Melchior van Santvoort

Melchior van Santvoort (c. 1570 – 1641) was and one of the first Dutchmen in Japan, arriving as one of William Adams's shipmates on the De Liefde, which was wrecked on the coast of Kyūshū in 1600. He remained in Japan, where he was a merchant in Nagasaki 39 years.

About Van Santvoort‘s early years nothing is known. The De Liefde departed Rotterdam in 1598, on a trading voyage and attempted a circumnavigation of the globe. The 24 survivors shipwrecked on the coast of Bungo Province in Japan were received by future Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, who questioned them at length on European politics and foreign affairs. Van Santvoort invested heavily in good relations with the shogun, freely sharing his knowledge of shipbuilding, navigation and cartography. He was allowed to leave Japan with the Liefde's Captain Jacob Quaeckernaeck on 1604 on a Red Seal Ship provided by the daimyo of Hirado, with the destination of Pattani in the Malay Peninsula. From Pattani, Quaeckernaeck joined the fleet of Cornelis Matelief de Jonge, his cousin and compatriot, on August 19, 1606 and was killed in combat against the Portuguese at Malacca a few days later. Van Santvoort returned to Japan.

Van Santvoort was only able to return to Japan in 1609, in the company with Jacques Specx, a Dutch merchant with a cargo he wished to sell in Hirado. At Hirado, Van Santvoort served as interpreter. He assisted the VOC envoys, Abraham van den Brock and Nicolas Puyck during their diplomatic mission to visit the Shogun in Sumpu and in Edo. The mission was well received and resulted in permission to establish a trading post. Van Santvoort together with another former crewmember of the Liefde, Jan Joosten van Lodensteijn, reportedly made a fortune in trade between Japan and Southeast Asia. Both of them were reported by Dutch traders in Ayutthaya, onboard richly cargoed junks, in early 1613. He was also reported to have married “Isabella” a Japanese woman, the daughter of a carpenter. One of his daughters married Willem Verstegen and another married Pieter van Santen. He operated his business in Nagasaki, but continued to maintain close contact with his compatriots in Hirado.

However, the rule of Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada and his son, Tokugawa Iemitsu was increasing hostile to foreign contact. Christianity was banned in 1614, and from 1634 the Dutch traders came into conflict with Chinese merchants in Nagasaki. In 1639, an order came from the Shogun that (with the exception of the VOC merchants at Dejima) all Europeans, their Japanese spouses, and any half-Japanese children were to be expelled from Japan. Van Santvoort left for Batavia via Taiwan, where he died in 1641.

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