Golijath, Cornelis Bastiaensz (Cornelis de Goliath)

Cornelis Bastiaensz Goliath (1617 - Fall 1660) was a Dutch cartographer, surveyor, and colonial administrator active in the first half of the 17th century. Goliath was born in Schiedam, South Holland, the eldest of 5 children of sea captain and herring fisherman Bastiaen Jacobsz and Maertgen Cornelisdr. His father joined the WIC as captain of the Neptunis and participated in the conquest of Recife, Brazil. It is likely that Cornelius was on this voyage, where he may have picked up some cartographic trains from the cartographer and fellow passenger Johannes van Walbeeck. Both father and son settled in Brazil in 1634, where despite being just 17, he worked as a cartographer under Admiral Johan Cornelisz Lichthart. In 1635, after the Dutch conquest of Porto Calvo, he was awarded with the position of commis (Customs Officer). When the Portuguese retook Porto Calvo later in the same year, Cornelius' father died in the combat and Cornelius himself was taken prisoner to San Salvador, Portuguese capital in Brazil, then to Lisbon, then released to the Netherlands. He returned to Brazil in 1637 on a reconnaissance mission (read spy) anticipating the captain of Johan Maurits to conquer San Salvador. During this map he composed at least two maps, which certainly must have been a great help to the planned attack, which nonetheless failed. Cornelius remained in Brazil, establishing himself at the cartographic institution of Recife. Over the subsequent two years, he produced detailed maps of most parts of Dutch Brazil. Also from this period a hydrographic manuscript atlas survives in the Netherlands National Archives. He attempted to return to the Netherlands in 1641, but the ship was captured by pirates between Madeira and Lisbon and Cornellius is among those taken to Algeria's as a prisoner and sold into slavery. Despite being a slave, he manages to produce an excellent map of Algiers, which in 1642 is set to Johan Maurits. Goliath is eventually released and is back in Schiedam in 1643. A year later, he marries Margareta Droochbroots in Rotterdam. By this time, he has become a sea captain with his own ship, de Oranjeboom, which makes at least one voyage to Recife, returning with a cargo of sugar and wood. Perhaps exhausted after such an adventurous life ,he returns to the Netherlands to settle in 1648 to settle on the Zeeland island of Walcheren. There is services as a bailiff and secretary in Oostkapelle, and works on the side as an engineer. Still, excitement would follow him. ON a trip to Middleburg in 1656 two men attempted to murder him, though he manages to fight them off with his rapier, killing one, and landing himself in legal trouble for doing so. Figuring he better leave town for a while, he volunteers for an administrative position in the colony of Essequibo (Guyana), which had been recently taken over by the cities of Middelburg, Vlissingen, and Veere. He seems happy there, and produced several maps, but in the fall of 1660, word reached Holland that he died in Cumana, near the mouth of the Orinoco.