Jan Pieterszoon Coen

Jan Pieterszoon Coen

Jan Pieterszoon Coen [ kuːn ] (born January 8, 1587 in Hoorn ; †  September 21, 1629 in Batavia , today Jakarta ) was Governor General of the Dutch East India Company ( Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie , VOC) in Southeast Asia. Since he established the supremacy of the VOC there, he is considered a Dutch empire builder who laid the foundation for the later Dutch East Indies .

Origin and advancement

Jan Pieterszoon Coen was baptized on January 8, 1587 in the Grote Kerk of Hoorn , a seafaring town on what was then the Zuiderzee . At age 13, he was selected by his father to Rome sent to where the double-entry bookkeeping to learn that led to a merchant at a glance its assets and its liabilities in mind. After six years Coen returned to Hoorn, where a chamber of the VOC, founded in 1602, was now based. In 1607 Coen drove to Southeast Asia for the first time as a subcontractor with a VOC fleet under the commandant Pieter Verhoeff. When he returned four years later, he submitted a detailed report to the Board of Directors with advice on how to improve the company's position against Portuguese and English competition. In 1612 he again left for Southeast Asia, this time with the rank of "senior merchant". He also wrote regular reports to the directors in which he repeatedly reprimanded their decisions. The directors - comparable to today's corporate board of directors - did not resent him for this, on the contrary: in 1613 they promoted him to general director, the second highest position in Southeast Asia. In 1618 he finally became governor general.

First term as governor general

In order to provide the VOC with a solid base, Coen burned the city of Jakarta on the north coast of Java in 1619 and built on its ruins Batavia, which became the trading center of the Dutch in Asia. However, it was by no means Coen's aim to establish a colonial empire. Rather, he pursued pure profit interests - it was about the highest possible profits for the company, which were then distributed to the shareholders in the form of dividends. Unlike his predecessor Laurens Reael, for example, Coen did not plead for peaceful competition, but for monopolizing trade and eliminating competition. “We cannot do business without waging war, and we cannot wage war without doing business,” was his conviction. In order to secure the company's monopoly on the spice trade, he undertook a punitive expedition in 1621 against the Banda Islands , an island group on which many clove and nutmeg trees grew. His measures cost the lives of around 15,000 people. Coen had all members of the local merchant elite executed. Some Bandanese fled to the Kei Islands , where their descendants in two villages still speak the ancient Banda language.

In 1622 Coen even had a punitive expedition set up against overwhelming China to make it clear to the Chinese that they had to keep the VOC as a friend.

Return to the Netherlands

In 1623 Coen returned to the Netherlands because he wanted to convince the directors - the "Heren Zeventien" (Heren XVII) - of his long-term strategy in a personal conversation. However, his aggressive demeanor had meanwhile drawn the wrath of the English government. The Netherlands were dependent on England in their ongoing struggle against the Spanish Empire. Therefore, the Dutch government forbade Coen to return to Southeast Asia again without their express consent. But after Coen married the 19-year-old politician Eva Ment in 1625 , he traveled incognito again to Java. The directors had defied the government and reappointed him as governor-general - further evidence that the VOC was a state within a state that made its own decisions.

Second term as governor general

Coen's second term from 1627 to 1629 was no longer successful. It was overshadowed by the fact that the VOC was attacked by the powerful Javanese sultanate of Mataram. In addition, there was an incident that was later used repeatedly as evidence of Coen's cruelty: A 16-year-old ensign who was caught having sex with a 12-year-old girl in 1629 was sentenced to death by Coen and the girl was whipped. During a siege of Batavia by the Sultan of Mataram, Coen suddenly fell ill and died a few hours later on September 21, 1629.

Coen's image in historiography

Coen is one of the most controversial figures in Dutch history. On the one hand, he was venerated as the founder of the Dutch colonial empire, especially in the 19th century, on the other hand, his cruelty was repeatedly denounced. The historian Christoph Driessen characterized Coen in 2009 as "strictly Calvinist, filled with burning ambition and without any scruples in doing what he thought was right". The city council of Coen's native town of Hoorn therefore decided, after a public discussion in July 2011, to attach a “critical note” to Coen's statue. After months of discussion, they agreed on a new text board. On this it says u. a .: “Famed as an energetic and visionary leader. But also criticized for his violent behavior [...]. "(" Geroemd als krachtdadig en visionair bestuurder. Maar evenzeer kritiseerd om zijn gewelddadige optreden [...]. ") ("Volgens critici deserves Coens Gewelddadige trade policy in de Indian archipelago geen eerbetoon.")

Literary figure

Coen lives under the fictional character as a botched name Mur Jangkung continued. As such he appears in the narrative poem Serat Baron Sakhender ("The Book of Baron Sakhender"), written in Javanese in Surakarta in the 18th century . Mur Jangkung is the son of the Sundanese princess Tanuraga from the Hindu kingdom Pajajaran and the baron Sukmul, who was the brother of the Spanish king Sakhender. The tragic life stories brought forward by the influence of magical forces begin around the middle of the 16th century and deal with the conflicts between the Hindu-Javanese, Muslim and Dutch spheres of power. The narrative tradition is performed as a Javanese stick puppet show wayang golek . In the character Mur Jankung, the distinctive features with the protruding nose of Coen can be clearly recognized.

literature

in order of appearance

• Willem Albert Terwogt: The Land of Jan Pieterszoon Coen. Divorce of the Nederlanders in East Indie . P. Geerts, Hoorn 1892. pp. 137-256.
• Herman Theodoor Colenbrander : Jan Pietersz. Coen, Levensbeschrijving. 1934.
• Ruud Spruit: JP Coen. Dagen en daden in service of the VOC. De Haan, Houten 1987, ISBN 90-269-4230-3 .
• Jur van Goor: Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587-1629). Koopman-koning in Azië . Boom, Amsterdam 2015, ISBN 978-94-6105-036-6 .

Web links

Commons : Jan Pieterszoon Coen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Biography on www.vocsite.nl (Dutch)
• Andrea Kath: 09/21/1629 - Anniversary of the death of Jan Pieterszoon Coen WDR ZeitZeichen on September 21, 2019 (podcast)

supporting documents

1. ^ ^{A b} Horst Lademacher : History of the Netherlands. Politics - Constitution - Economy . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1983, ISBN 3-534-07082-8 , p. 146.
2. ↑ Ruud Spruit: JP Coen. Dagen en daden in service of the VOC . De Haan, Houten 1987, p. 9 ff.
3. ↑ Christoph Driessen: A short history of Amsterdam . Pustet, Regensburg 2010, p. 38.
4. ↑ Christoph Driessen: History of the Netherlands. From sea power to trend land . Pustet, Regensburg 2009, p. 70.
5. ↑ Musibah: Entitlements, Violence and Reinventing Tradition in the Kei Islands, Southeast Maluku, Paper submitted for the International Association for the Study of Common Property 9th Biennial Conference, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
6. ↑ De VOCsite: personalia, Jan Pieterszoon Coen. Retrieved June 24, 2020 (Dutch). 
7. ^ Critical noot bij beeld "massamoordenaar" Coen .
8. ↑ JP Coen heeft nieuwe tekst en website , Vereniging Oud Hoorn (April 16, 2012).
9. ↑ Masatoshi Iguchi: Java Essay: The History and Culture of a Southern Country. Matador, Leicestershire 2015, pp. 56-59