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Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny
In 1628 the Dutch East India Company loaded the Batavia, the flagship of its fleet, with a king’s ransom in gold, silver, and gems for her maiden voyage to Java; the ship itself was a tangible symbol of the world’s richest and most powerful monopoly.
The company also sent along a new employee to guard its treasure. He was Jeronimus Corneliszoon, a disgraced and bankrupt man with great charisma and dangerously heretical ideas. With the help of a few disgruntled sailors, he hatched a plot to seize the ship and her riches. The mutiny might have succeeded, but in the dark morning hours of June 3, 1629, the Batavia smashed through a coral reef and ran aground on a small chain of islands near Australia. The captain and skipper escaped the wreck, and in a tiny lifeboat they set sail for Java—some 1,500 miles north—to summon help. More than 250 frightened survivors waded ashore, thankful to be alive. Unfortunately, Jeronimus and the mutineers had survived too, and the nightmare was only beginning.
The company also sent along a new employee to guard its treasure. He was Jeronimus Corneliszoon, a disgraced and bankrupt man with great charisma and dangerously heretical ideas. With the help of a few disgruntled sailors, he hatched a plot to seize the ship and her riches. The mutiny might have succeeded, but in the dark morning hours of June 3, 1629, the Batavia smashed through a coral reef and ran aground on a small chain of islands near Australia. The captain and skipper escaped the wreck, and in a tiny lifeboat they set sail for Java—some 1,500 miles north—to summon help. More than 250 frightened survivors waded ashore, thankful to be alive. Unfortunately, Jeronimus and the mutineers had survived too, and the nightmare was only beginning.
512 pages, Paperback
First published February 12, 2002
About the author
Mike Dash
16 books93 followersMike Dash, the author of Tulipomania, Batavia's Graveyard, Thug, Satan's Circus and now The First Family, was born, in 1963, just outside London, and educated at Gatow School, Berlin, Wells Cathedral School, Somerset, and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he read history and ran the Cambridge student magazine. From there he moved on to King's College, London, where in 1990 he completed an unusually obscure PhD thesis describing British submarine policy between the Crimean and the First World Wars.
Dash's first job, for which he was thoroughly unqualified, was compiling about a quarter of the entries for Harrap's Dictionary of Business and Finance (1988), a volume that he researched via clandestine meetings in a London Spud-U-Like with a college friend who had gone into banking. From there, he began a six-year career in journalism book-ended by stints as a gossip columnist for Fashion Weekly and a section editor at UK Press Gazette, the journalists' newspaper.
While still at UKPG, Dash took a phone call from John Brown, the maverick publisher of Viz, who asked him to suggest the names of some possible magazine publishers with an editorial background and some knowledge of the newstrade, Unsurprisingly nominating himself, Dash found himself hired to take over the eccentric portfolio of Viz Comic and Gardens Illustrated.
Dash's first book, The Limit (1995), was published by BBC Books and his second, Borderlands (1997) by Heinemann. He has since written five works of historical non fiction, all of them acclaimed for combining detailed original research with a compelling narrative style.
Having written his first three books while still with John Brown Publishing, Dash has been a full-time writer since 2001. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
'History doesn't get much more readable.'
New York Daily News
'Dash writes with unabashedly cinematic flair, backed by meticulous research.'
New York Times
'Dash captures the reader with narrative based on dogged research, more richly evocative of character and place than any fiction, and so well written he is impossible to put down.'
The Australian
'An indefatigable researcher with a prodigious descriptive flair.'
Sunday Telegraph
'Dash writes the best kind of history: detailed, imaginative storytelling founded on vast knowledge.'
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Dash's first job, for which he was thoroughly unqualified, was compiling about a quarter of the entries for Harrap's Dictionary of Business and Finance (1988), a volume that he researched via clandestine meetings in a London Spud-U-Like with a college friend who had gone into banking. From there, he began a six-year career in journalism book-ended by stints as a gossip columnist for Fashion Weekly and a section editor at UK Press Gazette, the journalists' newspaper.
While still at UKPG, Dash took a phone call from John Brown, the maverick publisher of Viz, who asked him to suggest the names of some possible magazine publishers with an editorial background and some knowledge of the newstrade, Unsurprisingly nominating himself, Dash found himself hired to take over the eccentric portfolio of Viz Comic and Gardens Illustrated.
Dash's first book, The Limit (1995), was published by BBC Books and his second, Borderlands (1997) by Heinemann. He has since written five works of historical non fiction, all of them acclaimed for combining detailed original research with a compelling narrative style.
Having written his first three books while still with John Brown Publishing, Dash has been a full-time writer since 2001. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
'History doesn't get much more readable.'
New York Daily News
'Dash writes with unabashedly cinematic flair, backed by meticulous research.'
New York Times
'Dash captures the reader with narrative based on dogged research, more richly evocative of character and place than any fiction, and so well written he is impossible to put down.'
The Australian
'An indefatigable researcher with a prodigious descriptive flair.'
Sunday Telegraph
'Dash writes the best kind of history: detailed, imaginative storytelling founded on vast knowledge.'
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 341 reviews
May 29, 2023
In typical fashion, the author opens with a prologue filled with the thrills and excitement of the Batavia hitting the reef at night. The 341 people on board - mostly men, but also women and children, attempting to stay alive and on board long enough to be ferried to the coral island from the wreck. It was 4 June 1629, the Batavia was a Dutch VOC East Indiaman, and was the flagship of a trading fleet on her maiden voyage on her way to her namesake in Indonesia - the Spice Islands, at the time.
To find out where they were, why she was alone if she was the flagship, and who all the souls who were shipwrecked were, the author goes deep into the back ground of the primary antagonists and protagonists, and we don't return to the site of the shipwreck for nearly 100 pages! For me, while the deep dive into the live of Jeronimus Cornelisz, the Under-Merchant; to Dutch politics, religion and trade; the VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) and its stranglehold on the spice trade; and the recent history of the ship was a little too deep, and really tested my resilience. I was close to skipping ahead, and getting back to the reef. But, finally we return to learn not only about the shipwreck, but a mutiny planned prior to this!
The reef that was struck, we are told is a part of the Houtman Abrolhos, a chain of small islands off the west coast of Australia. Australia in 1629 has perhaps been reached by other shipwreck victims, but none who have returned to 'civilisation'. Of the 341 people on the ship, around 300 are ferried to a nearby coral island, a quick search of which shows it has no fresh water. Hasty plans are made, and the Upper-Merchant (who is essentially empowered by the company to outrank the captain), the captain and some of the more senior sailors depart in a longboat to seek water. They head for Terra Australis - the mainland, but the coast in this region is incredibly harsh, made up of high cliffs and dangerous shorelines. Eventually they travel so far that they set off for the Spice Islands, in the hope of coming across other ships for rescue.
An adult Lord of the Flies is often called up in reviews, and for good reason. The remainder of the people are led by a group of senior men, including the Under-Merchant, who is the highest ranking man - from the company. It is he who sets about, albeit subtly, in a reign of terror, moving men who he perceives as a threat to other islands, and then reducing the numbers on the island to save what food and water are left. I won't detail more here, as there is much of (gruesome) interest to the reader with the time spent on the islands.
In due course the Upper Merchant returns with a rescue crew - to be fair the company were far more interested in recovering the chests of silver and jewels than the survivors - and they try to unravel the goings on from the lies and denials. The men are tried for their actions on the island, and for the mutiny planned.
This book is not without a slow section, but otherwise meticulously researched, with a long bibliography and almost a hundred pages of notes, this book goes into great detail, and is, for the most part, riveting reading.
If I was otherwise critical, the author seems determined not to consistently refer to the people in a single way. For example - Jeronimus Cornelisz, the Under-Merchant. He is referred to as Jermonimus, or Cornelisz, or the Under-Merchant, or the apothecary , or the Captain-General (his self imposed title on the island). Bearing in mind he does this with more than one person, it gets really quite unnecessarily confusing. To me the Dutch names are confusing at the best of times, especially with a few of the people having similarities in their names too!
Still, recommended. 4 stars.
To find out where they were, why she was alone if she was the flagship, and who all the souls who were shipwrecked were, the author goes deep into the back ground of the primary antagonists and protagonists, and we don't return to the site of the shipwreck for nearly 100 pages! For me, while the deep dive into the live of Jeronimus Cornelisz, the Under-Merchant; to Dutch politics, religion and trade; the VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) and its stranglehold on the spice trade; and the recent history of the ship was a little too deep, and really tested my resilience. I was close to skipping ahead, and getting back to the reef. But, finally we return to learn not only about the shipwreck, but a mutiny planned prior to this!
The reef that was struck, we are told is a part of the Houtman Abrolhos, a chain of small islands off the west coast of Australia. Australia in 1629 has perhaps been reached by other shipwreck victims, but none who have returned to 'civilisation'. Of the 341 people on the ship, around 300 are ferried to a nearby coral island, a quick search of which shows it has no fresh water. Hasty plans are made, and the Upper-Merchant (who is essentially empowered by the company to outrank the captain), the captain and some of the more senior sailors depart in a longboat to seek water. They head for Terra Australis - the mainland, but the coast in this region is incredibly harsh, made up of high cliffs and dangerous shorelines. Eventually they travel so far that they set off for the Spice Islands, in the hope of coming across other ships for rescue.
