Batavia's Graveyard

by Mike Dash

  Perhaps remarkably, no definitive list of the passengers and crew of the Titanic actually exists, but best estimates suggest that the total number of people on board was 1,284 passengers and 884 crew, a total of 2,168. Lists compiled of the survivors give from 703 (Board of Trade enquiry) to 803 people (consolidated list). My calculation assumes that the consolidated list favored by most researchers is correct, and that 37 percent of the liner’s complement therefore survived.

  Travails of the year 1629 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. 1; Malcolm Uren, Sailormen’s Ghosts: The Abrolhos Islands in Three Hundred Years of Romance, History and Adventure (Melbourne: Robertson & Mullens, 1944), pp. 218–9. The apparent discrepancy between Van Diemen’s total of 74 survivors and Pelsaert’s figure of 77 is explained by the fact that these men—Pelsaert, Gerritsz, and Holloch—had originally escaped in the longboat and then returned in the Sardam.

  Van Diemen’s letter Van Diemen to Pieter de Carpentier, 10 December 16298, ARA VOC 1009, cited by Henrietta Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1995), pp. 49–50.

  Goods salvaged from the wreck “Notice of the retrieved cash and goods taken with the Sardam to Batavia,” ARA VOC 1098, fol. 529r–529v, [R 218]. In an enclosure, Van Diemen listed all goods retrieved from the wreck with the scrupulous thoroughness expected by the VOC. Realen were pieces of eight, valued at rather more than two guilders each, and a rijksdaalder, or riksdollar, was worth two and a half guilders:

  “Nine chests with realen, with one chest No. 33 with nine bags of ducatons and 41 bags of double and single stuivers. Some of the stuivers have fallen out of the chest, and are missing.

  One chest, retrieved broken, without lid, the money being stuck together by rust, in total 5,400 rijksdaalders in 27 bags, 400 rijksdaalders in two small bags, found on the island and taken from the crew.

  One small case of jewellery, with four small boxes belonging to the VOC, worth 58,671 guilders 15 stuivers, from which is missing one small necklace worth 70 guilders nine stuivers. In total 58,601 guilders and six stuivers.

  In the same case is a jewel belonging to Caspar Boudaen, which the VOC allowed him to sell in India.

  One small case containing 75 silver marcken, consisting of four Moorish fruit dishes, two small eating dishes, one Moorish wash-basin, and some broken silver plate. In this case there is also some silver and gold braid, but most of it is spoiled.

  Three small casks with cochenille, of which one has been very wet, each cask weighing 52 Brabant pounds.

  Two cases with various sorts of linen, many spoilt.

  One chest with various kinds of linen, most of them spoilt.

  One small case with some linen.

  Various rijksdaalders retrieved by the Gujerati divers.

  Two small cases with thin copper, each case containing some smaller ones, but most of it having gone black.

  Two pieces of artillery, that is, one weighing 3310 pounds and one iron one weighing 3300 pounds.

  Some ironwork.

  Two small casks of Spanish wine.

  One filled with oil.

  One filled with vinegar.

  Two casks of beer.

  One pack of old linen.”

  Torrentius A. Bredius, Johannes Torrentius (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1909), pp. 54–69; A. J. Rehorst, Torrentius (Rotterdam: WL & J Brusse NV, 1939), pp. 65–6; Govert Snoek, De Rosenkruizers in Nederland, Voornamelijk in de Eerste Helft van de 17de Eeuw. Een Inventarisatie (Ph.D. thesis, University of Utrecht, 1997), pp. 75–6.

  The surviving painting It was identified by being matched to the description of a piece acquired for Charles in 1628, and by the discovery of the King’s mark on the reverse. Rehorst, op. cit., pp. 73–8. It is the work described by Zbigniew Herbert in his Still Life With a Bridle: Essays and Apocryphas (London: Jonathan Cape, 1993).

