- Louis De Geer (1587-1652)
Louis
De Geer , (Liège ,17 november 1587 , -Amsterdam ,19 june 1652 ) was a Walloon/Dutch merchant and industrialist. He is considered the father of Swedish industry for introducing Walloonblast furnace s in Sweden. He producedcannon s for the Germanprotestant movement, but also for the Dutch admirals and theDutch East India Company and theDutch West India Company .Biography
De Geer was born in Liège/Luik in what today is considered
Belgium . He was a brother-in-law of the famous Dutch authorP.C. Hooft . In those days Liège was already famous for itsiron ore . Hij settled as acoppersmith inRouen and in 1611 eventually reachedDordrecht . When he earned his fortune as a banker and industrialist he moved to Amsterdam in 1615. Due to his numerous travels he received a good education in the business.With the outbreak of the
Thirty Years War the call for weapons increased enormously. In 1618 De Geer delivered weapons toGustavus Adolphus of Sweden , the Swedish king. Impressed by his business instincts theSwedish Crown allowed him to lease estates nearFinspång ,Östergötland in eastern Sweden proper. Before long, De Geer had established a formidable workshop industry there. In 1623 he was active in a Swedish trading company.The Swedish Crown continued to support him and De Geer received the monopoly on the
copper andiron trade. De Geer, who embraced Sweden as his second mother country, immigrated to Sweden in 1627. He hoped to evadetoll inde Sont . In 1634 he bought het Huis met de Hoofden on theKeizersgracht in Amsterdam. His wife died after the birth of their sixteenth child.In 1640 De Geer traveled again to Sweden en was ennobled. In his new status he was able to buy 3/4th of the leased farmlands. His home in
Stockholm is nowadays the Dutch embassy in Sweden.Working for Axel Oxenstierna he went to Amsterdam for support in the war against Denmark. In 1644, at the start of the
Torstenson War againstDenmark , he singlehandedly equipped an armada of ships to sail towards Denmark. This fleet contained a completemarine , 32 ships with sailors, weaponry and officers. The Swedish were able to conquerFehmarn in Denmark, thanks to this aid. De Geer is also considered responsible for theSwedish Africa Company . When he founded this company a riot started in Amsterdam in 1649. His family also gave the pacifist and humanistComenius “onderdak” in his home in Amsterdam. He died in 1662 after falling ill during another voyage to Sweden. He returned to Amsterdam and died there.
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