Laurens Reael

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Portrait of Laurens Reael around 1620 by Cornelis van der Voort

Doctor Laurens Reael (born October 22, 1583 in Amsterdam , † October 21, 1637 there ) was one of the first governors-general of the Dutch East India Company and a Dutch admiral . He is considered the first major critic of the Dutch expansion in Asia.

Life

In his youth, Laurens Reael excelled in modern languages and mathematics . He studied law in Leiden.

In 1611 he traveled to Southeast Asia as a merchant for the United East India Company (VOC). In 1616 he was appointed governor general by the board of this trading company, the leading manager in Southeast Asia. In this function he advocated a policy of free trade and repeatedly admonished the employees of the VOC to treat the locals peacefully. In 1618 the board of directors of the VOC appointed Reael's deputy Jan Pieterszoon Coen as his successor. This stood for an aggressive monopoly policy, which he enforced with brutal violence in the following years. Reael had to return to the Netherlands. A few years later, however, he himself moved up to the board of directors of the VOC as director and again advocated a trade policy of equalization.

In 1627 the Dutch government sent Reael on a political mission to the Danish King Christian IV in Copenhagen, who had suffered a heavy defeat against Emperor Ferdinand II in the Thirty Years' War . Christian IV was largely co-financed by the Netherlands. On the voyage, however, Reael was shipwrecked, was picked up by the imperial general Albrecht von Wallenstein and transferred to Vienna as a hostage. He was only released after two years, possibly through the mediation of Catholic merchants in Amsterdam.

Reael was highly educated and was in contact with many scholars, such as Galileo Galilei . He was also a member of the Muider Circle , a group of Dutch poets and intellectuals such as Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft and Joost van den Vondel .

In 1637 his two little sons died in quick succession. Soon afterwards, according to a contemporary report, he too died of "profound melancholy".

literature

• Pieter Lodewijk Muller :  Reael, Laurens . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 27, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 476-479.
• Letter from Makian, August 20, 1618. In: Coolhaas, W. Ph. (Ed.), Generale missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal en Raden aan Heren XVII of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie . Vol. I: 1610-1638. The Hague, Nijhoff 1960, pp. 87-94. Quoted from: Reid, Anthony: Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce (1450-1680). Vol. II: Expansion and Crisis. Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, London 1993, p. 298.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Christoph Driessen: History of the Netherlands, From the sea power to the trend country. Regensburg 2016, p. 95.
2. ↑ Christoph Driessen: History of the Netherlands, From the sea power to the trend country. Regensburg 2016, p. 95.
3. ↑ Christoph Driessen: History of the Netherlands, From the sea power to the trend country. Regensburg 2016, p. 95.
4. ↑ Christoph Driessen: History of the Netherlands, From the sea power to the trend country. Regensburg 2016, p. 95.
5. ↑ Christoph Driessen: History of the Netherlands, From the sea power to the trend country. Regensburg 2016, p. 95.
6. ↑ Christoph Driessen: History of the Netherlands, From the sea power to the trend country. Regensburg 2016, p. 95.

Web links

• Biography . Dutch