Willem Ysbrandsz. Bontekoe

Willem IJsbrantsz Bontekoe

Willem Ysbrandszoon Bontekoe (* 1587 in Hoorn ; † 1657 ibid) was a Dutch navigator , merchant and travel writer who was in the service of the Dutch East India Company . He became known through the travel diary of his trip to East Asia in the years 1618 to 1625 on behalf of the East India Company.

Life

Bontekoe's birthplace in Hoorn

Bontekoe was baptized on June 2, 1587 in Hoorn. He lived in the house at Veermanskade 15, which has a black and white cow on the gable. He was probably the oldest child of IJsbrant Willemsz Bontekoe and Geertje Jacobs, and the family probably had ten or more children.

At the age of twenty he went to sea with his father. The father was the captain of the ship "De Bontekoe", in which he was only a 1/32 partner. Bontekoe mainly sailed in European waters. In 1608 he transported salt between La Rochelle and Danzig, in 1611 goods to Arkhangelsk . Over time he went on bigger and bigger ships, but always called them Bontekoe. On a trip to Seville on September 17, 1617, the ship was captured by Algerian pirates and the crew enslaved. Bontekoe was ransomed on October 13, but the ship was lost. In 1618, at the age of 31, Bontekoe joined the East India Company.

On December 28 of the same year he began a voyage to East India as captain of the "Nieuw Hoorn". From here on his later published travel journal begins. - During this voyage, the ship caught fire and the fire reached the powder chamber, causing it to explode. So Bontekoe was shipwrecked before he reached his destination. After an adventurous journey with lifeboats, he reached Java. There he was sent to the South China Sea by Jan Pieterszoon Coen . On November 25, 1625, Bontekoe returned to the Netherlands as commandant of the ship "Hollandia".

Probably after 1625 he no longer went to sea, but traded in wood. On March 1, 1626, the almost forty-year-old Bontekoe married Eeltje Bruijn (36) in Hoorn. Bontekoe had probably earned enough from his trade and travels for the East India Company. He was z. B. with 200 guilders the largest sponsor for the renovation of the church of the Remonstranten parish in Hoorn, later he lent the community another 700 guilders. His marriage was childless; his wife died in 1646. In the same year he published his diary. Bontekoe himself died in 1657.

Johan Fabricius used motifs from the diary in 1924 for his youth novel " Captain Bontekoe's Ship's Boys ". A modern edition of his travelogue of the East India voyage from 1618 to 1625 appeared in 1929 in the series The Broadway Travelers , translated from Dutch into English by CB Bodde-Hodgkinson and Pieter Geyl .

Honor

The KLM's Douglas DC-6B , built in 1952, was named after him. It crashed in 1954 .

Works

• Journals from the Gedenckwaerdige reijsen van Willem Yjsbrantsz. Bontekoe: 1618-1625. 's-Gravenhage: Nijhoff, 1952
• [Schiffahrten] / 24 / The four and twentieth shipping / Jn which is described with true circumstances / First of all the memorable Reyse to East India / S. Wilhelm Jßbrands Bontekuhe von Horn : Made on December 28th. 1618. and completed November 16. 1625. According to this: Another Reyse / by the commandeur Türck Alberts Raven / to Spitzbergen / in 1639. Performed: In which differently remarkable deals and cases are thoroughly told; In addition to the necessary copper pieces / Christophel LeBlon. - 1648
• Journael ofte Gedenckwaerdige beschrijvinghe van de Oost-Indische Reyse van Willem Ysbrantsz Bonte-Koe van Hoorn… Started on December 18, 1618 and on November 16, 1625. Was by given the journal of Dirk Albertsz Raven t'Amstelredam: Joost Hartgers, Boeck-Verkoper in de Gasthuys-Steegh / bezijden het Stadt-huys / in de Boeck-winckel, 1648. Full text

Web links

Commons : Willem Ysbrandsz. Bontekoe  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Willem Ysbrandsz. Bontekoe in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Journal of Bontekoe . From 1618 to 1625. Dutch, accessed January 13, 2011