Pieter Both (c. 1568-1615) was a Dutch admiraal and the first Governor-General of the VOC — appointed on 1 September 1609 as part of the centralisation of the Indies administration under the Twelve Years’ Truce — who had earlier commanded the fleet of the Nieuwe Brabantsche Compagnie that left Texel on 21 December 1599 (and from which Paulus van Caerden conducted the Atjeh visit of 1600-1601), and who as Governor-General conducted the Banda expeditions of 1610 and 1613 in which the VOC’s coercive monopoly policy was first applied. He is the principal Dutch administrative figure of the early VOC period before Coen.
The Nieuwe Brabantsche Compagnie fleet (1599-1601)
Both left Texel on 21 December 1599 as admiraal of the fleet of the Nieuwe Brabantsche Compagnie, with Paulus van Caerden as his vice-admiraal. The fleet was bound for the East Indies by way of the west coast of Sumatra. Both dispatched Van Caerden to Priaman, Tikoe and Pasaman and thence to Atjeh, while Both himself proceeded to Bantam and the eastern archipelago. The fleet’s mission was a commercial one — pepper and spices — but it was conducted in the shadow of the Houtman ambush of September 1599 and the approaching truce with Spain.
The Governor-General appointment (1609)
The appointment of a Governor-General was the centralisation measure of the VOC under the Twelve Years’ Truce. The Heeren Zeventien resolved on 1 September 1609 to appoint a Governor-General “sowel over dese vloote, als over alle comptoiren en partijen, de generale Comp. aengaende en in Oost-Indië sijnde” — the first permanent supreme authority in the Indies. The States-General’s plakkaat defining the functions of the Governor-General and the Raad van Indië observed that the appointment was made “voor den welstand der voorsz. Vereenigde Nederlanden, verzekering en goede regering van de landen, forteressen en plaatsen, die Wij en de Onzen in de Oost-Indien houden en bezitten”. Both was the natural choice: an experienced admiraal, a Bewindhebber’s confidence, and a man of standing in the Republic.
The Banda expeditions (1610 and 1613)
As Governor-General, Both conducted the Banda expeditions of 1610 and 1613. In March 1610 he sailed from Ambon with five ships and a yacht for Banda, where he arrived on 28 March 1610 to find three Dutch ships already on the roadstead. He conducted a punitive expedition against the Bandanese at Selamon and built a second fort on Neira — Fort Bellevue — with materials from the walls and mosques of Labetaka and Ratu, freeing Fort Nassau from bombardment from the mountain slope. He appointed Nicolaas Prins commander of both forts. The Bandanese refused peace; the sultan of Soerabaja’s envoys failed to mediate; and Both’s demand that Neira be fully evacuated was rejected.
In March 1613 Both returned to Banda. He was forced to restore discipline among the troops with drastic sentences; desertion increased as European soldiers defected to the Bandanese and converted to Islam — a pattern that, as Van der Woude notes, “opnieuw bewijst, dat de inlanders den enkeling ongemoeid lieten en zich slechts verzetten tegen de machtspositie der vreemdelingen”. Both appointed Steven Doenssen commander and head of trade and departed for the Moluccas, leaving the forts in a state of armed truce. He was succeeded as Governor-General by Gerard Reynst in 1614 and drowned on his return voyage to the Netherlands when his ship foundered off the coast of Madagascar in 1615.
Significance
Pieter Both is, in Van der Woude’s narrative, the principal Dutch administrative figure of the early VOC period before Coen, and the principal executor of the VOC’s coercive monopoly policy at Banda before Coen’s conquest of 1621. His Governor-Generalship — the first in VOC history — established the institutional framework within which Coen would later operate: a supreme Indies authority, a Council of the Indies, and a system of forts and factories supported by the Company’s monopoly claims. Both’s Banda expeditions of 1610 and 1613 were the principal instances of the early VOC application of the secret instruction of 11 April 1608 — the instruction that Coen would later cite as the legal foundation of the monopoly-by-force policy. The Nieuwe Brabantsche Compagnie fleet of 1599-1601, from which Paulus van Caerden conducted the Atjeh visit of 1600-1601, also links Both to the early Dutch-Atjeh commercial relationship and frames the continuity of Dutch-Indies strategy from the voorcompagnieën through the early VOC.
See Also
- Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie
- Heeren Zeventien
- Nieuwe Brabantsche Compagnie
- Paulus van Caerden
- Paulus van Caerden’s Atjeh visit (1600-1601)
- Founding of the VOC (1602)
- Twelve Years’ Truce (1609)
- Jan Pieterszoon Coen
- Banda-eilanden
- 1609
- 1610
- 1613
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), Hoofdstukken II, X (pp. 58-59, 320-321).