Joris van Spilbergen

Properties2
tagsperson, dutch, navigator, admiral, explorer, precolonial, atjeh, netherlands-east-indies, 17th-century, moucheron, voc, trade, ceylon, circumnavigation
aliasesJoris Spilbergh, Joris van Spilbergh, Spilbergh, Spilbergen, Joris Spilbergh (Moucheron fleet), George Spilbergen, Admiral Spilbergh

7 min read

Joris van Spilbergen (also written Spilbergh; c. 1568–1620) was a Dutch navigator and admiral in the service of the Zeeland merchant Balthasar de Moucheron whose voyage of 1601–1604 took him to the Indian Ocean via the Cape of Good Hope and the Comoros to Ceylon — where he conducted the first Dutch embassy to the King of Kandi in 1602 — and on to Atjeh in September 1602, where he commanded the fourth Dutch commercial visit to Atjeh, joined the English admiral James Lancaster in the capture of the Portuguese carrack of 3 October 1602, and sold one of his ships to the first VOC fleet that arrived during his stay. He is the principal Dutch figure of the closing episode of the first Dutch-Achehnese diplomatic sequence, and went on to command a famous Dutch circumnavigation of the globe in 1614–1617.

The Moucheron Fleet and the Voyage Out

Spilbergen’s fleet of three ships, with the yacht ‘t Lam under Cornelis Spex as consort, had been outfitted by Balthasar de Moucheron, the Zeeland merchant who had earlier dispatched the Houtman brothers’ voyage of 1599. The fleet left Middelburg on 5 May 1601. Past the Cape of Good Hope Spilbergen met a French fleet on which the Dutchman Wouter Willekens served as pilot. Near the Comoros the fleet suffered heavily, losing two sloops and twenty-eight men; the yacht ‘t Lam became separated from the others and was so badly damaged that Spex did not dare to continue the voyage through Indian waters. Sailing around the Point of Galle, Spilbergh reached Batticaloa on the east coast of Ceylon, then under Portuguese control.

The Kandyan Alliance of 1602

The Radja (ruler) of Batticaloa did not know what to make of the foreigners. He knew and feared the Portuguese, and dared not begin negotiations without authorisation from the Overlord at Kandi. He allowed a kommies (clerk) with letters and gifts to go to Kandi; once the clerk returned safely, Spilbergen himself, with ten men, made the difficult journey to the capital. The Admiral was received with splendour; seeing that the King was averse to trade, Spilbergen turned the conversation to Prince Maurits’s success against the Spaniards at the Battle of Nieuwpoort, gave the King an equestrian portrait of the Prince, and proposed an alliance. The Sinhalese Prince entered into the proposal with enthusiasm and declared himself willing, as a mason, to haul lime and stone for a joint fortification against the arch-enemies — the Portuguese.

The Atjeh Visit (September 1602)

After this brilliant success of his embassy, Spilbergen returned to Batticaloa and from there sailed to Atjeh. There the ‘t Lam — the ship from his own fleet that had strayed at the Comoros — was already lying, hired by the English Company under James Lancaster, with John Davis under Lancaster’s command. Spex had put in at Atjeh in early September 1602 and placed himself and his yacht under the command of the English admiral already on the roadstead. Spilbergen himself arrived a few days later with the other two ships, having called at Ceylon on the way.

The full account of Spilbergen’s Atjeh visit is given in the entry on the visit itself. In summary: he arrived off Atjeh a few days after ‘t Lam; he heard of Lancaster’s plan to ambush the annual Portuguese carrack from the Koromandel coast and offered to join with one of his ships for an eighth of the prize; on 21 September 1602 the combined squadron sailed from Atjeh; on 3 October 1602 they sighted and captured the Portuguese carrack, taking 950 bales of calicoes and pintados; Spilbergen received 120 bales and his share of the chests for his eighth; the 600 Portuguese crew were released unhindered to Malaka.

The Sale of the Ship to the VOC

At Atjeh the first VOC fleet arrived — the one sent out by the newly-founded Company (charter of 20 March 1602). Spilbergen sold one of his ships to the new foundation and reached the fatherland with his well-laden ship. The sale of his ship to the VOC at Atjeh is one of the practical moments at which the pre-VOC wilde vaart (free trade) was absorbed into the chartered Company’s structure. The episode is one of the hinge-moments of the Dutch-Atjeh relationship: the moment at which the pre-VOC wilde vaart gave way to the chartered Company’s monopoly.

The Dutch-English Encounter at Atjeh

The Dutch-English encounter at Atjeh in 1602 is one of the earliest recorded joint operations between the two Protestant powers in the East Indies. The English, under Lancaster, had hired the strayed Dutch ship ‘t Lam; the Dutch, under Spilbergen, joined the English in taking a Portuguese kraak (carrack). After unloading the goods, Spilbergen returned the kraak to the Portuguese “met hun vrouwen en kinderen” — “with their wives and children” — to sail to Malaka. The clemency of returning the kraak (with its women and children) to the Portuguese after unloading the cargo was a deliberate signal of good faith to the Atjeh court, where the Sultan — Sultan Alaeddin Ri’ayat Syah al-Mukammil — was watching the European powers’ conduct carefully.

Later Voyages: The Circumnavigation of 1614–1617

Spilbergen went on to command a famous Dutch circumnavigation of the globe in 1614–1617 — a voyage that took him through the Strait of Magellan, up the Pacific coast of South America, across the Pacific to the Moluccas and the Cape of Good Hope, and home to Zeeland. The circumnavigation, which Van der Woude does not pursue, established Spilbergen’s reputation as one of the great Dutch navigators of the early seventeenth century and brought him into conflict with the Spanish in the Pacific — a continuation, in another theatre, of the Dutch-Spanish global war of which the Atjeh expedition had been a part.

Significance

For Atjeh’s history, Spilbergen’s visit of 1602 is the moment at which the new VOC formally arrived in the sultanate — the first VOC fleet reaching Atjeh while Spilbergen was still there, and Spilbergen selling one of his ships to the new Company. Joris Spilbergen is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the principal Dutch figure of the closing episode of the first Dutch-Achehnese diplomatic sequence and the principal instance of the early Anglo-Dutch naval co-operation at Atjeh. The visit of 1602 and the capture of the Portuguese carrack of 3 October 1602 mark the high-water mark of the brief moment of Anglo-Dutch partnership in the East Indies, made possible by the sultan of Atjeh’s willingness to host both nations at his court. The visit also marks the close of the Moucheron firm’s direct involvement in the East Indies trade: with the founding of the VOC in March 1602, the separate Zeeland companies were wound up and their assets and personnel absorbed into the united company. The episode also documents the close Dutch-English cooperation at Atjeh in the early years of the European intrusion — cooperation that would not survive the Amboyna incident of 1623 and the long Anglo-Dutch rivalry that followed.

See Also

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 XXXIV (“Aanraking met vreemden. De Compagnie krijgt aanzien. Vestiging op Banda”; “Spilbergh’s succes op Ceylon. Nederlandsch panopticum. Het dankbare vaderland”), pp. 121–125 of the numbered-letter sequence.

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. 118–119).

Graph View

Backlinks