Nicolaes or Nicolaas Verburg (also Verburgh, Verburch) (c. 1620, Delft – November 1676, Netherlands) was the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

Governor of Formosa from 1649 to 1653 and Director General of the

VOC VOC, VoC or voc may refer to: Science and technology * Open-circuit voltage (VOC), the voltage between two terminals when there is no external load connected * Variant of concern, a category used during the assessment of a new variant of a virus ...

council in

Batavia, Dutch East Indies Batavia was the capital of the Dutch East Indies. The area corresponds to present-day Jakarta, Indonesia. Batavia can refer to the city proper or its suburbs and hinterland, the Ommelanden, which included the much-larger area of the Residen ...

, from 1668 to 1675. Probably as a teenager, Verburg sailed with the ship ''Hertogenbosch'' as ''onderkoopman'' ("sub-merchant") from Delft. He arrived in Batavia on 20 July 1637. He worked his way up in the hierarchy of the VOC and in August 1646 is appointed director of its station in

Gamron Bandar Abbas or Bandar-e ‘Abbās ( fa, , , ), is a port city and capital of Hormozgān Province on the southern coast of Iran, on the Persian Gulf. The city occupies a strategic position on the narrow Strait of Hormuz (just across from Musan ...

in Safavid

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. He returns to Batavia from Persia to become Governor of Formosa, starting just 4 days later. After his governorship he leaves for Batavia on 8 December 1653 on the ship ''de Haas'', arriving 11 January 1654. Here he becomes a regular member of the ''Raad van Indië''. Sometime before 1662 in Batavia, he married Maria van Santen (1636–1678), the daughter of Pieter van Santen, a mayor of Delft. In 1668 he becomes the council's Director General. He holds this position until September 1675, after which he departs home after 38 years in Asia as the Admiral of a "returning fleet", sailing from November 1675 till September 1676. Both Nicolaas and Maria died very soon after their arrival, in November 1676. They had one surviving daughter, Adriana (1662–1732), who as a 14-year-old orphan married in February 1677 Gerard Putmans (1641–1698), the 35-year-old son of another former governor of Formosa ( Hans Putmans). Gerard and Adriana bought the Sion Estate near

Rijswijk Rijswijk (), formerly known as Ryswick ( ) in English, is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. Its population was in , and it has an area of , of which is water. The municipality also includes t ...

in 1679.The story of the Sion Estate
(in Dutch)

References

1620s births 1676 deaths 17th-century Dutch people Colonial governors of Dutch Formosa People from Delft People from Batavia, Dutch East Indies {{Netherlands-bio-stub