by Mike Dash
The Jeronimus of Pelsaert’s journals remains at best a half-drawn figure: ruthless and deadly, certainly, yet also someone whose real personality has always been obscured by layer upon layer of lies and special pleading. But he was, it seems, a truly charismatic figure—able to persuade a varied group of men that their interests were identical to his—and his talk of the wealth and luxury that might yet lie within their grasp certainly made enticing listening for men trapped in the grey surrounds of Houtman’s Abrolhos. Cornelisz was obviously and genuinely clever, and so vital that he stood out among the failures, novices, and second-raters who peopled the Batavia’s stern. He was also self-assured and eloquent in a way that awed men who were neither. The rabble of the gun deck and the educated assistants of the stern alike seem to have found him irresistible. Long before the end of June he had gathered about two dozen followers around him and felt ready to put his plans into action.
Most of Jeronimus’s men had been with him on the Batavia. The most valuable of them were a handful of army cadets, men such as Coenraat van Huyssen and Gsbert van Welderen who had sailed for Java in the comparative luxury of the stern and discovered they had little taste for life on Batavia’s Graveyard. They were young—no more than 21—and inexperienced, and so were unlikely to dispute the under-merchant’s leadership. And since they knew how to handle weapons, the common people on the ship instinctively deferred to them. Several soldiers, led by lance corporal Jacop Pietersz, had also been part of the conspiracy on the retourschip. The best of these were German mercenaries, who were also mostly strong and young; Jan Hendricxsz, from Bremen, was 24, and Mattys Beer, of Munsterbergh, was no more than 21. These men, along with several of their comrades, may well have seen action in the Thirty Years’ War,*29 gaining invaluable military experience along the way. The third and smallest group of mutineers consisted of a few men from the gun deck, mostly sailors whom Jacobsz had recruited but had been unable to take with him on the longboat. The skipper’s good friend Allert Janssen, who had been among the party that assaulted Creesje Jans, was the leading member of this group.
The Batavia mutineers had concealed their true numbers so effectively that it is now impossible to say with any certainty which of the other members of the under-merchant’s gang had been recruited on the ship. It seems likely that Rutger Fredricx, a 23-year-old idler from Groningen, was among the first men to be approached—he was the Batavia’s locksmith, and his skills would have been invaluable to mutineers who needed to imprison or restrain up to 200 of their colleagues. One or two of the VOC assistants were also aware of the conspiracy, and since they must have worked closely with Jeronimus on board the retourschip it may be that they, too, were among the earlier recruits. The remainder of the under-merchant’s followers appear to have been approached after the Batavia was wrecked. They would probably have been recruited from among the friends of the existing mutineers, or those who complained most bitterly about the discomforts of island life.
One of the assistants was of particular importance to Jeronimus. His name was David Zevanck, and he came from a rural area a little to the north of Amsterdam. Zevanck, like the others, was still young, and there are indications that he came from a good family, one that owned property and had some pretensions to gentility. How he had come to sail with the Batavia remains unknown. As one of the ship’s clerks, he must have been an educated man, but there was also a hard edge to his character. He was physically strong and handy with a sword, and of all the people on the ship, he was perhaps the closest to Cornelisz in ambition, ruthlessness, and character. Now he became the under-merchant’s principal lieutenant, organizing the men for him and ensuring that his orders were obeyed.
Beginning in the third week of June, Cornelisz began to plot rebellion, “acting very subtly and gradually, so that in the first 20 days it could not be perceived.” The under-merchant detached his followers from the other survivors, billeting them in two tents together with their weapons, and he collected all the other swords and muskets on the island into a central store that he alone controlled. Next, he prevented the ship’s carpenters from putting into action a plan to build their own small rescue vessel from the wreckage of the retourschip, and he began to look for ways of reducing the number of people on Batavia’s Graveyard. The latter was a necessary precaution, he and Zevanck agreed—both to conserve the limited supplies and to reduce the risk that their conspiracy might be uncovered. As things stood, the mutineers were still outnumbered about six to one by the other men on the island. The intention was to reduce the disparity by half.
