biography
| name: |
Houtman, Gebroeders de
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pronunciation:
[howtman]
| biography:
| Two brothers born in Gouda, W Netherlands: Cornelis (c.1565–99) and Frederik (1571–1627). They visited Portugal in 1592 to pick up the secrets of the Far East trade. Both were arrested and had to be ransomed. In 1595 both went on the first voyage to the east, with Cornelis as leading merchant and Jan Molenaar as skipper, when a factory was founded at Bantam (W Java). Cornelis, a narrow-minded and tactless man, was murdered by the sultan's men in an Aceh raid on the next voyage. Frederik was captured and in 1601 freed at the request of Prince Maurice of Orange. During his captivity he studied astronomy and the Malay language. He was the first governor of Amboina (1605–11), became a member of the Council of the Indies in 1619, and was governor of the Moluccas (1621–3). He also wrote a dictionary of the Malayan and Madagascar languages, and texts on astronomy. |
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