Johann Wilhelm Vogel

Johann Wilhelm Vogel (born March 16, 1657 in Ernstroda , † July 17, 1723 in Coburg ) was a German East India driver, mining inspector and writer.

Life

In addition to his travel book, the work "Life and Fates of the Famous Travel Writer Johann Wilhelm Vogel", published by his great-great-grandson JHM Ernesti in 1812, helps in exploring the life of Johann Wilhelm Vogel. Vogel came from "Ernstroda im Amte Reinhardsbrunn". Financial reasons prompted him to drop out of high school in 1674. At first he went to the Princely Chamber as a clerk, where he settled down so well that the clerk at the same time taught him “the art of experimentation” (chemical analysis). Despite this secure position, he could not resist the "desire to look at foreign countries and in them God's wonderful omnipotence on all kinds of plants, fruits and animals, and consequently to inquire about other people's customs and traditions". In 1678 Vogel left for Amsterdam and signed up for five years with the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

After arriving in Batavia in July 1679, he was sent together with Walloon miners and two miners to the gold mines of Sillida (now Painan ) on the west coast of Sumatra , where he was supposed to run the laboratory. But he had contracted dysentery, and in August 1680 a febrile illness worried him so much that he was brought back to Batavia in January 1681 on the advice of doctor Herman Niklas Grim . Thanks to a local doctor, he regained his strength. He actually wanted to return to Europe at the next opportunity, but in July of that year the Saxon mining official Dr. Benjamin Olitzsch entered, and Vogel was urged to move to Sillida again with him, the mountain clerk Elias Hesse and twenty other German experts. Olitzsch fell ill while traveling from Europe and lost his wife and a son. Sumatra's climate accelerated the decline. He died in May 1682 after appointing Vogel as his successor. Elias Hesse and Olitzschen's second son Theodor returned to Dresden .

Vogel also asked to be released from service, but since no one could take over the management of the mine in his place, he had to hold out until September 1687. At the end of October of the following year he finally reached Gotha . At the beginning of 1690, after a long wait, he was hired as the Princely Saxon "Mountain Inspector for Gotha and Saalfeldt". In 1694 he published a "Rechen-Knecht", which earned him the position of chamber clerk in Altenburg in the following year. Regardless of the workload, he wrote other writings. Ernesti mentions several manuscript volumes that had an "adverse fate": three tomes on the state constitution of the three principalities of Saxony-Gotha , Saxony-Coburg and Saxony-Meiningen and two volumes on coinage.

Vogel's travel book is one of the stylistically better works in this category. It was published in 1690 and promoted his appointment to the princely service. The feedback from readers encouraged Vogel to revise the text and to publish it again in 1704 in three parts. Another edition of this revised version appeared in 1716. His health had not been at its best since 1709, but the search for a suitable successor dragged on again. Vogel died in Coburg in 1723.

A large part of the regional history descriptions in his journal, which covers large areas of the VOC's catchment area, draws on other books. The cover picture with crocodile, elephant, rhino, volcano and fighting locals is certainly the product of a German engraver. The illustration of the Sillida Tambang mine on the west coast of Sumatra came from Vogel's pen.

Works

• Johann Wilhelm Vogels were Fendrichs / etc. in the service of the Dutch East Indian Compagnie Diarium or Journal of his journey from Germany to Holland a. East India. Worbey added a short and detailed description of the foremost East Indian kingdoms a. Oerter / the same plants / manners / customs / beliefs / dress costumes / Müntz / measure / weight etc. Partly from personal experience / partly recorded from many discourses held with distinguished servants in India / and requests for printing have now been made by a number of good friends. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Friedrich Groschuff, 1690 (also Frankfurt / Gotha: Boëtius, 1690)
• The complete and ready-made arithmetic servant for all kinds of bills: divided into four parts / ... presents and resolves in himself; With great diligence / as much on Reichsthaler as Meißnian gold from the smallest to the largest sort / calculated with the utmost precision / and together with an appendix / where to find: 1. The Lehn servant. 2. Different bey Fürstl. Ampts and other bills incurring taxa in weight. 3. The brickworker servant. 4. The Vorwercks administrator / all invoice officials / buying and trading people / as well as miners, huts, Müntz and war servants / and otherwise just too special benefits for printing promoted by Johann Wilhelm Vogeln / Fürstl. Saxon. Mountain inspectors for Gotha and Saalfeldt. Gotha: Reyher, 1694
• Johann Wilhelm Vogel's Been Faehndrichs and Bergmeisters / in the service of E. Niederl. Ost = Indian company, anietzo but FS Cammerschreiber and Berg = Inspectoris zu Altenburg / Zehen = year olds East = Indian trip = description [...] Everything as well from personal experience as many of the discourses held in India are sincerely described by the same and, together with a register, have now been promoted to print. Altenburg: Johann Ludwig Richter, 1704.

literature

• Ernesti, JHM: The Old and New East India. A comparative description. With the life of the famous travel writer Johann Wilhelm Vogel, and an autobiographical fragment of his great-grandson. Ahead of East India's influence on Europe as a preface. Gotha: Steudel, 1812.
• Heidhues, Mary Somers: Johann Wilhelm Vogel and the Sumatran Gold Mines: One Man's Fortune. In: Archipelago. Études interdisciplinaires sur le Monde insulonien 72.1 (2006), pp. 221-238. ( Digital copy at Persée )
• Michel, Wolfgang: Japan in Caspar Schmalkaldens travel book. In: Dokufutsu Bungaku Kenkyū (Kyushu University), No. 35: 41-84 (1985)
• Wolfgang Michel: "The East Indian and neighboring kingdoms, a brief explanation of the noblest rarities" - New finds on the life and work of the Leipzig surgeon and trader Caspar Schamberger (1623–1706). Kyushu University, The Faculty of Languages ​​and Cultures Library, No 1. Fukuoka: Hana-Shoin, 2010, pp. 53-55. ( ISBN 978-4-903554-71-6 ) ( digitized in Kyushu University Institutional Repository )
• Rueb, Patricia: Une mine d'or à Sumatra. Technology saxonne et méthodes indigènes au XVIIe siècle. Archipelago: études interdisciplinaires sur le monde insulinda (Paris: CNRS), Vol. 41 (1991), No. 1, pp. 13-32.
• Mary Somers Heidhues: * Johann Wilhelm Vogel and the Sumatran Gold Mines: One Man's Fortune. * In: Archipel 72.1 (2006),

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b} [Ernesti (1812), p. 11]
2. ↑ [Rueb (1991) and Heidhues (2006)]
3. ↑ [Ernesti (1812), p. 51f.]
4. ↑ [Ernesti (1812), p. 60]
5. ↑ [For a description of Japan by Johann Wilhelm Vogel see Michel (1985). ]
6. ↑ [Vogel (1704), p. 320]