Elias Hesse (November 12, 1658 – ?) was a German man who travelled through Southeast Asia in the 17th century, and the author of an account on the topic, ''Ost-Indische Reise-Beschreibung''. Hesse was the son of a miller, born in

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

. In 1680, he was recruited by 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) as a clerk in Benjamin Olitzsch's ill-fated

gold mining Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from Alluvium, alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to mor ...

expedition, where they were sent, along with 20 miners, to investigate the reserves at Sillida (south of

Padang Padang () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province of West Sumatra. It had a population of 833,562 at the 2010 CensusBiro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2011. and 909,040 at the 2020 Census;Bad ...

) in

Sumatra Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

.
Google Books preview of ''Asia in the Making of Europe'', Donald F. Lach, Edwin J. Van Kley The operation suffered heavily from a variety of misfortunes. The operating costs were too high, and the company had to employ the assistance of a large number of

slaves Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

for labour; although they did not need to pay them, feeding and providing for them proved costly. They also had to pay military posts for protection. This, coupled with a shortage of supplies and various tropical diseases which the Europeans were not prepared for made the operation slow going. The gold reserves themselves were not worth the effort, there was hardly any worth mining, no rich veins. Mining stopped in 1694, although Hesse left in 1683. On his return, Hesse wrote his account of the trip, and it was published in 1687 in

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

. Three years later, a revised and improved edition was released in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

. This was then reprinted in 1735. The current issue of the travel description is titled ''Gold Mines in Sumatra 1680-1683'' (Haag, Martinus Nijhoff, 1931) and is based on the second edition of 1690.

References

* Gold-Bergwerke in Sumatra 1680–1683 (Haag, Martinus Nijhoff, 1931) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hesse, Elias People from the Electorate of Saxony Year of death missing 17th-century German explorers 1658 births German male writers 17th-century German writers