 Information took a long time to reach the company headquarters, and this was dependent on an absolute trust.Some Dutch factories were located in Cape Town in modern-day South Africa, Mocha in Yemen, Calicut and the Coromandel Coast in southern India, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Ambon in Indonesia, Fort Zeelandia in Taiwan, Canton in southern China, Dejima Island in Japan (the only legal point of trade between Japan and the outside world during the Edo Period), and Fort Orange in modern-day Upstate New York in the United States.The American factories often played a strategic role as well, sometimes operating as forts, providing a degree of protection for colonists and their allies from hostile Indians and foreign colonists.