Jan Jansz Weltevree
Jan Janse de Weltevree (1595 – not known) was a Dutch sailor and likely the first Dutch visitor to Korea. His adventures were recorded in the report by Dutch East India Company accountant Hendrik Hamel. Hamel stayed in Korea from 1653 to 1666.
| Jan Jansz Weltevree | |
| Hangul | 박연 |
|---|---|
| Hanja | 朴淵 / 朴燕 |
| Revised Romanization | Bak Yeon |
| McCune–Reischauer | Pak Yǒn |
Biography
Jan Janse de Weltevree was born around 1595, according to Hendrik Hamel in De Rijp, though other sources speak of Vlaardingen. He signed on the ship 'Hollandia' and went on 17 March 1626 to the Dutch East Indies. He arrived in 1627 from Batavia, Dutch East Indies on the ship 'Ouwerkerck'. On 16 July 1627 the 'Ouwerkerck' with its captain Jan Janse de Weltevree captured a Chinese junk and its 150-man crew bound for the port of Amoy, China. Seventy Chinese were brought aboard the Ouwerkerck. Jan Janse de Weltevree, Dirk Gijsbertsz from De Rijp, and Jan Pieterse Verbaest from Amsterdam, all from Holland, along with thirteen other Dutch crewmen went aboard the junk to sail the vessel to Tainan, Formosa. The Ouwerkerck reached safe harbor after battling a fierce summer storm that swept the area.[1][2]
The storm-tossed Chinese junk carrying the hapless Dutch and Chinese ended up on the shores of an island off Korea's west coast, during the reign of the Joseon Dynasty. Although the details of what happened next are unclear, the Chinese, with a five-to-one advantage, overpowered the Dutch survivors, captured Jan Janse de Weltevree, Dirk Gijsbertsz and Jan Verbaest, and handed them over to the Korean Joseon authorities.[1]
After being captured, the three Dutch survivors were sent to Seoul and were ordered to produce artillery weapons as part of the Capital Defense force. During the Qing invasion of Joseon in 1636, Gijsbertsz was killed in action. Even after the war, Weltevree stayed as a member of Capital Defense force and served as a commander of division consisting of former Japanese or Chinese prisoners of war. He soon naturalized to Joseon and took the name Park Yeon (박연, Park is a Korean surname.) He married a Korean woman with whom he had two children. Moreover, in 1648, Weltevree passed the civil service exam and became a proper Korean official.[3]
According to Jan Janse de Weltevree, the two other captives from the Ouwerkerck were killed in 1636 during a raid of the Manchu.[4] They would have fought in the Korean army.
In 1653 the ship 'De Sperwer' was wrecked en route from Jakarta to Nagasaki, with Hendrick Hamel on board, and Jan Janse de Weltevree acted as a translator and adviser. This group of 36 Dutchmen stayed in Korea for 13 years, working as military advisors to the Joseon Army, until 8 of them escaped to Nagasaki in 1666. Hendrick Hamel authored the accounts of his stay in Korea, from which we hear about Jan Janse de Weltevree.
Legacy
Besides the Great Church in De Rijp is a statue of Jan Jansz. A replica of this was erected in 1991 in the capital, Seoul.
See also
References
- "A Dutch Privateer in Joseon". Koreanhistoryproject.org. Archived from the original on February 10, 2012. Retrieved February 16, 2012.
- "The Journal of Hamel and Korea; Jan Janse Weltevree Jan Janse Weltevree in the introduction Jan Janse Weltevree is called a mysterious person. Comparison of the texts in which he is mentioned gives us some contradictions, which are difficult to explain. For instance Hamel mentions in his Journael that he and his mates saw Weltevree for the last time in 1656 at the ferry over the river Han near Seoul and that they never heard anything of him again".
- Cheon 2013, p. 258-259.
- Gari Ledyard "The Dutch Come to Korea", page 26. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 70-177936
Further reading
Cheon, Ho-su (2013). 한국군사인물연구(조선편II).