Batavia's Graveyard (54 page)

Bastiaen Gijsbrechtsz and his family
Gijsbrechtsz was probably born some
time in the 1550s, since he married in April 1575. His wife was named Haesken Jansdr. The
couple had at least five children. Gijsbert, the eldest, would appear to have been born in
1576. His sister Elisabeth followed in 1580/1, but she must have died young since a second
daughter of the same name was baptized in February 1588. A second son, Cornelis, was born
early in 1583, and a third, called Huich or Hugo, in February 1595. Bastiaen Gijsbrechtsz
died in Dordrecht at some point before 5 April 1606; his wife survived him and was not
buried until April 1624. It would appear probable that she and Gijsbrechtsz moved away
from Dordrecht for a while between 1588 and 1595, since there is a long gap between the
births of the second Elisabeth and Hugo, and a will of Haesken’s dated 1606 mentions
two further children—a son named Willem and another daughter, Agnete—who cannot
be traced in the town records. Yet another son, Jan, is mentioned in a will of Hugo
Bastiaensz, which was drawn up in July 1614, and he is referred to again, along with an
otherwise unknown sister, Sara, in the preamble to Gijsbrecht Bastiaensz’s letter
from Batavia, LGB. This takes the possible total of Bastiaen Gijsbrechtsz’s children
to nine. Alternatively, he may have been Haesken’s second husband, and several of her
children may have been fathered by the first. GAD, baptismal registers 1 (1574–1587),
2 (1587–1604); burial registers 1697. For Haesken’s will, see ONAD 3, fol. 423
and for Hugo’s see ONAD 20, fols. 240r–240v. Gijsbert Bastiaensz himself also
goes unrecorded in the Dordrecht baptismal registers. For his age, see ONAD 27, fol.
23.

The near-bankruptcy of Bastiaensz
The mill and grounds were purchased from
Bastiensz’s creditors on 7 January 1629 by Jan Cornelisz and Maerten Pietersz,
millers. GAD TR 766, fol. 99v.

“He applied to be a preacher in the Indies”
Bastiaensz appeared
before the Classis of Amsterdam, which handled the affairs of the colonial church, on 11
September 1628. He passed his examination and was immediately dispatched to the Indies.
GAA, ANHK (Records of the Classis of Amsterdam) 3, fol. 91–92v.

Boudewijn van den Mijlen
His last child was conceived in May 1624 (GAA
baptismal registers 40, fol. 294) and he was in Batavia by September 1627 (Drake-Brockman,
Voyage to Disaster,
p. 65n, citing W. P. Coolhaas,
JP Coen: Bescheiden Omtrent
zijn Bedrijf in Indiï,
VII, p. 1174), which implies a departure from the Netherlands
no later than the autumn of 1626. The history of the Van den Mijlen family is recorded by
J. H. van Balen in his
Geschiedenis van Dordrecht,
though no mention can be found
there of a child named Boudewijn. The Van den Mijlens were influential members of the
regent (ruling) class of the United Provinces. One branch of the family had roots in
Dordrecht, but no trace has been found of any cadet line in Woerden.

“She was an orphan . . . died in infancy”
Creesje’s early
life has already been pieced together by Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 63–9, using
Dutch archival sources. Drake-Brockman was, however, unaware of the existence of
Jans’s children. Their brief lives are recorded in the town archives: GAA baptismal
registers 6 (Old Church), fol. 60; 40 (New Church), fols. 157, 294. There is no record of
the children’s deaths in the burial registers of the town, though this is not unusual
when the infants in question died very shortly after birth. While it is not impossible
that one or more survived and was entrusted to the care of relatives (perhaps that of
Lucretia’s elder sister, Sara, who was the godmother to two and was her only
surviving relative) when the
Batavia
departed, the fact that Creesje remained in
the East after her husband’s death (see chapter 10) strongly suggests they were dead
before she ever sailed.