An adult Lord of the Flies is often called up in reviews, and for good reason. The remainder of the people are led by a group of senior men, including the Under-Merchant, who is the highest ranking man - from the company. It is he who sets about, albeit subtly, in a reign of terror, moving men who he perceives as a threat to other islands, and then reducing the numbers on the island to save what food and water are left. I won't detail more here, as there is much of (gruesome) interest to the reader with the time spent on the islands.
In due course the Upper Merchant returns with a rescue crew - to be fair the company were far more interested in recovering the chests of silver and jewels than the survivors - and they try to unravel the goings on from the lies and denials. The men are tried for their actions on the island, and for the mutiny planned.
This book is not without a slow section, but otherwise meticulously researched, with a long bibliography and almost a hundred pages of notes, this book goes into great detail, and is, for the most part, riveting reading.
If I was otherwise critical, the author seems determined not to consistently refer to the people in a single way. For example - Jeronimus Cornelisz, the Under-Merchant. He is referred to as Jermonimus, or Cornelisz, or the Under-Merchant, or the apothecary , or the Captain-General (his self imposed title on the island). Bearing in mind he does this with more than one person, it gets really quite unnecessarily confusing. To me the Dutch names are confusing at the best of times, especially with a few of the people having similarities in their names too!
Still, recommended. 4 stars.
Read
September 8, 2021Where to begin.
Non-fiction story of a seventeenth-century shipwreck. A Dutch East India company ship carrying over 300 people, chests of silver coins and the prefabricated gateway to the fort at Batavia (Jakarta) ran aground on a coral reef 50 miles west of Australia. Most of those onboard survived. Only after they disembarked on Houtman's Abrolhos, a misery inducing collection of low coral islands did it all start to get much worse, eventually very few manage to survive and make it to the Dutch East Indies and not because they ran out of wallabies or sea lion to eat either.
Reading this book, I thought of Lord of the Flies, but also of Rites of Passage, perhaps Golding was aware of the story, the wreck site was rediscovered in June 1963 and then comprehensively stripped over for a second the salvaged canon and the gate to the fort at Jakarta are apparently on display in Fremantle, later a replica of the ship was built in the Netherlands - this took a team of modern craftsmen ten years from the mid 80s through to the mid 90s, their predecessors knocked the original out in a few months, but then they had practise and a wharf and slipway designed to facilitate the rapid construction of such a vessel. Anyway if you can imagine the crew and passengers of Rites of Passage with their class distinctions, hierarchies, sexual tensions, habituation to casual violence, shipwrecked with little hope of rescue one might imagine that what Lord of the Flies teaches us above all is how sweet and innocent even schoolboys are compared to that more mixed group.
I also thought that it was a surprise that nobody had made a film of the story, as a film it would never be a summer blockbuster because the film classification would restrict viewing pretty sharply based on the content, it would be the kind of film only on late at night, that you'd sit through, regretting having done so afterwards and resolving to always sleep with a rolling pin by your side there after. I don't want to say much more about the actual story than that for fear of spoiling the events if you haven't been comprehensively warned off by now, let me say the reading experience is far less graphic than the action of the imagination.
Dash starts out with the outward voyage of the Batavia, there are the familiar problems of Longitude and scurvy he led the ship on to the coral reef and the evacuation and then with three hundred odd people faced with the prospect of running out of water waltzes off on the back story of the Dutch East India company and the biographies of some of the main people on board as far as they are known, he takes a leisurely hundred or so pages to get back to shipwrecked people which I felt rather careless seeing as they were thirsty and facing exposure and a not very hopefully future. Only of course when he does get back to the story that is when things really start to go wrong.
and then of course
but there is also mercy in the world and one or two of the sentences were commuted to being marooned on the western coast of Australia. There follows some speculation as to the fates of the men so treated, some writers considering the tragic propensity of men of the Nanda people to baldness as proof definite of partial Dutch ancestry , but what mere doubt can stand in the path of a receding hairline when nothing stops that tide from going out. Though Dash goes on to mention some more Dutch shipwrecks off that coast so the gentlemen so punished in this story didn't necessarily get to become a pater patriae.
With a critical hat on
Non-fiction story of a seventeenth-century shipwreck. A Dutch East India company ship carrying over 300 people, chests of silver coins and the prefabricated gateway to the fort at Batavia (Jakarta) ran aground on a coral reef 50 miles west of Australia. Most of those onboard survived. Only after they disembarked on Houtman's Abrolhos, a misery inducing collection of low coral islands did it all start to get much worse, eventually very few manage to survive and make it to the Dutch East Indies and not because they ran out of wallabies or sea lion to eat either.
Reading this book, I thought of Lord of the Flies, but also of Rites of Passage, perhaps Golding was aware of the story, the wreck site was rediscovered in June 1963 and then comprehensively stripped over for a second the salvaged canon and the gate to the fort at Jakarta are apparently on display in Fremantle, later a replica of the ship was built in the Netherlands - this took a team of modern craftsmen ten years from the mid 80s through to the mid 90s, their predecessors knocked the original out in a few months, but then they had practise and a wharf and slipway designed to facilitate the rapid construction of such a vessel. Anyway if you can imagine the crew and passengers of Rites of Passage with their class distinctions, hierarchies, sexual tensions, habituation to casual violence, shipwrecked with little hope of rescue one might imagine that what Lord of the Flies teaches us above all is how sweet and innocent even schoolboys are compared to that more mixed group.
I also thought that it was a surprise that nobody had made a film of the story, as a film it would never be a summer blockbuster because the film classification would restrict viewing pretty sharply based on the content, it would be the kind of film only on late at night, that you'd sit through, regretting having done so afterwards and resolving to always sleep with a rolling pin by your side there after. I don't want to say much more about the actual story than that for fear of spoiling the events if you haven't been comprehensively warned off by now, let me say the reading experience is far less graphic than the action of the imagination.
Dash starts out with the outward voyage of the Batavia, there are the familiar problems of Longitude and scurvy he led the ship on to the coral reef and the evacuation and then with three hundred odd people faced with the prospect of running out of water waltzes off on the back story of the Dutch East India company and the biographies of some of the main people on board as far as they are known, he takes a leisurely hundred or so pages to get back to shipwrecked people which I felt rather careless seeing as they were thirsty and facing exposure and a not very hopefully future. Only of course when he does get back to the story that is when things really start to go wrong.
and then of course
but there is also mercy in the world and one or two of the sentences were commuted to being marooned on the western coast of Australia. There follows some speculation as to the fates of the men so treated, some writers considering the tragic propensity of men of the Nanda people to baldness as proof definite of partial Dutch ancestry , but what mere doubt can stand in the path of a receding hairline when nothing stops that tide from going out. Though Dash goes on to mention some more Dutch shipwrecks off that coast so the gentlemen so punished in this story didn't necessarily get to become a pater patriae.
With a critical hat on
February 25, 2013
Batavia's Graveyard what a name for a book! I could not resist picking this book up as soon as I saw it and I am so happy that I did. It was one of the best historical tales I have read for some time. Being an Australian I knew something of the Batavia but not the full story. In fact I had examined in detail the re-constructed Batavia at the Maritime Museum in Sydney. I walked through the ship, checking out every nook and cranny on the upper and lower decks. However that was way before I read this book. I never knew of the murder and mayhem that took place off the Western Australian coastline.
This book not only gives you the full story of the voyage of the Batavia, its shipwreck, the fate of the survivors and the subsequent fate of the mutineers under Jeronimus Cornelisz. It also offers the reader a complete and compelling picture into the background to this disaster and at the same time it offers interesting stories on all the participants. By the time I was half way through the book I was furious that the mutineers had carried out their terrible deeds. The book had me caught up in the story so much it was like reading about a current disaster in the newspaper. I wanted Cornelisz and his followers to suffer untold pain and misery for their acts.
The story is well told and gripping and the author has done his research well. The author supplies the reader with numerous tidbits of information regarding this period and this never detracts from the story but adds to it. It would have been nice to have some photographs of the Islands concerned to help paint the picture of desolation and even some photos of the recently re-constructed Batavia. Regardless of these very minor criticisms this book is a great historical story and I am sure that anyone who enjoys a good history will love this book.
This book not only gives you the full story of the voyage of the Batavia, its shipwreck, the fate of the survivors and the subsequent fate of the mutineers under Jeronimus Cornelisz. It also offers the reader a complete and compelling picture into the background to this disaster and at the same time it offers interesting stories on all the participants. By the time I was half way through the book I was furious that the mutineers had carried out their terrible deeds. The book had me caught up in the story so much it was like reading about a current disaster in the newspaper. I wanted Cornelisz and his followers to suffer untold pain and misery for their acts.
