Batavia's Graveyard (59 page)

Hans Hardens and his family
The murder of Hilletgie took place on 8 July.
JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 146]; verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 183]. Hardens
played no active part in any of the events of the mutiny, and there is no record that he
ever killed or wounded anyone. Yet he signed both the mutineers’ oaths, in the first
instance above Rutger Fredricx, Cornelis Pietersz, and Lucas Gellisz, and in the second
behind Fredricx and Gellisz, but ahead of Pietersz, Olivier van Welderen, and Jan Pelgrom.
His name is conspicuously absent from the list of the “most innocent” minor
mutineers that Jeronimus supplied to Pelsaert. Finally, he was one of the crew who
attempted to capture the
Sardam
when the
jacht
eventually appeared in the
Abrolhos (see chapter 8). From this it would appear that he was not only one of the
earlier recruits to Cornelisz’s cause, but also one of the more active. Pelsaert gave
no interpretation of the reasons for Hilletgie Hardens’s death; this is my own.
Interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 146, 165, 166].

“Written unbreakable agreement . . .”
This quotation comes
directly from the text of the oath sworn by all the mutineers on 12 July 1629 (see chapter
7). JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 147].

“The whole day long it was their catch-call . . .”
LGB.

Andries de Vries and the killing of the sick
Interrogation of Jeronimus
Cornelisz, JFP 22 Sep 1629 [DB 167]; verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB
173–4]; verdict on Allert Janssen, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 198–9]. Little is known
of how Jeronimus and his men solved the problem of disposing of these bodies. In the early
seventeenth century, medical wisdom held that corpses produced a poisonous miasma capable
of causing plague and fever, and the mutineers evidently made arrangements to bury at
least some of their victims, scraping out grave pits in the middle of the island, where
the soil was deepest. These shallow graves—none was more than about two feet
deep—held up to seven or eight dead bodies. When men were killed close to the water,
the mutineers may well have thrown their corpses into the sea. Interview with Dr. Alanah
Buck, Western Australian Centre for Pathology and Medical Research, Perth, Australia, 13
June 2000.

Jan Pinten
This murder took place on 10 July. Interrogation of Jan
Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 179].

Sick cabin boy
This murder took place at the same time as the killings of
Van Den Ende and Drayer (below), with whom the sick boy shared a tent. Ibid. [DB
180].

Hendrick Claasz
This murder took place on 14 July. In Janssen’s
recollection, “Jeronimus himself came and called him out of his tent and has said,
‘Go get Hendrick Claasz of Apcou, carpenter, out of his tent and say he must come to
me, and when he comes outside, you, with the help of De Vries, must cut his throat,’
which they have done.” Interrogation of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB
196].

Hans Frederick and Oliver van Welderen
Verdicts on Frederick and Van
Welderen, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 244–5]. Frederick and Hendricxsz both came from
Bremen.

Murder of Van den Ende and Drayer
Interrogation of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19
Sep–28 Sep 1629 [DB 179–81]; verdict on Lucas Gellisz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB
233].

“He, together with David Zevanck . . .”
Interrogation of Jan
Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 180].

“Have murdered or destroyed”
Verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP
28 Sep 1629 [DB 172–3].

Diet of the
Batavia
survivors
Pelsaert’s journals scarcely
concern themselves with the survivors’ diet. If the people from the
Batavia
were typical of Dutch sailors of the era, however, it would appear that, given the choice,
they would eat their familiar preserved meats first, then sea lion and finally birds or
fish. Clear distinctions seem to have existed between the diets of officers (for which, in
the case of the
Batavia,
read “mutineers”) and those of the common people
in the case of shipwreck. The diet of the
Zeewijk
survivors—as reconstructed
by Boranga (op. cit., pp. 97, 103), who believed she was able to positively identify 76
percent of the animal bones recovered from the several camp sites on Pelsaert
Island—indicates that the food consumption of the various groups stranded on the
island after the
retourschip
went aground there in 1727 was as follows:

This analysis no doubt understates the importance of fish in the diet of all
three groups—their bones are less likely to be detected in an excavation—and a
preference for familiar fare over fresh meat is apparent, but the general pattern is clear
enough. The campsites of the common hands were not identified, and Boranga theorizes that
they were probably split into small groups and kept some distance from the main camp, in
an area subsequently destroyed by guano mining. The archaeologists’ discoveries
contradict assertions in journals kept by two of the
Zeewijk
’s surviving
officers that food was distributed equally to all parties on the island. However, these
same journals mention that ordinary sailors—the “common hands,” who were
equivalent to the VOC loyalists on Batavia’s Graveyard—were the first to catch
and eat birds, which certainly suggests that their rations were the most meager of
all.

