Pieter Both (1568 – 6 March 1615) was the first Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.

Not much is known of his early years. In 1599, Both was already an admiral in the New, or Brabant Company. In that year, he traveled to the East Indies with four ships. When the newly founded Dutch East India Company set up a government for the Dutch East Indies, Pieter Both was invited to become the Governor-General. He held that position from 19 December 1610 to 6 November 1614. During that period he concluded contracts with the Moluccans, conquered Timor, and drove the Spaniards out of Tidore.

After he relinquished his position as Governor-General to Gerard Reynst, he left for the Netherlands with four ships. Two of the ships were shipwrecked near Mauritius, and Pieter Both drowned.

The second highest mountain of Mauritius is named Pieter Both after him.

Gerard Reynst (c. 1658 – 7 December 1615) was a Dutch merchant, father of a museum curator, and later the second Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.

All that is known of his early years is that he was born in Amsterdam, the son of Pieter Rijnst (1510–1574), soap boiler, and Trijn Sijverts. In 1599 he became a merchant and ship-owner, as well as a founder-member and administrator of the Nieuwe or Brabantsche Compagnie which, in 1600, became the Vereenighde Company of Amsterdam. This company then in 1602 merged into the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

On the request of his elders in the college of the Heren XVII (17 men), he became Governor-general of the Dutch East Indies in 1613 and left with 9 ships. The trip lasted 18 months, after which he took over command from Pieter Both. On the way, he had already sent one of his ships to the Red Sea to start trade relations with the Arabs there. He died more than a year after arrival, having caught dysentery so that he could do little there, besides a few minor activities that were only intermittently successful.

In 1588 in Haarlem Reijnst married Margriet Niquet, daughter of the wealthy merchant and art-collector Jean Niquet (1539–1608) from Antwerp. At his death, Reijnst left his wife, who had accompanied him to the East Indies, with seven children. The younger of these she raised with her brother Jacques Nicquet, who was an art-collector as well. Among their children were the art-collecting brothers Gerard and Jan (1601–1646). His daughter Weijntje became the mother of the merchant Isaak Isaaksz Coymans (1622–1673), one of the founders of the Danish West India Company

Laurens Reael (22 October 1583 – 21 October 1637) was an employee of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1616 to 1619 and an admiral of the Dutch navy from 1625 to 1627.

Laurens Reael was the son of Laurens Jacobsz Reael, a merchant in Amsterdam named after the sign or gable stone of his house/shop In den gouden Reael ("In the Golden Real") and an amateur poet known for writing Geuzenliederen (songs of the geuzen). The Amsterdam neighborhood Gouden Reael is named after Laurens Reael's birth house, via a later (1648) warehouse of the Reael family on the Zandhoek that turned into a popular inn. Laurens Jr. had academic talents, excelling in math and languages. He studied law in Leiden, where he lived in the house of Jacobus Arminius who had married his older sister Lijsbet Reael in 1590. Laurens received his doctorate in 1608.

In May 1611 he left as commandeur of four ships for the East Indies. He quickly worked his way up to become the third Governor-General in 1616, where he was stationed at the VOC headquarters, at that time on Ternate in the Moluccas. That year he could personally welcome both Joris van Spilbergen (30 March) and Schouten & Le Maire (12 September) upon their respective arrivals at Ternate from the Dutch Republic via the Strait of Magellan and Cape Horn. He was unaware that the VOC had ordered Schouten & Le Maire's ships to be confiscated for alleged infringement of its monopoly of trade to the Spice Islands.

Already after a year, on 31 October 1617, Reael resigned following a dispute with the VOC's leadership (the Lords XVII) on the treatment of both the English competitors in the Moluccas and of the native people. The jurist Reael would only take action against the English if international law would allow that and had protested repeatedly against the incursions against the natives. He, like the local admiral Steven van der Haghen, was of the opinion that the VOC's goals should be achieved solely via commercial and diplomatic routes. In his official report to the Staten Generaal and the VOC's Lords XVII upon his return to the Dutch Republic he made these points again very clear.

It would take however until 21 March 1619 when the decidedly less pacifistic Jan Pieterszoon Coen would replace him as Governor-General, before which time Reael had fought the Spanish in 1617 in the Bay of Manila, the English at Bantam and in the Mollucas, and the Mataram Sultanate at Japara on Java.

Reael left the East Indies in January 1620 for Holland where for several years he focused on poetry, partially because his sympathies for the remonstrants (Arminius had been his brother in law after all) prevented him from holding public office. He acquainted, among others, the poets Pieter Cornelisz Hooft and Joost van den Vondel and became part of the Muiderkring. In 1623 Vondel dedicated his poem Lof der Zeevaart (Ode to Seafaring) to him.

After the death of Maurice of Nassau, Reael's standings were restored, and on 9 June 1625 he became a member of the Amsterdam Chamber of the VOC, which he would remain until the end of his life. From 1625 - 1627 he was Vice-Admiral of Holland and West-Friesland with the Amsterdam Admiralty, and he commanded a fleet of ships fighting the Spanish at the Barbary Coast alongside the English (the "second expedition to Spain" from 12 November 1626 to 10 July 1627). In 1626 he represented the Dutch Republic at the crowning of Charles I of England, who knighted him at the occasion. From 18 August 1627 he was acting Lieutenant-Admiral of Holland and West-Friesland after the death of Lieutenant-Admiral Willem van Nassau.

At the end of 1627, he was sent as a diplomat to Denmark, which at that time was at war with Ferdinand II of Austria. On his way back early in 1628, he suffered a shipwreck of the coast of Jutland, where Austrian imperial troops happened to be camped. These captured him and sent him to Vienna, where he would remain imprisoned until February 1629. On his return he was not reinstated in his naval functions. In the summer of that year he married, and in 1630 he became councillor and in 1632 alderman (schepen) of the city of Amsterdam.

