Coen was born in
Hoorn on 8 January 1587 to a strict
Calvinist family. In 1601, he travelled to
Rome, to study trade in the offices of the Fleming Joost de Visscher, where he learned the art of bookkeeping. Joining the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1606, he made a trading voyage to the
East Indies in 1607 with the fleet of
Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff.
First VOC voyage and return (1607–1612) During the journey, Verhoeff and 42 of his men were killed during negotiations with the chiefs of the
Banda Islands. After his return to the republic in 1610, Coen submitted an important report on trade possibilities in Southeast Asia to the company's directors. As a result of this report, he was again sent overseas in 1612, with the rank of chief merchant.
Second VOC voyage and promotion (1612–1617) On the second trip, he acquitted himself so well of his commission and notable by the success of his practice of commerce, that in October 1613, he was appointed as accountant-general of all VOC offices in the East Indies and president of the head offices in
Bantam and
Sunda Kelapa. In 1614, he was made director-general, second in command. On 25 October 1617, the
Heren XVII of the VOC appointed him as the fourth governor-general in the East Indies, of which he was informed on 30 April 1618.
Conquest of Jayakarta and Banda (1618–1622) As a merchant and Calvinist, Coen was convinced of the necessity of strict enforcement of contracts entered into with Asian rulers. He accordingly aided Indonesian princes against their indigenous rivals or against other European powers and was given commercial monopolies for the company in return. Thus the Dutch, at the price of heavy military and naval investment, slowly gained control of the area's rich spice trade. Between 1614 and 1618, Coen secured a clove monopoly in the
Moluccas and a nutmeg monopoly in the Banda Islands. The inhabitants of Banda had been selling the spices to the English and other Indonesians tribes owing to their offering better prices, despite contracts with the Dutch, which obliged them to sell only to the VOC, at low prices. In 1621, he led the
Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands, using Japanese mercenaries. After encountering some fierce resistance, mostly by cannons that the natives had acquired from the English, they took the island of Lonthor by force. 2,800 inhabitants were massacred and replaced by slave labor from other islands to make way for Dutch planters. Of the 15,000 inhabitants it is believed only about a thousand survived on the island. Eight hundred people were deported to Batavia. Because of disputes at the head office in
Bantam with natives, the Chinese, and the English, the VOC desired a better central headquarters. Coen thus directed more of the company's trade through
Jakarta, where it had established a factory in 1610. However, not trusting the native ruler, he decided in 1618 to convert the Dutch warehouses into a fort. While away on an expedition, the English took control of the town. Coen managed to reconquer Jakarta in 1619, with fire destroying most of the town during the process. He rebuilt the city and fort, thus founding the new Dutch town over the ruins of its predecessor, which he forthwith proclaimed the capital of the Dutch East Indies. == Legacy ==