Joan Maetsuycker (also Maetsuyker; 1606–1678) was a Dutch colonial administrator who, at the time of Pieter Soury’s embassy to Atjeh in 1641, served as extra-ordinaris Raad van Indië (extraordinary Councillor of the Indies) and was one of the two senior officials who saw the embassy off at Batavia. He would later serve as Gouverneur-Generaal of the VOC in the Indies from 1653 to 1678.
Sending-off of the Soury embassy
When Commissaris Soury’s legation was dispatched from Batavia to Atjeh in 1641 to congratulate the Sultana on her accession, Maetsuycker — in his capacity as extra-ordinaris Raad van Indië — together with Justus Schouten, gave the legation its formal send-off. Godee Molsbergen’s pairing is: “Het gezantschap werd te Batavia uitgeleide gedaan door de extra-ordinaris Raad van Indië Joan Maetsuycker en Justus Schouten.”
Religious question at appointment
Maetsuycker’s later appointment as raadpensionaris of the Council of Justice — a position the Heeren Zeventien wished to fill with a qualified jurist — became the occasion of a religious-political controversy. The Heeren Zeventien wished to send out “een bequaem en wel gepractiseert regtsgeleerde” (a capable and well-practised jurist) in that capacity; the choice fell on “de persoon van Jan Maetsuycker.”
The delegate of the Zeeland Chamber, Mr. Schotte, made “swarigheid consent te dragen” — difficulty in giving consent — “wijl corsaecke hij seijde bericht te wesen, dat hij soude wezen een gepassioneert papist” — because, he said, he was informed that Maetsuycker would be a passionate papist. Maetsuycker, however, was heard on the matter and declared that it was indeed true that he had been raised in the Roman Catholic religion from his youth, but that he had long since withdrawn from it, was of a wholly different opinion, and was resolved to make profession of the Reformed religion both on the voyage and on arrival in the Indies. After he had again declared, by his aforementioned resolution, that he would — of his own free choice, out of sincere affection and love for the Reformed religion, as one come to Batavia — make profession of it, he was accepted.
The episode is a vivid example of the religious tests applied to high VOC office, and of the political weight of the Zeeland Chamber in the Company’s appointments.
Significance
For Atjeh’s history, Maetsuycker’s role is chiefly as the extra-ordinaris Raad van Indië who saw the Soury embassy off at Batavia — a senior officer at the diplomatic hinge between Batavia and the new Sultana’s court. His subsequent long tenure as Gouverneur-Generaal (1653–1678) would span much of the era of female rule in Atjeh that the Sultana of 1641 opened, and during which the Dutch-Atjeh relationship continued to be defined by trade, treaty and the constant negotiation of sovereignty that Soury’s mission had inaugurated.
See Also
- Pieter Soury
- Pieter Soury’s mission to Atjeh (1641)
- Justus Schouten
- Jan van Riebeeck
- Sultana of Atjeh (1641)
- 1641
- Acheh
- Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
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; and the annotation on Maetsuycker’s religious appointment on p. 159 (Cf. Mr. Pieter van Dam, ed. Stapel, I, Cap. IV, on Justice).