In this period, the VOC crippled the potential indigenous traders and made them a necessary element in the trade of the archipelago. The spices and forest products of the Outer Islands were sent to Javanese ports and then shipped to Europe by the VOC. This preconditioned the emergence of a triangular pattern in the trade network of the Java Sea region.
Exported commodities of the Outer Islands were sent to Java before being exported to the Western markets, in which Java functioned as an entrepot of the archipelago.