Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff

Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff (c. 1573 – 22 May 1609) was a Dutch admiral of the Admiralty of Amsterdam, notable for his voyage to Asia between 1607 and 1612.

Verhoeff was in the service of the Dutch East India Company. In 1601, he was involved in the Siege of Ostend as part of the Eighty Years War. During the Battle of Gibraltar, in 1607, he was flag captain of the Aeolus, the flagship of Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk.

He died during an expedition to the Banda Islands, where he and many of his crew were ambushed and murdered by locals while negotiating with them for the Dutch East India Company. This assassination was a direct cause of the Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands (1609–1621).