Dutch explorers discovered tin at Billiton Island (Belitung) in what was then the Dutch East Indies which had been claimed for the Dutch by the government-backed military-commercial enterprise, the Dutch East India Company, even bigger than the British East India Company and just as rapacious in extracting wealth from other people`s lands. https://www.bhp.com/our-approach/our-history/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company