Background
All that is known of his early years is that he was born in Amsterdam, the son of Pieter Rijnst (1510–1574), soap boiler, and Trijn Sijverts.
All that is known of his early years is that he was born in Amsterdam, the son of Pieter Rijnst (1510–1574), soap boiler, and Trijn Sijverts.
This company then in 1602 merged into the Dutch East India Company (VOC). On the request of his elders in the college of the Heren XVII (17 men), he became Governor-general of the Dutch East Indies in 1613 and left with 9 ships. The trip lasted 18 months, after which he took over command from Pieter Both.
On the way, he had already sent one of his ships to the Red Sea to start trade relations with the Arabs there.
He died more than a year after arrival, having caught dysentery so that he could do little there, besides a few minor activities that were only intermittently successful. In 1588 in Haarlem Reijnst married Margriet Niquet, daughter of the wealthy merchant and art-collector Jean Niquet (1539–1608) from Antwerp.