The story is well told and gripping and the author has done his research well. The author supplies the reader with numerous tidbits of information regarding this period and this never detracts from the story but adds to it. It would have been nice to have some photographs of the Islands concerned to help paint the picture of desolation and even some photos of the recently re-constructed Batavia. Regardless of these very minor criticisms this book is a great historical story and I am sure that anyone who enjoys a good history will love this book.
June 7, 2010
"We have just come out of such a sorrow that the mind is still a little confused." -- Gijsbert Bastiaensz
*****
Commerce.
Psychopaths.
What do the two have in common?
If I were asked that before I read this book, I’d be glib and respond with something like “trajectory.” But no. I’ve learned it’s something called antinomianism.
If you don’t know what that means, don’t get discouraged. I didn’t either. Not right away, at least. Oh, I’m sure I’d read it before somewhere, probably years ago when I was knee-deep in Karen Armstrong and had a more particular interest in the monotheistic religions that have informed civilizations for thousands of years. But, as the irreligious say, I’ve slept since then.
Before I get to antinomianism, though, let me tell you a story. When I was a kid, I knew this other kid. We shall call him Sicko, so as to preserve his anonymity. Sicko was the first person my age I met upon moving to a new town. With adolescence looming, I was overjoyed to find myself just a few houses away from a fellow pre-teen traveler. But it soon dawned on me that age, gender and geography were poor rationales for friendship -- the two of us were completely different. I was an awkward and shy kid, but nevertheless independent, an only child who had just the year before lived in a single-parent home in Los Angeles County; contrariwise, Sicko was athletic and confident, yet oddly deferential, having been home schooled and subjected his entire life to a severely patrician Christian orthodoxy.
When my family moved again, this time within the town, Sicko and I lost touch. It wouldn't be until we were both nineteen that we found ourselves in the same social circles. By this time, Sicko's family had moved to Alaska, leaving him the solitary occupant of their 2400 square foot home. He extended an invitation to me to roommate with him and I quickly accepted. Over the next few months, I saw firsthand how manipulative and slyly sadistic he had become. Especially toward women. Sicko was a handsome guy, much more handsome than me, and there were young women at the house on various occasions. Most, however, never visited more than once. Then one night I had to rescue one of those young women from Sicko when she called out my name in distress. Soon after this incident, I moved out. I wouldn't see Sicko again for several years, whereupon I learned that he worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative, had married into a fairly prominent banking family and had developed a taste for bestiality films.
What's that saying about water seeking its own level?
Anyway, antinomianism. It is defined by wikipedia.org as "belief originating in Christian theology that faith alone, not obedience to religious law, is necessary for salvation." Jernonimus Cornelisz, the fellow at the center of this story of bloody mutiny, took this to mean that he wasn't bound by the same laws as other homo sapiens. He aspired to a life of piracy and manipulated several people into committing all manner of atrocity, the most chilling being the hanging of an infant. Then he was butchered and himself hanged.
I give this book five stars because it is meticulously researched, very well-written, and because I will remember the name Batavia for the rest of my life.
If you'd like to read more about the actual mutiny itself, the information available on Wikipedia is not contradicted by the book.
*****
Commerce.
Psychopaths.
What do the two have in common?
If I were asked that before I read this book, I’d be glib and respond with something like “trajectory.” But no. I’ve learned it’s something called antinomianism.
If you don’t know what that means, don’t get discouraged. I didn’t either. Not right away, at least. Oh, I’m sure I’d read it before somewhere, probably years ago when I was knee-deep in Karen Armstrong and had a more particular interest in the monotheistic religions that have informed civilizations for thousands of years. But, as the irreligious say, I’ve slept since then.
Before I get to antinomianism, though, let me tell you a story. When I was a kid, I knew this other kid. We shall call him Sicko, so as to preserve his anonymity. Sicko was the first person my age I met upon moving to a new town. With adolescence looming, I was overjoyed to find myself just a few houses away from a fellow pre-teen traveler. But it soon dawned on me that age, gender and geography were poor rationales for friendship -- the two of us were completely different. I was an awkward and shy kid, but nevertheless independent, an only child who had just the year before lived in a single-parent home in Los Angeles County; contrariwise, Sicko was athletic and confident, yet oddly deferential, having been home schooled and subjected his entire life to a severely patrician Christian orthodoxy.
When my family moved again, this time within the town, Sicko and I lost touch. It wouldn't be until we were both nineteen that we found ourselves in the same social circles. By this time, Sicko's family had moved to Alaska, leaving him the solitary occupant of their 2400 square foot home. He extended an invitation to me to roommate with him and I quickly accepted. Over the next few months, I saw firsthand how manipulative and slyly sadistic he had become. Especially toward women. Sicko was a handsome guy, much more handsome than me, and there were young women at the house on various occasions. Most, however, never visited more than once. Then one night I had to rescue one of those young women from Sicko when she called out my name in distress. Soon after this incident, I moved out. I wouldn't see Sicko again for several years, whereupon I learned that he worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative, had married into a fairly prominent banking family and had developed a taste for bestiality films.
What's that saying about water seeking its own level?
Anyway, antinomianism. It is defined by wikipedia.org as "belief originating in Christian theology that faith alone, not obedience to religious law, is necessary for salvation." Jernonimus Cornelisz, the fellow at the center of this story of bloody mutiny, took this to mean that he wasn't bound by the same laws as other homo sapiens. He aspired to a life of piracy and manipulated several people into committing all manner of atrocity, the most chilling being the hanging of an infant. Then he was butchered and himself hanged.
I give this book five stars because it is meticulously researched, very well-written, and because I will remember the name Batavia for the rest of my life.
If you'd like to read more about the actual mutiny itself, the information available on Wikipedia is not contradicted by the book.
June 13, 2009
read 2/04/2004
If you are planning on reading this, let me give you a heads up. What's between the covers of this book is NOT for the squeamish...I thought the story of the wreck of the Essex was bad but this takes the cake.
Batavia's Graveyard was the name given to a small island off the western coast of Australia, now known as Beacon Island. I first became aware of this story, which is true, through a wonderful program on the History Channel about recent finds on that island by archaeologists hoping to solve some of the mysteries of what exactly happened there in 1629 and the years during which the islanders, survivors of the shipwreck of the Batavia, were literally being held captive by a group of mutineers under the command/control of one single psychopathic individual. This book most definitely measures up to my rigorous standards for reading history. It is excruciatingly well documented (this author has notes & sources for every little detail).
Synopsis:
In June, 1629, a ship filled with goods, money & jewels on its way to Java (the ship belongs to the Dutch EIC) is wrecked on a reef on an uninhabited island. To his credit, the captain managed to get all of the civilians traveling on the ship off of the ship and onto the island; there were in all about 250 survivors. He left them under the charge of one Jeronimus Cornelisz, certified nutcase who believed that anything a person did, including the taking of life, was sanctioned by God.
The group divided itself onto three small islands all closely linked. What happens under his "leadership" was an outright tragedy and massacre. I won't go into specifics, but suffice it to say the Cornelisz and the gang that followed him reminded me a lot of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. I've even seen this book called the Lord of the Flies for Adults...it wasn't that bad, but it was close.
Throughout the story, the narrative of events on the islands is interspersed with details of history of the EIC; of the spice trade in general; of the process of shipbuilding in the Netherlands; of Java; pretty much anything at all connected with the story historically is brought up in here. Some parts I found to be a bit dull, but only because I'm not really interested in the history of shipbuilding. However, there's enough to keep you focused and indeed riveted when he gets around to the events on the islands and their aftermath.
I would definitely recommend this book to those who are interested in shipwrecks or maritime history. Read this book slowly (or skim through the stuff you don't really like but savor the rest), because there is a wealth of information here. The author is thorough and the writing is good.
If you are planning on reading this, let me give you a heads up. What's between the covers of this book is NOT for the squeamish...I thought the story of the wreck of the Essex was bad but this takes the cake.
Batavia's Graveyard was the name given to a small island off the western coast of Australia, now known as Beacon Island. I first became aware of this story, which is true, through a wonderful program on the History Channel about recent finds on that island by archaeologists hoping to solve some of the mysteries of what exactly happened there in 1629 and the years during which the islanders, survivors of the shipwreck of the Batavia, were literally being held captive by a group of mutineers under the command/control of one single psychopathic individual. This book most definitely measures up to my rigorous standards for reading history. It is excruciatingly well documented (this author has notes & sources for every little detail).
Synopsis:
In June, 1629, a ship filled with goods, money & jewels on its way to Java (the ship belongs to the Dutch EIC) is wrecked on a reef on an uninhabited island. To his credit, the captain managed to get all of the civilians traveling on the ship off of the ship and onto the island; there were in all about 250 survivors. He left them under the charge of one Jeronimus Cornelisz, certified nutcase who believed that anything a person did, including the taking of life, was sanctioned by God.