In 1637 he was considered for the function of Fleet Admiral of the confederate Dutch fleet to replace the incompetent Philips van Dorp, but in October, after losing his two young sons earlier in the year, he died of bubonic plague in Amsterdam. He was buried in Amsterdam in the Westerkerk.

Jan Pieterszoon Coen (8 January 1587 – 21 September 1629), the founder of Batavia,[1] was an officer of the Dutch East India Company in Indonesia (VOC) in the early seventeenth century, holding two terms as its Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.

Renowned for providing the impulse that set the VOC on the path to dominance in the Dutch East Indies, he was long considered a national hero in the Netherlands. A famed quote of his from 1618, "Despair not, spare your enemies not, for God is with us", amply illustrates his single-minded ruthlessness, as well as his unstinting belief in the divinely-sanctioned nature of his project. The utilization of such self-professed divine sanction in the use of violence pursuant to his ultimate goals of Monopoly Trade was deemed by many to be excessive, even for such a relatively violent age. Consequently since the independence of Indonesia he has been looked at in a more critical light, and historians view his often violent means to have been excessive.

Coen was known in his time on account of strict governance and harsh criticism of people who did not share his views, at times directed even at the 17 Lords of the VOC (for which he was reprimanded). Coen was known to be strict towards subordinates and merciless to his opponents. His willingness to use violence to obtain his ends was too much for many, even for such a relatively violent period of history. When Saartje Specx, a girl whom he had been entrusted to care for, was found in a garden in the arms of a soldier, Pieter Cortenhoeff, Coen showed no mercy in having Cortenhoeff beheaded. Specx only escaped the death penalty by drowning because she was still underage.

Further but more extensive actions perpetrated by order of Coen, are recounted in a BBC Television documentary series "The Spice Trail" (episode 2: "Nutmeg and Cloves").The program also contains details of wanton acts of destruction committed by the Dutch in the spice islands of (now) eastern Indonesia, the purpose of which was to create scarcity of natural produce in order to maintain price levels.Coen was born at Hoorn on 8 January 1587 and raised by his family in accordance with strict Calvinist principles. In 1601 he travelled to Rome to study trade in the offices of the Fleming Joost de Visscher (known in Italy as Justus Pescatore), where he learned the art of bookkeeping. Joining the Dutch United East India Company (VOC), he made trading voyages to East Indies in 1607 with the fleet of Pieter Verhoeff. During the journey, Verhoeff and 50 of his men were killed during negotiations with the chiefs of the Banda Islands. Upon his return to Holland in 1610, Coen submitted an important report on trade possibilities in Southeast Asia to the company’s directors. As a result of this report, he was again sent overseas, in 1612, with the rank of chief merchant. On the second trip he acquitted himself so well of his commission, and made himself so remarkable by the success of his practice of commerce, that in October 1613 was appointed accountant-general of all VOC offices in East Indies and president of the head office in Bantam and of Jacatra (Jayakarta).[1] In 1614, he was made director-general, second in command. On 25 October 1617 the XVII Lords of the VOC appointed him their fourth governor-general in the East Indies (of which he was informed on 30 April 1618).

As a merchant and Calvinist, Coen was convinced of the necessity of strict enforcement of contracts entered into with Asian rulers. He therefore aided Indonesian princes against their indigenous rivals or against other European powers and was given commercial monopolies for the company in return. Thus the Dutch, at the price of heavy military and naval investment, slowly gained control of the area’s rich spice trade. Between 1614 and 1618, Coen secured a clove monopoly in the Moluccas and a nutmeg monopoly in the Banda Islands. The inhabitants of Banda had been selling the spices to the English, despite contracts with the VOC which obliged them to sell only to the VOC, at low prices. In 1621, he led an armed assault of Banda using Japanese mercenaries, taking the island of Lonthor by force after encountering some fierce resistance, mostly by cannons that the natives had acquired from the English. Many thousands of inhabitants were massacred and replaced by slave labour from other islands to make way for Dutch planters. Of the 15,000 inhabitants it is believed only about a thousand survived on the island. Eight hundred people were deported to Batavia.

On account of disputes at the head office in Bantam with natives, the Chinese, and the English, the VOC desired a better central headquarters. Coen thus directed more of the company's trade through Jakarta, where it had established a factory in 1610. However, not trusting the native ruler, he decided in 1618 to convert the Dutch warehouses into a fort. While away on an expedition the English had taken control over the town. Coen managed to reconquer Jakarta in 1619 with fire destroying most of the town during the process. He rebuilt the city and fort, thus founded on its ruins the new Dutch town, which he forthwith proclaimed the capital of the Dutch East Indies).[1] In 1621 the city was renamed Batavia. Coen preferred Nieuw Hoorn, after his hometown, but didn't get his way.

In 1622 Coen revisited Europe. On 1 February 1623, he handed his post to Pieter de Carpentier and returned to the Netherlands, where he was given a hero's welcome off the coast of Texel. He then became head of the VOC chamber in Hoorn and worked on establishing new policies. During his absence from the East Indies, difficulties with the English were exacerbated by the Amboyna massacre. On 3 October 1624 he was reappointed governor-general in the East Indies, but his departure was hindered by the English. In 1625, he married and in 1627 departed incognito for the East Indies with his wife, their newborn child and her brother and sister, starting work on 30 September 1627. After his arrival, the English abandoned Batavia and established their headquarters in Bantam.

Twice during Coen's term in office, Sultan Agung of Mataram besieged Batavia, in 1628 and 1629. However, Agung's military was poorly armed and had inadequate provisions of food, and was never able to capture the city.

