Isaac Johannes Lamotius (bapt. 29 May 1646 in

Beverwijk Beverwijk () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. The town is located about northwest of Amsterdam in the Randstad metropolitan area, north of the North Sea Canal very close to the North Sea coast. A ...

– 1718) or (1653–1710) was governor of Mauritius from 1677 to 1692. Lamotius was interested in arts and knowledge and became an

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octobe ...

; he made 250 drawings of fishes which are kept in Paris.

Family background

Isaac was the son of Johannes Lamotius, who played a main part in the capturing of Dutch Malacca (January 1641) and married in Batavia the widow of Matthijs Quast. As a sergeant major, Johannes was stationed in Dutch Formosa (September 1642–?). In 1653 Johannes Lamotius lived in

, Netherlands.

Career

Isaac arrived on the island in September 1677. In 1682

Joan Huydecoper II Joan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen II (21 February 1625, Amsterdam – 1 December 1704, Amsterdam) was the eldest son of burgomaster Joan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen I and the brother-in-law of the collector Jan J. Hinlopen and the sheriff Jacob Bo ...

strongly urged the colonial administrators to undertake botanical research and stimulated the production of drawings of plants on the spot. He gave him instructions on how to start a

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

. In 1685 Huydecoper requested subtropical plants. A cucumis arrived the year after in Amsterdam.Heniger, J. (1986) Hendrik Adriaan van Reede tot Drakenstein (1636--1691) and Hortus Malabaricus -- A contribution to the history of Dutch colonial botany, p. 63, 71, 161, 162. Lamotius became an expert on the fauna and fauna of Mauritius and published daily journals. In 1688 the last three

dodo The dodo (''Raphus cucullatus'') is an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius, which is east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The dodo's closest genetic relative was the also-extinct Rodrigues solitaire. The ...

s were captured. Some say his fifteen years of command saw the island descend into despotism, and immorality was rife. When people complained in 1692, Lamotius and his second man were shipped to Batavia and tried in 1695, sentenced for private trade. He was banished for six years to the island of Rosengain, being chained on the most eastern of the Banda Islands.

Family background

Career

References

Further reading