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‘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…

Since the arrival of Islam in the Indonesian archipelago, Arabic has been used as a religious language for the basic rituals and for technical instruction of specialists in the religious sciences. It has, however, remained restricted to the religious realm, the major vehicle of contact being Tamil rather than Arabic. Many Indonesian commercial terms bear witness to the influence of southeast Indian Muslims in the period before Malay developed into the lingua franca of the archipelago and, after …

‘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…

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…