TheAmboyna massacre[1] (also known as theAmboyna trial)[2] was the 1623 torture and execution onAmbon Island (present-dayAmbon, Maluku,Indonesia) of twenty-one men, including ten in the service of the EnglishEast India Company, as well as Japanese and Portuguese traders and a Portuguese man,[3] by agents of theDutch East India Company (VOC), on accusations oftreason.[4] It was the result of the intense rivalry between the East India companies ofEngland and theUnited Provinces in thespice trade and remained a source of tension between the two nations until late in the 17th century.
From its inception, theDutch Republic was at war with the Spanish crown (which was in adynastic union with the Portuguese crown from 1580 to 1640). In 1598 the king of Spain embargoed Dutch trade with Portugal, and so the Dutch went looking for spices themselves in the areas that had been apportioned to Portugal under theTreaty of Tordesillas. In February, 1605Steven van der Hagen, admiral of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), conquered the Portuguese fortress of Victoria at Amboyna,[5] thereby taking over the Portuguese trading interests at Victoria. Like other European traders[6] they tried to obtain a localmonopsony in the spice trade by keeping out thefactors of other European countries by force of arms. This especially caused strife with the English East India Company[7] while the actions of the interloper SirEdward Michelborne incensed the Dutch.[8] Unavoidably, the national governments got involved, and this threatened the congenial relations betweenJames I of England and the DutchStates General.
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Amboyna massacre" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(February 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
King James I and the Netherlands States General caused the two warring companies to conclude aTreaty of Defence in London in 1619 creating cooperation in the East Indies. The market in spices was divided between them in a fixed proportion of two to one (both companies having legal monopolies in their home markets); a Council of Defence was instituted inBatavia that was to govern the merchants of both companies; most important, those merchants were now to share trading posts peacefully, though each company was to retain and police the posts it had occupied. The Dutch interpreted this latter provision to mean that each company had legal jurisdiction over the employees of both companies in the places it administered. Contrarily, the English maintained, on the basis of the arbitration-article 30 of the treaty, that only the Council of Defence would have jurisdiction over employees of the "other" company. This proved to be an important difference of opinion in the ensuing events.
Despite the treaty, relations between the two companies remained tense. Both parties developed numerous grievances against each other including bad faith, non-performance of treaty-obligations, and "underhand" attempts to undercut each other in the relations with the indigenous rulers with whom they dealt. In the Amboyna region, local VOC-governorHerman van Speult had trouble, in late 1622, with the Sultan ofTernate, who showed signs of intending to switch allegiance to the Spanish. Van Speult suspected the English of secretly stirring up these troubles.[9]
As a result, the Dutch at Amboyna became suspicious of the English traders that shared the trading post with them. These vague suspicions became concrete when in February 1623 one of the Japanese mercenary soldiers (ronin, or masterlesssamurai in the employ of the VOC[10]) was caught in the act of spying on the defenses of the fortress Victoria. When questioned under torture the soldier confessed to a conspiracy with other Japanese mercenaries to seize the fortress and assassinate the governor. He also implicated the head of the English factors,Gabriel Towerson, as a member of the conspiracy. Subsequently, Towerson and the other English personnel in Amboyna and adjacent islands were arrested and questioned.[11] In most, but not all cases,[12] torture was used during the questioning.[13] Torture consisted of having water poured over the head, around which a cloth was draped, bringing the interrogated repeatedly close to suffocation (this is today calledwaterboarding). This was the usual interrogative procedure in the Dutch East Indies at the time.[14] According to the English version of events, even more sadistic forms of torture were used. The accused conspirators were stretched on therack, subjected to flame, stabbed, and several had their limbs blown off bygunpowder.[15] This was later disputed by the Dutch.[11] According to Dutch trial records, most suspects confessed that they were guilty as charged, with or without being tortured. Since the accusation was treason, those that had confessed (confession being necessary for conviction underRoman Dutch law) were sentenced to death by a court consisting of the governor and Council of the VOC at Amboina. However, four of the English and two of the Japanese condemned were subsequently pardoned.[16] Consequently, ten Englishmen,[17] nine Japanese[18][19][20][21][22] and one Portuguese[23] (the latter being employees of the VOC), were executed. On 9 March 1623 they were beheaded, and the head of the English captain, Gabriel Towerson, was impaled on a pole for all to see. The incident ended any hope of Anglo-Dutch cooperation in the area, a goal that both governments had been pursuing for several years, and marked the beginning of Dutch ascendancy in the Indies.
