Maarten Gerritszoon de Vries

Maarten Gerritszoon de Vries (* February 28, 1589 in Harlingen , † late 1647 near Manila ; also Fries or other variants) was a Dutch navigator and explorer from Harlingen. He worked as a cartographer in Taiwan for a long time . Governor-General Anthonie van Diemen was an active director of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), who intended to enlarge his colony. Among other things, he sent Maarten de Vries to explore the area east of Japan and the coast of Tartary . There were plenty of men and food aboard the ship to set up a new trading post.

Expedition to northern Japan in 1643

Maarten de Vries was the captain of the ship Castricum , which set out from Batavia in February 1643 together with the Breskens under Hendrick Cornelisz Schaep . Like Quast and Tasman in 1639, they were supposed to get to the bottom of the rumors of gold and silver islands. The small fleet set sail from Ternate on April 4th. On May 8, 1643, the Daitō Islands were discovered and named Breskens-Eylant by their discoverers . But on May 20, the ships lost contact at Hachijo Shima (290 km southeast of Tokyo, part of the Izu Islands ). The islands were therefore called Ungeluckich (Unfortunate Island ). The Castricum under Vries drove further east and reached the top of Honshū on June 5th . From there it went on to Hokkaidō and Iturup , which was named Staten Landt . Then de Vries reached the neighboring island of Urup , which he called Companijes-Eylandt , drove through the Fries Strait ( Proliv Friza ) between Urup and Iturup and reached the Aniwa Bay and the Taraika Bay on Sakhalin . Due to the thick fog at that time, he could not see that Sakhalin and Hokkaido were separated. He left the area in August and reached Batavia in December 1643.

Breskens

Edo City Wall with Watchtower (1868)

The smaller Breskens fared worse; in a storm it was driven off the Japanese coast and ended in a bay near the village of Yamada in the Morioka fiefdom of the Nambu clan in the Mutsu province (today: Iwate prefecture ). In search of drinking water and food, the men went ashore on June 10, 1643. There they were warmly received by the fishermen. Without an order, the ship drove again to this lovely bay six weeks later. In the evening there was a celebration with a samurai on board. There were probably some women there too. The logbook has not been preserved, the story was only constructed later from several sources. The next day, on July 29th, nine unarmed crews and the captain Hendrick Cornelisz Schaep went ashore because they had ordered fresh vegetables and fish and were (deliberately) invited by ten women. The Dutch were escorted to a farm, given rice and sake, and then captured by a crowd of Japanese men. Meanwhile the situation in Yamada had changed: the authorities were afraid because of the strict laws. The Japanese thought they were Spaniards, as an attempt by Spanish Jesuits had recently been discovered to enter the country unnoticed. They were brought to the feudal capital Morioka and then to Edo . The Breskens continued without a captain on July 31, 1643 and sank on August 1, 1646 in a sea battle in the Bay of Tigaol .

The team was interviewed with the help of interpreters from Nagasaki , including the former Jesuit Christovão Ferreira (Japanese: Sawano Chūan ). The representative of the VOC in Japan, Jan van Elserack , managed to get the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu to transfer the sailors to the VOC on December 8, 1643. They reached Dejima in January and did not travel to Fort Zeelandia in Taiwan until October 1644 . On the way they met the Castricum on their return journey to Batavia.

The result of his travels were new maps of Hokkaido, the Kuriles and Sakhalin (world map by Joan Blaeu 1645/46; Fig. 77). His work was not perfect, Korea could be recognized on his maps as a strangely shaped country. The La Pérouse Road between Hokkaido and Sakhalin was also missing - because of the fog .

La Naval de Manila

In 1646 he was the leader of an expeditionary force of 18 galleons to conquer the Philippines from Spain. The warships were divided into three squadrons , but were repulsed by the Spanish in the five naval battles of La Naval de Manila , from March to October 1646. Its flagship was badly damaged in the last battle off the town of Mariveles on October 4th. de Vries died on board his ship on the return voyage and was given a seaman's grave.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ^ OHK Spate: Monopolists and Freebooters . ISBN 978-0-7099-2371-8 , pp. 39 .
3. ^ Reinier H. Hesselink: Prisoners from Nambu. Reality and Make-Believe in 17th-Century Japanese Diplomacy . University of Hawaii Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8248-2463-6 ( Google Books ).
4. ^ Philipp Franz von Siebold: Nippon. Archive describing Japan and its neighboring and protected countries Jezo with the southern Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, Korea and the Liukiu Islands . tape II , p. 136 ff .
5. ↑ History of the Breskens (Dutch)
6. ^ Wolfgang Michel : Travels of the Dutch East India Company in the Japanese Archipelago. Retrieved August 11, 2010 . 
7. ↑ November 8, 1643 - November 24, 1644 (Volume Eight). Retrieved December 19, 2008 (English, diary of Jan van Elserack, Dechima). 
8. ↑ Representation of the naval battles of La Naval de Manila

literature

• RH Hesselink: De gevangen uit Nambu . ISBN 978-90-5730-130-8 (History of the Breskens in Japan).
• Paul Teleki: Atlas for the history of the cartography of the Japanese islands . Budapest 1909 (with travel routes of Dutch explorers).
• Maarten Gerritszoon Vries, Philipp Franz von Siebold, Instituut voor de taal-, land- and folklore: Reize van Maarten Gerritsz: Vries in 1643 near the north and east of Japan . Ed .: F. Muller. 1858 ( online [PDF; 13.7 MB ; accessed on December 19, 2008]).

Web links

• History of the Castricum (Dutch)
• Instructions from the Government of India in Batavia for the envoy Peter Blokhovius on his journey to Japan
• Werkstuk Geschiedenis (Dutch)