Pieter Nuyts
Pieter Nuyts | |
---|---|
3rd Governor of Formosa | |
In office 1627–1629 | |
Preceded by | Gerard Frederikszoon de With |
Succeeded by | Hans Putmans |
Personal details | |
Born | 1598 Middelburg, Dutch Republic |
Died | Dutch Republic | 11 December 1655
Spouse(s) | Cornelia Jacot (1620–1632) Anna van Driel (1640–1640) Agnes Granier (1649–1655) |
Children | Laurens Nuyts (c. 1622–1631) Pieter Nuyts (1624–1627) Anna Cornelia Nuyts (b. 1626) Elisabeth Nuyts (b. 1626) Pieter Nuyts (1640–c. 1709) |
Alma mater | Leiden University |
Pieter Nuyts or Nuijts (1598 – 11 December 1655) was a Dutch explorer, diplomat and politician.
He was part of a landmark expedition of the Dutch East India Company in 1626–27 which mapped the southern coast of Australia. He became the Dutch ambassador to Japan in 1627, and he was appointed governor of Formosa in the same year. Later he became a controversial figure because of his disastrous handling of official duties, coupled with rumours about private indiscretions. He was disgraced, fined and imprisoned, before being made a scapegoat to ease strained Dutch relations with the Japanese. He returned to the Dutch Republic in 1637, where he became the mayor of Hulster Ambacht and of Hulst.
He is chiefly remembered today in the place names of various points along the southern Australian coast, named for him after his voyage of 1626–27. During the early 20th century, he was vilified in Japanese school textbooks in Taiwan as an example of a "typical arrogant western bully".
Early life
Pieter Nuyts was born in 1598 in the town of Middelburg in Zeeland, Dutch Republic to Laurens Nuyts, a merchant, and his wife Elisabeth Walraents, wealthy Protestant immigrants from Antwerp.[1] After studying at the University of Leiden and gaining a doctorate in philosophy, he returned to Middelburg to work in his father's trading company.
In 1613, Pieter Nuyts, who was staying in
The excellent young man Peter Niutsius has asked me to write something for him, so I say to him: Be obedient to the commands of the almighty God and do not worship anyone but him, and be obedient to your parents and humble towards them ...
In 1620, Pieter married Cornelia Jacot, also a child of Antwerp émigrés, who was to bear four of his children—Laurens (born around 1622), Pieter (1624) and the twins Anna Cornelia and Elisabeth (1626). In 1626 he entered service with the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and was seen as one of their rising stars.[1]
Australian expedition
On 11 May 1626 the VOC ship
Ambassador to Japan
On 10 May 1627, a month after completing his Australian voyage, Nuyts was simultaneously appointed both
Governor of Formosa
On returning from his unsuccessful mission to Japan, Nuyts took up his position as the third governor of Formosa, with his residence in Fort Zeelandia in Tayouan (modern-day Anping). One of his early aims was to force an opening for the Dutch to trade in China — something which had eluded them since they arrived in East Asia in the early 17th century. To further this goal, he took the Chinese trade negotiator Zheng Zhilong hostage and refused to release him until he agreed to give the Dutch trading privileges.[6] More than thirty years later it was to be Zheng's son Koxinga who ended the reign of the Dutch on Formosa.
Nuyts acquired some notoriety while governor for apparently taking native women to his bed, and having a translator hide under the bed to interpret his pillow-talk.[4] He was also accused of profiting from private trade, something which was forbidden under company rules.[7] Some sources claim that he officially married a native Formosan woman during this time,[4] but as he was still legally married to his first wife Cornelia, this seems unlikely.[6]
His handling of relations with the natives of Formosa too was a cause for concern, with the residents of
It was during Nuyts' tenure as governor that the
Hostage crisis
The already troubled relations with Japanese merchants in Tayouan took a turn for the worse in 1628 when tensions boiled over. The merchants, who had been trading in Taiwan long before the Dutch colony was established, refused to pay Dutch tolls levied for conducting business in the area, which they saw as unfair. Nuyts exacted revenge on the same Hamada Yahei who he blamed for causing the failure of the Japanese embassy by impounding his ships and weapons until the tolls were paid.[11][12][13] However, the Japanese were still not inclined to pay taxes, and the affair came to a head when Hamada took Nuyts hostage at knifepoint in his own office. Hamada's demands were for the return of their ships and property, and for safe passage to return to Japan.[11] These requests were granted by the Council of Formosa (the ruling body of Dutch Formosa), and Nuyts' son Laurens was taken back to Japan as one of six Dutch hostages. Laurens died in Omura prison on 29 December 1631.[6] During the Japanese era in Taiwan (1895–1945), school history textbooks retold the hostage-taking as the Nuyts Incident (ヌィッチ事件, noitsu jiken)[citation needed], portraying the Dutchman as a "typical arrogant western bully who slighted Japanese trading rights and trod on the rights of the native inhabitants".[11]
Extradition to Japan
The Dutch were very keen to resume the lucrative trade with Japan which had been choked off in the wake of the dispute between Nuyts and Hamada at the behest of the Japanese authorities in Edo.[6] All their overtures to the Japanese court failed, until they decided to extradite Pieter Nuyts to Japan for the shōgun to punish him as he saw fit. This was an unprecedented step, and was representative of both the extreme official displeasure with Nuyts in the Dutch hierarchy and the strong desire to recommence Japanese trade.[14][15] It also demonstrates the relative weakness of the Dutch when confronted by powerful East Asian states such as Japan, and recent historiography has suggested that the Dutch relied on the mercy of these states to maintain their position.[16]
A measure of the upset he caused to the Dutch authorities can be gauged by the contents of a letter from VOC
I wonder whether these highly intelligent people do not perform more disservices than services in these quarters, witness the cases of Martinus Sonck, Pieter Nuyts, Pieter Vlack, Antonio van den Heuvel, and others, who have been used to the great disadvantage of the Company ... The Company can draw better resources from experienced, vigilant merchants with alert minds.
