The Dutch legislature granted the company a business pool in the streams connecting the Cape of Good Hope at the southern point of Africa and the Straits of Magellan among the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with the power to close treaties with regional princes, to construct fortresses and control armed troops, and to bring on governmental purposes through executives who were wanted to get an affirmation of loyalty to the Dutch administration. Following the command of powerful governors-general, various reputably Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1618–23) and Anthony van Diemen (1636–45), the organization was powerful to destroy the British squadron and largely dismiss the Portuguese in the East Indies.
The government outlawed slavery in 1981 and made it a crime in 2007. Estimates of the percentage of slaves vary from 10% to 20% of Mauritanian population.
