Person1630 – 1692

Hendrick Hamel

Dutch East India Company sailor shipwrecked on Jeju; after 13 years he escaped and wrote the first Western account of Korea

In 1653 his ship, bound for Nagasaki, was wrecked on Jeju; through the Dutchman Weltevree (Bak Yeon), already in Korea, he was sent to the capital. Assigned to the Military Training Command and later scattered across Jeolla, he escaped to Japan by boat with comrades in 1666. His account (Hamel's Journal) was the first detailed description of Joseon in the West.

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1 related event

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1653 – 1666Hamel’s shipwreckparticipant
The Dutch ship Sperwer was wrecked on Jeju. Hendrick Hamel and his crew spent 13 years in Joseon before escaping, and his account introduced Korea to Europe.

Related works

Book: Hamel's JournalBook · 2003 · Hendrick Hamel (tr. Kim Tae-jin) · Seohae Munjip
TV episode: Naked Korean History Episode 38: Why Was the Dutchman Hamel Flogged in Joseon?TV episode · 2023 · Heo Tae-gu · tvN STORY

People who appear alongside

Hyojong1619 – 1659
Seventeenth king of Joseon; a former hostage in Qing who planned a northern campaign and sent troops against Russia

Themes this person appears in

Ming, Qing and Edo Japan1500 – 1800
The age when the Ming, shaken by northern raiders, southern pirates and the silver economy, fell to Li Zicheng’s rebels, and the Manchu Qing reached its greatest extent and prosperity under Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong — as Japan was unified out of the Warring States into the Edo shogunate’s bakuhan order and closed country, and Joseon, after two great wars, met its neighbours through embassies to Edo and the Northern Learning
Islamic Empires and the Atlantic World1500 – 1800
Three centuries in which the Ottomans of Suleiman I, the Mughals of Akbar and the Safavids of Abbas I flourished and then faltered, while across the Atlantic the slave trade and colonies transformed the Americas, leading to American independence
Reformation and Absolutism1517 – 1796
From Luther’s Ninety-five Theses to Catherine the Great — the wars of religion of a divided Christendom ended at Westphalia, and absolute monarchs armed with divine right, standing armies, bureaucracies and mercantilism, followed by the enlightened despots of eastern Europe, contended for the balance of power among sovereign states
Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment and the English Revolutions1543 – 1796
The Scientific Revolution from Copernicus to Newton, parliamentary government in England won through the Puritan and Glorious Revolutions, and the Enlightenment that sought to remake society by reason — the groundwork of the civic revolutions and the Industrial Revolution
Jeju Island1270 – 1948
From Tamna to Jeju — the Sambyeolcho’s last stand, Yuan horse ranches, castaways and exiles, and the island of April 3