— Anthony van Diemen[1]
Nuyts was held under house arrest by the Japanese from 1632 until 1636, when he was released and sent back to Batavia.[17] During this period he passed the time by mining his collection of classical Latin texts by writers such as Cicero, Seneca, and Tacitus to write treatises on subjects such as the elephant and the Nile Delta, exercises which were designed to display rhetorical flair and high style. He also further annoyed Dutch authorities by spending lavish sums on clothing and food, things for which the VOC had to foot the bill.[15]
Nuyts was released from captivity in 1636, most likely due to the efforts of François Caron, who knew Nuyts from serving as his interpreter during the unsuccessful Japanese embassy of 1627.[18] On returning from Japan, Nuyts was fined by the VOC, before being dishonorably dismissed from the company and sent back to the Netherlands.[15]
Return to the Dutch Republic
On returning to his home country he first went back to his city of birth Middelburg, before starting a career as a local administrator in Zeelandic Flanders, and settling in Hulst shortly after the town had been wrested from the Spanish in 1645.[19] He eventually rose to be three times mayor of Hulster Ambacht and twice mayor of Hulst.[4] Thanks to powerful allies in the Middelburg chamber of the VOC he was able to successfully appeal for the cancellation of the fines placed on him, and the money was returned.[17] In 1640 he married Anna van Driel, who died that same year while giving birth to Nuyts' third son, also called Pieter. In 1649 he married his third (or perhaps fourth) and final wife, Agnes Granier, who was to outlive him.[4]
Death
Nuyts died on 11 December 1655 and was buried in a churchyard in Hulst.
Bibliography
- Lof des Elephants (In Praise of the Elephant) – 1634[20] (1670)[21]
- Beschrijvinge van Riviere Nylus in Aegypten (Description of the River Nile in Egypt) – 1635[22]
Notes
- ^ a b c d e Blussé 102.
- ^ a b Romania Arabica by Gerard Wiegers p.412
- ^ Heath 102.
- ^ a b c d e f g Klaassen.
- ^ ANPSA
- ^ a b c d e f Blussé 103
- ^ a b Blussé 104.
- ^ Andrade (2005), § 7.
- ^ Shepherd 52.
- ^ Davidson (1903), p. 18.
- ^ a b c Blussé 95.
- ^ Campbell, William (1903). Formosa Under the Dutch: Described from Contemporary Records, with Explanatory Notes and a Bibliography of the Island. Kegan Paul. p. 40.
- ISBN 978-0-7524-7382-6.
- ^ Blussé 96.
- ^ a b c Blussé 106.
- ^ Clulow, Adam, The Compan and the Shogun: The Dutch encounter with Tokugawa Japan (New York, 2013).
- ^ a b Blussé 107.
- ^ Leupp 62.
- ^ a b c Blussé 110.
- ^ Published "at the Sign of the Quill" [i.e. written out by hand] in Hirado. Blussé 97.
- ^ Printed posthumously by his son Pieter Nuyts junior. Blussé 102.
- ^ Manuscript completed in 1635 while he was under house arrest. It is uncertain whether it was ever printed. Blussé 106.
References
- Andrade, Tonio (2005). "Chapter 3: Pax Hollandica". How Taiwan Became Chinese: Dutch, Spanish, and Han Colonization in the Seventeenth Century. Columbia University Press.
- ANPSA. "Nuytsia Floribunda". Australian Native Plants Society (Australia). Archived from the original on 11 August 2009. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ISBN 986-7602-00-5.
- OL 6931635M.
- Heath, Byron (2005). Discovering the Great South Land. Rosenberg. ISBN 978-1-877058-31-8.
- Klaassen, Nic. Nuyts, Pieter. Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 4 April 2009.
- Leupp, Gary P. (2003). Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543–1900. Continuum International. ISBN 978-0-8264-6074-5.
- Shepherd, John (1995) [1993]. Statecraft and Political Economy on the Taiwan Frontier: 1600–1800. Taipei: Southern Materials Center. ISBN 957-638-311-0.
Further reading
- Leupe, P.A. (1853). Stukken Betrekkelijk Pieter Nuyts, Gouverneur van Taqueran 1631–1634 (in Dutch).
External links