Sunday 5 April 2020

ontdekkingsreiziger van oceaniรซ

Setting off to find the hypothetical continent of Terra Australis—conjured to exist for the sake of balancing out the globe—Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen (*1659 – †1729) from Middleburg in Zeeland first sighted Easter Island (Paaseiland, Rapa Nui, so called because it was Easter Sunday) and landed there—contacting the aboriginal Polynesian on this day in 1722.
Roggeveen’s fleet of three tall ships, the Arend, the Thienhoven and the Afrikaansche Galey with a complement of two-hundred twenty-three crewmen departed in August 1721on their voyage sponsored by the Dutch West Indian Company, a rival and in fierce competition with the Dutch East India Company (VOC, Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie which claimed a government-backed monopoly on all discoveries in the New World) and hoped to open up a westerly trade route to the Spice Islands. First they travelled through the Straits of Magellan, past the Falklands (Islas Malvinas) which he renamed Belgia Austalis, and along the Chilean coast before heading to the high seas and uncharted waters. After Easter Island, Roggeveen also visited Bora Bora, Samoa and the Society Islands before bringing his fleet to port at the colonial capital on the Malay peninsula, Batavia—the trading hub corresponding with modern day Jakarta. Roggeveen’s further adventures were severely curtailed by a protracted legal battle over his flaunting of the exploration rights of the VOC above and levied against him charges akin to piracy, a suit from which Roggeveen eventually prevailed and was vindicated and able to claim his commission.