Georg Friedrich Wreede or Georgius Fredericius Wreede (died on 29 February 1672) was governor of

Dutch Mauritius Mauritius was an official settlement of the Dutch East India Company on the island of Mauritius between 1638 and 1710, and used as a refreshing station for passing ships. It was already frequented by Dutch ships from 1598 onwards, but only settl ...

from 1665 to 1672, with a break between 1668-1669. Wreede was born around 1635 in

Uetze Uetze �ʏt͡səis a municipality in the district of Hanover, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Fuhse, approximately east of Hanover. Geography Uetze is the easternmost municipality in the Hanover Region. It is bordered by ...

near

Hannover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German States of Germany, state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germa ...

, in Germany. In 1659 he arrived at

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...

as an employee of 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 ...

( nl, Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, commonly abbreviated to VOC). He had been a student in

Philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

Helmstedt Helmstedt (; Eastphalian: ''Helmstidde'') is a town on the eastern edge of the German state of Lower Saxony. It is the capital of the District of Helmstedt. The historic university and Hanseatic city conserves an important monumental heritage of ...

and within four years of his arrival he had written a

compendium A compendium (plural: compendia or compendiums) is a comprehensive collection of information and analysis pertaining to a body of knowledge. A compendium may concisely summarize a larger work. In most cases, the body of knowledge will concern a s ...

using the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...

on Khoikhoithen called Hottentotconsisting of sentences with Dutch translations. The "list" was sent to Amsterdam, but never published and has disappeared. Possibly it was sent to

Hiob Ludolf Hiob or Job Ludolf ( la, Iobus Ludolfus or '; 15 June 1624– 8 April 1704), also known as Job Leutholf, was a German orientalist, born at Erfurt. Edward Ullendorff rates Ludolf as having "the most illustrious name in Ethiopic scholarship". L ...

, who was a famous linguist, and in contact with Nicolaes Witsen. Christian Juncker published Ludolf's biography with a list of Hottentots-Latin words. In 1660 he took part in an expedition to the Olifants River. In February 1665 he was sent by Zacharias Wagenaer on an expedition to look if

Martin Vaz Trindade and Martim Vaz ( pt, Trindade e Martim Vaz, ) is an archipelago located in the South Atlantic Ocean about east of the coast of the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, of which it forms a part. The archipelago has a total area of and a ...

could be used by ships, and returned in May with

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabul ...

. The went on to Mauritius and Wreede was appointed by the captain as the new governor. For three months the twelve men on the island had been without rice or brandy. In October 1668, the captain of the visiting using his discretion relieved Wreede of his duty following formal complaints by his men, and removed him from the island to be held accountable to the VOC for his actions. Dirk Jansz Smient was appointed to replace him. Wreede was sent to Saldanha Bay where the

French East India Company The French East India Company (french: Compagnie française pour le commerce des Indes orientales) was a colonial commercial enterprise, founded on 1 September 1664 to compete with the English (later British) and Dutch trading companies in the ...

had planned a base, after leaving Madagascar. On 6 June 1669 Georg Wreede took command of the post and brought with him a carpenter. They erected a VOC monogram on each of the five islands in Saldanha Bay. A month later Wreede was transferred. In October 1669 he was back on the island Mauritius. Wreede drowned in 1672 while sailing intoxicated. He was eventually replaced by

Hubert Hugo Hubert Hugo (circa 1618 – 1678) was a merchant in Dutch Suratte, a privateer on the Red Sea, and governor of Dutch Mauritius from 1672 to 1677. In 1674 he became one of the last people to document the presence of the dodo on Mauritius. Lif ...

. In 1688 Olfert Dapper probably used Wreede's observations but did not mention his source.

References

Further reading