Paulus Traudenius (? in Gouda – 9 July 1643 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 ...

) was the

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

governor of Formosa The governor of Formosa (; ) was the head of government of Taiwan during the Dutch colonial period, which lasted from 1624 to 1662. Appointed by the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies in Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia), the governor of ...

from 1640 to 1643. Traudenius was a descendant of a family of teachers in Gouda. His grandfather, also Paulus Traudenius, was in 1573 the first rector of the local Latin school after the

reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

and had Latinized his original name Trudens to Traudenius. In 1630 grandson Traudenius is registered as a merchant for 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 ...

Tayouan Anping District is a district of Tainan, Taiwan. In March 2012, it was named one of the ''Top 10 Small Tourist Towns'' by the Tourism Bureau of Taiwan. It is home to 64,408 people according to the 2020 census. Name The older place name o ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. In 1633 he became a head merchant at Quinam, but was also active along the coast of China, in the

Pescadores The Penghu ( , Hokkien POJ: ''Phîⁿ-ô͘'' or ''Phêⁿ-ô͘'' ) or Pescadores Islands are an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait, about west of the main island of Taiwan across the Penghu Channel, cover ...

and on

. He married twice, in April 1633 in Batavia with Elisabeth de Meester from Rotterdam, and in 1641 at Fort Zeelandia with Adriana Quina, widow of the former governor of Taiwan,

Johan van der Burg Johan van der Burg (Delft, ?–1640) was the Dutch governor of Formosa from 1636 to 1640. In 1627 he arrived in Batavia, married Adriana Quina. It is possible he became the brother-in-law of Hans Putmans. In 1631 he was appointed in the Council of ...

. In 1643 he was recalled from Formosa to Batavia, where he soon thereafter died.

Acts as governor

Two years after the Dutch established Fort Zeelandia in southern Taiwan, the Spanish responded by establishing a fort at Santissima Trinidad in 1629 and

Fort Santo Domingo Fort Santo Domingo is a historical fortress in Tamsui District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. It was originally a wooden fort built in 1628 by the Manila-based Spanish East Indies of the Spanish Empire, who named it in . However, after refurbishin ...

in 1629. By 1641 the Spanish had become such an irritant to the Dutch in the south that it was decided to take northern Taiwan from the Spanish by force. In the usual courteous terms, Traudenius informed the Spanish governor of their intentions. The Spanish governor was not inclined to give in so easily, and replied in kind. Subsequently, on 24–27 November 1641, the Dutch launched an assault on the northern regions, but the Spanish positions were well-defended and the attacking troops were not able to breach the walls of the fortresses. They returned, thwarted, to Fort Zeelandia, but a second attack in 1642 was effective and the Spanish abandoned their bases on Formosa.

Sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Traudenius, Paulus Year of birth missing 1643 deaths Colonial governors of Dutch Formosa People from Gouda, South Holland