The group divided itself onto three small islands all closely linked. What happens under his "leadership" was an outright tragedy and massacre. I won't go into specifics, but suffice it to say the Cornelisz and the gang that followed him reminded me a lot of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. I've even seen this book called the Lord of the Flies for Adults...it wasn't that bad, but it was close.
Throughout the story, the narrative of events on the islands is interspersed with details of history of the EIC; of the spice trade in general; of the process of shipbuilding in the Netherlands; of Java; pretty much anything at all connected with the story historically is brought up in here. Some parts I found to be a bit dull, but only because I'm not really interested in the history of shipbuilding. However, there's enough to keep you focused and indeed riveted when he gets around to the events on the islands and their aftermath.
I would definitely recommend this book to those who are interested in shipwrecks or maritime history. Read this book slowly (or skim through the stuff you don't really like but savor the rest), because there is a wealth of information here. The author is thorough and the writing is good.
March 20, 2015
After reading this book, I think that under favorable circumstances, height of human cruelty could far surpass the physical height of Olympus Mons. Twice.
Because if not for the hyperinflation and the Versailles treaty, Adolf Hitler would have been a shitty painter and Hermann Göring would have been an exceptionally shitty ballet dancer.
But I never felt more confident about my assumptions (although they were derived after many complicated calculations and permutations) until I read Mike Dash's Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny.
**Minor Spoilers Ahead**
Batavia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company built in 1628 to procure spices from the East and as was the kind-of norm in the era, it was shipwrecked on her maiden voyage.
But what made this incident different from others was the horror that followed owing to the mutiny and massacre that took place amongst the survivors stranded on the reefs of Abrolhos Islands off the coast of Western Australia.
Batavia sailed under commandeur and upper-merchant Francisco Pelsaert and was captained by Ariaen Jacobsz. But the main villain of this tragedy was one frustrated under-merchant (working under upper-merchant Francisco Pelsaert), Jeronimus Cornelisz, who was a bankrupt apothecary (pharmacist) from the Netherlands who had left his wife behind forever in the Netherlands in order to escape from his creditors and find himself a comfortable life somewhere in the East, by any means. But what made Cornelisz truly dangerous was his mad belief in antinomianism: the theological doctrine that by faith and God's grace a Christian is freed from all laws (including the moral standards of the culture). Even murder. Or rape.
Mike Dash has provided detailed and interesting background information on all the major characters which mainly includes Francisco Pelsaert, Ariaen Jacobsz and Jeronimus Cornelisz. The book could be considered to be divided in two major parts. The shipwrecking is described in the first chapter and then Mike Dash delineates the chain of events that eventually led to Batavia's doom. The second half deals with the massacre committed by Cornelisz and his fellow mutineers on the islands and its aftermath.
There was some previous history between Francisco Pelsaert and the captain of Batavia, Ariaen Jacobsz who had previously encountered each other in Surat, India. The encounter had left a bitter taste in the mouth for Ariaen Jacobsz as he was publicly reprimanded, and that too quite sternly by Francisco Pelsaert regarding disciplinary issues.
So during the voyage, Jacobsz and Cornelisz (driven by his greed and beliefs) conceived a plan to take the ship by mutiny, which would allow them to start a new life as the ship contained lots of silver and moreover they also decided to get more rich by becoming pirates.
Jacobsz deliberately steered the ship off course, away from the rest of the fleet (There were more than half a dozen ships with the “Batavia”). The ship struck Morning Reef, part of the Abrolhos islands off the Western Australian coast. Of the 322 passengers aboard, 40 people drowned in the initial disaster. They were luckier than those who were to die on the islands. The survivors were transferred to nearby islands which contained no fresh water and only very limited food in form of birds and some sea-lions.
No rescue was coming as they were way off course, so Captain Jacobsz alongwith Francisco Pelsaert, senior officers, a few crewmembers, and some passengers left the wreck site in a longboat, and headed north to the city of Batavia (Jakarta). This journey, which they completed successfully, was a feat in itself.
But on the other hand, in the absence of his two superiors, Jeronimus Cornelisz was left in charge of the survivors. He was afraid that Pelsaert might discover his mutinous plans. Therefore, he made plans to hijack any rescue ship that might return and use the vessel to seek another safe haven.
With a dedicated band of murderous young men, he began to systematically (at first) kill anyone he believed would be a problem to his reign of terror, or a burden on their limited resources. The mutineers became intoxicated with killing, and no one could stop them which led to a splurge of random killings.
But Cornelisz had also left some soldiers on another island who were led by one Wiebbe Hayes, and to their good fortune, they had found abundant sources of water and food on the other island. With his own supply dwindling, Cornelisz decided to take over Hayes’ island (by killing everyone there, of course).
The events that ensued were nothing sort of dramatic, so I am not going to ruin it for anyone. But the naked truth is that that of the original 341 people on board the Batavia, only 68 made it safely to the port of Batavia (Jakarta).
So know this, although this book is well written, I am not recommending it for everyone as the second half is extremely graphic and gruesome. You will have to decide for yourself on this one.
Because if not for the hyperinflation and the Versailles treaty, Adolf Hitler would have been a shitty painter and Hermann Göring would have been an exceptionally shitty ballet dancer.
But I never felt more confident about my assumptions (although they were derived after many complicated calculations and permutations) until I read Mike Dash's Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny.
**Minor Spoilers Ahead**
Batavia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company built in 1628 to procure spices from the East and as was the kind-of norm in the era, it was shipwrecked on her maiden voyage.
But what made this incident different from others was the horror that followed owing to the mutiny and massacre that took place amongst the survivors stranded on the reefs of Abrolhos Islands off the coast of Western Australia.
Batavia sailed under commandeur and upper-merchant Francisco Pelsaert and was captained by Ariaen Jacobsz. But the main villain of this tragedy was one frustrated under-merchant (working under upper-merchant Francisco Pelsaert), Jeronimus Cornelisz, who was a bankrupt apothecary (pharmacist) from the Netherlands who had left his wife behind forever in the Netherlands in order to escape from his creditors and find himself a comfortable life somewhere in the East, by any means. But what made Cornelisz truly dangerous was his mad belief in antinomianism: the theological doctrine that by faith and God's grace a Christian is freed from all laws (including the moral standards of the culture). Even murder. Or rape.
Mike Dash has provided detailed and interesting background information on all the major characters which mainly includes Francisco Pelsaert, Ariaen Jacobsz and Jeronimus Cornelisz. The book could be considered to be divided in two major parts. The shipwrecking is described in the first chapter and then Mike Dash delineates the chain of events that eventually led to Batavia's doom. The second half deals with the massacre committed by Cornelisz and his fellow mutineers on the islands and its aftermath.
There was some previous history between Francisco Pelsaert and the captain of Batavia, Ariaen Jacobsz who had previously encountered each other in Surat, India. The encounter had left a bitter taste in the mouth for Ariaen Jacobsz as he was publicly reprimanded, and that too quite sternly by Francisco Pelsaert regarding disciplinary issues.
So during the voyage, Jacobsz and Cornelisz (driven by his greed and beliefs) conceived a plan to take the ship by mutiny, which would allow them to start a new life as the ship contained lots of silver and moreover they also decided to get more rich by becoming pirates.
Jacobsz deliberately steered the ship off course, away from the rest of the fleet (There were more than half a dozen ships with the “Batavia”). The ship struck Morning Reef, part of the Abrolhos islands off the Western Australian coast. Of the 322 passengers aboard, 40 people drowned in the initial disaster. They were luckier than those who were to die on the islands. The survivors were transferred to nearby islands which contained no fresh water and only very limited food in form of birds and some sea-lions.
No rescue was coming as they were way off course, so Captain Jacobsz alongwith Francisco Pelsaert, senior officers, a few crewmembers, and some passengers left the wreck site in a longboat, and headed north to the city of Batavia (Jakarta). This journey, which they completed successfully, was a feat in itself.
But on the other hand, in the absence of his two superiors, Jeronimus Cornelisz was left in charge of the survivors. He was afraid that Pelsaert might discover his mutinous plans. Therefore, he made plans to hijack any rescue ship that might return and use the vessel to seek another safe haven.
With a dedicated band of murderous young men, he began to systematically (at first) kill anyone he believed would be a problem to his reign of terror, or a burden on their limited resources. The mutineers became intoxicated with killing, and no one could stop them which led to a splurge of random killings.
But Cornelisz had also left some soldiers on another island who were led by one Wiebbe Hayes, and to their good fortune, they had found abundant sources of water and food on the other island. With his own supply dwindling, Cornelisz decided to take over Hayes’ island (by killing everyone there, of course).
The events that ensued were nothing sort of dramatic, so I am not going to ruin it for anyone. But the naked truth is that that of the original 341 people on board the Batavia, only 68 made it safely to the port of Batavia (Jakarta).
So know this, although this book is well written, I am not recommending it for everyone as the second half is extremely graphic and gruesome. You will have to decide for yourself on this one.
January 12, 2022
Geez. If you didn't know this story was real, you'd think it was a book!
