Zacharias Wagner
Zacharias Wagner , also "Wagener" or "Wagenaer", (* May 10, 1614 in Dresden , † October 18, 1668 in Amsterdam ) was in the service of the Dutch West India Company and after 1642 the East India Company in Brazil and East Asia and South Africa made an eventful career from scribe, draftsman to senior merchant and holder of numerous honorary positions and functions. His decisions and reports had a great influence on contemporary developments, his watercolors are today a prominent source on the country and people in Brazil under Dutch rule, and his eyewitness account of the Meireki fire in Edo (now Tokyo ) was written by Arnoldus Montanus the contemporary Readership submitted.
Life
Zacharias Wagner came from Altendresden , where his father worked as a judge and "religion official administrator". Like many of his contemporaries, he struggled to determine his place in the turmoil of the Thirty Years War and, at the age of 19, decided to find happiness far away. With the consent of his parents, he moved first to Hamburg in 1633 , then to Amsterdam , where he worked for a year for the publisher and map maker of the East India Company Willem Janszoon Blaeu . On the advice of Blaeu, he then hired the West India Company as a common soldier ("Adelborst") and sailed with the ship "Amsterdam" to Brazil, which was then under Dutch rule. In Recife he worked first as a model clerk in Fortresse Ernestus, then as the kitchen clerk of the governor of the young colony Johann Moritz von Nassau-Siegen (1604–1679), who pushed the expansion of the colony with great care. Under his direction fortresses and settlements were founded, the administration was organized and better treatment of the Indians and African slaves was achieved. He had artists and scientists such as Frans Post , Pieter Post , Albert Eckhout , Willem Piso , Georg Marggraf come from Europe to publicize the resources and beauties of Brazil. An “animal book” with 109 watercolors by Wagner's hand shows that he, too, was strongly stimulated in this environment.
In the spring of 1638, Moritz von Nassau advanced south on the Brazilian coast, where he besieged Bahia in vain . Wagner took part in this campaign, but returned to Europe the following year, where he sent letters, paintings and parrots to recipients in Haag, Delft, Rotterdam and Leiden on behalf of Moritz von Nassau.
But it only lasted four months in his hometown. In autumn 1642 he traveled again to Amsterdam and sailed, again as "Adelborst", in the service of the East India Company to Batavia. There he became an assistant to Antonio van Diemen , the company's governor general. His successor, Cornelis van der Lijn , became the first scribe. When his contract was extended in 1649, he achieved an additional appointment as a merchant, which opened the way for him to higher positions. In the following year he was already "Counselor Extraordinary of India and Commissarius". Two years later he made a contribution to the release of Dutch prisoners in "Quinam" (Quảng Nam). In 1653 he moved as "Commissar and Ambassadeur" together with the businessman Friedrich Schedel on behalf of the company with two ships to Canton in order to promote the establishment of trade relations with China. Although this attempt failed, it helped with the preparations for the embassy of Pieter van Goijer and Jacob Keijser to the court in Beijing.
In the summer of 1656 Wagner sailed to Japan to take over the management of the Dejima branch in Nagasaki for a year. Various episodes, recorded in detail in the service diary, reveal a temperamental character that earned him the nickname 'Thunder Man' among the Japanese. At the beginning of 1657 he traveled to Edo to convey the thanks of the company for the permission to trade in Japan at the court of the Shogun Tokugawa Ietsunain a ceremony imposed on the Dutch. Wagner and his companions barely survived one of the greatest Japanese fire disasters of modern times, which claimed around 100,000 victims. His report became widely known in Europe through the Memorable Envoys of the East Indian Society in the United Dutch to various Keysers from Japan (1669) compiled by Arnoldus Montanus . A watercolor of the fire desert made by Wagner can be found in the Edo Tokyo Museum (Tokyo). Wagner's first rotation in Japan ended in autumn 1657.
In the summer of 1658 he moved to Nagasaki again for a year. During his first stay, he became aware of the kaolin deposits at Arita (North Kyushu) and the high technical level of the local ceramists. Since the Chinese porcelain production in the Jingdezhen production center had virtually come to a standstill as a result of the ongoing fighting between the Qing (Manchu) troops and supporters of the Ming dynasty , which collapsed in 1644 , the company looked for alternative sources of supply from the Middle East to the Far East. In 1659 Wagner placed his first order for Japanese porcelain. The porcelain brought to Nagasaki via the port of Imari and from there to Europe via Batavia soon enjoyed the highest esteem as Imari porcelain .
Back in Batavia Wagner took over the peace negotiations with the ruler of Makassar and in 1661 the office of chief architect.
