This created an economic strain on the European governments forcing them to form alliances with and depend on private investors and legal monopolies of the trading system. The groups formed by this cooperation between governments and private clients were known as chartered companies. The chartered companies were instrumental to the success of the trade system, and became more prevalent as the system developed. A second advancement of the trade system was that of indentured servants. During the 1600s, the English, and also the French, often transported men who had committed infractions against the law to the colonies to work anywhere from three to seven years on plantations. Upon completion of their contract, indentured servants became free citizens. Roughly fifteen hundred indentured servants were sent to the colonies from Great Britain each year during the seventeenth century (Bulliet, The Earth and Its Peoples, pg.486). While this was obviously a good method to increase the labor force, slavery was preferred because it was less costly and more productive. In the first half of the seventeenth century, slave trade brought approximately 10,000 slaves per year to the Americas. By 1650, the number of plantations had increased to 20,000 slaves per year (Bulliet, pg. 499).
The Dutch West India Company was an integral part of the increase of slavery and development in the plantation system. In 1621, this chartered company was established by the Dutch to help in the fight for their independence from Spain. The private trading company was part of the Dutch navy, and sought to take over ships of Spanish trading fleets and dominate the northern coast of Brazil. The company was extremely efficient and well endorsed by private investors. Much of the funding was supported by the Amsterdam Exchange, which had been established in 1530. Due to its financial power and tactful trading methods, and even more importantly their overpowering naval strength, the Dutch managed to conquer most of the Portuguese colonies in Brazil, controlling 1,000 miles of Brazil's northern coast by 1635.