The life and times of Lucretia Jans
Her father was Jan Meynertsz, who was
buried on 16 August 1602. City tax records show that at the time of his death he and his
wife had only one child, who must have been Lucretia’s elder sister, Sara.
Meynertsz’s widow, Steffanie Joostendr, remarried in 1604 after observing an
appropriate period of mourning. Her second husband, Dirck Krijnen, was a widower and a
captain in the Dutch navy. He brought a daughter, Weijntgen, from his first marriage to
join the household. Steffanie died in May 1613 and was buried, like her first husband, in
Nieuwe Zijds chapel. She was laid to rest in her own tomb, a sign that she must have
possessed considerable wealth. Dirck Krijnen appears to have been dead by 1620, as by that
date Creesje’s affairs were in the hands of Amsterdam’s Orphan Chamber, and she
had acquired a guardian in the shape of a sexton named Jacob Jacobsz, who also helped to
officiate at her marriage. Her sister, Sara, married twice and had five children. Their
affairs have been recorded in some detail because the two girls eventually became the
heirs of their mother’s uncle, Nicholas van der Leur, and inherited a considerable
sum of money. Under Dutch law the inheritance was administered by the Orphan Chamber of
the City of Amsterdam. The house in which Creesje was born, then known as The White Angel,
still stands and the current address is 113 Nieuwendijk, Amsterdam (Drake-Brockman, op.
cit., pp. 63–9, 273). For Creesje’s marriage, see GAA marriage registers 969
(Old Church 1619–20), fol. 433, which also records her current address as the
Herenstraat. At this time it was in theory possible for Dutch women to get married at the
age of 12, but in practice the average age at which they wed in Amsterdam was 24 to 28 and
though half of the city’s brides were aged 20 to 24, 18 was regarded as the age of
sexual maturity. Creesje was thus very much a youthful bride. Gabrielle Dorren,
Eenheid
en Verscheidenheid: De Burgers van Haarlem in de Gouden Eeuw
(Amsterdam:
Prometheus/Bert Bakker, 2001), p. 41; Simon Schama,
The Embarrassment of Riches: An
Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age
(London: Fontana, 1987), p.
436.

“. . . to Arakan . . .”
Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 65n, citing
Coolhaas, op. cit. p. 1186.

Jan Pinten
Confession of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB
196].

Sick bays
Bruijn et al.,
Dutch-Asiatic Shipping,
I, p.
161.

Sailors’ attitude to soldiers’ deaths
Charles Parr,
Jan van
Linschoten
(New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell, 1964), p. xxxii.

Gabriel Jacobszoon and his wife
Confession of Andries Jonas, JFP 24 Sep
1629 [DB 201].

Jacop Pietersz, his origins and nicknames
Interrogation of Jeronimus
Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 165]; death sentences pronounced 28 Jan 1630, ARA VOC 1099,
fol. 49.

Coenraat van Huyssen
For his appearance, nobility, and origins in
Gelderland, see LGB; for his family background, see W. J. d’Ablaing van Giessenburg,
De
Ridderschap van de Veluwe
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1859), p. 78 and
De
Ridderschap van het Kwartier van Nijmegen
(The Hague: Van Stockum, 1899), pp. 157,
164; A. P. van Schilfgaarde,
Register op de Leenen van her Huis Bergh
(Arnhem:
Gouda Quint, 1929), pp. 253–4. There is a considerable gap in the Den Werd fief
records for the period 1560–1656, which makes it impossible to state with certainty
that Coenraat van Huyssen was a member of this family, but it seems likely that he
was.

The Van Welderens and Nijmegen
The Van Welderens were a distinguished
family and had lived in Nijmegen since at least 1500. The family had produced several
members of the knighthood of Gelderland, as well as a number of well-respected military
officers of the rank of colonel and above. The name Gsbert was common in the family, but
neither the
Batavia
mutineer nor his brother, Olivier, can be identified in the
surviving genealogy. It is possible that the two Van Welderens were bastard sons who had
been forced to seek their fortunes in the Indies. Van Welderen collection, Centraal Bureau
voor Genealogie, The Hague; verdict on Olivier van Welderen, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB
245].

Soldiers and seamen
Boxer,
The Dutch Seaborne Empire,
pp.
69–73; Van Gelder, op. cit., pp. 148–55.

Hammocks
Although they were not yet in widespread use, at least some of
the
Batavia
’s men had hammocks, including the High Boatswain, Jan Evertsz, and
several of the soldiers. Confession of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 195].

Pelsaert’s flotilla
Bruijn et al., pp. 2, 60–3.

The distance from the Texel to Batavia
Bruijn, “Between Batavia and
the Cape,” p. 259. This calculation takes account of the fact that Dutch ships never
sailed the shortest possible route between the two points, in order to take full advantage
of favorable winds.

Record passages
See Bruijn et al.,
Dutch-Asiatic Shipping,
I, 56
and F. J. Tickner and V. C. Medvei, “Scurvy and the Health of European Crews in the
Indian Ocean in the Seventeenth Century,”
Medical History
2 (1958):
41.

