Joannes or Johannes De Laet was a Dutch geographer and director of the Dutch West India Company. Philip Burden called his History of the New World, "...arguably the finest description of the Americas published in the seventeenth century" and "...one of the foundation maps of Canada". De Laet was the first to print maps with the names Manhattan, New Amsterdam and Massachusetts.

The Dutch West India Company or WIC Dutch pronunciation: [ʋɛstˈɪndisə kɔmpɑˈɲi] was a chartered company of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors, formally known as GWC. Among its founders were Reynier Pauw, Willem Usselincx (1567–1647) and Jessé de Forest (1576–1624). On 3 June 1621, it was granted a charter for a trade monopoly in the Dutch West Indies by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and given jurisdiction over Dutch participation in the Atlantic slave trade, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America.