Cornelis Janszoon Speelman (2 March 1628 – 11 January 1684) was

Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies The governor-general of the Dutch East Indies (, ) represented Dutch rule in the Dutch East Indies between 1610 and Dutch recognition of the independence of Indonesia in 1949. Occupied by Japanese forces between 1942 and 1945, followed by the ...

from 1681 to 1684. Cornelis Janszoon Speelman was the son of a

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

merchant. He was born on 2 March 1628. In his 16th year, he left aboard the ''

Hillegersberg Hillegersberg () is a neighbourhood of Rotterdam, Netherlands. Primarily a green residential area with lakes, canals and parks, it was incorporated into the city of Rotterdam in 1941. Settlement around its Hillegonda church was first established ...

'' for the

Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies) is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The ''Indies'' broadly referred to various lands in the East or the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found i ...

. He was employed as an assistant (') in the service of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

(VOC).

Biography

In 1645, he arrived in

Batavia, Dutch East Indies Batavia was the capital of the Dutch East Indies. The area corresponds to present-day Jakarta, Indonesia. Batavia can refer to the city proper or its suburbs and hinterland, the , which included the much larger area of the Residency of Batavia ...

. He became bookkeeper (''boekhouder'') in 1648 and second merchant (''onderkoopman'') in 1649. He became secretary (''secretaris'') to the Dutch

Council of the Indies A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or nati ...

(''Raad van Indië''). He travelled with ambassador Joan Cunaeus to

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

that year, and wrote an account of the voyage. They were received by the

Shah Shāh (; ) is a royal title meaning "king" in the Persian language.Yarshater, Ehsa, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII, no. 1 (1989) Though chiefly associated with the monarchs of Iran, it was also used to refer to the leaders of numerous Per ...

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 deputed 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 An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denotin ...

post connected with local government there).

Career

On 12 June 1663, Cornelis Speelman was appointed governor and director of

Dutch Coromandel Coromandel was a governorate of the Dutch East India Company on the coasts of the Coromandel region from 1610, until the company's liquidation in 1798. Dutch presence in the region began with the capture of Pulicat from the Portuguese in Goa and ...

, but was suspended by the Heren XVII (Lords Seventeen), 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

guilder Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch and German ''gulden'', originally shortened from Middle High German ''guldin pfenninc'' (" gold penny"). This was the term that became current in the southern and western parts of the Holy Rom ...

s. In 1666, he was named

admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in many navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force. Admiral is ranked above vice admiral and below admiral of ...

and superintendent of an expedition to

Makassar Makassar ( ), formerly Ujung Pandang ( ), is the capital of the Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, ...

AMH-5644-KB The conquest of Macassar by Speelman from 1666 to 1669

On 18 November 1667, he concluded the so-called ''Bongaais Treaty'' (

Treaty of Bongaya The Treaty of Bongaya (also spelled Bongaja) was signed on November 18, 1667, between Sultan Hasanuddin of Gowa and the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This treaty was developed after Dutch imperial forces (allied with the Bugis) defeated the Go ...

). In the same year, he was named commissioner (''commissaris'') of Amboina,

Banda Banda may refer to: People * Banda (surname) * Banda Prakash (born 1954), Indian politician * Banda Kanakalingeshwara Rao (1907–1968), Indian actor * Banda Karthika Reddy (born 1977), Indian politician *Banda Singh Bahadur (1670–1716), Sikh ...

, and

Ternate Ternate (), also known as the City of Ternate (; ), is the List of regencies and cities of Indonesia, city with the largest population in the province of North Maluku and an island in the Maluku Islands, Indonesia. It was the ''de facto'' provi ...

. 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 Central Java (, ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia, located in the middle of the island of Java. Its administrative capital is Semarang. It is bordered by West Java in the west, the Indian Ocean and the Special Region of Yogya ...

, supporting the ruler of Mataram who was facing the

Trunajaya rebellion The Trunajaya Rebellion (also spelled Trunojoyo) or Trunajaya War was the ultimately unsuccessful rebellion waged during the 1670s by the Madurese prince Trunajaya and fighters from Makassar against the Mataram Sultanate and its Dutch East I ...

. On Java's East Coast, he went to war against the rebel leader Trunajaya. 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 Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...

was defeated. 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 clamour and splendour, for which no pains or monies were spared. He was buried in the ''Kruiskerk'' to the salute 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 ...

References

Sources

* Site in Dutch dedicated to the VO

* Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indië, part Soek-Zij. * Putten, L.P. van, 2002. – ''Ambitie en onvermogen : gouverneurs-generaal van Nederlands-Indië 1610–1796.'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Speelman, Cornelis 1628 births 1684 deaths Dutch East India Company people from Rotterdam Governors-general of the Dutch East Indies Governors of Dutch Coromandel 17th-century Dutch colonial governors Naval officers of the Dutch East India Company