Pieter de Carpentier (19 February 1586 – 5 September 1659) was a Dutch administrator 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 ...

(VOC) who served as

Governor-General Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...

there from 1623 to 1627. The

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria (, ) is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea (the body of water that lies between Australia and New Guinea). The northern boundary is ...

in northern Australia is named after him. Pieter de Carpentier was born in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

in 1586, shortly after the fall of the city to the

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance peoples, Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of National and regional identity in Spain, national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex Hist ...

. He studied philosophy in

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

, from 1603. In 1616 he sailed on board the sailing vessel ''De Getrouwheid'' to Indonesia. There he had a number of functions, including Director-General of the Trade, Member to the

Council of the Indies The Council of the Indies ( es, Consejo de las Indias), officially the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies ( es, Real y Supremo Consejo de las Indias, link=no, ), was the most important administrative organ of the Spanish Empire for the Amer ...

, and member of the Council of Defence. From 1 February 1623 to 30 September 1627 he was the fifth

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 ...

. He participated in the conquest of

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

and helped to build the town of

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

. He did much for the town, including setting up a school, a Town Hall, and the first Orphanage Home. He also designed the structure of the churches in the town. On 12 November 1627 Pieter de Carpentier sailed from the East Indies as Head of the Fleet. He arrived in Holland on 3 June 1628, with five richly-laden merchant ships, and this, combined with the fact that the Government had recently succeeded in releasing three ships from an embargo laid upon them by the English a year previously, led the authorities to determine to send another fleet of eleven ships to the East, with which General Jacob Specks was to sail. Two ships and a yacht being soon ready to sail, the senate sent them to

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 ...

so as to lose no time. These vessels were the ''Batavia'' (under

Francisco Pelsaert Francisco Pelsaert ( – September 1630) was a Dutch merchant who worked for the Dutch East India Company best known for his role as the commander of the . The ship ran aground in the Houtman Abrolhos, off the coastal regions of Western Aust ...

) the ''Dordrecht'' (under Isaac van Swaenswyck) and the ''Assendelft'' (under Cornelis Vlack). They left Texel for their destination on 28 October 1628. De Carpentier was made member of the board of the

(VOC) in October 1629. His maternal uncle, Louis Delbeecque, had been one of the initiators of the VOC. Pieter de Carpentier married Maria Ravevelt in Middelburg on 2 March 1630. She died in September 1641 and was buried on in the

Westerkerk The Westerkerk (; en, Western Church) is a Reformed church within Dutch Protestant Calvinism in central Amsterdam, Netherlands. It lies in the most western part of the Grachtengordel neighborhood ( Centrum borough), next to the Jordaan, betwe ...

in Amsterdam. De Carpentier died in Amsterdam on 5 September 1659, and was also buried in the Westerkerk. They had seven children. When

Jan Carstenszoon Jan Carstenszoon or more commonly Jan Carstensz In Dutch patronyms ending in -szoon were almost universally abbreviated to -sz was a 17th-century Dutch explorer. In 1623, Carstenszoon was commissioned by the Dutch East India Company to lead an e ...

(or Carstensz) and Willem van Coolsteerdt landed the ''Pera'' and the ''Arnhem'' on the west coast of

Cape York Peninsula Cape York Peninsula is a large peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest unspoiled wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth’s last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación ...

of New Holland (now Australia) in 1623, after the first discovery by

Willem Janszoon Willem Janszoon (; ), sometimes abbreviated to Willem Jansz., was a Dutch navigator and colonial governor. Janszoon served in the Dutch East Indies in the periods 16031611 and 16121616, including as governor of Fort Henricus on the island of S ...

in the ''

Duyfken ''Duyfken'' (; Little Dove), also in the form ''Duifje'' or spelled ''Duifken'' or ''Duijfken'', was a small ship built in the Dutch Republic. She was a fast, lightly armed ship probably intended for shallow water, small valuable cargoes, bri ...

'' in 1606, they then named the '

' after the Governor-General, Pieter de Carpentier.

References

''Western Australia: a history from its discovery to the inauguration of the Commonwealth'' by J S Battye (1924) Chapter 1.
* Much of the information for this article was provided by Mr Jaap de Carpentier Wolf, a descendant of Pieter de Carpentier. * The source of the image of Pieter de Carpentier is "''Genealogy of the De Carpentier familie of Holland'' by Edwin Jaquett Sellers, ,Allen, Lane & Scott, USA, Philadelphia 1909." The original oil painting of this ''gravure'' is hanging in The Hague in one of the buildings of the governmental heart of The Netherlands, the ''Binnenhof''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Carpentier, Pieter de 1580s births 1659 deaths Businesspeople from Antwerp Governors-General of the Dutch East Indies Gulf of Carpentaria 17th-century Dutch East Indies people 17th-century Dutch colonial governors Maritime history of the Dutch East India Company