In the summer of 1623, the Englishmen who had been pardoned and acquitted sailed to Batavia and complained to the Dutch governor-generalPieter de Carpentier and the Council of Defence about the Amboyna affair, which they said was a false accusation based upon a fantasy and that the confessions had been obtained only by severe torture. When they were unable to obtain redress in Batavia, they traveled to England, accompanied by the English factor at Batavia. Their story caused an uproar in England. The directors of the EIC asked that the English government demand reparations from the VOC and exemplary punishment of the Amboina judges from the Dutch government.
According to the English ambassadorSir Dudley Carleton, the version of events as he presented it also caused much anger at the VOC in Dutch government circles. However, the VOC soon presented its version of events which contradicted the English version in essential respects. The Dutch States General proposed a joint Anglo-Dutch commission of inquiry to establish the facts, but the suggestion was rejected by the English as too time-consuming. The Dutch did not want to execute the culprits of the torture and executions summarily as the English wished, so the States General commissioned an inquiry bydelegated judges from the highest courts in the Dutch republic to investigate the matter. The Amboyna judges were recalled from the East-Indies and put under house arrest.[24]
The trial progressed slowly because the court of inquiry wished to cross-examine the English witnesses. The English government balked at this demand because it felt it could not compel the witnesses to travel to the Republic. Besides, as the English based their case on the incompetence of the court to try employees of the EIC (according to the English interpretation of the Treaty of Defence), the executions wereipso facto illegal in the English view and, therefore, constituted ajudicial murder. This contention could be decided without an examination of the witnesses. The Dutch, however, maintained that the court at Amboyna had been competent and therefore concentrated their inquiry on possible misconduct of the judges.[25]
The English witnesses traveled to the Dutch republic in 1630 with SirHenry Vane the Elder. They were made available to the court under restrictive conditions.[26] The draft-verdict of the court (an acquittal of the accused) was presented to the new English kingCharles I in 1632 for approval (as agreed beforehand by the two governments). It was rejected, but the accused judges were released by the Dutch authorities.[27]
As part ofTreaty of Westminster (1654) which ended theFirst Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654), a binationalarbitration committee was established which ordered that reparations be paid by the VOC to the heirs of the English victims of the massacre.[2] Towerson's heirs and others received £3,615 and the EIC £85,000 from the VOC.[28]
The East India Company was unhappy with the outcome, and in 1632 its directors published an exhaustive brochure, comprising all the relevant papers, with extensive comments and rebuttals of the Dutch position.[29] The Dutch had already sought to influence public opinion with an anonymous pamphlet, probably authored by its secretary,Willem Boreel in 1624. At the time, ambassador Carleton had procured its suppression as a "libel" by the States General. However, an English minister inFlushing,John Winge, inadvertently translated it and sent it to England, where it displeased the East India Company.[30]
The East India Company brochure contained the gruesome details of the tortures, as related in its original "Relation".[11] The massacre was used as casus belli for theFirst Anglo-Dutch War, and the brochure was reprinted as "A Memento for Holland" (1652).[31] The Dutch lost the war and were forced to accept a condition in the1654 Treaty of Westminster, calling for the exemplary punishment of any surviving culprits.[32] However, no culprits appear to have been still alive at the time. Moreover, after arbitration on the basis of the treaty, the heirs of the English victims were awarded a total of £3615 in compensation.[33]
The brochure and its allegations also played a role at the start of theSecond Anglo-Dutch War. One of the casus belli used for the annexation of the Dutch colonyNew Netherland was the Amboyna Massacre.[34] TheTreaty of Breda (1667) ending this war appeared to have finally settled the matter.
However, during theThird Anglo-Dutch War, the matter was again raised in a propagandistic context.John Dryden wrote a play, entitled "Amboyna or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants", apparently at the behest of his patron who had been one of the chief negotiators of theSecret treaty of Dover that caused England's entry into that war. The play embellishes the affair by attributing the animus of Governor Van Speult against Gabriel Towerson to an amorous rivalry between the (fictitious) son of the governor and Towerson over an indigenous princess. After the son rapes the princess, Towerson kills the son in a duel. The governor then takes his revenge in the form of the massacre.[35]
Jonathan Swift refers to the massacre in Book 3, Chapter 11 of Jonathan Swift's novelGulliver's Travels (1726).Lemuel Gulliver pretends to be a "Hollander" and boards a Dutch ship named theAmboyna when he leavesJapan. He conceals from the crew the fact that he has not performed the ceremony demanded by the Japanese of "trampling upon the Crucifix" because, "if the secret should be discovered by my countrymen, the Dutch, they would cut my throat in the voyage."
