[1] Renowned for providing the impulse that set the VOC on the path to dominance in the Dutch East Indies, he was long considered a national hero in the Netherlands.

Since the 19th century, his legacy has become controversial due to the brutal violence he employed in order to secure a trade monopoly on nutmeg, mace and clove.

[4] A famed quote of his from 1618, Despair not, spare your enemies not, for God is with us, illustrates his single-minded ruthlessness, and his unstinting belief in the divinely-sanctioned nature of his project.

Using such self-professed divine sanction to violently pursue his ultimate goal of trade monopoly in the East Indies, Dutch soldiers acting on Coen's orders perpetrated numerous wanton acts of destruction in the spice islands of (now) eastern Indonesia, including the infamous Banda Massacre of 1621.

The purpose of this was to gain a monopoly upon the supply of nutmeg and mace in order to sustain artificially high prices and profits for the Dutch investors of the VOC.

In 1601, he travelled to Rome, to study trade in the offices of the Fleming Joost de Visscher, where he learned the art of bookkeeping.

[6] After his return to the republic in 1610, Coen submitted an important report on trade possibilities in Southeast Asia to the company's directors.

On 25 October 1617, the Heren XVII of the VOC appointed him as the fourth governor-general in the East Indies, of which he was informed on 30 April 1618.

Thus the Dutch, at the price of heavy military and naval investment, slowly gained control of the area's rich spice trade.

Many thousands of inhabitants were massacred[citation needed] and replaced by slave labor from other islands to make way for Dutch planters.

In 1625, he married Eva Ment, and in 1627 departed incognito for the East Indies with his wife, their newborn child and her brother and sister, starting work on 30 September 1627.

Since the 19th century, his legacy has become controversial due to the violence he employed, especially during the last stage of the Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands, which is widely considered a genocide.

[11][12] Following a citizen's initiative, in 2012 the city council placed an additional text on the statue's pedestal, explaining the controversial nature of Coen's actions and legacy, and detailing some of his atrocities.