page_title: Jan Pieterszoon Coen
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Jan Pieterszoon Coen / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: STANDBEELD J.P.ZN COEN: Exterieur STANDBEELD OP DE RODE STEEN This is an image of rijksmonument number 22612
context_page_description: Jan Pieterszoon Coen was an officer of the Dutch East India Company in the early 17th century, holding two terms as Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. He was the founder of Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies. Renowned for providing the impulse that set the VOC on the path to dominance in the Dutch East Indies, he was long considered a national hero in the Netherlands. Since the 19th century, his legacy has become controversial due to the violence he employed, especially during the last stage of the Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands, in order to secure a trade monopoly on nutmeg, mace and clove.
  A famed quote of his from 1618, Despair not, spare your enemies not, for God is with us, illustrates his single-minded ruthlessness, and his unstinting belief in the divinely-sanctioned nature of his project. Using such self-professed divine sanction to violently pursue his ultimate goal of trade monopoly in the East Indies, Dutch soldiers acting on Coen's orders perpetrated numerous wanton acts of destruction in the spice islands of eastern Indonesia, including the infamous Banda Massacre of 1621.
context_section_description: He was long considered a national hero in the Netherlands. Since the 19th century, his legacy has become controversial due to the violence he employed, especially during the last stage of the Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands, in order to secure a trade monopoly on nutmeg and clove.
  Coen was known in his time on account of strict governance and harsh criticism of people who did not share his views, at times directed even at the 17 Lords of the VOC (for which he was reprimanded). Coen was known to be strict towards subordinates and merciless to his opponents. His willingness to use violence to obtain his ends was too much for many, even during such a relatively violent age. When Saartje Specx, a girl whom he had been entrusted to care for, was found in Coen's private quarters in the arms of a soldier, Pieter Cortenhoeff, Coen showed no mercy in having Cortenhoeff beheaded. Specx was below the age of 14 and could therefore not receive the death penalty. Although this meant she escaped death through drowning, she was sentenced to be flogged in public instead.
caption: Statue in Hoorn, Coen's hometown
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