Jacob Kops, SV/PROG

The first Fifty Years Project http://www.e-family.co.za/ffy/g7/p7257.htm

Born circa 1680 at Weeshuis, Batavia.

I always wondered why this grandfather was in the orphanage. Then I found this article on the internet:

"The sexual behaviour of its employees was always a problematic area for the Company. Established in 1602 and soon to become the most successful and profitable of the new breed of international trading companies, the VOC had an estimated 4,500 Europeans in its employ in Asia by 1625, a figure which had risen to 11,550 by 1687. Most of these were soldiers and sailors (of many nationalities, not only Dutch) and nearly a tenth were in government and trade. Probably the single most important Company policy affecting their sexual behaviour was the decision to allow Dutch women to go only to garrisoned outposts, notably Batavia which had become the VOC capital in 1619. Initially they were encouraged to do so on five- or ten-year contracts in order to find husbands and enlarge the settlement. But the earliest arrivals tended to be of low character, unsuited to the tropical climate, extravagant in their financial demands on the Company and apt to repatriate once they had married. By the 1630s the VOC had ended the scheme and Dutch women usually only went East after that if they were the wives or daughters of senior officials. The VOC now encouraged its employees to marry local women, who in many cases had first to be freed from slave status. The rationale was that Asian women had fewer material needs, produced healthier children and wanted to remain in the East. From 1639 on their husbands were obliged by law to stay, too. Thus was the way prepared for the growth of Batavia’s distinctive Eurasian or ‘Mestizo’ population and culture.

In undefended, purely commercial, outposts Dutch women were not allowed at all, which was a cause of much resentment. Sometimes the best-qualified person for a post had to step aside for an inferior candidate simply because he was already married. VOC employees who did not want to marry local women were left with little option but to resort to concubines and prostitutes. Abstinence was too difficult for most and the high mortality rate among employees fostered an ‘enjoy life while you can’ attitude. Even high officials partook of this behaviour, sometimes lavishly, while soldiers and sailors, at the other end of the scale, could perhaps only afford the services of prostitutes occasionally. Many of these relationships were abusive and unruly and resulted in abandoned children. Early on, the board of directors in Amsterdam (known as the Heeren XVII or Seventeen Gentlemen) tried to ban such permissive behaviour, not surprisingly without much success. Over time they realised the advantages of having many single employees: they could live in simple accommodation, their expenses were generally fewer and they could be sent on missions and relocated to new outposts without much fuss. Their associations with ‘loose women’ were the inevitable price that had to be paid. The VOC directors never ceased, though, to be concerned about the dangers of debauchery and drunkenness among the Company’s employees."

For full article, go to: http://www.historytoday.com/peter-murrell/sin-and-sodomy-dutch-east...

• Reference: FamilySearch Family Tree - SmartCopy: Dec 2 2020, 22:09:18 UTC