The murder of Admiraal Pieter Willemsz. Verhoeff at Banda on 22 May 1609 — the Bandanese ambush near Rada on the island of Banda-Neira in which Pieter Willemsz. Verhoeff and forty-six of his men were killed, after Verhoeff had landed with a breeden raad of 150 soldiers for a “vriendschappelijke bespreking” with the Bandanese chiefs — was the proximate cause of the VOC’s coercive monopoly policy at Banda and the foundation of Coen’s later argument that monopoly could only be obtained by force. The murder is the central violent episode of Van der Woude’s Van der Woude (1948) and the principal instance of Bandanese resistance to the Dutch monopoly claim.
Background: the secret instruction of 11 April 1608
The Verhoeff fleet of nine ships and four jachts — including the young Jan Pieterszoon Coen as onderkoopman — had left Texel on 22 December 1607 with the secret instruction of 11 April 1608 to seize Banda and attack Malaka. The instruction, dispatched after the fleet’s departure and reaching Verhoeff at Bantam on 26 December 1608 by fast jacht, committed the VOC to the new monopolistic policy: “de eylanden van Banda op ‘t allerhoochste gerecommandeert”. After the failure of the Malaka expedition of 1608, Verhoeff sailed to the Banda islands to execute the instruction.
The arrival and the negotiations (April 1609)
Verhoeff arrived off Banda-Neira on 8 April 1609 with nine ships and four jachts, joined by the English ship Hector under William Keeling. He presented to the Bandanese chiefs a letter from Prince Maurits — a letter that, as Van der Woude notes, was “pasklaar gemaakt voor het beoogde doel” — demanding the spice monopoly and permission to build a fort. The Bandanese chiefs, after protracted negotiations, gave formal consent to the spice monopoly and the construction of a fort, but quietly evacuated women and children to the hills and “wierpen de mannen versterkingen op”. When the Dutch landed 700 men on 25 April 1609, they found the houses abandoned: “t welke haer seer wel te passe quam om te logieren”, but the abandonment was an early sign that the Bandanese consent was not genuine.
The ambush (22 May 1609)
On 21 May 1609 the Bandanese requested Verhoeff to land with his breeden raad for a “vriendschappelijke bespreking” the next day. Verhoeff accepted, landing on 22 May 1609 with 150 soldiers. Near the town of Rada, he and his breeden raad walked into an ambush: “op kinderlijk eenvoudige wijze in een hinderlaag”. Verhoeff and forty-six of his men were killed; many of them were beheaded. The following day, the bodies of five hostages were found, one Dutchman was killed, and on Great Banda Dutch assistants and merchants were murdered. On Poeloe Ai the Dutch were taken under the protection of Keeling, the English captain.
The expression “op syn Admiraels Verhoeven leeren bitcharen” — “to consult on Admiral Verhoeff’s bench” — became a Dutch proverb for walking into a trap. Van der Woude notes that the expression was used for years afterward in the Indies.
The aftermath
Vice-Admiraal Simon Hoen assumed command after the murder. The Dutch retaliated: they destroyed the surroundings of the fort — which had been named Fort Nassau — up to an hour’s walk; they attacked Labetaka on 15 July 1609 (an attack in which “man keines Menschen verschonet, sondern alles mit Weib und Kindt, Jung und Alt zugleich erschossen vnd erstochen hat”); and they blockaded the Bandanese into submission. The Bandanese offered peace on 7 August 1609, and the so-called eeuwig verbond (eternal covenant) of 10 August 10 August 1609 was concluded. By the terms of the covenant, the Bandanese chiefs were placed under the jurisdiction of Fort Nassau, all spices were to be sold only to the Dutch, and the island of Banda-Neira was ceded to the VOC in perpetuity.
The covenant, however, was not the end of the conflict. The Bandanese continued to resist the Dutch monopoly, often selling their spices to the English at Ai and Run or to Javanese and Makassarese middlemen. The Dutch position at Banda remained precarious until Coen’s conquest of 1621, in which the Bandanese were depopulated and the perkenier system of nutmeg plantations was established.
The young Coen and the formative experience
The Verhoeff fleet included the young Jan Pieterszoon Coen as onderkoopman. Van der Woude notes that Coen “het begin van het treurspel van Banda meegemaakt” — was present at the beginning of the tragedy of Banda. The experience of the murder of Verhoeff — and the bewindhebbers’ instruction that had produced it — shaped Coen’s entire later policy. The Discours of 1 January 1614 — Coen’s foundational text — would explicitly cite the Banda experience and the bewindhebbers’ instructions of 1608-1609 as the foundation of the monopoly-by-force policy: “Van Banda connen ons meester maken, dezelvige eylanden met macht aantasten; sulcx moeten nootelijcken doen ende de plaetse populeren, ofte het landt verlaten, want ‘t en sal anders met Banda nyet zijn”.
Significance
The murder of Verhoeff at Banda is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the proximate cause of the VOC’s coercive monopoly policy at Banda and the foundation of Coen’s later argument that monopoly could only be obtained by force. The murder — and the bewindhebbers’ instruction of 11 April 1608 that had produced it — was the formative experience of the young Coen, who would later cite the Banda experience as the foundation of the Discours of 1 January 1614 and the monopoly-by-force policy that would define VOC conduct for the next two centuries. The murder also marks the institutional transition from factorij to fort — the transition from the commercial establishment of the pre-VOC period to the military-administrative compound of the Coen era — and the eeuwig verbond of 10 August 1609, by which Banda-Neira was ceded to the VOC in perpetuity, was the principal legal foundation of the Dutch position at Banda until Coen’s conquest of 1621. The murder’s role in the Dutch-Atjeh relationship was indirect: by 1609 the strategic centre of Dutch-Indies policy had shifted from Atjeh to Banda, and the Banda experience — not the Atjeh experience — would define the Coen programme.
See Also
- Pieter Willemsz. Verhoeff
- Verhoeff’s Malaka expedition (1608)
- Jan Pieterszoon Coen
- Discours of 1 January 1614
- Twelve Years’ Truce (1609)
- Founding of the VOC (1602)
- Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie
- Heeren Zeventien
- William Keeling
- Banda-eilanden
- 1608
- 1609
- 1621
Source
Coen, Koopman van Heeren Zeventien. Geschiedenis van den Hollandshen Handel in Indië (1598-1614), by Johan van der Woude (Amsterdam: C.V. Uitgeverij v/h C. De Boer Jr., 1948), Hoofdstukken II, X (pp. 51-65, 312-318).