In 1662 he replaced the founder of the Cape Colony and its first commander, Jan van Riebeeck , at the Cape of Good Hope . With the construction of a water basin, Wagener ensures the supply of the young settlement as well as the landing ships for the first time. In 1666 he returned to Batavia, but a year later he submitted his resignation and sails back to Europe with the so-called return fleet with the rank of Vice Admiral.
Wagner had had an unprecedented career among the Germans employed by the East India Company. But when he arrived in the Netherlands, his health was in bad shape. After a few months he died at the age of 54 and was buried in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam . Only an excerpt has survived from his diary, which is now kept in the Dresden Kupferstichkabinett :
- Brief description of the 35-year journeys and activities that Weyland Mr. Zacharias Wagener in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, mostly for the service of the East and West Indian Compagnie in Holland, most gloriously done and discarded, taken from the comfortably held personal journal .
Works
- This book / inside / many different species of fish, birds, four-legged animals, worms, earth and / tree fruits, so every now and then in Brazilian districts, and areas to be seen by the West Indian Com / pagnie and therefore to be found in the Germans strange and unknown / Everything by itself […] is shown / In / Brazil / Under the highly praised government of the highly born / Mr. Johand Moritz Graffen von Nassau / Gubernator Capitain, and Admiral General / von / Zacharias Wagenern / von Dresden. (Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden)
Contemporary sources
- Johan Nieuhof: Gezantschap of the Neerlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie, Aan Den Grooten ambassador of the Neerlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie aan den Grooten Tartarian Cham . T'Amsterdam By Jacob van Meurs, Anno 1665.
- Johan Neuhof: The embassy of the East = Indian Society in the United Dutch to the Tartar Cham and Sinic Keyser, carried out by Messrs Peter do Gojern and Jacob Keisern . Printed in Amsterdam and published by Jacob Mörs, anno 1669.
- Arnoldus Montanus: Gedenkwaerdige Gesantschappen of the East-Indian Maetschappy in't Vereenigde Nederland, aen de Kaisaren of Japan . T'Amsterdam, By Jacob Meurs, Anno 1669.
- Arnoldus Montanus: Memorable embassies of the East = Indian Society in the United Netherlands to different Keysers from Japan […] Drawn from the writings and Reyse lists of envoys by Arnoldus Montanus . At Amsterdam Bey Jacob Meurs, anno 1669.
literature
- Viktor Hantzsch : Wagner, Zacharias . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 40, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, pp. 585-587.
- Roelof van Gelder: The East Indian Adventure - Germans in the service of the United East India Company of the Netherlands (VOC) 1600-1800 . From the Dutch by Stefan Häring. Hamburg: Convent-Verlag, 2004.
- Wolfgang Michel: Zacharias Wagner and Japan (I) - An excerpt from the journal of the 'Thunder Man' . In: Dokufutsu Bungaku Kenkyu (Kyushu University), No. 37, pp. 53-101, 1987. ( Digitized in Kyushu University Institutional Repository )
- Wolfgang Michel: Hans Juriaen Hancke, Zacharias Wagener and Mukai Gensho: Aspects of an 'instructive' encounter in the 17th century . Bulletin of the Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies (Kyushu University), No. 1, 1995, pp. 109-114 ( digitized in the Kyushu University Institutional Repository )
- Wolfgang Michel: "The East Indian and neighboring kingdoms, a brief explanation of the most distinguished 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. 57-60. ( ISBN 978-4-903554-71-6 ) ( digitized in Kyushu University Institutional Repository )
- Rebecca Parker Brienen: Visions of savage paradise - Albert Eckhout, court painter in colonial Dutch Brazil . Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.
- Sybille Pfaff: Zacharias Wagener (1614–1668) . Haßfurt, 2001 (Bamberg, Univ., Diss., 1997).
- OH Spohr: Zacharias Wagner, second commander of the Cape . Capetown / Amsterdam, 1967.
- Kees Zandvliet et al .: The Dutch East India Company in the 17th century: life and work of Zacharias Wagenaer (1614-1668) . Nagasaki, 1987.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ More in Johan Nieuhof's description of the legation.
- ↑ Coincidentally, there is a similar sounding verb donaru in Japanese , which means something like 'to shout at' or 'to thunder'.
- ↑ Reprinted in W. Michel: Der Ost-Indischen und neighboring Kingdoms noble rarities, p. 39.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wagner, Zacharias |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Wagener, Zacharias; Wagenaer, Zacharias |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German scribe, draftsman, businessman, employee of the Dutch West India Company and the East India Company |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 10, 1614 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dresden |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 18, 1668 |
| Place of death | Amsterdam |