[DUTCH]

USED ABBREVIATIONS

Dagr. Bat. Dagregister = Daily registers kept in the castle of Batavia of the daily course of events there on the spot as well as from all over the Dutch Indies.
Dagr. Jap. Daily Japanese registers kept by the chief of the V.O.C. in Japan, first in Hirado (Firando) and later in Nagasaki
Res. Resolution of the General Governor and Counsels of the Indies
Gen. Miss. General Missive, this is a letter of the government of the Indies to the Heeren XVII
Patr. Miss. Patria Missive, this is a letter from the Heeren XVII to the government of the Indies
"India" = Dutch Indies

The documents are translated at the bottom of the HTML page. Long documents are split up; to read the English translation just click on "English." The bigger ones also open in a new window. If the "back button" is grayed out, just close that window.

Instead of opting for an easy-to-read translation (which involves extensive interpretation) I decided to translate these documents as literally as possible. This makes them somewhat harder to read and understand, but I think this is preferable to a liberal translation, even though original ambiguity -- sometimes as well as unintelligibility -- remains. The subject of a sentence is often omitted in 17th century Dutch, so sometimes I added one between square brackets [like this]. I also made occasional comments and clarification. Translations of the original texts are always in italics. For comments, corrections, suggestions or discussion, please contact me (I love to receive e-mail). All these documents are authentic and can be found and verified in various archives and libraries. © Henny Savenije. Dates don't need to be changed since in the seafaring provinces the Gregorian calendar was already adopted

Link to the original documents (Pictures)
Link to the English, French and Korean editions

Essay in Dutch

Messages in which the escaped castaways are mentioned

 

Messages in which the released castaways are mentioned

Memorandum of location
  • Document showing that Weltevree comes from Vlaardingen
  • Joan Nieuhof
    Envoy to the Great Cham, or Emperor of Sina
    There are two reasons for taking up a part of this work:
  1. Because Korea is mentioned
  2. As an example of a 17th century scientific work
Hendrick Hamel

Baptismal certificate
Deed of assumed death [English]
Deed of purchase of the house where he was born [English]
Genealogical Table
Article about Genealogy [English]
Map Gorkum