Cornelis de Houtman (1565–1599) was the Dutch navigator who commanded the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies (1595–1597), and who was killed at Atjeh in 1599 on the second expedition under De Moucheron’s auspices. His death at Atjeh — by kris-attack after a quarrel that began with poisoned fruits and drinks — is the first recorded Dutch fatality in the Atjeh sultanate, the opening Dutch casualty of an Acehnese-Dutch relationship that would last, with long interruptions, for the next three centuries, and the trigger of his brother Frederik de Houtman’s twenty-six-month Atjeh captivity, out of which came the first European Malay dictionary.
The first Dutch voyage to the Indies, 1595–1597
Cornelis de Houtman had led the pioneering “Eerste Schipvaart” of 1595–1597, the four-ship Amsterdam expedition that reached Bantam and returned — battered, decimated, but laden with pepper — to Amsterdam in 1597. The voyage had opened the Dutch Indian trade that within five years would crystallise into the VOC. Godee Molsbergen treats the first voyage at length; for Atjeh it is the prologue.
The De Moucheron expedition of 1598
The South-Netherlander of French descent Balthasar de Moucheron, trusting the experience of the De Houtman brothers, took them into his service on a fleet of two ships, with the English pilot John Davis serving as pilot — and as a spy for the Earl of Essex. Stapel records that “on 11 March 1598 Balthasar de Moucheron sent out 2 ships under Cornelis and Frederik de Houtman and Guyon Lefort” (Op 11 Maart 1598 zond Balthasar de Moucheron 2 schepen uit onder Cornelis en Frederik de Houtman en Guyon Lefort). The voyage to the Indies took fifteen months.
Outward voyage via Madagascar
Stapel records the outward route in a single sentence: “The voyage went west of Madagascar via the Comoros and Maldives to Atjeh, where one arrived in June ‘99” (De reis ging bewesten Madagascar via de Comoren en Maladiven naar Atjeh, waar men in Juni ‘99 aankwam). Godee Molsbergen adds that the Madagascar population fled at the reappearance of the rough Dutchmen: this was the second Dutch landing there, the first having left a bad reputation under De Houtman’s own first expedition.
Arrival at Atjeh, June 1599
When at length the fleet reached Atjeh in June 1599, the good understanding with the Sultan lasted only briefly. The initial reception was favourable — Stapel notes that “the reception here was initially good” (De ontvangst hier was aanvankelijk goed). But the situation was then poisoned by Portuguese intrigue. Godee Molsbergen’s account is unadorned: “Met vergiftigde vruchten en dranken, later met een krisaanslag, wilde men van die vreemdelingen afkomen” — With poisoned fruits and drinks, later with a kris-attack, they sought to be rid of these foreigners. Stapel records that the sultan was “incited by the Portuguese” (opgestookt door de Portugeezen) and “had them treacherously assaulted” (liet de vorst hen verraderlijk overvallen).
This Acehnese attack on Dutch merchants under Portuguese prompting set the tone for the entire first phase of Dutch-Acehnese relations: recurrent Portuguese influence at the Acehnese court would bedevil the Compagnie’s embassy there until Malakka fell in 1641.
Death at Atjeh, 1599
There were many dead. Godee Molsbergen: “waaronder Cornelis de Houtman” — among them Cornelis de Houtman. Stapel records that “Cornelis with several others came to their end” (Cornelis met verscheiden anderen kwamen hierbij om). His brother Frederik was taken prisoner and would spend more than two years in Acehnese captivity. See Death of Cornelis de Houtman at Atjeh (1599) and First Dutch voyage to Atjeh (1598-1599).
The ships that escaped Atjeh made for Pedir, where they beat off an Atjehnese naval attack; they then touched at the Nicobars and, after much misfortune, reached Middelburg in the summer of 1600.
Aftermath
The death of Cornelis de Houtman did not end Dutch interest in Atjeh; if anything, it gave the Dutch a personal stake in the sultanate. De Moucheron suffered heavy losses; Davis turned his spy-material to English advantage. But Frederik de Houtman’s captivity became the foundation of European Malay studies, and the Prince Maurits-Sultan correspondence of 1601–1602 — for which see Atjeh embassy to Prince Maurits at Grave (1602) — was in part motivated by the need to obtain his release. By 1602 the deed was done: Frederik was free, and an Atjeh embassy had stood in Prince Maurits’s military camp at the siege of Grave.
Account from De Kleine Oosterling (1901) — the 1599 visit in the Dutch school reader
The Wijma school reader of 1901 introduces the Houtman brothers as the commanders of two Zeeland ships sent to the East Indies: “two of them had been sent out by Zeeland merchants. Cornelis Houtman and his brother Frederik were in command.” In the school reader, Cornelis is the principal named Dutch actor of the 1599 visit — the captain forced to choose between his brother and his ships.
