Bernard Fokke
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Bernard or Barend Fokke, sometimes known as Barend Fockesz, was a 17th-century Frisian-born captain for the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
. He was renowned for the uncanny speed of his trips from the
Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...
to
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
. For example, in 1678 he traveled the distance in 3 months and 4 (or 10) days, delivering governor
Rijckloff van Goens Rijcklof Volckertsz. van Goens (24 June 1619 – 14 November 1682) was the Governor of Zeylan and Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. He was the Governor of Zeylan from 12 May 1660 to 1661, then in 1663 and finally from 19 November 16 ...
a stack of letters from which the traveling time could be confirmed. In later times a statue was erected of him on the small island Kuipertje, near the harbor of
Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...
. The statue was destroyed by the English in 1808. His fast trips caused people to suspect that he was aided by the
Devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...
, and he is often considered to have been a model for the legendary captain of the
Flying Dutchman The ''Flying Dutchman'' ( nl, De Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship, allegedly never able to make port, but doomed to sail the seven seas forever. The myth is likely to have originated from the 17th-century Golden Age of the Du ...
, a ghostly ship doomed to sail the seas forever.


References

;Notes ;Bibliography * * 17th-century births Year of death uncertain Dutch sailors Sea captains People from Friesland Dutch folklore Flying Dutchman Frisians Deal with the Devil {{Netherlands-bio-stub