Jacob van Heemskerck

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tagsperson, dutch, navigator, precolonial, atjeh, djohor, malaka, banda, military, naval, 17th-century, voc
aliasesJacob van Heemskerk, Jacob Heemskerck, Heemskerck (Houtman era), Heemskerck at Banda

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Jacob van Heemskerck (1567-1607) was a Dutch navigator and vice-admiraal who, as vice-admiraal of the fleet of Jacob van Neck’s first voyage, conducted the first Dutch visit to the Banda islands in March 1599, captured a Portuguese galley at the mouth of the river of Djohor in 1603 after a fight in which the 750 Portuguese crew were granted their lives, and concluded the formal Dutch-Djohor commercial treaty of 3 April 1603 with the sultan of Djohor — the treaty that inaugurated the Dutch-Djohor military alliance of 1603-1613. He is, after the Houtman brothers and Paulus van Caerden, the principal Dutch commander of the early Atjeh-Djohor period.

The first Dutch visit to Banda (March 1599)

Van Heemskerck left Ambon on 11 March 1599 with two ships of the Van Neck fleet, anchored off the north coast of Great Banda on 15 March 1599, and concluded a temporary commercial treaty with the sabander of Ortatan on 18 March 1599. The Dutch were assigned a house on shore for their merchandise — the first Dutch factory on Banda. Van Heemskerck left two factors and eighteen men at Lontor and Neira with a cargo worth over ƒ 38,000 in money and goods — the principal instance of the early Dutch trust in the Bandanese before the conflicts of the 1600s. The factors were Adriaen van Veen and Augustijn Stalpaert van der Wiele, the latter of whom later wrote an important memorandum on the Indies trade.

The Djohor expedition (1602-1603)

In July 1602 Van Heemskerck, then vice-admiraal of the fleet of Wolfert Harmensz., set out from Djaratan for Djohor, bearing a letter and gift for the sultan. Driven by current and contrary wind to Patani, he received the visit of the brother of the sultan of Djohor, then regent of Siak on Sumatra, who asked his help against the Portuguese. From mid-November 1602 to end-February 1603 Van Heemskerck cruised the vicinity of Timoean island to intercept the Portuguese galley from Macao. When one of the Macao galleys had already reached the Strait of Malaka, he sailed on the sultan of Djohor’s invitation to the river, where a second galley lay at anchor. The galley hoisted sail and, after a fight, surrendered on condition that the 750 Portuguese crew be granted their lives.

Van Heemskerck kept his word. The prisoners were allowed to depart unhindered for Malaka, and Van Heemskerck received thank-you letters from the Malaka commandant Fernao d’Albuquerque, the Malaka council, and the captain of the captured galley, Sebastiao Serrao. The sultan of Djohor received Van Heemskerck “met de grootste welwillendheid”, and on 3 April 1603 Van Heemskerck sailed for Bantam with the captured galley, leaving the factor Jacob Buys with assistants and merchandise at the sultan’s court. The sultan sent his own envoy with Van Heemskerck to Prince Maurits.

The commercial treaty and the Dutch-Djohor alliance

The treaty of 3 April 1603 inaugurated the Dutch-Djohor military alliance that would frame Dutch policy in the Strait of Malaka until the Achehnese attack on Djohor of 1613. The alliance was confirmed by the first and second accords of Matelieff of 17 May and 23 September 1606 and was the strategic framework within which the Dutch attempted to take Malaka from the Portuguese. Van Heemskerck’s courtesy in releasing the 750 Portuguese prisoners — and the sultan’s evident satisfaction with it — established the diplomatic standard that subsequent Dutch commanders at Djohor were expected to meet.

The capture of the Portuguese galley in the Strait of Malaka

The capture of the Portuguese galley at the mouth of the river of Djohor in 1603 was the first major Dutch naval prize in the Strait of Malaka and the proximate cause of the Dutch-Djohor alliance. Van Heemskerck’s conduct of the affair — the conditional surrender, the courteous release of the prisoners, the formal exchange of letters with the Malaka authorities — became a model for later Dutch-Portuguese naval engagements in the Strait. The strategic effect was to confirm the sultan of Djohor’s preference for the Dutch over the Portuguese and to lay the groundwork for the Matelieff campaign of 1606.

Significance

Jacob van Heemskerck is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the principal Dutch commander of the early Atjeh-Djohor period and the principal architect of the Dutch-Djohor military alliance of 1603-1613. The first Dutch visit to Banda in March 1599 established the early Dutch trust in the Bandanese that the conflicts of the 1600s would destroy; the treaty of 3 April 1603 with the sultan of Djohor inaugurated the Dutch-Djohor military alliance that the Matelieff campaign of 1606 would exploit and the Verhoeff expedition of 1608 would fail to sustain. Van Heemskerck’s courtesy in releasing the Portuguese prisoners — and the sultan’s satisfaction with it — established the diplomatic standard that subsequent Dutch commanders at Djohor were expected to meet, and his conduct of the affair was the principal instance of the early Dutch chivalric code in naval warfare in the East Indies. He died in battle against the Spanish at the Battle of Gibraltar in 1607 — a death that, in the Dutch Republic’s naval mythology, sealed his reputation as one of the great Dutch admirals of the early seventeenth century.

See Also

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 V “Voorgangers, Hollanders en mededingers tot 1614. Atjeh. Djohor. Malaka.” (pp. 125-126), and Hoofdstuk X (pp. 300-303).

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