The under-merchant’s solution to this problem was simple but effective. He sent his followers to explore the islands, using the first of the little skiffs that the carpenters had built from fragments of driftwood. Their purpose was not so much to find freshwater wells and new colonies of sea lions—which was what the people of Batavia’s Graveyard were told—as to provide the under-merchant with detailed information about conditions elsewhere in the archipelago. From Cornelisz’s point of view, it made little difference whether his men located additional supplies or not. What he needed was merely an excuse to send parties of survivors to the other islands in the group.
Within a day or two, the mutineers returned, reporting to Jeronimus that they had found nothing of any value in the Abrolhos. Like Pelsaert and his sailors, the under-merchant’s men had searched the two large islands to the north without finding any sign of water. They had also visited a pair of smaller islets, one less than half a mile away on the western side of the deep-water channel that ran along one side of Batavia’s Graveyard, and the other a little farther to the south. The closer of the islets was a long, thin, sandy spit that ran north to south for nearly a mile and was crowned with a narrow ridge covered in coarse grass and low vegetation; it was home to large flocks of birds and hundreds of sea lions—so many that the boats’ crews took to calling it Seals’ Island—but the few pools discovered at its southern tip were brackish and undrinkable. The other, which was the islet where Ariaen Jacobsz had set up his temporary camp, was just as desolate. The mutineers found nothing there but a few empty biscuit barrels, and the cay itself, which they named Traitors’ Island in bitter remembrance of the men who had abandoned them, was a mere pancake of loose coral. Its one resource was driftwood, which littered the entire southern shore.
Neither of these islands could possibly support more than a handful of people for any length of time, but the under-merchant did not care. “He said that the number who were [on Batavia’s Graveyard] together, about 200, must be reduced to a very few,” Gijsbert Bastiaensz recalled, and Cornelisz glibly announced that his men had made important discoveries. “Those people coming back again had got enough information that there was not any consolation there for any Human Beings,” remarked the predikant, “but the Merchant ordered them to say that there was water and good food for the people; whereupon some others were ordered to go, and others went of their own accord to know truthfully if there was Water.”
One group of about 40 men, women, and children were taken to Seals’ Island. They were provided with a few barrels of water and promised that fresh supplies would be ferried to them whenever they were needed. A smaller party, 15 strong and commanded by the provost, Pieter Jansz, traveled to Traitors’ Island. They took with them all the tools they needed to make rafts on the islet. Jeronimus had promised them that they could make their way to the larger islands to the north as soon as the boats were ready.
Shortly afterward, towards the end of the third week of June, it was announced that the “High Land” to the north was also to be colonized. These two large islands had now been searched for water twice without success—by Pelsaert on 6 June and by Zevanck and his men a fortnight later—but the survivors on Batavia’s Graveyard did not know this, so there were no protests when a third detachment, 20 strong, was sent to hunt for hidden wells. Almost all of the members of this party were troops who had remained loyal to the Company; they included “some of the boldest so
ldiers,” the predikant believed. Jeronimus saw to it that they were only lightly equipped and ensured that they were issued neither weapons nor a boat. The men were told to light signal fires when—or if—they found fresh water and were promised that they would be picked up when the fires were seen. In fact, Cornelisz had no intention of returning for them and hoped that they might die of thirst.
