Jacob Willekens or Wilckens (1564–1649) was a Dutch admiral on a fleet to the

Dutch Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

, and a herring seller, who went to sea again at the age of fifty for the

Dutch West Indies Company The Dutch West India Company ( nl, Geoctrooieerde Westindische Compagnie, ''WIC'' or ''GWC''; ; en, Chartered West India Company) was a chartered company of Dutch merchants as well as foreign investors. Among its founders was Willem Usselincx ( ...

. His most well-known success was the conquest of São Salvador da Bahia, the then capital of

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. His fleet, which included Dutch corsair Piet Hein as vice admiral, departed from

Texel Texel (; Texels dialect: ) is a municipality and an island with a population of 13,643 in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the largest and most populated island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. The island is situated north of De ...

on December 22, 1623 with between 26-36 ships and 3,300 sailors towards

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. At the beginning of June 1624, they began their attack from sea and soon captured the Portuguese stronghold with little resistance. They occupied Bahia for over a year before the local population took up arms under acting governor

Matias de Albuquerque Matias de Albuquerque (Olinda, Colonial Brazil, colony of Brazil, 1580s – Lisbon, Kingdom of Portugal, 9 June 1647), the first and only Count of Alegrete, was a Portuguese colonial administrator and soldier. He was nicknamed "Hero of Two Con ...

and Archbishop Dom Marcos Teixeira who eventually expelled them with the help of a combined Spanish-Portuguese fleet numbering 52 warships and 12,000 soldiers in May 1625.Eliott, L.E. ''Brazil - Today and Tomorrow''. New York: Macmillan, 1917. (pg. 38) This was the first major WIC privateering expedition to the region. He was also planning to participate in an attack on

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

with Hein in 1626, but after a dispute over who would be in command, the two separated with Willekens returning to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

. Willekens joined the

vroedschap The vroedschap () was the name for the (all male) city council in the early modern Netherlands; the member of such a council was called a ''vroedman'', literally a "wise man". An honorific title of the ''vroedschap'' was the ''vroede vaderen'', ...

in 1639 and the

Admiralty of Amsterdam The Admiralty of Amsterdam was the largest of the five Dutch admiralties at the time of the Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven ...

. He was buried in the

Zuiderkerk The Zuiderkerk (, "southern church") is a 17th-century Protestant church in the Nieuwmarkt area of Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. The church played an important part in the life of Rembrandt and was the subject of a painting by Cla ...

in 1649.

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Willekens, Jacob 1564 births 1649 deaths 16th-century Dutch people Admirals of the navy of the Dutch Republic Politicians from Amsterdam People of Dutch Brazil People of the Dutch–Portuguese War Sailors on ships of the Dutch West India Company Dutch West India Company people from Amsterdam