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‘An accurate description of...’ Olfert Dapper Date: 1668-88 Original Language: Dutch Description Olfert Dapper was a prolific writer of books on ‘foreign parts’, although he never travelled outside The Netherlands. His books are compilations of materials gathered from a variety of sources, such as travelogues, letters and interviews. Between 1668 and 1688, he published a series of eight volumes, all beginning with Naukeurige  beschrijvinge  van ... (‘An accurate description of …’). Dapper started his series with a description of mainland Africa and the Africa…

VOC Treaties;Collected contracts of the Dutch Indian Administration, 1596-1799 Corpus Diplomaticum Date: 1596-1799 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionOn 23 June 1596, Cornelis de Houtman arrived in Bantam, West Java, at the head of the first Dutch fleet to reach Indonesia. On 1 July 1596, the first of many treaties with Asian rulers was signed with the sultan of Bantam, pioneering a practice of peace-making between the locals and the VOC (Dutch East India Company) that lasted from 1602 to 1799. These treaties …

François Valentyn Date of Birth: 17 April 1666 Place of Birth: Dordrecht Date of Death: 6 August 1727 Place of Death: s'Gravenhage (The Hague) BiographyFrançois Valentijn (also Valentyn) was born into a middle-class family in the important Dutch harbour town of Dordrecht. His father was rector at the local grammar school. François studied theology in Leiden and Utrecht, and in May 1685, as a 19-year-old minister, he left for the Dutch East Indies, arriving on 30 December. He was appointed to the eastern island of Ambon…

Date of Birth: 18 January 1823 Place of Birth: Kampen, Holland Date of Death: 25 February 1868 Place of Death: Delft, Holland BiographySalomon Keijzer (also written as Keyzer and Keyser) was born into a Jewish family. In September 1843, he became a student in Leiden University, where he combined study in the law faculty with the study of Hebrew and Arabic. On 11 June 1847 he defended two doctoral dissertations, one on the Codex Justinianus and one on Talmudic jurisprudence. After teaching Greek for some time at a private institution, while also following courses in Ja…

BiographyFrederick de Houtman is best known for the second of his four trips to Indonesia. He was born in the Dutch town of Gouda shortly before the ‘alteration’ of 1572, when the town officially accepted the Calvinist ‘Reformed’ faith in place of Roman Catholicism. He attended grammar school, where he studied Latin and modern sciences, including arithmetic. He grew up a Reformed Protestant and in 1590 moved to Alkmaar, where in 1592 he married Vroutgen Frederick, the daughter of a wealthy businessman still loyal to the Catholic faith.In December 1592, he followed his brother Corn…

Karel Steenbrink [email protected] Last modified: December 2016The Portuguese, as part of their journey eastwards in search of spices for trade and souls to be converted to Christianity, conquered Malacca…

Ahmad Rifaʾi (or Ripangi) (c. 1786–1876), one of the most radical Islamic reformers of nineteenth-century Java, was born in Kendal, Java, and died in exile in Ambon. Ripangi, as he is usually known in Java, was the sixth son of Raden Kyai Haji Muhammad Abu Sujak, also known by his Javanese name, Raden Sutawijaya, a penghulu (the highest level of religious official) in the Residency of Kendal. The position of penghulu in Kendal was subsequently held by a son of Sutawijaya’s older brother, and it was this penghulu who, in the 1820s, ordered Ripangi imprisoned for some time in Semara…

‘A history of Ambon’, and ‘A general description of the Islands of Ambon’ Jeuriaen Everhard Rumpf; Georg Eberhard Rumpf Date: 1678 Original Language: Dutch DescriptionThe two works De Ambonse historie, behelsende een kort verhaal der gedenkwaardigste geschiedenissen, zo in vreede als oorlog voorgevallen, sedert dat de Nederlandsche Oost Indische Comp. het besit in Amboina gehadt heeft, and  De generale lant-beschrijvinge van het Ambonese Gouvernement behelsende en wat daaronder begrepen zij, mitsgaders een Summarisch verhaal van de Ternataanse en Port…

Jan van Cotwyck, J(oh)an van Cotwijck, Ioannes Cotovicus, Jean Cootwich, Ioan van Kootwyck Date of Birth: Around 1550 Place of Birth: Utrecht Date of Death: 1629 or thereafter Place of Death: Unknown Biography Very little is known about Jan van Cotwyck, who was probably born around the middle of the 16th century. He was a learned Catholic priest from the diocese of Utrecht, where the ‘alteration’ or change to Calvinism took place on 15 June 1580 with a ban on the public practice of Roman Catholicism. In 1609, he published Eenen geestelijke[n] schilt waer mede alle simpele catholijcke…

‘The journey to Jerusalem and Syria’ Jan van Cotwyck, J(oh)an van Cotwijck, Ioannes Cotovicus, Jean Cootwich, Ioan van Kootwyck Date: 1619 Original Language: Latin Description Van Cotwyck’s Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum et Syriacum; in quo variarum gentium mores et instituta; insularum, regionum, urbium situs, unà ex prisci recentiorisq[ue] sæculi usu; unà cum eventis, quæ auctori terrâ mariq[ue] acciderunt, dilucidè recensentur. Accessit synopsis Reipublicæ Venet[a]e runs to 518 pages and begins with an admonition to the reader about the dangers of travel…

‘Account or diary of the journey to Algiers of Thomas Hees, undertaken in the year 1675’ Thomas van Hees Date: 1675-80 Original Language: Dutch, with at least one fragment, vol. 1, pp. 91-5, in French Description Thomas Hees kept a diary between mid-1675 and 27 February 1680. The diary is a mixed record of his way of life en route to Algiers and while residing there, and also of the efforts he made for the release of slaves and the discussions concerning the forthcoming treaty with the ruler of Algiers. These were probably notes w…

Thomas van Hees Date of Birth: 1634 Place of Birth: Weesp, near Amsterdam Date of Death: Buried 3 September 1693 Place of Death: Nieuwer-Amstel, near Amsterdam Biography In 1612, the Dutch Republic was granted its first capitulations ( ahdname) by the Ottoman sultan, according trade privileges to Dutch merchants residing in the Levant and the assurance that slaves would be freed without payment. The North African (‘Barbary’) principalities of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli acknowledged the suzerainty of the Ottoman sultan, but were auto…

Jeuriaen Everhard Rumpf; Georg Eberhard Rumpf Date of Birth: 1 November 1627 Place of Birth: Wolfersheim, Germany Date of Death: 15 June 1702 Place of Death: Ambon Island, Indonesia BiographyGeorg Rumphius was born Georg Rumpf in 1627 in Wölfersheim, Hessen, Germany, and spoke Dutch from an early age because his mother had family in the Dutch Republic. His youth was troubled by the Thirty Years War, as well as a wave of plague in 1635. He learned Latin and studied at the gymnasium in Hanau. In 1645, at the age of 18, he joi…