During Agung's second siege Coen suddenly died on 21 September 1629, likely due to the cholera outbreak in Batavia during this siege.

Jacques Specx; 1585 – 22 July 1652) was a Dutch merchant, who founded the trade on Japan and Korea in 1609. Jacques Specx received the support of William Adams to obtain extensive trading rights from the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu on August 24, 1609, which allowed him to establish a trading factory in Hirado on September 20, 1609. He was the interim governor in Batavia between 1629 - 1632. There his daughter Saartje Specx was involved in a scandal. Back home in Holland Specx became an art-collector.

The Dutch, who, rather than "Nanban" were called "Kōmō" (Jp:紅毛, lit. "Red Hair") by the Japanese, first arrived in Japan in 1600, on board the Liefde. In 1605, two of the Liefde's crew were sent to Pattani by Tokugawa Ieyasu, to invite Dutch trade to Japan. The head of the Pattani Dutch trading post, Victor Sprinckel, refused on the ground that he was too busy dealing with Portuguese opposition in Southeast Asia.

Jacques Specx sailed on a fleet of eleven ships that left Texel in 1607 under the command of Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff. After arriving in Bantam two ships which were dispatched to establish the first official trade relations between the Netherlands and Japan.The "trade pass" (Dutch: handelspas) issued in the name of Tokugawa Ieyasu. The text commands: "Dutch ships are allowed to travel to Japan, and they can disembark on any coast, without any reserve. From now on this regulation must be observed, and the Dutch left free to sail where they want throughout Japan. No offenses to them will be allowed, such as on previous occasions" – dated August 24, 1609 (Keichō 14, 25th day of the 6th month); n.b., the goshuin (御朱印) identifies this as an official document bearing the shogun's scarlet seal.
The two ships Specx commanded were De Griffioen (the "Griffin", 19 cannons) and Roode Leeuw met Pijlen (the "Red lion with arrows", 400 tons, 26 cannons). The ships arrived in Japan on July 2, 1609.

Among the crews were the Chief merchants Abraham van den Broeck and Nicolaas Puyck and the under-merchant Jaques Specx. The exact composition of the delegation is uncertain; but it has been established that van den Broeck and Puyck traveled to the Shogunal Court, and Melchior van Santvoort acted as the mission's interpreter. Santevoort had arrived a few years earlier aboard the Dutch ship De Liefde. He had established himself as a merchant in Nagasaki.

In September 1609 the ship's Council decided to hire a house on Hirado island (west of the southern main island Kiushu). Jacques Specx became the first "Opperhoofd" (Chief) of the new Company's factory.

In 1610, Specx sent a ship to Korea.

Hendrik Brouwer (Dutch: ; 1581 – August 7, 1643) was a Dutch explorer, admiral, and colonial administrator both in Japan and the Dutch East Indies.

He is thought to first have sailed to the East Indies for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1606. In 1610 he left again to the Indies, now as commander of three ships. On this trip he devised the Brouwer Route, a route from South Africa to Java that reduced voyage duration from a year to about 6 months by taking advantage of the strong westerly winds in the Roaring Forties (the latitudes between 40° and 50° south). Up to that point, the Dutch had followed a route copied from the Portuguese via the coast of Africa, Mauritius and Ceylon. By 1617, the VOC required all their ships to take the Brouwer route.

After his arrival in 1611 in the East Indies, he was sent to Japan to replace Jacques Specx temporarily as opperhoofd at Dejima from August 28, 1612 to August 6, 1614. During that time he made a visit to the Japanese court at Edo. In 1613 he made a trip to Siam that laid the foundation for the Dutch trade with Siam.

Early in 1632, he was part of a delegation sent to London to solve trade disagreements between the English and Dutch East India companies. Afterwards he left for the Indies, and on April 18 of that same year he was appointed Governor-General of the East Indies, again following Jacques Specx, a position which he held until January 1, 1636. Anthony van Diemen was his assistant during this entire period, and many of the Dutch explorations into the Pacific carried out under Van Diemen's command were suggested in writing by Brouwer before he left.

In 1642, the VOC joined the Dutch West Indies Company in organizing an expedition to Chile to establish a base for trading gold at the abandoned ruins of Valdivia. The fleet sailed from Dutch Brazil where John Maurice of Nassau provided them with supplies. While rounding Cape Horn, the expedition established that Staten Island was not part of the unknown Southern land. After landing on Chiloe Island, Brouwer made a pact with the Mapuche (then known as the Araucanians) to aid in establishing a resettlement at Valdivia. However, on August 7, 1643 Hendrik died (at the age of 62) before arriving, and was succeeded by his vice-admiral Elias Herckman, who landed at the ruins of Valdivia on August 24. Brouwer was buried in the new settlement, which Herckman named Brouwershaven after him. Herckman and his men occupied the location only until October 28, 1643. Having been told that the Dutch had plans to return to the location, the Spanish viceroy in Peru sent 1000 men in twenty ships (and 2000 men by land, who never made it) in 1644 to resettle Valdivia and fortify it. The Spanish soldiers in the new garrison disinterred and burned Brouwer's body.

Anthony van Diemen (also Antonie, Antonio, Anton, Antonius) (1593 – 19 April 1645) was a Dutch colonial governor. He was born in Culemborg, the son of Meeus Anthonisz van Diemen and Christina Hoevenaar. In 1616 he moved to Amsterdam, in hope of improving his fortune as a merchant; in this he failed and was declared bankrupt. After a year he became a servant of the Dutch East India Company and sailed to Batavia (Jakarta), capital of the Dutch East Indies. On the voyage out, the East Indiaman Mauritius inadvertently put in on unknown coast of Australia.

