Hendrick van Bergel was a Dutch commercial officer in the service of the VOC who served as governor of Banda from 1609 to 1610 — the period immediately following the murder of Verhoeff of 22 May 1609 — and was the principal Dutch commercial officer at Banda during the critical transition from the Verhoeff fleet’s coercive monopoly policy to the Coen programme of monopoly-by-force. Van Bergel is the principal Dutch governor of Banda in Van der Woude’s Van der Woude (1948) before Coen.
The appointment and the eeuwig verbond
Van Bergel was appointed governor of Banda after the death of Jacob de Bitter (the first governor, who had died of wounds sustained in the attack on Selamon in July 1609). The appointment followed the conclusion of the eeuwig verbond (eternal covenant) of 10 August 10 August 1609, by which Banda-Neira was ceded to the VOC in perpetuity and the Bandanese chiefs were placed under the jurisdiction of Fort Nassau. Van Bergel’s task was to enforce the covenant: to ensure that the Bandanese delivered their spices only to the Dutch, to suppress the sluikhandel (clandestine trade) with the English and the Javanese middlemen, and to maintain the Dutch position at the fort.
The conduct of the governorship
Van Bergel’s conduct of the governorship was the subject of controversy. 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 Fort Nassau remained precarious: the Bandanese “buiten de muren of op zee voortdurend gevaar liepen”. Van Bergel’s correspondence with the Heeren Zeventien shows the difficulties of the position: “Banda moet ‘t ondergebracht worden ende moeten aldaer in ‘t veld domineren”, he wrote, anticipating Coen’s Discours of 1 January 1614.
When Pieter Both’s Banda expedition of March 1610 arrived, Van Bergel sailed to Bantam in June 1610 to consult with Jacques l’Hermite. L’Hermite “ernstig afkeurde” — seriously disapproved — of Van Bergel’s conduct: he was of the opinion that his landgenoot “de Engelschen hadden moeten verjagen, dan zouden de Bandaneezen wel opnieuw vrede hebben moeten sluiten”. Van der Woude notes that L’Hermite’s criticism missed the point: “Het schijnt niet tot l’Hermite doorgedrongen, dat zijn landgenooten machteloos waren tegen den sluikhandel en dat zij in den toestand van gewapenden vrede op Neira en openlijken oorlog op de andere eilanden vrijwel de gevangenen waren van hun eigen fort”.
The transfer to Van der Voort
Van Bergel transferred the governorship to Willem van der Voort in June 1610 and sailed with two ships to Bantam. His transfer marked the end of the first phase of the Dutch governorship of Banda — the phase of enforcement of the eeuwig verbond — and the beginning of the second phase — the phase of escalating conflict with the Bandanese and the English that would culminate in Coen’s conquest of 1621. Van der Voort’s governorship (1610-1611) and the governorship of Dirck Pietersz. van de Sande (1613-1614) would continue the escalation.
Significance
Hendrick van Bergel is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the principal Dutch governor of Banda in the period immediately following the murder of Verhoeff of 22 May 1609 and the principal Dutch commercial officer at Banda during the critical transition from the Verhoeff fleet’s coercive monopoly policy to the Coen programme of monopoly-by-force. His conduct of the governorship — and the controversy it provoked with l’Hermite — frames the institutional tension between the Bantam factorship and the Banda governorship that would define the early VOC administration. Van Bergel’s correspondence with the Heeren Zeventien, anticipating Coen’s Discours of 1 January 1614, also frames the intellectual continuity between the Verhoeff fleet’s coercive monopoly policy and the Coen programme. Van Bergel’s role in the Dutch-Atjeh relationship was indirect: by 1609 the strategic centre of Dutch-Indies policy had shifted from Atjeh to Banda.
See Also
- Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie
- Pieter Willemsz. Verhoeff
- Murder of Verhoeff at Banda (May 1609)
- Pieter Both
- Jacques l’Hermite
- Jan Pieterszoon Coen
- Discours of 1 January 1614
- William Keeling
- Banda-eilanden
- Bantam
- Acheh
- 1609
- 1610
- 1614
- 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), Hoofdstuk X (pp. 318-322).