Batavia's Graveyard

by Mike Dash

  “We have an assault upon our hands” Interrogation of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 194–7]. The men were assured by Evertsz that the attack was no more than a “trick,” which may have lessened any concerns they had about participating. See also Antonio van Diemen to Pieter Carpentier, 15 Dec 1629, ARA VOC 1009, cited by Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster, pp. 62–3. This letter refers to statements and enclosures concerning the assault on Creesje, which have, very unfortunately, been lost. There is thus no direct statement in the few surviving letters that mention the case or in the Batavia journals to suggest an actual assault, though the whole attack had obvious sexual overtones. Committed as it was in an exposed position, close to the Great Cabin and almost next to the steersman’s position, the blackening of Lucretia Jans can hardly have lasted for more than a few seconds, however. There would have been no time for a serious sexual assault or rape.

  “Innate and incankered corruptness” That at least was Pelsaert’s view, though the boy actually killed no one during the mutiny and eventually received a relatively light punishment. Verdict on Cornelis Janssen of Haarlem, JFP 3 Dec 1629 [DB 241–3].

  Cornelis Dircxsz Interrogation of Allert Janssen, 19 Sep 1629 [DB 195]. “I will not have anything to do with it, for surely something else will follow on that,” the gunner is reported to have said. “Not at all,” Evertsz is recorded as answering. “I shall take the consequences, whatever comes from it.” Unhappily for the high boatswain, this was all too true; see chapter 6.

  “. . . very violently and in the highest degree . . .” “Declaration in Short,” JFP nd ?Dec 1629 [DB 250].

  “This has been the true aim . . .” Ibid.

  “. . . the commandeur was merely biding his time . . .” “So that when the Commandeur should put the culprits of this act into chains,” Pelsaert’s journal continues, “they would jump into the Cabin and throw the Commandeur overboard, and in such a way they would seize the ship.” “Declaration in Short,” JFP nd ?Dec 1629 [DB 250].

  The plan to turn pirate For details of the pirates’ haunts in Madagascar, see Jan Rogozinski, Honour Among Thieves: Captain Kidd, Henry Every and the Story of Pirate Island (London: Conway Maritime Press, 2000), pp. 54–68 and David Cordingly, Life Among the Pirates: The Romance and the Reality (London: Little, Brown, 1995), pp. 173–5. The center of their operations was St. Mary’s Island [Isle Sainte Marie], off the northeast coast. Jacobsz and Cornelisz planned to sail there almost three-quarters of a century before Madagascar became the principal pirate base in the Indian Ocean. They would have used St. Mary’s large natural harbor as an anchorage and sailed out from there to raid the shipping lanes that ran along the Indian coast. Two of the other possible bases they discussed, Mauritius and St. Helena, were then uninhabited, though both had been stocked with animals by passing sailors who visited infrequently and used the islands to rest and replenish their supplies of food and water.

  “He would act, Ariaen predicted . . .” Interrogation of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 195].

  “Terra Australis Incognita” De Jode’s atlas, Speculum Orbis Terrae, notes: “This region is even today almost unknown, because after the first and second voyages all have avoided sailing thither, so that it is doubtful until even today whether it is a continent or an island. The sailors call this region New Guinea, because its coasts, state and condition are similar in many respects to the African Guinea. . . . After this region the huge Australian land follows which—as soon as it is once known—will represent a fifth continent, so vast and immense is it deemed . . .” Günter Schilder, Australia Unveiled: The Share of Dutch Navigators in the Discovery of Australia (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1976), pp. 268–9. The name “Terra Australis Incognita” appears on Henricus Hondius’s famous world map of 1630 (ibid. pp. 320–1). Abraham Ortelius’s Types Orbis Terrarum (ca. 1600) gives “Terra Australia Nondum Cognita” (ibid., pp. 266–7), and there were several other variants.

  Early theories concerning the existence of the South-Land Ibid., pp. 7–10; Miriam Estensen, Discovery: The Quest for the Great South Land (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998), pp. 5–9.

  The discovery of Australia Aborigines arrived in Australia about 70,000 years ago, sailing rafts or crossing land bridges created by the last great Ice Age. The identity of the European discoverers of the continent remains a matter of dispute. Kenneth McIntyre, The Secret Discovery of Australia: Portuguese Ventures 200 Years Before Captain Cook (Medindie, South Australia: Souvenir Press, 1977), makes a case for the Portuguese, whose bases in Timor were only a few hundred miles to the north.