Governor Jan Pieterszoon Coen found van Diemen to be a talented official and by 1626 he was Director-General of Commerce and member of the Council for the Indies. In 1630 he married Maria van Aelst. A year later he returned to the Netherlands as Admiral on the ship Deventer. In 1632 he returned to Batavia and in 1635 he was appointed Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, his appointment taking effect on January 1, 1636.

Van Diemen's nine years as Governor-General were successful and important for both the colony and the commercial success of the East India Company. He devoted much of his energy to expanding the power of the company throughout South-East Asia. Under his rule Dutch power was established in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) via Trincomalee.

Van Diemen is best remembered for his efforts to foster exploration of the "Great South Land", Australia, resulting in "the final and most ambitious Dutch voyages of the century".[3] The first voyage under his energetic administration was undertaken within three months of his arrival in Batavia; starting from Cape York its ships were to chart the unknown coasts, but the venture ended in failure, when its commander was killed by natives in New Guinea, and the ships returned. In 1639 he commissioned two voyages to the north, in search of the "Gold and Silver Islands" that Spanish reports placed in the North Pacific to the east of Japan, and sent Maarten Gerritsz Vries to explore the coasts of Korea and "Tartaria"; these, two returned fruitlessly.[4] Undeterred, Van Diemen appointed Frans Visscher to draw up a plan for new discoveries. Visscher mapped out three different routes and van Diemen decided in August 1642 to send Abel Janszoon Tasman, accompanied by Visscher, in search of the Great South Land, which Tasman would soon dub "Nieuw Holland".

In November 1642, headeding east from Mauritius on latitude 44 and missing the south coast of the Australian continent, Tasman sighted land at what is now the west coast of the island of Tasmania, and followed the coastline along the southern shore and around to the east coast. Tasman sent a party ashore at Blackman Bay, on the Tasman Peninsula, who planted a flag and encountered a few Tasmanian people. Believing he had found a large territory, Tasman named it Van Diemen's Land in honour of his patron.[5] Van Diemen is also commemorated in Van Diemen Gulf on the coast of northern Australia.

Van Diemen commissioned a further voyage from Tasman in 1644.

Anthony van Diemen died in April 1645 in Batavia, Dutch East Indies. The company granted his wife a large pension and she retired to the Netherlands. Her name is perpetuated in the name of the westernmost point of the North Island of New Zealand, Cape Maria van Diemen, named by Tasman in 1643, and by Maria Island off the east coast of Tasmania.

Cornelis van der Lijn (1608 – 27 July 1679) was Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1646 until 1650. Van der Lijn was born in Alkmaar, possibly in 1608. He went, in 1627, as Assistant (Dutch: assistent) to Batavia, Dutch East Indies aboard the Wapen van Hoorn. From 1632 to 18 January 1636 he was Accountant-General (Dutch: boekhouder-generaal). In 1639 he became Counsellor-Extraordinary (Dutch: Raad extra-oridinair) to the Council of the Indies. A year later he was appointed President of the Schepenrechtbank (a maritime court, but with various other functions). One further year later he was made a full Counsellor (Dutch: Raad ordinair) he followed Philips Lucasz (whose portrait was painted by Rembrandt [2]) as Director-General of the Indies.

Shortly before his death on 19 April 1645, Governor-General Antonio van Diemen called upon the Council of the Indies (12 April 1645) to establish Cornelis van der Lijn as his successor. This was not in line with the instructions of the Seventeen Lords (Heren XVII), who has laid down in 1617 that immediately after the death of a Governor-General, the Council should choose a provisional Governor-General. Only once the Seventeen Lords had agreed to the choice would the appointment come into actual force. The Heren XVII at first cancelled Van Diemen's decision, but then afterwards named the very same Cornelis van der Lijn as his successor. On 10 October 1646 he was named by them as Governor-General.

Cornelis van der Lijn was not a strong ruler. He built a little on what his predecessor Van Diemen had established, but did not go much further. He signed peace treaties with Solor, Bantam and Mataram. Moreover, on 24 September 1646 he signed a (largely trade) agreement with the Prince of Mataram, the first of such contracts signed by the Dutch with Javanese rulers. Strenuous measures were taken to maintain the monopoly of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the Moluccas. After a fierce struggle, the fortress at Kapaha on Thitu Island (Hitu) was taken. The severe regulations would soon lead to riots.

The rulers in the Netherlands allowed Van der Lijn, at his own request, to retire with honour on 7 October 1650. Carel Reyniersz was then named as Governor-General. In 1651, Cornelis van der Lijn left aboard the Prinses Royaal for the Netherlands. His reception in the homeland was as cool as his departure from the Indies. The customary reception and congratulations given to a returning fleet and its commander were denied to him.

He established himself in Alkmaar where he was elected Mayor (Dutch: burgemeester) on 24 December 1668. He died there on 27 July 1679.

Carel Reyniersz (1604–1653) was Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1650 until 1653.

Reyniersz (or Reiniersz) was born in Amsterdam in 1604 (or perhaps 1602). He left for the Indies in 1627 as Upperbuyer (opperkoopman) on the Dutch Coromandel (Karnataka). He was promoted to Governor of the Coromandel Coast in 1635, even though he had been accused of engaging in (forbidden) private/personal trading. In 1636 he became Counsellor-extraordinary (Raad extra-ordinair) of the Dutch Council of the Indies. He returned to Amsterdam as Admiral of the returning fleet in 1638 and established himself as a merchant there. However, he lost his entire fortune, so left again, this time aboard the Salamander, for India on 24 April 1645. He arrived there on 3 December 1645. The following year, 1646, he became a full Counsellor of the Indies.

