François Valentijn

Who was François Valentijn?

François Valentijn was a Dutch minister, naturalist and author whose Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën describes the history of the Dutch East India Company and the countries of the Far East.

François Valentijn was born in 1666 in Dordrecht, Holland, where he lived most his life; however, he is known for his activities in the tropics, notably in Ambon, in the Maluku Archipelago. Valentijn read theology and philosophy at the University of Leiden and the University of Utrecht before leaving for a career as a preacher in the Indies.

In total, Valentijn lived in the East Indies 16 years. Valentijn was first employed by the V.O.C. at the age of 19 as minister to the East Indies, where he became a friend of the German naturalist Georg Eberhard Rumpf. He returned and lived in Holland for about ten years before returning to the Indies in 1705 where he was to serve as army chaplain on an expedition in eastern Java. He finally returned to Dordrecht where he found time to write his Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën a massive work of five parts published in eight volumes and containing over one thousand engraved illustrations and some of the most accurate maps of the Indies of the time.