The visit’s account is succinct: the brothers were the first Dutch visitors to Atjeh; they received a friendly welcome from one of the great men of the realm; and the welcome turned to ambush. “Suddenly the Atjehnese attacked our men. A fierce fight followed, and on both sides many fell. The sailors who were on shore were also seized, and all were killed except eight. Among those eight was Frederik Houtman.” Cornelis’s role in the aftermath is described in a single sentence: “Cornelis was forced to leave his brother and the others in the hands of the treacherous enemy and to depart with the two ships.” The school reader frames Cornelis’s abandonment of Frederik as a necessity imposed by the treacherous Atjehnese ambush, establishing the treacherous framing of the Atjehnese that the rest of the school reader’s Atjeh lessons would deploy.
Account from Coen: Koopman van Heeren Zeventien (1948) — the sabander dispute
Johan van der Woude’s biography of Jan Pieterszoon Coen gives a fuller account of Cornelis de Houtman’s 1599 expedition, organised by the Zeeland merchant Balthazar de Moucheron and commanding the ships Leeuw and Leeuwin. On arrival at Atjeh, de Houtman was received with great hospitality by the Sultan, who granted trade permission and a house on shore. De Houtman then attempted to negotiate lower pepper prices directly with the Sultan, bypassing the sabander (harbourmaster) who had fixed the rates — a diplomatic blunder that, combined with Portuguese intrigue at court (the Portuguese agent Affonso Vicenti convinced the Sultan the Dutch were spies), set the stage for the ambush of 11 September 1599 in which de Houtman was killed in his cabin and his brother Frederik taken captive.
Significance
Cornelis de Houtman is significant to Atjeh’s history as the first Dutchman of note to die there — the eldest casualty of the Dutch-Atjeh encounter, and the human cause of the diplomatic and scholarly chain that produced his brother’s Malay dictionary and the Atjeh embassy to Prince Maurits. His death fixed Atjeh in the Dutch colonial memory as a place of danger, treachery, and — paradoxically — of compulsory apprenticeship. In Stapel’s structure of the Dutch-Acehnese narrative, his death is the opening Dutch casualty of a three-century relationship.
Account from Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh (1923)
Cornelis de Houtman was the Dutch navigator who, with his brother Frederik de Houtman, brought the first Dutch ships to Atjeh in July 1599 — the voyage which opened the long and violent history of Dutch-Atjehnese relations and cost Cornelis his life in a surprise attack by the Sultan’s bands.
The voyage of 1599
In July 1599 the brothers Frederik and Cornelis de Houtman, after a not very prosperous voyage, cast anchor in the roadstead of Atjeh; the ships stood in the service of the Zealand shipowner De Moucheron. The Sultan had been warned beforehand of the coming of the new traders, and his disposition toward the Hollanders was sufficiently determined, thanks to the Portuguese, who did not fail to set him on against these new “intruders”. At a visit of the sjahbander, or harbour-master, to the Dutch ships, the Dutch sailors were partly rendered harmless by means of poisoned drinks, and bands of the Sultan made an unexpected attack, which could be beaten off — at the cost, however, of the life of Cornelis de Houtman and 68 sailors. His brother Frederik fell into captivity; all attempts of the crews of the Dutch ships to liberate their commander failed, and in July 1600 the ships returned to the mother country with heavy losses, their purpose unaccomplished.
See Also
Account from Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu
With brother Frederik led the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies. Received very disappointingly in Atjeh in 1599 - one of the early negative encounters between Dutch and Acehnese.
Source: J. Jongejans, Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 30.
Source
Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapter XXIII (“Sint Thomas. De Madoera-ziekte. Malakka. Het groote kanon in Atjeh. Java. Paradijsvogels. Lélang. Koloniale Portugeezen”), p. 81 of the numbered-letter sequence, and chapter XXXII (“Het Kasteel van Verre. De brief op varkensvel in Atjeh. Bali en Holland één!”), pp. 114–118.
De Koloniën, by Dr. F. W. Stapel, in Geschiedkundige Atlas van Nederland (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1931), kaart 19, blz. 27 (tekst bij blad 1: De eerste reizen der Nederlanders — Eenige der volgende reizen naar O. Indië, I. Rond Z. Afrika, a. C. en F. de Houtman en Lefort (Atjeh) 1598/9).
Het Land van Jan Pieterszoon Coen, door Dr. W. A. Terwogt (Hoorn: P. Geerts, [1891]). Hoofdstuk I: the arrival at Atjeh on 21 June 1599, the poisoning and treacherous assault of 1 September 1599, and the death of Cornelis de Houtman — “de Atjehneezen zich door grootere energie van alle andere bevolkingen van den Archipel onderscheiden, maar hunne zeden diep verdorven zijn” (the Atjehnese distinguish themselves from all other populations of the archipelago by greater energy, but their morals are deeply corrupted).
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 10–11.
Land en Volk van Atjeh Vroeger en Nu, by J. Jongejans, Oud-Resident van het Gewest Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden, with a foreword by Dr. H. Colijn (Baarn: Hollandia Drukkerij N.V., c. 1938), pp. 30.