His allocated task was to carry out a new policy in the Indies. Most importantly, he was, as far as possible to eliminate sources of competition. He was to take action against private trading and to deal with too much production of spices by having trees cut down. Reinier stuck strictly to this policy, which led to much conflict in West Ceram, where the population would not accept the destruction of their plantations. It took until 1658 for the area to be pacified.

Four years after Reyniersz become a Counsellor, Governor-General Cornelis van der Lijn received an honorable discharge (sic) and on 26 April 1650, Reyniersz was named his successor, a task he very much looked forward to. Four years later he was dismissed. The governors of the company were not pleased by the weakness of his rule. There still exists in the Netherlands his letter of dismissal. It indicates he was being dismissed because he had been unable to carry out the duties of his office, particularly maintaining peace. The letter was never sent, because Reynier had already written to the Seventeen Lords (Heren XVII) asking to be relieved of his office on health grounds. This letter arrived just before his dismissal letter was to be sent. The Seventeen Lords willingly agreed to his request, though he died before their response reached him, on the night of 18/19 May 1653. He was buried in Batavia, Dutch East Indies and was succeed as Governor-General by Joan Maetsuycker.

Joan Maetsuycker (14 October 1606 – 24 January 1678) was the Governor of Zeylan during the Dutch period in Ceylon and Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1653 to 1678. He was appointed as Governor of Zeylan in 24 March 1646 and was Governor until 26 February 1650. He was succeeded by Jacob van Kittensteyn.[1]

Maetsuycker studied law in Leuven, and was a lawyer first in The Hague, and later in Amsterdam. From 1636, he lived in the Dutch East Indies. In 1646 he became the third Dutch Governor of Zeylan, and seven years later, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. He stayed on that post for 25 years, which is the longest period for any Governor-General. The Dutch colony in the Indies flourished under Maetsuycker. Under his rule, the Portuguese lost Ceylon (1658), the coast of Coromandel (1658) and Malabar (1663); Makassar was conquered (1667), the west coast of Sumatra was occupied, and the first expedition to the interior of Java was held.

Rijcklof Volckertsz. van Goens (24 June 1619 – 14 November 1682) was the Governor of Zeylan and Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. He was the Governor of Zeylan from 12 May 1660 to 1661, then in 1663 and finally from 19 November 1664 to 1675 during the Dutch period in Ceylon.

Van Goens was born in Rees. He wrote extensively about his travels to Ceylon and India. His writing about visits to the palaces of Sultan Agung and his successors are important references for historians of the Mataram era in Java. He died in Amsterdam, aged 63.

On 20 February 1673, Van Goens with a fleet of 6,000 men attacked Bombay. Soon, The Treaty of Westminster concluded between England and the Netherlands in 1674, relieved the British settlements in Bombay of further apprehension from the Dutch.

Cornelis Speelman (2 March 1628 – 11 January 1684) was Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1681 to 1684. Cornelis Janzoon Speelman was the son of a Rotterdam merchant. He was born on 2 March 1628. In his 16th year, he left aboard the Hillegersberg for the India. He was employed as an Assistant (assistent) in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). In 1645 he arrived in Batavia, Dutch East Indies. He became Bookkeeper (boekhouder) in 1648 and Underbuyer (onderkoopman) in 1649. He became Secretary (secretaris) to the Dutch Council of the Indies (Raad van Indië). He travelled with the ambassador Joan Cunaeus to Persia that year, and wrote an account of the voyage. They were received by the Shah Abbas II with great festivity. Even before his voyage came to an end, in 1652,he was promoted to Buyer (koopman). On his return to Batavia, he took up a post in the office of the Bookkeeper-General (boekhouder-generaal), 'for whom he deputised for a long time, and whom he succeeded in 1657. Meanwhile, he had married the fifteen year-old Petronella Maria Wonderaer, daughter to the Receiver-General (ontvanger-generaal). In 1659 he was placed in charge of the Company's clerical and administrative staff (kapitein over de compagnie pennisten) in Batavia. In 1661, he became schepen van Batavia, ( a sort of alderman post connected with local government there).

On 12 June 1663, Cornelis Speelman was appointed Governor and Director of Dutch Coromandel, but was suspended by the Seventeen Lords (Heren XVII), being accused of having illegally engaged in private trading. He had bought a diamond for his wife and later re-sold it because she had not liked it. Despite his strenuous protests, the court in Batavia wanted to make an example of him and he was sentenced to a 15 months suspension and a fine of 3,000 guilders. In 1666, he was named admiral and superintendent of an expedition to Makasar. On 18 November 1667, he concluded the so-called Bongaais Treaty. (Treaty of Bonggaya[1]) In the same year, he was named Commissioner (commissaris) of Amboina, Banda and Ternate. Consequently, he became Counsellor-extraordinary (raad extra-ordinaris) to the Dutch Council of the Indies. He travelled once again, in 1669, as admiral of another expedition to Makassar where he completely subjugated the kingdom, receiving a gold chain and medallion in recognition of this the following year.

He became a full Counsellor of the Indies on 23 March 1671. The following year he was admiral of a fleet sent against the French. In December 1676, he led an expedition to Central Java, where the ruler of Mataram was in difficulties and he needed to support the alliance with that prince. On Java's East Coast, he went to war against the so-called Toerana Djaja. It took some time before peace was re-established. He was called back to Batavia at the end of 1677 and on 18 January 1678 named First Counsellor and Director-General of the Indies (Eerste Raad en Directeur-Generaal van Indië). Also in that year he was appointed President of the College van Schepenen (to do with local government) in Batavia. On 29 October 1680 he was named Governor-General, a post he took up on 25 November 1681, succeeding Rijckloff van Goens.

