Scousesubs

Treasure Island Meets Deliverance

Not a submarine story but rather a tale of shipwreck, mutiny, rape, mayhem and gory mass murder on a scale unparalleled in maritime history. The Batavia was the impressive new flagship of the Dutch East India Company, and it was on its maiden voyage to its namesake port in Java that it struck a reef in the Abrolhus Islands, some 80 kilometres off the West Australian coast. This was sometime after midnight on the 4 June 1629 and there was no real way for those keeping watch to know they were sailing into a treacherous cluster of reefs, shoals and low-lying islands. The impact threw Commander Francisco Pelsaert from his bed and soon 315 men, women and children were in a state of panic. Where were they, what had happened?

With sunrise, the situation became all too clear. While not in immediate danger of breaking up, the Batavia was in a perilous situation. Strong winds had arisen, bringing rain and sending breakers crashing over the decks. Evacuations by boat commenced to one of the nearby islands (Beacon Island), later to be known as Batavia's Graveyard, scene of the worst of the massacres. Pelsaert and 47 others, including rather unwisely all the senior officers, headed off in a sloop to find water and ultimately decided to seek help from the port of Batavia (now Jakarta), some 1,200 nautical miles away. They left behind 268 castaways.

With Pelsaert and the disgraced skipper, Adriaen Jacobsz, both gone, Jeronimus Cornelisz, who was responsible for the ship's cargo, began to hatch a variation on the mutinous plan that had been brewing in his mind since before the Batavia came to grief. This intelligent but deranged sociopath had enlisted a small group of followers convincing them that their only chance of survival on these god-forsaken shores was to systematically kill off everyone else and then await the return of Pelsaert. They would then commandeer the rescue vessel and set off with the 250,000 guilders of silver bullion, the casket of jewels, and other valuable items of cargo that had been salvaged. And if Pelsaert didn't return, they would build a new boat out of the wreckage.

Cornelisz and his blood thirsty cronies succeeded in ruthlessly murdering at least 125 men women and young children by strangulation or bludgeoning them to death with axes and hammers. They kept alive only those who would be of use to them, men as artisans and the surviving young women as communal prostitutes for the mutineers. Earlier a group of men under Wiebbe Hayes, a soldier, had been fooled into going to a nearby atoll Wallabi Island in search of water only to be marooned there to die by the mutineers. Luckily their island provided plentiful wildlife and fresh water and they survived. On learning of the massacres they formed armed resistance to Cornelisz and succeeded in capturing all the mutineers and placing them in chains.

By 17 September, when Pelsaert arrived from Java aboard a rescue ship, there were fewer than 150 survivors and he immediately set about having the mutineers tried for heir crimes. It was swift justice. Seven were hung, with the evil Cornelisz first having both his hands chopped off. Two younger members were cast ashore on the mainland whilst the others were taken back to Batavia for imprisonment, torture and later execution. Importantly for the Dutch East India Company they were able to retrieve eight of the ten chests of silver bullion.

For many years the wreck of the Batavia was thought to be somewhere in the southern Abrolhus Islands. But in the 1950's, historian Henrietta Drake-Brockman arranged for a translation of Pelsaert's Journal and in her ground-breaking book 'Voyage to Disaster', she estimated that the most likely location of the wreck was further north in the Abrolhus Wallabi Group. She was right. The first divers to find the wreck were Max and Graham Cramer along with Greg Allen. This was in 1963 and they were taken to the likely site by Dave Johnson a local fisherman. A preliminary expedition was made and many items were recovered. The story of the discovery and early expeditions were told by Hugh Edwards in 'Islands of Angry Ghosts'. See photo for a replica of the Batavia on display in Lelystad, Holland, which takes regularly takes place in sailing events.

Since then, the challenging task of unravelling the mysteries of the wreck and its tragic aftermath has fallen to the Western Australia Museum and its expert staff. The amount of material excavated during numerous expeditions is staggering with virtually everything that remained of the ship and its cargo having now been raised. This includes part of the hull, 137 huge prefabricated sandstone blocks intended for a portico at the Dutch headquarters in Batavia, ornate silverware, 7700 silver coins, ceramics and thousands of ballast bricks. From the various island sites occupied by the castaways, the skeletons of many of the murder victims have been unearthed along with numerous artefacts. The remnants of defensive walls and stone shelters built by Wiebbe Hayes and his men on West Wallabi Island are Australia's oldest known European structures.

For further reading on this strange and macabre true story read 'Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny' by Mike Dash. Check it out in your local library.

ISN-10: 0753816849
ISBN-13: 978-0753816844