Unlucky voyages
For the
Westfriesland,
see A. J. C. Vermeulen,
“Onrust Ende Wederspannigheyt: Vijf Muiterijen in de Zeventiende Eeuw,” pp.
33–4, in Jaap Bruijn and E. S. van Eyck van Heslinga (eds.),
Muiterij, Oproer en
Berechting op de Schepen van de VOC
(Haarlem: De Boer Maritiem, 1980). For the
Zuytdorp,
see Phillip Playford,
Carpet of Silver: the Wreck of the Zuytdorp
(Nedlands, WA:
University of Western Australia Press, 1996), pp. 45–55.

Cargo and cargo capacity
Stern cabins were also used to stow the most
valuable cargo on the voyage home. Kristoff Glamann,
Dutch-Asiatic Trade 1620–1740
(Copenhagen: Danish Science Press, 1958), p. 24, notes that one VOC constable had to share
his tiny cabin with a chest of nutmeg cakes, two small cases of birds’ nests, a pot
of civet, and 15 bales of tea. See also H. N. Kamer,
Het VOC-retourschip: Een Panorama
van de 17de- and 18-de-Eeuwse Scheepsbouw
(Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1995), pp.
24–30; Bruijn et al.,
Dutch-Asiatic Shipping,
I, pp. 43, 179–87; list of
retrieved cash and goods from the wreck, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 529, published by V. D. Roeper
(ed.),
De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629
(Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1994), pp.
218–9; Marit van Huystee,
The Lost Gateway of Jakarta
(Fremantle: Western
Australian Maritime Museum, 1994). Some authorities estimate the cargo capacity of a
retourschip
of the
Batavia
’s size as high as 1,000 tons.

Seasickness
M. Barend-van Haeften,
Op Reis met de VOC: De Openhartige
Dagboeken van de Zusters Lammens en Swellengrebel
(Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1996), p.
53.

Seasickness in pigs
Pablo Pérez-Mallaína,
Spain’s Men of the
Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century
(Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins: University Press, 1998), p. 132.

Latrines
Bruijn et al.,
Dutch-Asiatic Shipping,
I, 161; Boxer,
The
Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800,
p. 76; Van Gelder, op. cit., p. 159; on the
layer of filth in the bilges, see Philip Tyler, “The
Batavia
Mutineers:
Evidence of an Anabaptist ‘Fifth Column’ within 17th century Dutch
Colonialism?”
Westerly
(December 1970): p. 44.

Smells
Van Gelder, op. cit., p. 159; N. A. M. Rodger,
The Safeguard of
the Sea
(London: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 408; J. J. Keevil, C. S. Lloyd, and J. L. S.
Coulter,
Medicine and the Navy, 1200–1900
(4 vols., Edinburgh,
1957–1963), I, p. 183; M. Barend-van Haeften and A. J. Gelderblom (eds.),
Buyten
Gaets: Twee Burleske Reisbieven van Aernout van Overbeke
(Hilversum: Verloren, 1998),
p. 94.

“Fuming like hell . . .”
Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., p.
140.

Tedium
Cf. Barend-van Haeften, op. cit., pp. 35, 61, 66.

Food
It has been said that the proportion of salt to meat in naval stores
was so high that when it was cooked in brine the salt content actually fell. The salting
itself had to be done with rock salt; modern free-flowing table salts seal the meat too
quickly, leaving it badly cured and with a bitter taste. Also on the menu on an East
Indiaman were oatmeal, butter (which turned rancid very quickly), and Dutch
cheese—the last made from the thinnest of skinned milk and so hard that sailors were
known to carve spare buttons from it. C. R. Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen: Their
Sailors, Their Navigators and Life on Board, 1602–1795,”
The Mariner’s
Mirror
49 (1963): 94–5; Sue Shepherd,
Pickled, Potted and Canned: The Story of
Food Preserving
(London: Headline, 2000), pp. 26–8, 34, 44–8, 54–6, 67,
85, 196–7, 198–9; N. A. M. Rodger,
The Wooden World,
pp. 82, 92. For
contemporary views of potatoes, see Paul Zumthor,
Daily Life in Rembrandt’s
Holland
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1962), p. 71. On the occasional lethality
of the hold, see
The Wooden World,
p. 106.

Wine, beer, and water
Bruijn et al.,
Dutch-Asiatic Shipping,
I,
160; Boxer,
The Dutch Seaborne Empire,
pp. 74–5; Willem Vos, “Een
Rondleiding Door een Oostindiïvaarder,’
Batavia Cahier 4: Een Rondleiding door
een Oostindiïvaarder
(Lelystad: np, 1993), p. 4; see also Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit.,
pp. 141–3, 149.

“About as hot as if it were boiling”
Comment by Governor-General
Gerard Reynst, made on board ship off Sierra Leone in 1614 and quoted by Boxer,
The
Dutch Seaborne Empire,
p. 74.