During the term of office of Cornelis Speelman as Governor-General, the Sultan of Ternate was conquered. He ceded all his lands of his kingdom to the Company. Speelman also subdued the city of Bantam. Cornelis Speelman died on 11 January 1684 in the Castle at Batavia. His funeral was accompanied with great noise and splendour, for which no pains or monies were spared. He was buried in the Kruiskerk to the noise of 229 cannon shots. He was followed as Governor-General by Johannes Camphuys.

Johannes Camphuys (registered as Kamphuis in the Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie) (18 July 1634 – 18 July 1695) was the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1684 to 1691. Camphuys was born in Haarlem, in the Republic of the United Netherlands.

At this point in Japanese history, the sole VOC outpost (or "factory") was situated on Dejima island in the harbor of Nagasaki on the southern island of Kyushu. Camphuys was three times sent to Japan as Opperhoofd or chief negotiant and officer of the VOC trading post.
22 October 1671 – 12 November 1672
29 October1673 – 19 October 1674
7 November 1675 – 27 October 1676


Camphuys died in Batavia (Jakarta). He is commemorated in the name of a street in the Lombok neighbourhood of Utrecht; and he is also remembered in the name of a street in the Bezuidenhoutquarter of The Hague.

Willem van Outhoorn (4 May 1635 – 27 November 1720) was Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1691 to 1704. He was born and died in the Dutch East Indies.

Willem van Outhoorn (or Oudthoorn) was born on 4 May 1635 at Larike on Ambon Island in Indonesia. His father was a Dutch East India Company (VOC) Buyer (koopman) there. He was sent to the Netherlands to study Law at the University of Leiden. On 28 November 1657 he graduated in Law.

In 1659 van Outhoorn returned to the Indies, employed as Underbuyer (onderkoopman). He was to remain in the East for the rest of his life. Even a journey to nearby Bantam was a journey too far for him. In 1662 he became a member of the Council of Justice (Raad van Justitie) in Batavia. In 1672 he became Receiver-General (ontvanger-generaal), and in 1673 he became Vice-President of the Council of Justice. In 1678 he was charged with a mission to Bantam and he became an extraordinary member of the Dutch Council of the Indies. He was named a full Counsellor, being confirmed in that post in 1681. He became President of the Council of Justice in 1682 and in 1689 President of the College van Heemraden (dealing with estate boundaries, roads, etc.). That same year he was appointed First Counsellor and Director-General of the Dutch East Indies.

On 17 December 1690 van Outhoorn was appointed Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, taking over from Johannes Camphuys on 24 September 1691. After ten years, the Seventeen Lords (Heren XVII) granted his wish to be honourably relieved of his duties, but it was 15 August 1704 before he could hand over all his official functions to his successor, Joan van Hoorn.

He requested that he be allowed to remain on his estate just outside Batavia. Such requests were generally not allowed, for fear that retired governors would interfere with the work of their successors. However, because he was in ill-health and was over 70, he was allowed to stay. He died at age 85 on 27 November 1720 in Batavia.

His term of office was not marked by many important developments or events. At the end of his term, Amangkurat II Sultan of Mataram died. As the VOC did not recognise his son as successor, a long war broke out just before Van Outshoorn left office. In 1693 the French overran Pondicherry. During his time, efforts were made to establish coffee growing in Java. The first harvest failed because of flooding, but the next harvest had more success.

Van Outhoorn was not a very strong ruler. Corruption and nepotism, in which he was also involved, became more blatant during his time. His son-in-law Joan van Hoorn, married to his daughter Susanna, followed him as Governor-General.

Peter Minuit, Pieter Minuit, Pierre Minuit or Peter Minnewit (about 1594 – August 5, 1638) was a Walloon from Wesel, in present-day North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, then part of the Duchy of Cleves. His surname means "midnight."[1] He was Director of the Dutch colony of New Netherland from 1626 until 1631, and founded the Swedish colony of New Sweden in 1638. He is generally credited with orchestrating the purchase of Manhattan Island for the Dutch from the Native Americans called the Lenape, which later became the city of New Amsterdam, modern-day New York City, which was the core of the Dutch colony of New Netherland and the later British colony of New York.

Wouter van Twiller (May 22, 1606 – buried August 29, 1654) was an employee of the Dutch West India Company and the Director-General of New Netherland from 1633 until 1638. He succeeded Peter Minuit, who was recalled by the Dutch West India authorities in Amsterdam for unknown reasons.

Van Twiller, who was born in Nijkerk, was appointed to the position because he had made two voyages to New Netherland colony before. He was a clerk in the warehouse of the Dutch West India company, and a cousin of Kiliaen van Rensselaer who was married to Wouter's father's sister. Rensselaer entrusted him with shipping cattle to Rensselaerswyck, his colonial estate on the Hudson River. Van Twiller was somewhat acquainted with the geography of New Netherlands and the condition of its affairs. Largely through Van Rensselaer's influence the Dutch West India Company chose him as the new Director-General of New Netherlands, and he set sail for New Amsterdam in the ship De Soutberg.

Amid a considerable amount of land and properties, including islands known in the present day as Roosevelt Island and Randalls and Wards Islands, van Twiller purchased 'Noten Eylant', later called Governors Island[1] from a tribe of Canarsee Indians for two axe heads, a string of beads and some iron nails. While in office, settlers from New England wrested the Connecticut Valley away from New Netherland, but he was able to defend the Dutch territory in the Delaware Valley, where his soldiers captured a shipload of intended settlers from Virginia and expelled soldiers who had taken Fort Nassau.

Van Twiller was able to both increase the colony's prosperity and amass a private fortune despite conflicts with Everhardus Bogardus, Dutch Reformed dominie of the New Netherland colony; and financial controller Lubbert van Dincklagen, who didn't think much of his ability to manage the affairs of New Netherland properly. To succeed van Twiller as Director-General, the Dutch West India Company sent William Kieft in September 1637. Van Twiller subsequently returned to the Netherlands and assumed guardianship of Johannes, eldest son of Killian van Rensselaer, following the death of that patroon in 1644. He died in Amsterdam.

