Janus Henricus Donker Curtius

Jan Hendrik Donker Curtius
Photograph of Donker Curtius 1862, The Hague
Born	(1813-04-21)April 21, 1813 Arnhem, Netherlands
Died	November 27, 1879(1879-11-27) (aged 66) Arnhem, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Occupation	Diplomat

Jan Hendrik Donker Curtius (21 April 1813 – 27 November 1879) was the last Opperhoofd of the Dutch trading post in Japan (1852-1855), located at Dejima an artificial island in the harbor of Nagasaki. To negotiate with the Japanese government for a treaty, he received the title "Dutch Commissioner in Japan" in 1855.

Curtius was born in Arnhem in the Netherlands, as the son of Hendrik Herman Curtius, a theologian. He grew up in Arnhem and studied law at Leiden University. To further his career prospects, he accepted a position as a judge at the High Court in Semarang in the Netherlands East Indies. He married a relative (Cornelia Hendrika Donker Curtius, died 8 November 1860) while on home leave in Amsterdam, and his first son, Boudewijn, was born at Semarang in 1836. His second son, Jan Hendrik, born at Batavia in 1849.

In July 1852, he was appointed to the post of Opperhoofd, the chief of the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (the successor to the Dutch East India Company) trading post in Nagasaki, Japan. Since the beginning of the seventeenth century, the ruling Tokugawa shogunate of Japan pursued a policy of isolating the country from outside influences. Foreign trade was maintained only with the Dutch and the Chinese and was conducted exclusively at Nagasaki.By the early nineteenth century, this policy of isolation was increasingly under challenge. In 1844, King William II of the Netherlands sent a letter urging Japan to end the isolation policy on its own before change would be forced from the outside. The Dutch had also warned the Japanese of the Perry Expedition, and urged that Japan conclude a treaty of friendship and commerce with the Dutch government before a more onerous one was forced upon them by the Americans. In early August 1853, Russian vice admiral Yevfimy Putyatin arrived at Nagasaki with a fleet of four vessels, just one month after the visit to Perry to Uraga in an attempt to force the opening of Japan. At the time, Russia was at war with Great Britain (the Crimean War), and alarmed at the possibility that Russia would obtain the upper hand in Japan, Royal Navy vice admiral Sir James Stirling, commander of the East Indies and China Station led a fleet of British warships to Nagasaki on September 7, 1854. Stirling requested the assistance of Curtius to reaffirm Japan’s neutrality in the conflict, but through a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings, the negotiations ended with the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty of 1854.