In 1628 a fleet of ships owned by the Dutch East India Company set
sail for Java. Among their number was the Batavia, a large new ship
laden with gold, silver and gems. Ostensibly she was under the
command of an experienced merchant named Francisco Pelsaert; she
also carried an under-merchant, the untried, untested Jeronimus
Cornelisz. Unfortunately this man was not only a disgraced bankrupt
- he was a heretic and troublemaker. Cornelisz was already
fermenting mutiny within a group of discontented sailors when
disaster struck the Batavia. In the early hours of June 4 - after
211 days at sea - the ship impaled itself on a barely submerged
coral reef at the edge of an unexplored archipelago off the west
coast of Australia. Amidst appalling storms, over 200 survivors
were transferred to the relative safety of the islands and there
they remained, while Pelsaert took the only boat and headed for
Java. Left alone, with little chance of rescue, dwindling food
sources and almost no water supplies, the survivors were in chaos.
It was a situation that Cornelisz was happy to take advantage of
and, with the help of an elite group of loyal supporters, he seized
control. So began a killing spree that led to the bloody murder of
most of the Batavia survivors. Painstakingly researched and told in
compelling detail, this is the true story of what happened. Mike
Dash is convinced that, aside from being a heretic and a mutineer,
Cornelisz was also a psychopath. Away from the moral and legal
constraints of an organized society he allowed his bloodlust to
take control. This is a truly horrifying and gripping account that
grabs the reader's attention from the very first sentence and keeps
it right to the end. (Kirkus UK)
When the Dutch East Indiaman Batavia struck an uncharted reef off
the new continent of Australia on her maiden voyage in 1629, 332
men, women and children were on board. While some headed off in a
lifeboat to seek help, 250 of the survivors ended up on a tiny
coral island less than half a mile long. A band of mutineers, whose
motives were almost beyond comprehension, then started on a
cold-blooded killing spree, leaving fewer than 80 people alive when
the rescue boat arrived three months later. BATAVIA'S GRAVEYARD
tells this strange story as a gripping narrative structured around
three strong principal characters: Francisco Pelsaert, the
cultivated but weak-willed captain; Jeronimus Cornelisz, a sinister
apothecary with a terrifying personal philosophy influenced by
Rosicrucianism who set himself up as the ruler of the island; and
Wiebbe Hayes, the only survivor with the courage to fight
Jeronimus's band. The background to these events, including the
story of the Dutch East India Company, and the discovery of
Australia, is richly drawn.
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