Willem Kieft (September 1597, Amsterdam – September 27, 1647) was a Dutch merchant and director of New Netherland of which New Amsterdam was capital), from 1638 until 1647.

Willem Kieft was appointed to the rank of director by the West India Company in 1638. He formed the council of twelve men, the first representative body in New Netherland, but ignored its advice. He tried to tax, and then, drive out, local Native Americans.He ordered attacks on Pavonia and Corlears Hook on February 25, 1643 in a massacre (129 Dutch soldiers killed 120 Indians, including women and children), followed by retaliations resulting in what would become known as Kieft's War (1643–1645). The war took a huge toll on both sides, and Dutch West India Company Board of Directors fired him in 1647. He was replaced with Peter Stuyvesant.[1] He died on September 27, 1647 in the Princess Amelia shipwreck near Swansea, Wales en route to Amsterdam to defend himself, along with many of his opponents as well, including the Rev. Everardus Bogardus.His archive was also lost, so his exact role cannot be established apart from what his opponents wrote of him. He is in the Gods of Manhattan series by Scott Mebus.

Peter Stuyvesant (c. 1612 – August 1672), known as Petrus, served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York. He was a major figure in the early history of New York City.

Stuyvesant's accomplishments as director-general included a great expansion for the settlement of New Amsterdam beyond the southern tip of Manhattan. Among the projects built by Stuyvesant's administration were the protective wall on Wall Street, the canal that became Broad Street, and Broadway.

Stuyvesant was born around 1612 in Peperga, Friesland in the Netherlands, to minister Balthazar Johannes Stuyvesant and Margaretha Hardenstein. He grew up in Scherpenzeel. He studied languages and philosophy in Franeker,[1] and joined the West India Company about 1635, and was director of the Dutch West India Company's colony of Curaçao from 1642 to 1644.

In April 1644, he attacked the Spanish-held island of Saint Martin and lost the lower part of his right leg to a cannonball. He returned to the Netherlands, where his right leg was amputated and replaced with a wooden peg. Supposedly, Stuyvesant was given the nickname "Old Silver Leg" because he used a stick of wood driven full of silver bands as a prosthetic limb.[2]

A year later, in May 1645, Stuyvesant was selected by the Dutch West India Company to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of the New Netherland colony, in present-day New York. He arrived in New Amsterdam on May 11, 1647. In September 1647, he appointed an advisory council of nine men as representatives of the colonists on New Amsterdam. He married Judith Bayard (c. 1610-1687) of the Bayard family in 1645. Her brother Samuel, was the husband of Pieter's sister Anna. Judith had nursed him back to health following the loss of his right lower leg at Saint Martin and subsequent return to the Netherlands to recuperate. Pieter and Judith's daughter, also named Judith, married Benjamin Winthrop, son of John Still Winthrop of the Dudley–Winthrop family and second wife Elizabeth Shirreff. Pieter and Judith's son, Nicolaes Willem Stuyvesant (1648–1698), married Maria Beeckman, daughter of Willem Beeckman.

In 1648, a conflict started between him and Brant Aertzsz van Slechtenhorst, the commissary of the patroonship Rensselaerwijck, which surrounded Fort Orange (present-day Albany). Stuyvesant claimed he had power over Rensselaerwijck despite special privileges granted to Kiliaen van Rensselaer in the patroonship regulations of 1629. In 1649, Stuyvesant marched to Fort Orange with a military escort and ordered bordering settlement houses to be razed to permit a better defense of the fort in case of an attack from the Native Americans. When Van Slechtenhorst refused, Stuyvesant sent a group of soldiers to enforce his orders. The controversy that followed resulted in the founding of the new settlement, Beverwijck.

Stuyvesant became involved in a dispute with Theophilus Eaton, the governor of English New Haven Colony, over the border of the two colonies. In September 1650, a meeting of the commissioners on boundaries took place in Hartford, Connecticut, called the Treaty of Hartford, to settle the border between New Amsterdam and the English colonies to the north and east. The border was arranged to the dissatisfaction of the Nine Men, who declared that "the governor had ceded away enough territory to found fifty colonies each fifty miles square." Stuyvesant then threatened to dissolve the council. A new plan of municipal government was arranged in the Netherlands, and the name "New Amsterdam" was officially declared on 2 February 1653. Stuyvesant made a speech for the occasion, saying that his authority would remain undiminished.

Petrus was now ordered to the Netherlands, but the order was soon revoked under pressure from the States of Holland and the city of Amsterdam. Stuyvesant prepared against an attack by ordering the citizens to dig a ditch from the North River to the East River and to erect a fortification.

In 1653, a convention of two deputies from each village in New Netherland demanded reforms, and Stuyvesant commanded that assembly to disperse, saying: "We derive our authority from God and the company, not from a few ignorant subjects." In the summer of 1655, he sailed into the Delaware River with a fleet of seven vessels and about 700 men and took possession of the colony of New Sweden, which was renamed "New Amstel." In his absence, Pavonia was attacked by Native Americans, during the "Peach War" on September 15, 1655.

