Salomon Sweers (15 June 1611 in

Nijmegen Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...

– 2 March 1674 in Amsterdam) was a bookkeeper and a counsel 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 c ...

. His younger brother was Admiral Isaac Sweers employed by the

Admiralty of Amsterdam The Admiralty of Amsterdam was the largest of the five Dutch admiralties at the time of the Dutch Republic. The administration of the various admiralties was strongly influenced by provincial interests. The territory for which Amsterdam ...

Early life

Salomon Sweers was the son of Aernout Sweerts, a member of 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'', ...

, and Alida van Bronckhorst. In 1628 the family moved to Amsterdam, when his father became a representative in the East India Company.

East India period

Seventeen-year-old Salomon joined the East India Company VOC as a clerk. In 1632 Sweers left for the East, under the command of Antonie van Diemen, who protected him. In 1638 in Batavia he married Catharina Jans, a widow from Hoorn. Together they paid a visit to their homeland. In 1640 he undertook a second journey to Batavia, being appointed to the Council of India. Together with Antonie van Diemen, Cornelis Witsen, Cornelis van der Lijn and Joan Maetsuycker, Sweers was involved in the two expeditions of

Abel Tasman Abel Janszoon Tasman (; 160310 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first known European explorer to reach New ...

. Tasman named several islands after members of the Council, as here can be seen. In 1646 he left Batavia again, after being accused of "private trade".

Frederick Coyett Frederick Coyett (), born in Stockholm c. 1615 or 1620, buried in Amsterdam on 17 October 1687, was a Swedish nobleman and the last colonial governor for the Dutch colony of Formosa. He was the first Swede to travel to Japan and China and became ...

took charge of his goods.

Later life

In 1649 Sweers bought a house on next to Johannes van Rensselaer,

Patroon In the United States, a patroon (; from Dutch '' patroon'' ) was a landholder with manorial rights to large tracts of land in the 17th century Dutch colony of New Netherland on the east coast of North America. Through the Charter of Freedom ...

of the

Manor of Rensselaerswyck The Manor of Rensselaerswyck, Manor Rensselaerswyck, Van Rensselaer Manor, or just simply Rensselaerswyck ( nl, Rensselaerswijck ), was the name of a colonial estate—specifically, a Dutch patroonship and later an English manor—owned by the ...

in the

New Netherlands New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva P ...

. In 1653 he became involved in the upbringing of Jacques Specx's children. In 1661 his wife died. In 1662 he remarried Elisabeth Bicker, a daughter of Andries Bicker. Four years later he remarried a widow in Rotterdam.

Legacy

Sweers Island in 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 ...

() was named by

Matthew Flinders Captain (Royal Navy), Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first littoral zone, inshore circumnavigate, circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland ...

in 1802, a name it still carries. Flinders gave it this name as an honour to the Dutch who had been there before him, and hence this eight by two kilometre island is indeed named after Salomon Sweers. The Sweers Islands in van

Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a sep ...

(Tasmania) were named by Abel Tasman in November 1642, but the exact location of these islands remains unknown. Tasman also named 'Salomon Suwers (Sweers) hoeck' or Salomon Sweers Cape on the northern coast of Lavongai ( New Hanover) in the

Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about 50,000 square km. History The first inhabitants o ...

, north-east of

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

during the 1642 journey, and in 1644 Tasman named the Sweers River in the

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, Australia. This river's probable location is Investigator Road (in which case it was not a river), the strait between Bentinck and Sweers Island, two of the

South Wellesley Islands The South Wellesley Islands is an island group and locality in the Gulf of Carpentaria within the Shire of Mornington, Queensland, Australia. The group is separate from the Wellesley Islands. Bentinck Island is the only one known to have ...

. None of these names are in use today.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sweers, Salomon 1611 births 1674 deaths Bookkeepers People from Nijmegen Sailors on ships of the Dutch East India Company