Roelof Diodati (

Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Western Netherlands, lo ...

, 28 July 1658 – Batavia, 10 March 1723) was a governor of

Dutch Mauritius Mauritius was an official settlement of the Dutch East India Company on the island of Mauritius between 1638 and 1710, and used as a refreshing station for passing ships. It was already frequented by Dutch ships from 1598 onwards, but only sett ...

in the late 17th century.

Life

Diodati was of Swiss-Italian descent. His grandfather was Jean Diodati, a theologian, who translated the Bible into Italian. His father, born in Geneva, became a pastor of the

Walloon church A Walloon church (French: ''Église Wallonne''; Dutch: ''Waalse kerk'') describes any Calvinist church in the Netherlands and its former colonies whose members originally came from the Southern Netherlands (what is now Belgium) and northern Franc ...

in Leiden in 1651. It is not obvious Rodolfo Diodati was one of a twin. Both brothers took service at 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 ...

. He became an accountant at the Cape in 1686 and then a merchant. He was appointed as governor of Mauritius from 1692 to 1703. In 1693 he had to deal with

François Leguat François Leguat (1637/1639 – September 1735) was a French explorer and naturalist. He was one of a small group of male French Protestant refugees who in 1691 settled on the then uninhabited island of Rodrigues in the western Indian Ocean. Th ...

. In 1695, a big hurricane devastated the island, several of the Burghers lost all their crops, and many left the island. Diodati seems to have been appointed in Suratte. Then he shifted to Batavia and he became a merchant and accountant on 4 January 1707. In 1709 he married Catharina Zaaiman, born on Dutch

Mauritius Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...

. Her grandmother was Eva, a

Khoikhoi Khoikhoi (Help:IPA/English, /ˈkɔɪkɔɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''KOY-koy'') (or Khoekhoe in Namibian orthography) are the traditionally Nomad, nomadic pastoralist Indigenous peoples, indigenous population of South Africa. They ...

interpreter for

Jan van Riebeeck Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck (21 April 1619 – 18 January 1677) was a Dutch navigator, ambassador and colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company. Life Early life Jan van Riebeeck was born in Culemborg on 21 April ...

. Diodati became

opperhoofd is a Dutch word (plural ) that literally translates to "upper-head", meaning "supreme headman". The Danish cognate , which is a calque derived from a Danish pronunciation of the Dutch or Low German word, is also treated here. The standard Ge ...

at the VOC post at

Dejima or Deshima, in the 17th century also called , was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan, that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1858). For 220 years, it was the central con ...

Japan on 31 May 1720 and died in Batavia 10 March 1723.

Notes

References

* Allister Macmillan,
Mauritius illustrated: historical and descriptive, commercial and industrial facts, figures, and resources.
', London : W.H. & L. Collingridge, 1914 1658 births 1723 deaths Dutch accountants Governors of Dutch Mauritius Dutch expatriates in Japan 17th-century Dutch colonial governors Dutch people of Swiss descent Dutch twins People from Dordrecht History of the foreign relations of Japan {{Mauritius-politician-stub