In 1657 Stuyvesant, who did not tolerate full religious freedom in the colony,[3] and was strongly committed to the supremacy of the Dutch Reformed Church, refused to allow Lutherans the right to organize a church. When he also issued an ordinance forbidding them from worshiping in their own homes, the directors of the Dutch West Indies Company, of whom three were Lutherans, told him to rescind the order and allow private gatherings of Lutherans.[4]

Freedom of religion was also tested when Peter Stuyvesant refused to allow Jews from Northern Brazil to settle permanently in New Amsterdam (without passports) and join the existing community of Jews (with passports from Amsterdam). Stuyvesant attempted to have Jews "in a friendly way to depart" the colony. As he wrote to the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company in 1654 he hoped that "the deceitful race, — such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ, — be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony."[5] He referred to Jews as a "repugnant race" and "usurers", and was concerned that "Jewish settlers should not be granted the same liberties enjoyed by Jews in Holland, lest members of other persecuted minority groups, such as Roman Catholics, be attracted to the colony."[6]

Stuyvesant's decision was rescinded after pressure from the directors of the Company; as a result, Stuyvesant allowed Jewish immigrants to stay in the colony as long as their community was self-supporting, but — with the support of the company — would not allow them to build a synagogue, forcing them to worship instead in a private house.[7]

Then, in 1657, Stuyvesant turned to the newly arrived Quakers in the colony. He ordered the public torture of Robert Hodgson, a 23-year-old Quaker convert who had become an influential preacher. Stuyvesant then made an ordinance, punishable by fine and imprisonment, against anyone found guilty of harboring Quakers. That action led to a protest from the citizens of Flushing, Queens, which came to be known as the Flushing Remonstrance, considered by some a precursor to the United States Constitution's provision on freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights.

Capitulation[edit]

In 1664, King Charles II of England ceded to his brother, the Duke of York, later King James II, a large tract of land that included New Netherland. Four English ships bearing 450 men, commanded by Richard Nicolls, seized the Dutch colony. On 30 August 1664, George Cartwright sent the governor a letter demanding surrender. He promised "life, estate, and liberty to all who would submit to the king's authority." Stuyvesant signed a treaty at his Bouwerij house on 9 September 1664. Nicolls was declared governor, and the city was renamed New York. Stuyvesant obtained civil rights and freedom of religion in the Articles of Capitulation. The Dutch settlers mainly belonged to the Dutch Reformed church, a strict Calvinist denomination. The English were Anglican, theologically closer to the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1665, Stuyvesant went to the Netherlands to report on his term as governor. On his return, he spent the remainder of his life on his farm of sixty-two acres outside the city, called the Great Bouwerie, beyond which stretched the woods and swamps of the village of Haarlem. A pear tree that he reputedly brought from the Netherlands in 1647 remained at the corner of Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue until 1867, bearing fruit almost to the last. The house was destroyed by fire in 1777. He also built an executive mansion of stone called Whitehall. He died in August 1672 and his body was entombed in the east wall of St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, which sits on the site of Stuyvesant’s family chapel.

John Maurice of Nassau (Dutch: Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, German: Johann Moritz von Nassau-Siegen, Portuguese: João Maurício de Nassau-Siegen, 17 June 1604 – 20 December 1679) was count and (from 1674) prince of Nassau-Siegen, and Grand Master of the Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg).

He was born in Dillenburg. His father was John VII of Nassau; his grandfather John VI of Nassau, the younger brother of Dutch stadtholder William the Silent of Orange. John Maurice joined the Dutch army in 1621, at a very early age. He distinguished himself in the campaigns of his cousin, the stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. In 1626 he became captain. He was involved in 1629 in the capture of Den Bosch. In 1636, he conquered a fortress at Schenkenschans.

He was appointed as the governor of the Dutch possessions in Brazil in 1636 by the Dutch West India Company on recommendation of Frederick Henry. He landed at Recife, the port of Pernambuco and the chief stronghold of the Dutch, in January 1637. By a series of successful expeditions, he gradually extended the Dutch possessions from Sergipe on the south to São Luís de Maranhão in the north. With the assistance of the famous architect, Pieter Post of Haarlem, he transformed Recife by building a new town adorned with public buildings, bridges, channels and gardens in the then Dutch style, later naming the newly reformed town Mauritsstad, after himself. By his statesmanlike policy he brought the colony into a most flourishing condition. His leadership in Brazil inspired two Latin epics from 1647: Caspar Barlaeus' Rerum per octennium in Brasilia et alibi nuper gestarum sub praefectura[1] and Franciscus Plante's Mauritias. The painters Albert Eckhout, Frans Post, and Abraham Willaerts served as members of John Maurice's entourage.

In 1643 in Johan Maurits equipped the expedition of Hendrik Brouwer that attempted to establish an outpost in southern Chile. He also established representative councils in the colony for local government, and developed Recife's transportation infrastructure. His large schemes and lavish expenditure alarmed the parsimonious directors of the West India Company, and John Maurice, refusing to retain his post unless he were given a free hand, returned to Europe in July 1644.

He was shortly afterwards appointed by Frederick Henry to the command of the cavalry in the Dutch army, and he took part in the campaigns of 1645 and 1646. When the war was ended by the Peace of Münster in January 1648, he accepted from the elector of Brandenburg the post of governor of Cleves, Mark and Ravensberg, and later also of Minden. His success in the Rhineland was as great as it had been in Brazil, and he proved himself a most able and wise ruler. At the end of 1652, John Maurice was appointed head of the Order of Saint John (Bailiwick of Brandenburg) and made a prince of the Empire. In 1664 he came back to Holland; when war broke out with an England supported by the invading bishop of Münster, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Dutch States Army. Though hampered in his command by the restrictions of the states-general, he repelled the invasion, and the bishop, Christoph Bernhard von Galen, nicknamed "Bommen Berend", was forced to conclude peace. His campaigning was not yet at an end, for in 1668 he was appointed first Field-Marshal of the States Army and in 1673 he was charged by stadtholder William III to command the forces in Friesland and Groningen, and to defend the eastern frontier of the Provinces, again against Van Galen.

In 1675 his health compelled him to give up active military service, and he spent his last years in his beloved Cleves, where he died in December 1679.