July 18, 2015
There's no point telling what the book is about, because the whole thing is too unlikely. But the Spouse saw a documentary on the subject, which was excellent, and my response to hearing about a great narrative is always to read a book. And then, there's nothing like reading about a shipwreck to put your own troubles into perspective.
So, seventeenth-century shipwreck off the coast of Australia turns into a scenario that makes Lord of the Flies look civilized. Read it because Dash gives you enough of the background to place the historical events into context. Read it because the whole time you'll be yelling out "no WAY." If you read this first you'd understand why the European stories of the day were full of unlikely incidents and implausible timing. The subtitle points to the narrative focus and I disagree with the author's conclusion of "mad", but at least they're upfront about the body count.
When they say "worse things happen at sea" I always thought the meant slowly starving as a castaway on a desert isle, I never realized it was in reference to other people. Way.
Library copy
So, seventeenth-century shipwreck off the coast of Australia turns into a scenario that makes Lord of the Flies look civilized. Read it because Dash gives you enough of the background to place the historical events into context. Read it because the whole time you'll be yelling out "no WAY." If you read this first you'd understand why the European stories of the day were full of unlikely incidents and implausible timing. The subtitle points to the narrative focus and I disagree with the author's conclusion of "mad", but at least they're upfront about the body count.
When they say "worse things happen at sea" I always thought the meant slowly starving as a castaway on a desert isle, I never realized it was in reference to other people. Way.
Library copy
March 25, 2020
Horrible behavior. Had not read previously details of shipwreck/mutiny. Expect there are many informative reviews about book.
Skimmed some ... familiar with background, spice trade, Dutch culture of era, exploiting expeditions, etc.
One of those 3.53 reading experiences. (3.53 is my most likely used star cluster.)
***
Physical book came via interlibrary loan from another 'temporarily' closed public county library. Ordered before our local library closed to the public. Would be useful to see which libraries are continuing to mail books to and from other closed to the public facilities. Should any?
Skimmed some ... familiar with background, spice trade, Dutch culture of era, exploiting expeditions, etc.
One of those 3.53 reading experiences. (3.53 is my most likely used star cluster.)
***
Physical book came via interlibrary loan from another 'temporarily' closed public county library. Ordered before our local library closed to the public. Would be useful to see which libraries are continuing to mail books to and from other closed to the public facilities. Should any?
June 26, 2022
So it seems I'm just going to continue reading more WW2 nonfiction, maritime novels and shipwreck stories until I complete a full personality descent into "America's Favorite Boomer Grandpa" ? Well guess what, that's fine because frankly... I can't get enough.
This is a brutal and fascinating story. Well told and-when the historical facts are scarce- well imagined. I did get a bit bogged down in the names occasionally, hard to keep track of or differentiate some of the people involved. But much of the book was a real page-turner, some of it edge-of-your-seat stuff, truly emotional and immediate.
Best of all, like all good non-fiction this book includes lots of asides and fascinating little historical windows opened onto areas for further exploration. 4.5
This is a brutal and fascinating story. Well told and-when the historical facts are scarce- well imagined. I did get a bit bogged down in the names occasionally, hard to keep track of or differentiate some of the people involved. But much of the book was a real page-turner, some of it edge-of-your-seat stuff, truly emotional and immediate.
Best of all, like all good non-fiction this book includes lots of asides and fascinating little historical windows opened onto areas for further exploration. 4.5
February 4, 2024
Holy hell this escalates quickly!
Seriously, this book (and Joan Druett’s Island of the Lost) made me fall in love with reading history again. What you have here is one of the craziest stories you have never heard before. I honestly googled as soon as it was done to check that it actually happened.
The basic story is this heretical psycho named Cornelisz (not a typo) hatches a plan to wreck the ship off Australia and start a new life. Oh, he also foments mutiny, rape, murder, and various other horrible things when the survivors get stuck off shore.
Mike Dash does an amazing job with the subject. For non-history nerds, the first part may seem a little slow. Dash takes his time setting the stage and explaining the major players. For history nerds, you know the information is so important in understanding the entire scenario. And then it’s as if the book completely turns 180 degrees and becomes an adventure book the likes of which are not replicated anywhere else. It is crazy, brutal, and reads like a Hollywood movie.
Seriously, this book (and Joan Druett’s Island of the Lost) made me fall in love with reading history again. What you have here is one of the craziest stories you have never heard before. I honestly googled as soon as it was done to check that it actually happened.
The basic story is this heretical psycho named Cornelisz (not a typo) hatches a plan to wreck the ship off Australia and start a new life. Oh, he also foments mutiny, rape, murder, and various other horrible things when the survivors get stuck off shore.
Mike Dash does an amazing job with the subject. For non-history nerds, the first part may seem a little slow. Dash takes his time setting the stage and explaining the major players. For history nerds, you know the information is so important in understanding the entire scenario. And then it’s as if the book completely turns 180 degrees and becomes an adventure book the likes of which are not replicated anywhere else. It is crazy, brutal, and reads like a Hollywood movie.
December 16, 2017
Fascinating true account of the mutiny, shipwreck on what is now known as Beacon Island near Australia and subsequent blood-filled killings. This involved a Dutch East India [VOC] ship Batavia on its way to Java in the 17th century. The mutiny was led by a half-crazed charismatic ship's officer with horrendous results. Conditions on shipboard as described were terrible. The epilogue described present-day archeological expeditions that found the results. The author researched very well, with both extensive primary and secondary material.
Highly recommended but the reader should have a strong stomach.
Highly recommended but the reader should have a strong stomach.
October 15, 2017
A very interesting book on the sinking and mutiny on the Dutch East India company ship the Batavia in the 17th century.
The result was murder, destruction, and the first known Europeans in Australia.
Fascinating, horrifying, and compelling in equal measures.
Highly recommended.
The result was murder, destruction, and the first known Europeans in Australia.
Fascinating, horrifying, and compelling in equal measures.
Highly recommended.
April 22, 2011
A School for Sociopaths
When the Dutch merchant ship Batavia ran aground on a barren coral atoll off the northwest coast of Australia in 16629, the passengers and crew found themselves in a near hopeless plight, with scant water and little hope of rescue. What sets this shipwreck tale apart is not the depiction of the harrowing conditions that followed, although harrowing they were, but of the survivors' "Lord of the Flies"-esque descent into savagery, led by a psychopathic Svengali figure, one Jeronimus Cornelisz, a failed apothecary and heretic.
Dash does a fine job of painting background -- not only of what impelled Cornelisz to accept a job as "under merchant" aboard the Batavia but also of describing life aboard the ship (unsanitary and gruesome in the extreme) and of the practices of the Dutch East India Company. A mutiny is already afoot when the shipwreck occurs, and the pacing quickens as Cornelisz seizes control of the band of sailor/soldier mutineers and bends others to his will, often making them kill others to gain entry into the group he forces to pledge fealty to him.
Reading this account of Cornelisz' "Heart of Darkness"-like sadism and madness, as he oversees the killing of 115 people, is nightmarish, almost hallucinogenic, despite (or perhaps because of?) the author's dispassionate tone. Perhaps even more disturbing was what happened when Cornelisz increased his ranks by means of a “kill or be killed” scenario -- almost all those he summoned unhesitatingly chose the former option. Once the killing began, I read compulsively on to find out what would ultimately happen to the dwindling number of sane and civilized people left on the chain of islands.
Two things marred the book for me, however. One was what seemed like a random usage of first and last names. In one sentence, the author would refer to "Jeronimus" but in the next "Cornelisz," for example. There were dozens of figures to keep track of throughout the narrative, and this random first- and last-naming only made the book that much harder to follow. I couldn't discern any reason why Dash would refer to the captain of the Batavia as “Ariaen” in one context but “Jacobsz” in another. Weren’t these names not difficult enough without essentially doubling their number? It felt almost as if I were being being randomly tested.
The other, perhaps more serious, objection has to do with the steady stream of conjecture that Dash employed to posit events, motives, and the fates of various persons. There obviously was scant documentation to support much of what he felt occurred, which led to a surfeit of expressions such as "It seems likely that..." or "One can conjecture...." or "So far as can be ascertained." This hedge-like language stands in stark contrast to the undeniably dramatic and undisputed events. Couldn’t Dash have let his footnotes explain his hypotheses in such cases?
When the Dutch merchant ship Batavia ran aground on a barren coral atoll off the northwest coast of Australia in 16629, the passengers and crew found themselves in a near hopeless plight, with scant water and little hope of rescue. What sets this shipwreck tale apart is not the depiction of the harrowing conditions that followed, although harrowing they were, but of the survivors' "Lord of the Flies"-esque descent into savagery, led by a psychopathic Svengali figure, one Jeronimus Cornelisz, a failed apothecary and heretic.
