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Daendels

Herman Willem Daendels
Posthumous Portrait of Herman Willem Daendels, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies - Rd Saleh.jpg
Posthumous portrait by Raden Saleh
Governor-General of the Dutch Gold Coast
In office
9 December 1815 – 30 January 1818
Preceded by Abraham de Veer
Succeeded by Frans Christiaan Eberhard Oldenburg
Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies
In office
1808–1811
Preceded by Albertus Henricus Wiese
Succeeded by Jan Willem Janssens
Personal details
Born (1762-10-21)21 October 1762
Hattem, Gelderland, Dutch Republic
Died 2 May 1818(1818-05-02) (aged 55)
St. George d'Elmina, Dutch Gold Coast (now part of Ghana)

Herman Willem Daendels (21 October 1762 – 2 May 1818) was a Dutch politician who served as the 36th Governor General of the Dutch East Indies between 1808 and 1811.

Born in Hattem, Netherlands, on 21 October 1762, Daendels was the son of Burchard Johan Daendels, the mayoral secretary, and Josina Christina Tulleken. He studied law at the University of Harderwijk, acquiring his doctorate on 10 April 1783.

In 1785, he sided with the Patriots, who had seized power in several Dutch cities. In 1786 he defended the city of Hattem against stadholderian troops. In 1787, he defended Amsterdam against the Prussian army that invaded the Netherlands to restore William V of Orange. After William V was in power again, he fled to France because of a death sentence. Daendels was a close witness to the French revolution.

He returned to the Netherlands in 1794, as a general in the French revolutionary army of general Charles Pichegru and commander of the Batavian Legion. Daendels helped unitarian politician Pieter Vreede to power in a coup d'état on 25 January 1798. The group behind Vreede was dissatisfied with the conservative-moderate majority in parliament, which tried to prevent the formulation of a more democratic, centralistic constitution. The reign of Vreede did not bring the expected results, however, and Daendels supported another coup d'état against Vreede on 14 June 1798. In the Batavian Republic Daendels occupied several political offices, but he had to step down when he failed to prevent the Anglo-Russian Invasion of Holland in 1799, and he became a farmer in Heerde, Gelderland.


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