The group sent to the High Land included two young cadets, Otto Smit and Allert Jansz, but its real leader seems to have been a private from the small town of Winschoten in Groningen whose name was Wiebbe Hayes. Nothing at all is known about Hayes’s background, age, or military experience, but we know that the under-merchant had picked him out from among the 70 or more private soldiers on the Batavia, which implies that he possessed a certain presence. Unknown to Jeronimus, however, Hayes was also a man of considerable ability, and his character and sense of purpose seem to have been unusual for a private soldier of this time. It appears unlikely that he was a member of the grauw, the impecunious and uneducated rabble who had peopled the lower decks of the Batavia, and possibly he, like Coenraat van Huyssen and David Zevanck, came from a comfortable background and had somehow fallen on hard times. It was not entirely unknown for the children of respectable but impoverished parents to enlist with the VOC as ordinary soldiers, but if Hayes did come from such a family, he plainly had even less money and influence than men who could at least secure themselves commissions as cadets.
In any event, Wiebbe was able to keep his men alive on the High Land for almost three weeks. The soldiers soon discovered—as had Pelsaert and Zevanck before them—that there were apparently no wells on the smaller and more easterly of the two islands, but they did find small puddles of rainwater among the coral, and these sustained them while they completed their exploration. After several days, they moved west onto the larger cay, waiting for low tide and stumbling across the mile of mudflats that separated the islands to begin the search again. There they found abundant wildlife but no water, and once again they had to scour the ground for little pools of rain. Again, they found just enough to keep them alive. They continued this precarious existence for 20 days, searching endlessly for wells, hunting for food, and keeping watch for rafts from Batavia’s Graveyard that never came.
The first part of Jeronimus’s plan was now complete. The dispatch of landing parties to the four outlying islands had reduced the population of Batavia’s Graveyard by one-third, to somewhere between 130 and 140 people, and nearly four dozen able-bodied men and two dozen boys had been lured onto other cays where they posed no threat and would most likely die. Cornelisz and his followers were still outnumbered by the loyalists among the crew, but the under-merchant guessed that few of the 90 other adult males still with him on Batavia’s Graveyard had much stomach for a fight. He now guessed he could survive until a rescue ship arrived. The trick would be to seize it when it came.
The notion of capturing a jacht was certainly enticing, but Jeronimus knew that it would be no easy task. A frontal assault was out of the question; even the smallest VOC craft had cannon, boarding pikes, and muskets enough to fend off an attack. Nor was it likely to be possible to surprise and seize a ship at anchor in the archipelago, since the attackers’ boats would be seen approaching from a distance.
A better way, the under-merchant thought, might be to lure the jacht’s crew onto land. If a boatload of sailors from a rescue ship were to come ashore on Batavia’s Graveyard, they would be outnumbered by Cornelisz’s men. And if the mutineers could cut the landing party’s throats, they would probably leave themselves no more than 20 men to deal with on the ship.
Jeronimus, we know, believed that this idea had merit. But he also saw at once that it could not succeed while there were so many people on the island. For one thing, the supplies of food were still so low that they might all starve before a rescue ship arrived. For another, most of the Batavia survivors were still loyal to the VOC; there was every chance that they would try to warn their rescuers of the danger they were in. Once again, the solution to the problem struck the under-merchant as self-evident. The people in his way would have to die.
Most leaders would have balked at the idea of slaughtering 120 of their own men, women, and children, but Cornelisz regarded the prospect with his customary detachment. He was the leader of the ship’s council and thus invested with the power of the VOC. In his warped view those who opposed him, or were likely to, were mutineers themselves. As for the remainder of the survivors, those on the other islands, perhaps he simply believed that they would soon be dead, and never bothered to consider what might happen if they lived.
The killing began in the first week of July.
Jeronimus had waited several days for the opportunity to spring his mutiny. He wanted, first of all, to snuff out dissent, and since the members of the raad, were the most likely source of opposition, that meant finding a pretext to dissolve the existing council. The chance to do this arose when the under-merchant was informed that a soldier named Abraham Hendricx had been caught tapping one of the barrels in the stores. Under interrogation, Hendricx confessed to having crept into the store tent several times before, and to sharing his bounty with one of the retourschip’s gunners. In the survivors’ straitened circumstances, the theft was punishable by death. The gunner’s culpability was, however, harder to establish, and there seemed to be a good chance that the raad would spare his life. Jeronimus, it seems, decided to exploit this fact by demanding that both the guilty men be executed, fully expecting to be met with opposition.