  “Faulty interpretation of the works of Marco Polo” The Venetian had actually been describing Malaysia and Indochina.

  Beach, Maletur and Lucach J. A. Heeres, The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606–1765 (London: Luzac, 1899), p. iv; Schilder, op. cit., pp. 23, 78n; Estensen op. cit., pp. 9, 87.

  The old route to the Indies Heeres, p. xiii; Estensen, p. 126.

  Hendrik Brouwer Heeres, pp. xiii–xv; Estensen, pp. 126–7; Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 91.

  The new Dutch route Like the Portuguese before them, the Dutch attempted to keep their new route secret. As late as 1652, the seynbrief—sailing instructions—issued to eastbound ships were handwritten rather than printed, in an attempt to keep control of this secret information. The instructions for this portion of the voyage were relatively bald—sail 1000 mijlen (about 4,600 miles) east of the Cape, and then turn north. Vessels passing close to Amsterdam or St. Paul received some intelligence of their position from the presence of seaweed in the water, but otherwise the decision as to when to make the turn was largely a matter of guesswork. The problem was exacerbated by the difficulties experienced by ships that turned north too early; those that did so found themselves on the coast of Sumatra, where the prevailing winds were easterlies that blew them away from their destination in Java. Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 61; Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 87; Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, p. 164; Jaap Bruijn, “Between Batavia and the Cape: Shipping Patterns of the Dutch East India Company,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 11 (1980): 256–7; Jaap Bruijn and Femme S. Gaastra, “The Dutch East India Company’s Shipping, 1602–1795, in a Comparative Perspective,” in Bruijn and Gaastra (eds.), Ships, Sailors and Spices: East India Companies and Their Shipping in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries (Amsterdam: NEHA, 1993), p. 188; Jeremy Green, Australia’s Oldest Shipwreck: the Loss of the Trial, 1622 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1977), p. 4.

  The Eendracht She was skippered by Dirck Hartog of Amsterdam, who engraved a pewter plate commemorating his discovery and left it on a wooden post atop a cliff on the island at the north end of Shark Bay that now bears his name. The plate was rediscovered by a latter skipper, William de Vlamingh, in 1696, and taken to Batavia. It is still preserved today, in Amsterdam. Schilder, op. cit., pp. 60–1, 294–5.

  The Zeewolf The skipper’s name was Haeveck van Hillegom. Heeres, op. cit., pp. 10–13; Estensen, op. cit., p. 130.

  “. . . long before she could turn away . . .” Dutch retourschepen had an estimated turning circle of about five and a half miles, could not use their rudder to maneuver, and were unable to steer more than six points off the wind. Phillip Playford, Carpet of Silver: the Wreck of the Zuytdorp (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1996), pp. 69–70.

  The Vianen Schilder, op. cit., p. 105; Estensen, op. cit., pp. 155–6.

  The loss of the Tryall Brookes escaped blame for the Tryall’s loss and the death of the majority of the crew and was soon appointed to command another English East India Company ship, the Moone. He proved his dangerous incompetence by running her aground off Dover in 1625, and on this occasion was imprisoned for purposely wrecking his vessel.

  The location of the Tryall’s wreck remains a matter of some dispute. Most historians and maritime archaeologists concur that she ran aground in the Monte Bello Islands, and in 1969 divers found 10 old
anchors, five cannon, and some granite ballast from an old ship on Ritchie Reef, a little way to the northeast of the Monte Bellos. These were identified as coming from the Tryall. Recovery of the majority of the artifacts was rendered impossible by appalling local conditions, and more recently it has been suggested that the materials that were salvaged may not be consistent with an English East Indiaman of the 1620s. Green, Australia’s Oldest Shipwreck, pp. 1, 16–7, 21, 48–51; Graeme Henderson, Maritime Archaeology in Australia (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1986), pp. 20–1; J. A. Henderson, Phantoms of the Tryall (Perth: St. George Books, 1993), pp. 24–45, 76–92; Estensen, pp. 140–1.

