Jan Pieterszoon Coen

Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company who founded Batavia and used violence to monopolize the spice trade.

Life

Son of a merchant

Coen came from a merchant family in Hoorn in the Netherlands, studied commerce in Rome, then joined the Dutch East India Company, becoming Governor-General in 1617.

Batavia

In 1619 he captured Jakarta, burned the old town and founded Batavia as the Company's headquarters in Asia. He advocated monopolizing the spice trade by force; in 1621 he conquered the Banda Islands, where most of the inhabitants were killed, starved or carried off as slaves, and nutmeg on the islands was thereafter grown by slaves.

Banda massacre

In 1627 he became Governor-General again, and in 1629, during Sultan Agung's second siege of Batavia, he died of illness in the city.

Legacy

Coen laid the foundation for three hundred years of Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia; his massacre of the Banda Islanders has made him controversial even in the Netherlands, and his statue in his hometown of Hoorn has repeatedly drawn protests.

Did you know? His famous maxim was: "There is no trade without war, and no war without trade."

Key dates

• 1617Became Governor-General
• 1619Founded Batavia
• 1621Conquered the Banda Islands
• 1627Governor-General again
• 1629Died of illness in Batavia