Freedom of movement
All Pelsaert’s notes concerning the men permitted
to crew the makeshift rafts and yawls refer to men who had signed oaths of allegiance to
Cornelisz.

Morning stars
The remains of a weapon of this description were found early
in 2001, during a metal detector search of Seals’ Island conducted on behalf of a
Perth-based TV production company called Prospero Productions. The nails and the rope were
both long gone, but the deadly purpose of the carefully worked lump of lead could not be
doubted. Interview with Ed Punchard of Prospero Productions, 7 May 2001.

Case of jewels
“List of cash and goods retrieved from the
wreck,” ARA VOC 1098 fol. 529r–529v [R 218–9]. In various places in a
single long letter written over several weeks, Antonio van Diemen valued the contents of
the case at between 20,000 and 60,000 guilders, which has led to speculation that the
jewel-studded golden frame was looted at some point. However, the estimates rise, rather
than fall, in the course of the letter, so this theory looks untenable. The highest of the
estimates appears the most reliable. Van Diemen to Pieter Carpentier, 30 Nov–10 Dec
1629 [DB 42, 49, 51]

The Great Cameo
The Gentlemen XVII had to be content with sight of a
sketch of the piece. For profit, see VOC contract with Boudaen, 18 Dec 1628 [DB 88]. The
specified commission was 28 percent of the sale price. See also A. N. Zadoks-Josephus
Jitta, “De lotgevallen van den grooten camee in het Koninklijk Penningkabinet,”
Oud-Holland
66 (1951): 191–211; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 84–93. Drake-Brockman also
suggests that a valuable agate vase, the property of Peter Paul Rubens (and now in the
Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore) was among Pelsaert’s trade goods. Her interpretation
of the rather obscure contemporary evidence for this assertion has been followed by later
authors, but in my view it is not possible to state with any certainty that the Rubens
vase was ever in the Abrolhos. For the known history of the vase, see Marvin Chauncey
Ross, “The Rubens Vase: Its History and Date,”
Journal of the Walters Art
Gallery
6 (1943): 9–39.

“For they were led to thinking . . .”
Interrogation of Andries
Jonas, JFP 27 Sep 1629 [DB 202].

Mutton birds
Edwards, op. cit., p. 169. The term “mutton bird”
is actually an eighteenth-century colloquialism, which probably refers to the taste of the
birds’ flesh. It was invented by early British settlers on Norfolk Island. Other
emigrants knew the birds as “flying sheep.” In Western Australia the mutton bird
is
Puffinus tenuirostris,
the short-tailed shearwater; in New Zealand, the phrase
refers to
P. griseus,
the sooty shearwater.

The first wave of killings on Seals’ Island
Interrogation of Jan
Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 180]; verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB
183–4]; interrogation of Lenert van Os, JFP 23 Sep 1629 [DB 187]; verdict on Abraham
Gerritsz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 232]; verdict on Claas Harmansz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB
233–4].

“Kill most of the people . . .”
Verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP
28 Sep 1629 [DB 183–4].

“Lenert, immediately after he arrived . . .”
Interrogation of
Lenert van Os, JFP 23 Sep 1629 [DB187]; verdict on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB
183–4].

“Eight men . . .”
Pelsaert names only five (Interrogation of Jan
Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 180]), but Jansz, in his letter of 11 December 1629, says
10, and he is probably closer to the truth. The numbers add up as follows: there were
about 45 people on the island, it appears, and 18 were definitely killed in the first
assault. During the second attack all four women were killed, and 12 of the 15 cabin boys;
two of the other three were dealt with later (see below), leaving eight people unaccounted
for.

The second wave of killings on Seals’ Island
Verdict on Mattys Beer,
JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 193]; interrogation of Andries Jonas, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 200–1];
verdict on Andries Jonas, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 203]; verdict on Jan Pelgrom, JFP 28 Sep
1629 [DB 210].

