Pieter Pieterszoon Heyn (25 November 1577-18 June 1629) was a Dutch privateer-turned-admiral who fought against Spain and Portugal during the Dutch Revolt and Dutch-Portuguese War. He was killed at Ostend in battle with Spanish privateers in 1629.
Biography[]
Heyn was the son of a sea captain, and was born in Rotterdam, a major port of the United Provinces. While still a teenager he became a sailor but was captured by the Spanish and forced to become a galley slave. He was exchanged for Spanish prisoners but from 1603 to 1607 he again served as a slave after he was captured near Cuba.
In 1607, Heyn joined the Dutch East India Company (VOC) but in 1618 he was pressed into the service of the Venetian Republic, but he escaped in 1621 and in 1622 became a member of the government of Rotterdam. He did not even have citizenship, but because his cousin was a burgomaster, he was allowed to hold the rank. In 1623 Heyn was made the Vice-Admiral of the VOC of the United Provinces and in 1624 he attacked Portuguese Brazil. He captured the settlement of Salvador in Brazil and attacked a Portuguese fleet in the bay of Luanda in present-day Angola on the west coast of Africa. After Salvador was recaptured Heyn returned home, but the VOC gave him command of a new squadron in 1626.
He captured 30 Portuguese merchant ships that set sail from Brazil after recapturing Salvador in 1627, and after these feats he again returned to the United Provinces. He paired up with Witte de With and in 1628 attacked and defeated the Spanish treasured fleet at Matanzas Bay off Cuba, taking almost 12 million guilders worth of silver. Heyn was the first and last man to capture that much of silver from Spain. The money funded the Dutch Army for eight months.
In March 1629 he took Maarten Tromp as his flag officer and set out to deal with the Spanish privateers operating against the Dutch from Dunkirk, and at Ostend his flotilla intercepted three privateers. After a half-hour battle a cannonball hit his left shoulder, killing him.