Dash does a fine job of painting background -- not only of what impelled Cornelisz to accept a job as "under merchant" aboard the Batavia but also of describing life aboard the ship (unsanitary and gruesome in the extreme) and of the practices of the Dutch East India Company. A mutiny is already afoot when the shipwreck occurs, and the pacing quickens as Cornelisz seizes control of the band of sailor/soldier mutineers and bends others to his will, often making them kill others to gain entry into the group he forces to pledge fealty to him.
Reading this account of Cornelisz' "Heart of Darkness"-like sadism and madness, as he oversees the killing of 115 people, is nightmarish, almost hallucinogenic, despite (or perhaps because of?) the author's dispassionate tone. Perhaps even more disturbing was what happened when Cornelisz increased his ranks by means of a “kill or be killed” scenario -- almost all those he summoned unhesitatingly chose the former option. Once the killing began, I read compulsively on to find out what would ultimately happen to the dwindling number of sane and civilized people left on the chain of islands.
Two things marred the book for me, however. One was what seemed like a random usage of first and last names. In one sentence, the author would refer to "Jeronimus" but in the next "Cornelisz," for example. There were dozens of figures to keep track of throughout the narrative, and this random first- and last-naming only made the book that much harder to follow. I couldn't discern any reason why Dash would refer to the captain of the Batavia as “Ariaen” in one context but “Jacobsz” in another. Weren’t these names not difficult enough without essentially doubling their number? It felt almost as if I were being being randomly tested.
The other, perhaps more serious, objection has to do with the steady stream of conjecture that Dash employed to posit events, motives, and the fates of various persons. There obviously was scant documentation to support much of what he felt occurred, which led to a surfeit of expressions such as "It seems likely that..." or "One can conjecture...." or "So far as can be ascertained." This hedge-like language stands in stark contrast to the undeniably dramatic and undisputed events. Couldn’t Dash have let his footnotes explain his hypotheses in such cases?
May 1, 2018
I've read a number of books that deal with shipwrecks and the exploration of the seas, and with summer approaching I wanted something that would be a bit of fun and adventure (of the armchair variety). I'm not sure this was the best choice for that!
The story of the maiden voyage of the Dutch East Indies (VOC) ship Batavia as the Dutch were still beginning their exploitation of the spice trade. Although a mutiny was being planned by the ship's skipper Ariaen Jacobsz and Jeronimus Cornelisz, the 2nd highest ranking VOC company man, the ship ran aground on an unknown reef (Houtman's Abrolhos) and was rapidly destroyed. With most of the crew and passengers landed on a barren island, the skipper and the top company man Francisco Pelsaert (who outranked the ship's skipper) set off with a crew in a small boat to attempt to reach Java. In the meantime, Cornelisz spread the soldiers and sailors among the three nearest islands to better put into effect his mutinous plans, and thus began an orgy of killing and mayhem leaving about 120 men, women, and children murdered.
As I said, this is not a seafaring castaway yarn about survival on desert islands. It's not for the faint of heart or the squeamish, and may even be harder to read in some respects than In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. Nonetheless, it's a fascinating and well-told story of the tragedy of the Batavia and its survivors. Dash presents a lot of detail and information in an exceptionally readable manner. He tells us not only of the backgrounds of the principal characters (Cornelisz, Pelsaert, and Jacobsz) but many others - and yet it never feels like you're drowning in information. He also includes what became of each of the survivors, or at least what was known of them, and the latter efforts to locate the exact location of the shipwreck. And the "Notes" are often every bit as interesting and compelling as the story itself. Overall, a great read - just beware that the Batavia was a pretty sad story.
The story of the maiden voyage of the Dutch East Indies (VOC) ship Batavia as the Dutch were still beginning their exploitation of the spice trade. Although a mutiny was being planned by the ship's skipper Ariaen Jacobsz and Jeronimus Cornelisz, the 2nd highest ranking VOC company man, the ship ran aground on an unknown reef (Houtman's Abrolhos) and was rapidly destroyed. With most of the crew and passengers landed on a barren island, the skipper and the top company man Francisco Pelsaert (who outranked the ship's skipper) set off with a crew in a small boat to attempt to reach Java. In the meantime, Cornelisz spread the soldiers and sailors among the three nearest islands to better put into effect his mutinous plans, and thus began an orgy of killing and mayhem leaving about 120 men, women, and children murdered.
As I said, this is not a seafaring castaway yarn about survival on desert islands. It's not for the faint of heart or the squeamish, and may even be harder to read in some respects than In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. Nonetheless, it's a fascinating and well-told story of the tragedy of the Batavia and its survivors. Dash presents a lot of detail and information in an exceptionally readable manner. He tells us not only of the backgrounds of the principal characters (Cornelisz, Pelsaert, and Jacobsz) but many others - and yet it never feels like you're drowning in information. He also includes what became of each of the survivors, or at least what was known of them, and the latter efforts to locate the exact location of the shipwreck. And the "Notes" are often every bit as interesting and compelling as the story itself. Overall, a great read - just beware that the Batavia was a pretty sad story.
February 24, 2021
I don’t care much about the mutiny—just a footnote in the march of time, although mutinies were rare considering how shitty life onboard was for so many sailors—but its description of life on a sailing ship in that era makes the book well worth reading.
Seven months out of Amsterdam on her maiden voyage, the Batavia was still a month from her destination, the Dutch trading settlements on the island of Java. What comes next is the account of the shipwreck of the Batavia on a corral reef off the west coast of Australia near a small archipelago called Houtman’s Abrolhos (Abrolhos is generally held to be a loan word from Portuguese, a corruption of the sailor’s warning “abri vossos olhos,” or “Open your eyes). An alert hand on deck at 3 a.m. noticed waves breaking and thought that it was a reef. The skipper disagreed and the ship plowed full speed into the reef.
The harrying and uncannily-detailed account of the shipwreck, and then the work of salvaging what remained of the ship make for great reading.
In the age of sail, cutting down a mainmast was an act of such dire significance that the skipper customarily accepted responsibility for the consequences by striking the first blow with his own axe
As it turned out, they cocked that up thoroughly and the mast fell on the ship causing even further damage.
“…the biggest irritants on the voyage were undoubtedly the insects that swarmed through every crevice of the ship. Lice were a plague from which even the most senior of those on board were not immune. They lived and multiplied in clothing and could cause terrible epidemics of typhus. Many an East Indiaman lost a quarter or a third of her crew to the disease, and though the Batavia seems to have escaped its ravages, no doubt the lice would have infested every article of clothing on board the ship.”
“…Down in the abandoned hold was the empire of the rats…, rats could chew their way through the layers of oak planking in the hull.”
It also described many aspects of the Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie—the United East India Company, or the VOC, the wealthiest and most powerful company on Earth at the time. One of the laws of the company was that the ship’s captain was subordinate to “ the upper-merchant, or supercargo. He was, as his title implied, a commercial agent who bore the responsibility of ensuring that the voyage was a profitable one for his own masters. This was an odd challenge to the sovereignty of the captain who normally had dictatorial power on his vessel.
Seven months out of Amsterdam on her maiden voyage, the Batavia was still a month from her destination, the Dutch trading settlements on the island of Java. What comes next is the account of the shipwreck of the Batavia on a corral reef off the west coast of Australia near a small archipelago called Houtman’s Abrolhos (Abrolhos is generally held to be a loan word from Portuguese, a corruption of the sailor’s warning “abri vossos olhos,” or “Open your eyes). An alert hand on deck at 3 a.m. noticed waves breaking and thought that it was a reef. The skipper disagreed and the ship plowed full speed into the reef.
The harrying and uncannily-detailed account of the shipwreck, and then the work of salvaging what remained of the ship make for great reading.
In the age of sail, cutting down a mainmast was an act of such dire significance that the skipper customarily accepted responsibility for the consequences by striking the first blow with his own axe
As it turned out, they cocked that up thoroughly and the mast fell on the ship causing even further damage.
“…the biggest irritants on the voyage were undoubtedly the insects that swarmed through every crevice of the ship. Lice were a plague from which even the most senior of those on board were not immune. They lived and multiplied in clothing and could cause terrible epidemics of typhus. Many an East Indiaman lost a quarter or a third of her crew to the disease, and though the Batavia seems to have escaped its ravages, no doubt the lice would have infested every article of clothing on board the ship.”
“…Down in the abandoned hold was the empire of the rats…, rats could chew their way through the layers of oak planking in the hull.”
It also described many aspects of the Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie—the United East India Company, or the VOC, the wealthiest and most powerful company on Earth at the time. One of the laws of the company was that the ship’s captain was subordinate to “ the upper-merchant, or supercargo. He was, as his title implied, a commercial agent who bore the responsibility of ensuring that the voyage was a profitable one for his own masters. This was an odd challenge to the sovereignty of the captain who normally had dictatorial power on his vessel.
December 16, 2012
Interesting story, but it suffers considerably from its author's propensity to wander off on tangents.
My impression of about half of the book:
"Finally, the governor-general was ready to deliver his sentence. Legal records show that there was one additional mutineer at the questioning, about whom all we know is that he had two missing teeth.
