Gerrit de Haan: Mocha tot Djeddah

Nationaal Archief, 4. VELH 156.2,16.

[Geerit de Haan, 1761]:

[Mocha tot Djeddah].

[Mocha to Jeddah].

1 kaart: ms op papier, gekleurd, 875 ´ 520 cm.

1 map: ms on paper, coloure, 875 ´ 520 cm.

Orientatie: het noorden is rechts.

Orientation: north is right.

Gerrit de Haan was the chief-map-maker (baaskaartenmaker) of the VOC (the Dutch East India Company) in Batavia, the Company’s trading center in Asia, from 1748 to 1769. In the second half of the seventeenth century, a map-maker-shop (kaartenmakerswinkel) was opened in Batavia under the supervision of a chief-map-maker who was responsible for supplying charts to ships returning to the home country or sailing to various trading posts of the Company. Being a chief-map-maker made De Haan capable to finish compiling a two-volume manuscript atlas Ligtende zeefakkel off de geheele Oost-Indische Waterweerelt (Blazing Beacon or the Whole of the East India Sea World), which illustrates the coasts and waters between the Cape of Good Hope and Japan, in the years 1760-1761. The first volume of this atlas was completed in 1760 and contains mainly the part of the VOC charter area lying to the east of Sunda Strait. The second volume covers principally the areas of land and sea between the Cape of Good Hope and the west coast of Sumatra, plus the west coast of Australia and the coasts of Java, and was concluded in February 1761. The atlas is partly based on the surveys and charts by earlier map-makers, like Joan Blaeu (1596-1673) and Victor Victorsz. However, comparing with the previous maps, most of the charts in the atlas are less accurate. This sea-chart here is taken from this atlas.

The chart shows the Red Sea between two important trading ports, Mocha and Jeddah. The Dutch established a chief factory in Bandar Abbas, the Persian Gulf in the 1620’s, which made the Arab world become a part of the Company’s trading network in Asia. Mocha, as now a port city on the Red Sea coast of Yemen, is famous for being the major marketplace for coffee from the 15^th century until the 17^th century. It was also the principal trading port along the Red Sea for the Europeans during that time.