“On 4 July, when Abraham Hendricx, from Delft, had tapped a Wine barrel several times and drank himself drunk—and had also given up some to a gunner, Ariaen Ariaensz, so that he also became drunk—Jeronimus proposed to his council, which he had called together, that they were worthy of death without grace or delay, and must be drowned forthwith.
“The council consented insofar as it concerned Abraham Hendricx, because he had tapped the barrel, but insofar as it concerned the other, Ariaen Ariaensz, they made difficulties and would not vote to sentence him to Death. Whereupon Jeronimus burst out, and said, ‘How can you not let this happen? Nevertheless, you will soon have to resolve on something quite else.’ At which words each one became afraid, and could not understand what he meant by that.”
Precisely what Cornelisz intended became clear enough next day, 5 July, when the under-merchant suddenly dissolved the raad and removed all the other councillors from their posts. This extreme, but not illegal, move allowed him to “choose for his new council such persons as accorded with his desires, to wit, Coenraat van Huyssen, cadet; David Zevanck, assistant; and Jacop Pietersz Cosijn, lance corporal.”
With this council of mutineers in place, Cornelisz at last felt secure. Zevanck and the others could be relied on to follow his instructions, and the other people on the island were unlikely to take issue with their edicts, so long as they were dressed up with a veneer of legality.
The under-merchant proved this point immediately by executing Hendricx*30 and accusing two carpenters named Egbert Roeloffsz and Warnar Dircx of plotting to make off in one of the little homemade yawls. The latter charge seems to have been based on nothing more than island gossip, but the new raad had no compunction in passing death sentences on both men and, significantly, there was no sign of dissent among the rank-and-file survivors. Roeloffsz and Dircx were killed later the same day by two of Jeronimus’s men, Daniel Cornelissen and Hans Frederick, both cadets. “Daniel,” the Batavia journals relate, “has pierced the foresaid Warnar with a sword; of which he boasted later, saying that it went through him as easily as butter . . . [and Hans Frederick] has let himself be used very willingly [and] has also given two or three hacks to Warnar.”
Cornelisz thus contrived to rid himself of not one but three possible opponents within a day of seizing control of the ship’s council. He was, however, perfectly aware of the overriding need for caution in the methods he employed. He and his men were still heavily outnumbered,
and it was important to proceed so that the people of the island did not suspect that their numbers were being systematically reduced. Some better way had to be found of disposing of the strongest loyalists covertly, so that even their friends did not realize they had gone.
Batavia’s Graveyard itself was useless for such purposes. It was so small that a missing man would soon attract attention, and so barren that a body would be difficult to hide. Cornelisz’s solution was simple but effective. He announced that he was sending reinforcements to assist Wiebbe Hayes in the search for water. Several small parties—three or four people at a time—were to leave for the High Land in the coming week. These men, it was made clear, were likely to be gone some time. They were to remain with the soldiers until water had been found.
The Batavia survivors saw nothing unusual in such a plan. Jeronimus had made no secret of his desire to reduce the numbers on Batavia’s Graveyard, and it was obvious, from the absence of signals, that Hayes and his men had been unable to find water; they would no doubt welcome some assistance. Since there were no rafts to spare, it also made sense for the reinforcements to be rowed north by boatmen who would—of course—return alone. Only the under-merchant knew that the oarsmen would be chosen from the ranks of the most determined mutineers.
Cornelisz’s scheme was put into action immediately. The first party of reinforcements consisted of two soldiers and two sailors, who were to be rowed to the High Land by Zevanck and six of his strongest men. Four of the mutineers were Company cadets, and they were reinforced by Fredricx, the locksmith, and a soldier, Mattys Beer. Cornelisz’s followers thus outnumbered their intended victims by almost two to one.