'Het West-Indisch Huys' was built by the Amsterdam City Council in 1617 as meat market, with room above for the city militia. Just four years later, the West India Company was formed and, after two years in other offices, moved to the building that bears its name to this day. In fact, from the courtyard, the building looks very much the same as it did in 1623: only the windows have changed, which happened in the 18th century.

The company occupied the building until 1647 when, at the end of the Eighy Years War with the Spanish, it suffered serious financial problems and was forced to move to its warehouse. But in those short 24 years a great deal of history had been written by the 'Heeren Negentien' in the rooms of 'Het West-Indisch Huys'

Ostensibly established as a trading company, the West India Company did, in fact, trade in South America, in North America, in the Caribbean and on the west coast of Afica. Its main operations, however, were directed at stemming the flow of wealth form America that Spain needed to finance her war against the Dutch. In a period of just 15 years, the west India Company was responsible for the capture or destruction of almost 550 Spanish ships. Some of the loot was stored in the vaulted cellars under the very room in which the 'Heeren Negenteen' gathered.

In 1621, the Company had taken over control of the Hudson Valley, in North America, discovered by the Englishman Henry Hudson under commission to the earlier Dutch East India Company. In the boardroom of 'Het West-Indisch Huys' on April 25, 1625, two directors of the West India Company took a decision that was to result in the birth of New York: they commissioned William Van Hulst and Crijn Frederikszoon to build Fort Amsterdam to defend the settlement of New Amsterdam. The site of the ? Manhattan Island.