Missing teeth were very common among 17th-century sailors, especially lower-ranking ones, who could have lost their teeth in many ways. Missing teeth would have been an inconvenience for a sailor, especially when chewing on salted meat and hard biscuits, and would have given him an appearance considered somewhat fearsome by ordinary townsmen, who would have kept their teeth clean by scraping them with forked twigs and salt paste.
Regardless of the cause of these missing teeth, however, the scribe clearly felt that they were important enough to record in his summary of the proceedings. The fact that this particular mutineer's state of dental hygiene was considered remarkable says much about hygiene standards in general at a time when scurvy was exceptionally common on long voyages..."
My impression of about half of the book:
"Finally, the governor-general was ready to deliver his sentence. Legal records show that there was one additional mutineer at the questioning, about whom all we know is that he had two missing teeth.
Missing teeth were very common among 17th-century sailors, especially lower-ranking ones, who could have lost their teeth in many ways. Missing teeth would have been an inconvenience for a sailor, especially when chewing on salted meat and hard biscuits, and would have given him an appearance considered somewhat fearsome by ordinary townsmen, who would have kept their teeth clean by scraping them with forked twigs and salt paste.
Regardless of the cause of these missing teeth, however, the scribe clearly felt that they were important enough to record in his summary of the proceedings. The fact that this particular mutineer's state of dental hygiene was considered remarkable says much about hygiene standards in general at a time when scurvy was exceptionally common on long voyages..."
February 17, 2012
Not even the most sanguine of Shakespeare’s plays or the goriest of Ancient Greek dramas can match the horror of this true life tale. Mike Dash vividly retells the story of a 17th Century Dutch East Indiaman’s collision with a coral reef off the west coast of Australia. Unbeknownst to most of the 270 passengers aboard the ship, a psychopath of high rank survived the crash. It was he, Jeronimus Cornelisz, a failed apothecary from Haarlem in the Netherlands, who eventually was responsible for the murders of 115 men, women and children who initially survived the shipwreck.
Narrated in novelistic fashion and replete with carefully researched authenticity, this fascinating story is told with such grisly detail that it is difficult to put the book down, even for a moment’s respite from the discomfiture it engenders.
Narrated in novelistic fashion and replete with carefully researched authenticity, this fascinating story is told with such grisly detail that it is difficult to put the book down, even for a moment’s respite from the discomfiture it engenders.
February 13, 2018
On its maiden voyage, the Batavia crashed into shallow waters and the passengers had to take smaller boats to an island in order to survive. What ensued was no less than an adult Lord of the Flies. What happens when you are short on resources? You start killing. Those who seized control killed people for the smallest infractions. It didn't matter if you were a man, woman, or baby. Once the killers got a taste of killing, they started killing just for the hell of it.
I am glad I now know this story but I feel like I am not the target audience. More than once I became bored and wanted the book to just hurry up and be done.
I am glad I now know this story but I feel like I am not the target audience. More than once I became bored and wanted the book to just hurry up and be done.
May 13, 2018
Life on a Dutch East India Company ship in the 1620s was pretty awful and nasty in the best of circumstances - but add shipwreck, mutiny, and murder to the mix and you have a particularly grim but fascinating story, exceptionally well-written. A quick and very entertaining read - best Mike Dash book that I have read to date.
May 14, 2022
Geef ons 10 van deze boeken die 10 tijdsgewrichten behandelen, en geschiedenis wordt het populairste vak ooit op de middelbare school. Batavia's Graveyard is namelijk niet alleen heel goed en spannend geschreven (goed, niet zo goed en spannend en literair als een roman waarin een schrijver alle registers mag opentrekken), maar maakt ook in 500 pagina's duidelijk hoe zo ongeveer alles werkte ten tijde van de VOC en de gouden eeuw: de 80-jarige oorlog, de religieuze constellaties en conflicten, de hierarchie in steden, de kansen om te overleven in de 17e eeuw als werknemer van de VOC op zee in de Oost (spoiler: nul), de vele soorten lijfstraffen (fijn ook dat de VOC kielhalen heeft geperfectioneerd, zodat mensen niet te snel overlijden onderaan de boot, maar zo lang mogelijk lijden), de eeuwige stroom ziekten waar je aan kon overlijden, en de bizar zakelijke, anti-menselijke, nul-scrupules-werking van de VOC.
Maar ook dat er in de 17e eeuw ook gewoon mensen leefden, die ook gewoon levens leidden, en die hoogte- en dieptepunten (vooral dat laatste) meemaakten. Al mijn eigen mini-trauma's voelen in vergelijking met wat de personages in Batavia's Graveyard moeten meemaken slechts als stofdeeltjes in dit ondermaanse bestaan. God, werd je niet structureel verkracht of constant besmet met absurde ziektes, dan gingen wel je kinderen, partners of ouders op gruwelijke wijze dood (meestal ook allemaal, en liefst tegelijkertijd), dreigde faillissement, en lag er altijd een complot op je te wachten waardoor je opgepakt werd voor andermans falen. Absolute fucking willekeur.
Daar gaat dit boek trouwens niet over. Dit boek gaat over 4 mini-eilanden waar een rits bootvluchtelingen aankomt, en vervolgens een combinatie van Lord of the Flies en Squid Games meemaakt. Man, wat is die Jeronimus de grootste psychopaat ooit. Hoe meer je leest, hoe harder je hem wilt zien lijden. Het waargebeurde verhaal maakt ook pijnlijk duidelijk hoe makkelijk mensen zich laten overhalen om gruwelijke moordenaars te worden die om totaal onduidelijke redenen een hekel krijgen aan anderen, of gewoon vol continu op het bloedlust-orgel willen spelen - tot aan het wurgen van baby's aan toe.
Wat Mike Dash heel knap doet, is letterlijke citaten uit die tijd gebruiken om het verhaal mee aan te vullen, zodat je een geschiedenis tot je neemt die leest als een trein en zeer confronterend tot de verbeelding spreekt. Ja, soms denk je 'hup, moet je heel dit zijspoor uitleggen, ouwe docent?', maar tegelijkertijd is dat ook de kracht, want het is niet enkel één verhaal, maar een compleet tijdsgewricht, samengebald in een ronduit gruwelijke gebeurtenis die als pars pro toto fungeert voor een complete beschaving.
PS Je hoopt vooral dat Jan-Peter Balkenende ooit nog eens dit boek leest, net voordat ie herinnerd wordt aan zijn VOC-mentaliteit-uitspraak, en net voordat ie op een avontuurlijke vakantie gaat naar een klein, onbekend, authentiek eiland, ergens in de buurt van Indonesië.
Maar ook dat er in de 17e eeuw ook gewoon mensen leefden, die ook gewoon levens leidden, en die hoogte- en dieptepunten (vooral dat laatste) meemaakten. Al mijn eigen mini-trauma's voelen in vergelijking met wat de personages in Batavia's Graveyard moeten meemaken slechts als stofdeeltjes in dit ondermaanse bestaan. God, werd je niet structureel verkracht of constant besmet met absurde ziektes, dan gingen wel je kinderen, partners of ouders op gruwelijke wijze dood (meestal ook allemaal, en liefst tegelijkertijd), dreigde faillissement, en lag er altijd een complot op je te wachten waardoor je opgepakt werd voor andermans falen. Absolute fucking willekeur.
Daar gaat dit boek trouwens niet over. Dit boek gaat over 4 mini-eilanden waar een rits bootvluchtelingen aankomt, en vervolgens een combinatie van Lord of the Flies en Squid Games meemaakt. Man, wat is die Jeronimus de grootste psychopaat ooit. Hoe meer je leest, hoe harder je hem wilt zien lijden. Het waargebeurde verhaal maakt ook pijnlijk duidelijk hoe makkelijk mensen zich laten overhalen om gruwelijke moordenaars te worden die om totaal onduidelijke redenen een hekel krijgen aan anderen, of gewoon vol continu op het bloedlust-orgel willen spelen - tot aan het wurgen van baby's aan toe.
Wat Mike Dash heel knap doet, is letterlijke citaten uit die tijd gebruiken om het verhaal mee aan te vullen, zodat je een geschiedenis tot je neemt die leest als een trein en zeer confronterend tot de verbeelding spreekt. Ja, soms denk je 'hup, moet je heel dit zijspoor uitleggen, ouwe docent?', maar tegelijkertijd is dat ook de kracht, want het is niet enkel één verhaal, maar een compleet tijdsgewricht, samengebald in een ronduit gruwelijke gebeurtenis die als pars pro toto fungeert voor een complete beschaving.
PS Je hoopt vooral dat Jan-Peter Balkenende ooit nog eens dit boek leest, net voordat ie herinnerd wordt aan zijn VOC-mentaliteit-uitspraak, en net voordat ie op een avontuurlijke vakantie gaat naar een klein, onbekend, authentiek eiland, ergens in de buurt van Indonesië.
July 21, 2023
Absolutely wild. This has like every horrible fucking thing humans can do to each other except cannibalism, which amazes me. I cannot believe I’ve never heard of it. The ocean is scary and we should not go in it lmao!
If you haven’t heard of this, I highly recommend checking this out.
I really wish someone would’ve thought “huh, maybe we should interview the female survivors” so we can hear their perspectives after surviving this absolute nightmare. But alas, that’s the pain with historical events, women are sidelined and not paid attention to.
If you haven’t heard of this, I highly recommend checking this out.
I really wish someone would’ve thought “huh, maybe we should interview the female survivors” so we can hear their perspectives after surviving this absolute nightmare. But alas, that’s the pain with historical events, women are sidelined and not paid attention to.
December 4, 2012
Wow... what an amazing story! Mike Dash's "Batavia's Graveyard" tells the story of the Batavia, a ship that was dashed on a coral reef near Australia in 1629. More than 200 survivors climbed onto a nearby island with limited supplies. Their leader, Jeronimus and a band of mutineers, set about systematically murdering some 115 of these survivors-- at first to keep the supplies to themselves and later to hide their crimes.
The story is absolutely fascinating and while Dash uses a great deal of conjecture to fill in the gaps between the scanty details, he does so effectively. It takes a good long while to get to the meat of the story, as he takes a lot of time talking about the history of the Dutch East India Company and conditions in Holland, yet most of the material is so interesting I really didn't mind the delay.
An utterly fascinating and well-written book.
The story is absolutely fascinating and while Dash uses a great deal of conjecture to fill in the gaps between the scanty details, he does so effectively. It takes a good long while to get to the meat of the story, as he takes a lot of time talking about the history of the Dutch East India Company and conditions in Holland, yet most of the material is so interesting I really didn't mind the delay.
An utterly fascinating and well-written book.
December 19, 2010
If I ever wonder what life was like on a seventeenth century ship bound for the Far East, then this is the book to consult. Serious history, but written to be read instead of consulted, Batavia's Graveyard makes a time, a place and a cast of characters come alive off the page. The story, as it unfolds, becomes harrowing and somewhat depressing, as a community of shipwrecked survivors descend into a true life "Lord of the Flies". It's also a gripping narrative, and could as easily slot into a "True Crime" tagging as an "Historical" one. I often feel let down by historical accounts that promise to read like a best-selling thriller, but this book really does, serving both to educate and entertain as you plough through it.
October 22, 2021
Way, way, way longer in exposition than it needed to be. I got why the author wanted to explain the background, but there are whole chapters of exposition that do nothing to tell the story or provide relevant background (there are whole chapters that give life histories of folks in the book that have nothing to do with the story itself).
March 20, 2020
Read in one go ... very chilling account that captivates you from the very first moment.
December 24, 2020
One of the best history books I've read. The story is so compelling it's pacier than fiction and if the story wasn't true then you wouldn't believe it.
April 12, 2021
Curiosamente me ha parecido más interesante el caldo de cultivo que rodea a la tragedia/aventura que los acontecimientos en sí. De una forma minuciosa Dash abarca todos los aspectos del contexto tanto histórico como social y arroja una imagen no especialmente edificante de la república holandesa del siglo XVII y en concreto de la Compañía de Indias Orientales Neerlandesa que controlaba el comercio de especias con Oriente, donde la avaricia más descarnada regía todas las decisiones de la compañía y para quienes los inmensos beneficios que obtenían del comercio eran lo único que importaba, muy por encima de las personas, meras herramientas que, a pesar de su escasez (sólo los más desesperados se aventuraban a viajar a las indias cuando la esperanza de vida media de los que se dedicaban a este oficio era de tres años) eran completamente prescindibles. Ya al principio se nos informa que las órdenes del comendador encargado de la misión comercial eran de, en caso de problemas, salvar la mercancía a costa de la vida de los tripulantes del Batavia si fuese necesario. Por no hablar de la bonita anécdota de los cinco hombres desaparecidos por tener que ir a recuperar un barril de vinagre.
Las condiciones de los viajes de los mercantes a las Indias son estremecedoras, las paradas para repostar o aliviar el padecimiento de los enfermos estaban muy limitadas porque la Compañía no veía con buenos ojos los retrasos (cuanto más largos eran los viajes, menor el inmenso beneficio que obtenían) y en el barco existía una brutal disciplina ejercida mediante la violencia más salvaje y una división por clases extremadamente desigual, donde los marineros y los soldados eran, literalmente, tratados peor que ganado, ubicados en las cubiertas inferiores sin derecho a espacio, luz o aire fresco. Además, los miserables sueldos que recibían los empleados de la Compañía que gestionaban, transportaban y manejaban enormes riquezas, generaban un sistema extremadamente corrupto donde sólo existía un único Dios; el dinero, y un único mandamiento; enriquecerse a cualquier precio. En este ambientazo, más allá de extrañas herejías, se comprende bastante bien que un psicópata como Jeronimus Cornelisz lograra convencer a un grupo de marineros y soldados para que participaran en una orgía de sangre, en un principio por avaricia y propia supervivencia y, finalmente por pura crueldad, por la banalidad del mal, para matar el aburrimiento.
Por otro lado es interesante comparar este naufragio con otros acontecimientos similares que ocurrieron a finales del siglo XVII, en los que barcos ingleses que transportaban delincuentes, pobres o agricultores sin tierras ni trabajo, forzados a trabajar en las primeras colonias inglesas en Américas, naufragaban en islas del Caribe. En estos casos no era raro que las tripulaciones de náufragos se organizaran en comunas autogestionadas e igualitarias, negándose a obedecer a la autoridad para verse finalmente cazados y apresados por las autoridades inglesas para ser de nuevo enviados a Virginia como mano de obra barata ("La hidra de la revolución", Peter Linebaugh, Markus Rediker). Lo cual nos indica que la peligrosa e interesada idea tan grabada a fuego a lo largo de los siglos, de que cuando se desvanece la mano dura de la autoridad surge el salvajismo y la violencia entre la chusma, no sólo es siempre cierta sino que, a menudo ocurre a la inversa, la violencia es una herramienta indispensable de la autoridad que no duda en emplearla como herramienta básica de control con funestas consecuencias para la psique social.
Las condiciones de los viajes de los mercantes a las Indias son estremecedoras, las paradas para repostar o aliviar el padecimiento de los enfermos estaban muy limitadas porque la Compañía no veía con buenos ojos los retrasos (cuanto más largos eran los viajes, menor el inmenso beneficio que obtenían) y en el barco existía una brutal disciplina ejercida mediante la violencia más salvaje y una división por clases extremadamente desigual, donde los marineros y los soldados eran, literalmente, tratados peor que ganado, ubicados en las cubiertas inferiores sin derecho a espacio, luz o aire fresco. Además, los miserables sueldos que recibían los empleados de la Compañía que gestionaban, transportaban y manejaban enormes riquezas, generaban un sistema extremadamente corrupto donde sólo existía un único Dios; el dinero, y un único mandamiento; enriquecerse a cualquier precio. En este ambientazo, más allá de extrañas herejías, se comprende bastante bien que un psicópata como Jeronimus Cornelisz lograra convencer a un grupo de marineros y soldados para que participaran en una orgía de sangre, en un principio por avaricia y propia supervivencia y, finalmente por pura crueldad, por la banalidad del mal, para matar el aburrimiento.
Por otro lado es interesante comparar este naufragio con otros acontecimientos similares que ocurrieron a finales del siglo XVII, en los que barcos ingleses que transportaban delincuentes, pobres o agricultores sin tierras ni trabajo, forzados a trabajar en las primeras colonias inglesas en Américas, naufragaban en islas del Caribe. En estos casos no era raro que las tripulaciones de náufragos se organizaran en comunas autogestionadas e igualitarias, negándose a obedecer a la autoridad para verse finalmente cazados y apresados por las autoridades inglesas para ser de nuevo enviados a Virginia como mano de obra barata ("La hidra de la revolución", Peter Linebaugh, Markus Rediker). Lo cual nos indica que la peligrosa e interesada idea tan grabada a fuego a lo largo de los siglos, de que cuando se desvanece la mano dura de la autoridad surge el salvajismo y la violencia entre la chusma, no sólo es siempre cierta sino que, a menudo ocurre a la inversa, la violencia es una herramienta indispensable de la autoridad que no duda en emplearla como herramienta básica de control con funestas consecuencias para la psique social.
July 11, 2021
This is a compelling read, which grabs you from the first sentence and doesn't let go until the last. It also beautifully communicates the sense of time and place upon which great narrative history has to be based. Ultimately, though, one wonders what we are to make of the fate of the Batavia. What does Dash give us, beyond a very lurid and horrible tale? He does not wish to simply let the facts speak for themselves, because he does make some effort at the end of the book to tie these events to wider narratives, but his efforts to do so are unsatisfactory. This is what prevents me awarding the book 5 stars.
February 20, 2023
Back when we ruled the waves! A history written in blood. Humanity in all its hideous and depraved glory. The barbarity, man. This story is something else.
Human nature is a scary beast.
Human nature is a scary beast.
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