| Jan Jansz. Weltevree | |
|---|---|
| Hangul | 박연 |
| Hanja | 朴淵 / 朴燕 |
| Revised Romanization | Bak Yeon |
| McCune–Reischauer | Pak Yǒn |
Jan Janse Weltevree (1595 – ?) is a Dutch sailor and probably the first Dutchman to visit Korea. His adventures were recorded in the report by Dutch East India Company accountant Hendrik Hamel. Hamel stayed in Korea from 1653 to 1666.
Weltevree was born around 1595, according to Hamel in De Rijp, though other sources speak of Vlaardingen. He signed on the ship 'Hollandia' and went on March 17, 1626 to Dutch East Indies. There, he arrived in 1627 from Jakarta on the ship 'Ouwerkerck'. On July 16, 1627, the Dutch privateer Ouwerkerck captured a Chinese junk and its 150-man crew bound for the port of Amoy, China. Seventy Chinese were brought aboard the Ouwerkerck. Ship's navigator Jan Janse Weltevree, Dirk Gijsbertsz from De Rijp, Holland, and Jan Pieterse Verbaest from Amsterdam, along with thirteen other Dutch crewmen went aboard the junk to sail the vessel to Tainan, Formosa. Only the Ouwerkerck reached safe harbor after battling a fierce summer storm that swept the area.[1]
The storm-tossed Chinese junk carrying the hapless Dutch and Chinese ended up on the shores of an island off Choson's west coast. Although the details of what happened next are unclear, the Chinese, with a five-to-one advantage, overpowered the Dutch survivors, captured Jan Weltevree, Dirk Gijsbertsz and Jan Verbaest, and handed them over to Choson authorities.[2]
In The Joseon Dynasty at that time, there was an isolation policy so the captured privateers could not leave the country. Jan Janse took the name Pak Yǒn (박연, Pak is a Korean surname.) and was an important government official. Jan Janse married a Korean woman with whom he had two children.
According Weltevree, the two others were killed in 1636 during a raid of the Manchu.[3] They would have fought in the Korean army.
Then in 1653 the ship 'De Sperwer' was wrecked en route from Jakarta to Taiwan, with Hendrik Hamel on board, and Jan Janse as a translator and adviser to the King.
Besides the Great Church in De Rijp is a statue of Jan Jansz. A replica of this was erected in 1991 in Seoul.