  Latitude The sun was shot with one of a variety of navigational instruments carried by East Indiamen—astrolabes, cross-staffs and back-staffs. A VOC equipment list of 1655 suggests that a wide variety of instruments would have been carried for the use of the skipper and the upper steersman. The manifest includes three round astrolabes, two semicircular astrolabes, a pair of astrolabe catholicum (the “universal astrolabe,” used for solving problems of spherical geometry), a dozen pairs of compasses, four Jacob’s Staffs, four Davis’s quadrants and many charts and manuals.

  The astrolabe, which was perfected by the Portuguese, was the most primitive of the three principal navigational tools. The Batavia carried at least four—the number that have been recovered from the wreck site. Almost certainly Ariaen Jacobsz would have taken another with him in the longboat for his voyage to Java. Green, The Loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie Retourschip Batavia, p. 83.

  Navigational problems The skipper of an East Indiaman was primarily responsible for navigation, but as a document dated 1703 explained, he was supposed to cooperate with others in “calculating the latitude, shooting the sun, checking the variation of the compass, altering the course, and in everything else concerning the navigation of the ship.” Boxer, “The Dutch East Indiamen,” p. 87.

  An additional problem lay in the fact that while lines of latitude run parallel, those of longitude get closer together the farther a ship sails from the equator. Navigating far to the south, along the borders of the Roaring Forties, the Batavia would traverse each degree of longitude considerably more quickly than would have been the case farther north. This made it even more easy to underestimate the distance run when sailing east across the Southern Ocean.

  The Batavia would have carried four varieties of hourglass—a four-hour glass, for measuring the duration of watches, and one hour, 30 minute, and 30 second glasses. Later recalculation eventually revealed that in order to measure longitude correctly, the last-named glass should have contained 28 and not 30 seconds’ worth of sand, so Jacobsz’s calculations of longitude would have been 7 percent out even if he had been in possession of every other fact he needed. The only realistic option available at the time was to calculate longitude based on magnetic variation. The Dutch savant Petrus Plancius (1552–1622) developed a system of “eastfinding” that used this principle and published a table of variations for the guidance of mariners, but his results were insufficiently precise to guarantee accuracy.

  The Dutch prime meridian Playford, op. cit., p. 31. At the time, it was popularly supposed that this was the highest mountain in the world.

  Logs The English system, which involved a piece of wood attached to a long line, was considerably more accurate. Knots on the line allowed English sailors to assess the distance traveled in any given time with a greater degree of certainty. Green, The Loss of the VOC Retourschip Batavia, pp. 10–11.

  “. . . it is in retrospect surprising . . .” One reason for the comparative excellence of Dutch navigation was the superiority of the VOC’s charts. The Dutch made great efforts to pool all available information, and returning skippers were required to hand over their journals and charts to the Company’s official mapmakers. The first mapmaker was appointed in the same year that the VOC was founded. Boxer, “The Dutch East Indiamen,” p. 87; Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, p. 164; W. F. J. Mörzer Bruyns, “Navigation of Dutch East India Company Ships around the 1740s,” The Mariner’s Mirror 78 (1992): 143–6.

  Charts Dutch charts of this period were regularly updated to incorporate discoveries. A relatively complete map of the known South-Land coast by Hessel Gerritsz, the chief cartographer of the VOC, and dated 1618 (Schilder, op. cit., pp. 304–5), actually incorporates discoveries made off Australia up to 1628 and so could not have been available to Pelsaert when the Batavia sailed from Holland in the autumn of that year. Even this showed the Abrolhos as a long, thin string of islands and thus gave no real indication of their exact position or appearance.

  Frederick de Houtman He came from Gouda, where he was born in 1571, and sailed with his brother in the first Dutch fleet to reach the Indies. Captured in battle in Sumatra, he learned Malay and on his release wrote the first Dutch-Malay dictionary. De Houtman was later governor of the Moluccas (1621–3). He died in Alkmaar in 1627.

  Houtman’s Abrolhos De Houtman’s only comment was: “One should stay clear of this shoal, for it lies most treacherously for ships that want to call in at this land. It is at least 10 mijlen [45 miles] long; lies at 28 degrees, 26 minutes.” J. P. Sigmond and L. H. Zuiderbaan, Dutch Discoveries of Australia: Shipwrecks, Treasures and Early Voyages Off the West Coast (Adelaide: Rigby, 1979), p. 39. See also Schilder, op. cit., pp. 75–6, 100, 112–3. The seynbriefen of the VOC did mention the existence of the islands and warned seamen to beware of them.

