Herman van Speult

Herman van Speult was a Dutch merchant in the service of the Dutch East India Company best known for his role in affair named “The Amboyna massacre”.

Formerly employed in Spain “whence he came, if report be true, full of the pox”, van Speult left the Texel Island in 1613 and after ten months of travel he finally reached Bantam in Java.

Three years later, in 1618 van Speult was appointed governor of Amboyna, the principal Dutch center for the spice trade. The Dutch who established virtual monopoly of spice trade in Moluccas and other Indonesian islands, were exceptionally caution regarding activities of traders from other countries.

In such a context took place the incident in 1623, when van Speult ordered the execution of 10 Englishmen, 10 Japanese and one Portuguese strongly convinced that they planned to kill him and to expel the Dutch from the island as soon as an English ship arrived to support them.

The “Amboyna massacre” as it was called, marked the end of hopes on Anglo-Dutch cooperation in the area, and convinced England to focus on the Indian soil instead.