern Hemisphere. It resulted from the fusion of three earlier companies, the 1660 Compagnie de Chine, the Compagnie d'Orient and Compagnie de Madagascar. The first Director General for the Company was François de la Faye, who was adjoined by two Directors belonging to the two most successful trading organizations at that time: François Caron, who had spent 30 years working for the Dutch East India Company, including more than 20 years in Japan,[2] and Marcara Avanchintz, an Armenian trader from Isfahan, Persia.[3]

  1. ^ Mole 2016, p. 24.
  2. ^ Rogala 2001, p. 31. Caron lived in Japan from 1619 to 1641.
  3. ^ McCabe 2008, p. 104.