Hendrik Caspar Romberg (bapt. 11 October 1744 - 15 April 1793) [1] was a Dutch bookkeeper, merchant-trader and VOC Opperhoofd in Japan.
Hendrik Caspar Romberg (bapt. 11 October 1744 - 15 April 1793) [1] was a Dutch bookkeeper, merchant-trader and VOC Opperhoofd in Japan.
Hendrik Caspar Romberg was the son of Zacharias Romberg, a bookprinter/seller on Spui in Amsterdam. [2] Hendrik was baptized not in the opposite Lutheran church, but at home. [3] In 1763 he traveled to Batavia in East Asia with the Dutch East Indies Company (or Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC in Dutch). Ten years later he was appointed in Deshima as bookkeeper. Romberg spent more than ten years in Japan. It seems he was good-looking had an affair with a Japanese prostitute. [4]
He was the Opperhoofd, head of VOC trading post, during four discrete periods:
Romberg traveled five times to Edo. [6] In an 1789 (May 1) he attended a theater performance in Osaka.https://brill.com/display/book/9789004473591/BP000052.xml (p. 595) ref>http://www.librairie-du-cardinal.com/userfiles/LDC_Cat_AS.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]</ref> In April 1787 he presented the lord of Satsuma a sweet wine from Jurançon. [7] In 1788 he met with Shiba Kōkan, interested in Western painting, and technique. [8] Romberg's account of the Sangoku-maru is a scant record of the brief attempt by the Tokugawa shogunate to create a sea-going vessel in the 1780s. The ship sank; and the tentative project was abandoned when the political climate in Edo shifted. [9]
In the off-years, he spent time in Batavia, which was at that time the VOC headquarters in the East Indies. [10] The registers also listed him as chief warehouseman and paymaster. [11]
Dejima or Deshima, in the 17th century also called Tsukishima, was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1854). For 220 years, it was the central conduit for foreign trade and cultural exchange with Japan during the isolationist Edo period (1600–1869), and the only Japanese territory open to Westerners.
Arai Hakuseki was a Confucianist, scholar-bureaucrat, academic, administrator, writer and politician in Japan during the middle of the Edo period, who advised the shōgun Tokugawa Ienobu. His personal name was Kinmi or Kimiyoshi (君美). Hakuseki (白石) was his pen name. His father was a Kururi han samurai Arai Masazumi.
Tanuma Okitsugu was a chamberlain (sobashū) and a senior counselor (rōjū) to the shōgun Tokugawa Ieharu of the Tokugawa Shogunate, in the Edo period of Japan. Tanuma and his son exercised tremendous power, especially in the last 14 years of shogun Ieharu's reign. He is known for the economic reforms of the Tenmei era and rampant corruption. He was also a daimyō of the Sagara Domain. Tanuma used the title Tonomo-no-kami.
Tenmei (天明) is a Japanese era name for the years between the An'ei Era and before the Kansei Era, from April 1781 through January 1789. The reigning emperor was Kōkaku Tennō' (光格天皇).
An'ei (安永) was a Japanese era name after Meiwa and before Tenmei. This period spanned the years November 1772 through March 1781. The reigning emperors were Go-Momozono-tennō (後桃園天皇) and Kōkaku-tennō (光格天皇).
Genbun (元文) was a Japanese era name after Kyōhō and before Kanpō. This period spanned the years from April 1736 through February 1741. The reigning emperor was Sakuramachi-tennō (桜町天皇).
Opperhoofd is a Dutch word that literally translates to "upper-head", meaning "supreme headman". The Danish cognate overhoved, which is a calque derived from a Danish pronunciation of the Dutch or Low German word, is also treated here. The standard German cognate is Oberhaupt.
Shiba Kōkan, born Andō Kichirō (安藤吉次郎) or Katsusaburō (勝三郎), was a Japanese painter and printmaker of the Edo period, famous both for his Western-style yōga paintings, in imitation of Dutch oil painting styles, methods, and themes, which he painted as Kōkan, and his ukiyo-e prints, which he created under the name Harushige, but also producing forgeries of the works of Suzuki Harunobu. He is said to have boasted of his ability to forge the great master so well. He also was engaged in Western learning (Rangaku) in the field of astronomy.
Isaac Titsingh FRS was a Dutch diplomat, historian, Japanologist, and merchant. During a long career in East Asia, Titsingh was a senior official of the Dutch East India Company. He represented the European trading company in exclusive official contact with Tokugawa Japan, traveling to Edo twice for audiences with the shogun and other high bakufu officials. He was the Dutch and VOC governor general in Chinsura, Bengal.
Johannes Thedens was Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 6 November 1741 until 28 May 1743.
Hendrik Godfried Duurkoop was a Dutch merchant-trader and VOC Opperhoofd in Japan. During his career with the Dutch East Indies Company, he worked on Dejima, a small artificial island in the harbor of Nagasaki, Japan.
Nagasaki bugyō (長崎奉行) were officials of the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo period Japan. Appointments to this prominent office were usually fudaidaimyōs, but this was amongst the senior administrative posts open to those who were not daimyōs. Conventional interpretations have construed these Japanese titles as "commissioner", "overseer" or "governor".
Toki Yoritoshi was a Japanese daimyō of the Edo period. He served in a variety of positions in the Tokugawa shogunate, including Kyoto Shoshidai (1734–1732) and rōjū.
VOC opperhoofden in Japan were the chief traders of the Dutch East India Company in Japan during the period of the Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the Edo period.
Timon Screech was professor of the history of art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London from 1991 - 2021, when he left the UK in protest over Brexit. He is now a professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) in Kyoto. Screech is a specialist in the art and culture of early modern Japan.
Kuze Hirotami (久世広民) (1737–1800), also known as Kuze Tango-no-kami Hirotami (久世丹後守広民), was a Japanese politician during late 18th-century Nagasaki bugyō or governor of Nagasaki port, located on southwestern shore of Kyūshū island in the Japanese archipelago. Kuze was one of the Nagasaki bugyō between 1775 and 1784. His childhood name was Shōkurō (称九郎). His only daughter married Uesugi Yoshinaga.
Matsudaira Tadachika was a Japanese fudai daimyō of the Edo period. He was highly influential in the Tokugawa shogunate under Shōgun Ieshige.
Leopold Willem Ras (1760s–1823) was a Dutch merchant-trader and diplomat.
Illustrations of Japan is a book on Japanese culture by the Dutch merchant and diplomat Isaac Titsingh. The book was first published posthumously in French under the editorship of his friends Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat and Heinrich Julius von Klaproth in 1820, followed by an English edition in 1822 and a Dutch edition in 1824.