Cornelis Speelman

Cornelis Speelman was a governor-general of the Dutch East Indies (1681-1684) who incited the transformation of the Dutch commercial empire into the territorial one.

Speelman came to the East Indies as a youth at the age of 17 working as a clerk in the service of the Dutch East India Company. During the following years his efficiency drew the attention of the company which gave him a post of governor of the Coromandel Coast of Southeast India (1663), but he was suspended being accused of having illegally engaged in private trading.

His activities in the following years contributed to the rise of the Dutch economic and political power in the area. Speelman brought under the Dutch commercial and territorial control Macassar, an island in Indonesia; Mataram, large kingdom in Java, and he successfully established Dutch interests in Bantam, Java by eliminating foreign competition and gaining a monopoly of trade.

He died in 1684 in the Castle at Batavia.