Jan Pelgrom
Pelgrom, a cabin boy, is variously referred to in
Pelsaert’s journals as “Jan van Bemmel” and, more usually, “Jan
Pelgrom de Bye.” “Bemmel” is Zaltbommel, on the River Waal, which was known
simply as Bommel in the seventeenth century, and Jan of the
Batavia
seems to have
been a minor member of a patrician family called Pelgrom de Bye, whose senior branch was
based just to the south, in Bois-le-Duc, Northern Brabant. The first recorded member of
this family came there from Bommel in 1375. Jan was a common name in the family (in our
Jan Pelgrom’s time one of the aldermen of Bois-le-Duc was named Jan Pietersz Pelgrom
de Bye). The Jan of the
Batavia
may have been a member of a cadet branch, or
perhaps a bastard son forced to seek his fortune in the East. See
Geschiedenis van het
Geslacht Vaasen,
vol. 8 (unpublished MS, nd, twentieth century), Centraal Bureau voor
Genealogie, The Hague, mainly fol. 141–52.

“On the 18 July . . .”
Verdict on Andries Jonas, JFP 28 Sep 1629
[DB 203]. I have inserted the word
heavily
from Jonas’s interrogation of 24
Sep 1629 [DB 201]; the two versions of the event are otherwise more or less
identical.

The massacre of the cabin boys
Interrogation of Mattys Beer, JFP 23 Sep
1629 [DB 190].

Gerritsz’s killing
The dead boy’s name was Frans Fransz, and he
came from Haarlem. Verdict on Abraham Gerritsz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 232].

Murder of the three surviving boys
Verdict on Claes Harmansz, JFP 12 Nov
1629 [DB 233–4]; verdict on Isbrant Isbrantsz, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 246]. Isbrantsz
was unfortunate; two other unwilling mutineers—the steward, Reyndert Hendricx, and
Gerrit Willemsz of Enkhuizen, a sailor—were with him in the yawl, but they were not
required to participate in any killing and escaped unpunished when the mutiny was
crushed.

“Like some Roman tyrant”
Cornelisz’s contemporaries
compared him with Nero; his abandonment of the Seals’ Island party was a deed
“as Nero or some other tyrant would have thought of” for the writer of the
letter of 11 Dec 1629 [R 232].

Deschamps as a clerk
In fact, Pelsaert’s journals state in several
places that Deschamps was not an assistant but an under-merchant (Verdict on Salomon
Deschamps, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 231])—an unexplained anomaly, given that this was
Jeronimus’s rank, and
retourschepen
were supposed to carry only a single
under-merchant.

Salomon Deschamps and Mayken Cardoes’s child
Ibid.

Number of deaths
“List of those on board the
Batavia,
”
ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220].

“To have murdered or destroyed . . .”
Verdict on Jeronimus
Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 172–3].

Gijsbert Bastiaensz and his family
LGB. Bastiaen: GAD baptismal registers
3 (1605–1619), June 1606; interrogation of Wouter Loos, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 225].
Pieter: GAD baptismal register 3, March 1610. Johannes: Ibid., December 1615. Roelant: GAD
baptismal registers 4 (1619–41), May 1621. Judick: GAD baptismal registers 3, January
1608. Willemijntge: Ibid., October 1614. Agnete: Ibid., March 1618. For details of the
family’s early life in Dordrecht, see chapter 3. Father and children were temporarily
separated after the wreck, but reunited on Batavia’s Graveyard, LGB.

“. . . no more than three unmarried adult women . . .”
The only
other definite example who can be traced in Pelsaert’s journals is Wybrecht Claasen,
who as a servant would have been a much less attractive catch than Judick. One other
women, Marretgie Louys, is not explicitly mentioned as having either a husband or
children, but it may be presumed that to have come on board she probably was married to a
member of the crew.

Judick’s betrothal to Van Huyssen
LGB. The precise chronology is very
slightly unclear here, as the
predikant
does not say explicitly whether the
betrothal took place before or after the murder of the remainder of the family. He does
note that Judick and Van Huyssen were together “for about five weeks” before the
mutineer’s death on 2 September (see chapter 7), which would place the couple’s
engagement on about 29 July, or a week after the murders, which took place on 21 July. It
is evident, however, that the relationship between the two predated the
killings.