Jacob Christian Pielaat

Jacques Christian or Jacob Christiaan Pielat (sometimes Pielaat) (27 August 1692, Rotterdam – c. 3 August 1740, Loosduinen) was the 22nd Governor of Ceylon during the Dutch colonial time from 2 December 1732 until 27 January 1734.

Pielat was the sixth child of Phinéas Pielat (1645–1700), a Protestant minister originally from the Principality of Orange, and his second wife Jeanne de Vernatti. Pielat joined the Dutch East India Company and worked his way up to opperkoopman (upper-merchant) in the Dutch Indies. From at least 1720 he was captain and charged with the military accompaniment of goods from Patna to the Dutch factory in Hugly in Dutch Bengal. After a period of being secunde ("vice-governor") in Ternate, he succeeded Johan Happon as governor of Ternate from 1728–29 to 1731. Subsequently, he was appointed Extraordinary Councillor of India. In that capacity, he was sent to Ceylon as a commissioner to investigate the state of the Dutch East India Company Trading post of Ceylon. He reported his findings as a "memoir" for new governor Diederik van Domburg, and returned to the Netherlands where he would die 8 years later. He was buried on 6 August 1740 in The Hague. His surviving son Diederik Christiaan would become mayor of Schiedam.