Jacob Gotfried Haafner (Halle, 13 May 1754 – Amsterdam, 4 September 1809) was a German-Dutch travel writer who lived in and wrote extensively on India and Ceylon.

[2] Jacob Gotfried Haafner was born in Halle, Holy Roman Empire on 13 May 1754 to a French father and a German mother.

In 1768, Jacob Haafner enlisted as a cabin boy on a ship bound for Batavia (modern Jakarta, then capital of the Dutch East Indies).

[3] Tired of the sailor's life, he settled in the town and worked in the factory as an assistant bookkeeper from 1773 to 1778, learning Tamil and conducting private trade on the side.

During the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780-1784), he was taken prisoner and held in Madras, where he witnessed the struggle between the British army and Hyder Ali, the Sultan and de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, and the famine that crippled the city in 1782.

To a certain extent, the writer idealized the subcontinent while criticizing the English, among others, for causing havoc and suffering among the local population: "Rascals, squanderers, criminals, bankrupts, and other bad people, every one runs to the Indies, to oppress the poor Indians, to plunder them, and to kill them.

[13] In 1805, Haafner entered the annual essay contest organized by Teylers Eerste Genootschap (English: Teyler's First Society), also known as the Godgeleerd Genootschap (Theological Society), for a cash prize to the question: What has been the use of missionary work in the overseas world in the past and what could possibly be done to improve this work in the future?