Pieter Willemz (also written Willemsz, Willemsoen) was a senior merchant (Opperkoopman) of the VOC who arrived from Batavia in 1641 as the designated replacement of Jacob Compostel as Opperhoofd (chief) of the Company’s lodge in Atjeh. He was the third-ranking Dutchman in Soury’s embassy to Atjeh and a member of the six-man suite that presented the missive of the Gouverneur-Generaal to the Sultana on 1 July 1641.
Role in the Soury legation
The legation suite, in order of precedence, was: Commissaris Soury; the Opperkoopman Compostel, outgoing Opperhoofd of the lodge; the Opperkoopman Willemz, Compostel’s recently-arrived replacement from Batavia; the Secretaris Jan van Riebeeck; and two Onderkooplieden (junior merchants). Godee Molsbergen describes the six as “een ernstige groep … de gezichten strakgetrokken onder den indruk van de plechtigheid, wetend dat het minste verzuim of gebrek aan decorum zou worden opgemerkt door Atjehers, Engelschen, Mooren en anderen, die de Compagnie geen goed hart toedroegen en haar succes misgunden” — a serious group, faces tense under the impression of the ceremony, knowing that the slightest neglect or want of decorum would be noticed by Atjehers, English, Moors and others who bore the Company no good will and grudged its success.
The hand-over
The presence of both Compostel and Willemz in the legation suite at the audience of 1 July 1641 was the formal moment of the hand-over of the Atjeh lodge. The Atjeh court saw both men together — the outgoing and the incoming Opperhoofd — and the Sultana’s gift of an Atjehsch gewaad with three golden rings on the collar went to the new embassy including Willemz, but pointedly not to Compostel. (See Jacob Compostel.)
Significance
For Atjeh’s history, Willemz is the Opperhoofd-designate of the lodge under the newly-acceded Sultana — the resident face of the VOC at the moment when the sultanate was transitioning from the rule of Sultan Iskander Tsani to the long era of female rule. His surviving mention in the Soury embassy record preserves the otherwise obscure fact of the Compostel–Willemz handover at this critical juncture.
See Also
- Pieter Soury
- Pieter Soury’s mission to Atjeh (1641)
- Atjehsche ambassade ceremony (1 July 1641)
- Jacob Compostel
- Jan van Riebeeck
- Dutch lodge at Atjeh
- Atjehsche feestjas
- Sultana of Atjeh (1641)
- 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.