Background
Johan Bax was probably the grandson of Joan Bax, governor of Heusden and Muiden. His father Willem Maurits, a captain in the Dutch States Army under Willem Ripperda, married Jeanette Hoefijser in 1630 in Deventer.
Johan Bax was probably the grandson of Joan Bax, governor of Heusden and Muiden. His father Willem Maurits, a captain in the Dutch States Army under Willem Ripperda, married Jeanette Hoefijser in 1630 in Deventer.
Agriculture developed during his term and he is recognized as contributing to the development of Botany and Ethnobiology. He declared two wars with the Khoikhoi. In 1631 Willem moved to Amsterdam, and according to François Valentijn, Johan Bax was born in 1637 in "s-Hertogenbosch.
He started his service with the Dutch East India Company around 1656.
The following year he arrived in Batavia with Hendrik van Rheede and Isaac de l"Ostal de Saint-Martin. In 1663 he was involved in the attack on the Malabar coast under Rijckloff of Goens, in 1667 he stayed in Cochin.
In 1669 at the age of 32, Johan Bax married Aletta Hinloopen (1649–1680), the daughter of Jacob Fransz Hinlopen in Batavia. Bax served as the successor to Van Rheede in Colombo and Galle.
There he and Aletta had a daughter who died within a year.
Bax was governor of the Dutch Cape Colony for two years, during which the status of the Cape Colony was reduced by the Dutch East India Company. Huydecoper sent Bax a gardener from Maarssen. He was named governor of Ceylon on 25 October 1678, but died and was buried on 4 July after a chest infection.
Due to a shortage of slaves in the Dutch Cape Colony, his widow Aletta sold some of her slaves from Malabar before departing for Batavia.