  Chapter 5: The Tiger

  The material in this chapter is based almost entirely on the surviving primary source material: Pelsaert’s journal, the letters of various survivors, and the Harderwijck MS. The original material has, however, been supplemented with archaeological evidence. Almost all the important works on this subject have been produced under the auspices of the Western Australian Maritime Museum and the National Centre of Excellence for Marine Archaeology in Fremantle, but the unpublished BSc. Hons dissertation of Bernandine Hunneybun, Skullduggery on Beacon Island (University of Western Australia, 1995) and Sofia Boranga’s work on the camps of the Zeewijk survivors in the southern Abrolhos, The Identification of Social Organisation on Gun Island (Post Graduate Diploma in Archaeology dissertation, University of Western Australia, 1998) also made interesting reading. Copies of both papers can be found in the library of the Western Australian Maritime Museum.

  Weather conditions in the Abrolhos Jeremy Green, The Loss of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie Retourschip Batavia, Western Australia 1629: An Excavation Report and Catalogue of Artefacts (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1989), p. 3, summarizes the islands’ weather as follows: in the summer the predominant wind is southerly, blowing at Force 5–6 40 percent of the time. There can be cyclones between January and March, and in winter the winds are variable, with occasional gales of up to Force 8–12. In spring the weather improves and the winds drop to become mild and variable. The climate is temperate and, except when it is raining, there is relatively little danger of exposure. See also Hugh Edwards, The Wreck on the Half-Moon Reef (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970), pp. 94–5; Boranga, The Identification of Social Organization on Gun Island, p. 5; Hunneybun, Skullduggery on Beacon Island, pp. 1–5; Jeremy Green, Myra Stanbury, and Femme Gaastra (eds.), The ANCODS Colloquium: Papers Presented at the Australia-Netherlands Colloquium on Maritime Archaeology and Maritime History (Fremantle: Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology, 1999), pp. 89–91.

  “. . . no real undergrowth” Archaeologists are of the opinion that there would have been considerably less brush on the island in 1629 than there is now, the construction of fishermen’s homes in the period from 1946 having created a set of windbreaks that allow more plants to grow.

  The survivors as a group JFP 4 June 1629 [DB 124]. The breakdown of numbers is not actually given anywhere; mine is based on a thorough examination of all the references in Pelsaert’s journals. Jeronimus Cornelisz implicitly commented on the early banding togethe
r of survivors into groups, writing that the oaths of loyalty his men swore to him “cast away all previous promises . . . including the secret comradeships, tent-ships and others.” Mutineers’ oath of 20 Aug 1629, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 148].

  Proportion of foreigners This is the earliest proportion cited by Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 155. It dates to 1637. No specific figures exist for the Batavia or the period before 1637, though from mentions in Pelsaert’s journal it is possible to identify at least eight Frenchmen, an Englishman, a Dane, a Swiss, and seven Germans among the crew. The total number of foreigners would certainly have been higher than that, but it is disguised by the commandeur’s habit of putting all names into their Dutch form.

  Frans Jansz Jansz’s role as leader of the first survivors’ council is conjecture on my part; the journals are quite silent on the subject. It seems likely he took leadership of the camp, both because his seniority would have made it natural and also because there are two minuscule hints in the journals that the surgeon’s unpleasant fate (see chapter 7) was occasioned by an unresolved conflict with Jeronimus’s principal lieutenant, Zevanck, whose nature is undisclosed, but which can only have been based on some claim, on Jansz’s part, to a degree of authority over the survivors. Since the surgeon was never a member of Cornelisz’s council, it seems most logical to assume that he had been, rather, the leader of the council that Jeronimus deposed.

  VOC hierarchy See the salary scales (for 1645–1700) printed by C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800 (London: Hutchinson, 1965), pp. 300–2. Following these scales, and taking the lower estimates printed to allow for some inflation between 1629 and 1645, it would appear that relative seniority and the monthly rates of pay for the principals on the Batavia would have been roughly as follows: