Amerynth's Reviews > Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny

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.