Jacob Mossel (28 November 1704 – 15 May 1761) went from being a common sailor to become

Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies The governor-general of the Dutch East Indies ( nl, gouverneur-generaal van Nederlands Indië) represented Dutch rule in the Dutch East Indies between 1610 and Dutch recognition of the independence of Indonesia in 1949. Occupied by Japanese fo ...

from 1750 to 1761. He was of noble birth, born in

Enkhuizen Enkhuizen () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia. History Enkhuizen, like Hoorn and Amsterdam, was one of the harbor-towns of the VOC, from where overseas trade wi ...

. When he was 15 he left as an able-bodied seaman aboard a

Fluyt A fluyt (archaic Dutch: ''fluijt'' "flute"; ) is a Dutch type of sailing vessel originally designed by the shipwrights of Hoorn as a dedicated cargo vessel. Originating in the Dutch Republic in the 16th century, the vessel was designed to facilit ...

(a type of Dutch sailing cargo vessel) called ''de Haringthuyn'', bound for the

Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in East (disambiguation)#Geography, the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and ...

. As his family had a

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

, he was able to obtain a privileged position, through Dirk van Cloon, and was sent to the

Dutch Coromandel Coromandel was a governorate of the Dutch East India Company on the coasts of the Coromandel region from 1610, until the company's liquidation in 1798. Dutch presence in the region began with the capture of Pulicat from the Portuguese in Goa and ...

(1721). On 30 March 1730, he married Adriana Appels, the fourteen-year-old stepdaughter of Adriaan van Pla,

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

of Dutch Coromandel. Jacob Mossel worked himself up finally to ''Governor and Director'' of Dutch Coromandel. In 1740 he got the title of ''Counsellor-extraordinary of the Indies'' and in 1742 he became a member of the

Dutch Council of the Indies The Council of the Indies ( nl, Raad van Indië; id, Dewan Hindia) was a body established in 1610 to advise and limit the powers of the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. Initially the council had four members and a chairman, all Dutch na ...

(''Raad van Indië'') in Batavia/Jakarta. In 1745, he became the first Director of the Amfioensociëteit, which tried to regulate its monopoly of the trade in

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

. In 1747, he was named as the ''Director-General'' (the second highest post in the Dutch East Indies). When in 1750,

Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff Gustaaf Willem, Baron van Imhoff (8 August 1705 – 1 November 1750) was a Dutch colonial administrator for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He served as Governor of Ceylon from 1736 to 1740 and as Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies fr ...

died, Mossel succeeded him as

. He remained in post until his own death in 1761. Jacob Mossel ruled the Indies during a period in which things got steadily worse 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 made may economies and he ended the war in Bantam Province, recognising that his predecessor had handled things badly. The Dutch were threatened by the expansion of the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

. In the battle for

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

, Mossel lost to the British. Mossel was a supporter of the policy to allow private entrepreneurs to trade for themselves in the territory of the Indies. This concerned small scale trading in which the Company could make no profit. Following that, Batavia/Jakarta underwent a period of growth, which, because of his successors tax regulations, came to nothing. The Company was plagued by corruption and self-interest among its office holders. Jacob Mossel was also involved in this. His great fortune could not in any case have been put together from his official salary. The initiatives he took against corruption were not very effective. To curb exaggerated displays of wealth, in 1754 he brought in a so-called "''Regulation against pomp and splendour''", which tried to lay down exactly what wealth an officer could display. These details went from the number of buttonholes they could have to the size of their houses. Of course, the regulations did not apply to himself, and there was great feasting at his daughter's wedding. After his death at Batavia/Jakarta, from a wasting disease, he was given a magnificent funeral.

Sources

*Comprehensive Dutch website on the history of the Dutch East Indie

*''Inventaris van de collectie Jacob Mossel, 1699–1801''. (1971) . URL bezocht op 10 juni 2006.
Emmer, P. C. e.a. (1986) "Colonialism and Migration: Indentured Labour Before and After Slavery"
in: Ross, R. J. e.a. ''Colonial Cities. Essays on Urbanism in a Colonial Context. Series: Comparative Studies in Overseas History , Vol. 5.'', Springer, pp. 81–83. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mossel, Jacob 1704 births 1761 deaths People from Enkhuizen Dutch nobility Governors-General of the Dutch East Indies Governors of Dutch Coromandel