Jacob Compostel was a senior merchant (Opperkoopman) of the VOC who, at the time of the Soury embassy of 1641, served as Opperhoofd (chief) of the Company’s lodge in Atjeh. He was a member of Soury’s legation suite — the second-ranking Dutchman in the ceremonial audience of 1 July 1641 — and is the only one of the six-man embassy whom the Sultana pointedly omitted from the gift of an Atjeh ceremonial robe.
Role in the Soury legation
When the Soury embassy made its formal entry into the Atjeh river, Compostel — already in residence as Opperhoofd of the lodge — greeted the ships together with the chief eunuch of the Sultana and the Sabandaar (harbour-master), who brought the tjap or passport required to come ashore. He then took his place in the six-man legation suite of the formal audience of 1 July 1641, in the capacity of Opperkoopman and current Opperhoofd of the Atjeh lodge.
The full suite, in order of precedence, was: Commissaris Soury; Opperkoopman Compostel, Opperhoofd of the Company’s lodge in Atjeh; the Opperkoopman Pieter Willemz, Compostel’s recently-arrived replacement from Batavia; the Secretaris Jan van Riebeeck; and two Onderkooplieden (junior merchants).
The omitted feestjas
After the formal audience, the Sultana sent the legation an Atjehsch gewaad with three golden rings on the collar, “zooals nog nimmer tevoren aan een ambassade was gezonden” — such as had never before been sent to an embassy. Compostel alone did not receive such a robe. Godee Molsbergen’s gloss is: “vermoedelijk omdat Hare Majesteit hem als niet tot het gezantschap behoorend rekende” — presumably because Her Majesty did not consider him part of the embassy. The Sultana was making a fine distinction: Compostel was the resident chief of the lodge, not a member of the visiting embassy, and his ceremonial obligations ran to the lodge rather than to the ambassadorial party.
Hand-over to Pieter Willemz
Compostel was at the moment of the Soury embassy in the process of handing over his post to Pieter Willemz, who had arrived from Batavia as his replacement. The presence in the legation suite of both the outgoing and the incoming Opperhoofd — Compostel and Willemz — was no doubt deliberate, allowing the Sultana and her court to see the formal transfer of the Company’s local representation.
Significance
Compostel is significant in the Atjeh record as the Opperhoofd of the lodge at the moment of the Sultana’s accession — the local face of the VOC during the Soury mission. The Sultana’s pointed omission of him from the feestjas gift is a small but telling example of Atjeh court ceremonial precision: the robe went to the embassy, not to the resident chief. After his hand-over to Willemz he disappears from the Atjeh story.
See Also
- Pieter Soury
- Pieter Soury’s mission to Atjeh (1641)
- Atjehsche ambassade ceremony (1 July 1641)
- Pieter Willemz
- Jan van Riebeeck
- Dutch lodge at Atjeh
- Atjehsche feestjas
- Sultana of Atjeh (1641)
- Sabandaar
- 1641
- Acheh
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 XI (“Atjehsche ambassade. Inlandsche feesten. Maagden als losprijs”), pp. 39–43 of the numbered-letter sequence.