Dear Readers:
Our masterclass today is about the understanding of why the Sugar industry was shaped globally by the commercial interests of all the European Nations involved in the discovery of the riches of America. The Dutch were also part of this global trade of opportunities, and sugar represented a core business for this nation that succeeded in winning its independence from Spain in 1648.

We have analyzed two main themes:
1. The Dutch Colonialism, and its context
2. The Dutch Business Model for Sugar Production

Feel free to pass the following package of your material for the weekend. Share it with your friends, colleagues, supervisors, and any member of your family who wishes to learn about how the political economy of Spanish America (and the Antilles) was established. Sugar plays an essential role in this process. We always recommend our readers to download this material, print it, and write their questions and doubts on paper. At the end of your reading, on slides 16 and 17, you will find additional bibliography that may guide you to dig deeper into our class, previous to our strategic reflections, which always appear on Mondays.

We kindly request that you return next Monday, January 19, 2026, to review our additional strategic reflections on this chapter.
We encourage our readers to familiarize themselves with our Friday master class by reviewing the slides over the weekend. We expect you to create ideas that may or may not be strategic reflections. Every Monday, we upload our strategic inferences below. These will appear in the next paragraph. Only then will you be able to compare your own reflections with our introspection.

Additional strategic reflections on this episode. These will appear in the section below on Monday, January 19, 2026.

Closing words.
This episode has been challenging. We have been filtering many books and sources of information regarding the engagements of the Dutch West India Company in America, and there are plenty of knowledge holes that we are still trying to fill. The WIC was the political and commercial arm of the Netherlands to expand its influence in the West Indies. However, the Dutch were also engaged in North America and Asia through the VOC (The Dutch East India Company). In terms of sugar, the Dutch were not enthralled in the business as much as they were engaged in the shipping of goods, including slaves, for the rest of the plantations of the empires. Ultimately, since the Dutch were privileged with a maritime supremacy (before Britain took the first place during the 19th century), it is undoubtedly true that the Netherlands used all this power (lawfully, illegally, and concealed under other flags) to distribute and re-export all the tropical products from America, including sugar.

Announcement. We have initiated a journey of comparing each of the 5 main empires’ sugar business models for production, processing, and distribution of the sugar cane. We are drafting most of the content using the fast-track method. There is additional information that I will prepare over the weekend, particularly in relation to access to capital and the review of the sugar production value chain of Suriname. However, be aware that the Dutch were also producing sugar in Asia, mainly on the island of Java, Indonesia. Our next chapter will correspond to the model of Britain.

Musical Section.
During our closing bonus season V, we will return to the symphonic philarmonic or camera orchestra compositions. Today, we have chosen the NJO National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands. This is a concert of Johannes Brahms, at the Young Euro Classic Festival, celebrated in the Konzerthaus Berlin, 2018. An exquisite symphony. Enjoy!

Thank you for reading http://www.eleonoraescalantestrategy.com. It is a privilege to learn. Blessings.

Sources of reference and Bibliography utilized today. All are listed in the slide document. Additional material will be added when we upload the strategic reflections.