  Specx’s later career and death Stapel, De Gouverneurs-Generaal, p. 19; M. A. van Rhede van der Kloot, De Gouverneurs-Generaal en Commissarissen-Generaal van Nederlandsch-Indiï, 1610–1888 (The Hague: Van Stockum, 1891), pp. 41; W. Ph. Coolhaas, “Aanvullingen en Verbeteringen op Van Rhede van der Kloot’s De Gouveneurs-Generall en Commissarissen-Generaal van Nederlandsch-Indiï (1610-1888),” De Nederlandsche Leeuw 73 (1956): 341; J. R. Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th Centuries (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), I, p. 88.

  The fate of Sara Specx On the aftermath of the Specx affair, see C. Gerretson, Coen’s Eerherstel (Amsterdam: Van Kampen, 1944), pp. 58–70; Coolhaas, op. cit., p. 342; Van Rhede van der Kloot, op. cit., p. 41.

  Escape of the minor mutineers The fate of Nannings, Gerritsz, and Jan Jansz Purmer is conjecture on my part. Although ne’er-do-wells at best, and most likely active mutineers, their names do not appear on the lists of Jeronimus’s band found in the captain-general’s tent after Pelsaert’s return. It is certainly possible that one or more of them drowned on board the Batavia or died of thirst on Batavia’s Graveyard before the mutiny began; but all three were experienced sailors and I think it much more likely they were with Ariaen Jacobsz in the longboat.

  Ryckert Woutersz’s fate is nowhere mentioned in the journals, but the likelihood is that he was dead by 12 July, when his name was conspicuously absent from the first list of those swearing loyalty to Jeronimus. It was Hugh Edwards who first suggested that he was murdered by his confederates, which is entirely plausible, though one might expect to find some reference to it in the interrogations. Edwards, Islands of Angry Ghosts (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1966), p. 37.

  Jan Willemsz Selyns JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 157]; sentence on Mattys Beer, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 193]; confession of Wouter Loos, 27 Oct 1629 [DB 226].

  Pelsaert’s later career and death The renewed onset of the illness can probably be dated to some time shortly before 14 June, on which day Pelsaert made his will. Drake-Brockman, pp. 52–60, 259–61; Roeper, op. cit., pp. 39–41; D. H. A. Kolff and H. W. van Santen (eds.), De Geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over Mughal Indiï, 1627: Kroniek en Remonstrantie (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), p. 41.

  Pelsaert’s affair with Pieterge Mooij, p. 330; Kolff and van Santen, op. cit., p. 33.

  Jambi Today the town is called Telanaipura. It lies on the northern side of the island, more than 50 miles up the River Hari. The Dutch expeditionary force, which Pelsaert joined, was so substantial that the Portuguese fled when it appeared, and the siege was lifted without the necessity of firing a shot.

  “. . . wholly ill . . .” Pelsaert to the Gentlemen XVII of Amsterdam, 12 December 1629, ARA VOC 1630 [DB 258–60]. This is apparently the only letter known to have been written by Pelsaert still extant. It was the commandeur’s covering note to the journals containing his account of the disaster.

  Council of the Indies Neither Specx nor Pelsaert seems to have been aware that Pelsaert himself had been nominated to the Council as a “councillor extraordinary,” or supernumerary, at a salary of 200 guilders per month. The letter noting this appointment was written in the Netherlands at the end of August 1629, when the commandeur was still searching for the Abrolhos in the Sardam, and would not have arrived until some time in the spring of 1630. By then Pelsaert had been posted to Sumatra, and there is no record that he ever took up the seat or even learned that he had received the honor. Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 36–7. Pelsaert’s new salary is mentioned in a letter from the Gentlemen XVII to Jan Coen, governor-general of the Indies, cited in ibid.

  The fate of the cameo A. N. Zadoks-Josephus Jitta, “De lotgevallen van den grooten camee in het Koninklijk Penningkabinet,” Oud-Holland 66 (1951): 191, 200–4; Roeper, op. cit., pp. 40–1; Kolff and Van Santen, op. cit., p. 42.

  Pelsaert’s private trade Roeper, op. cit., pp. 41, 59; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 56–9.

  Pelsaert’s mother Roeper, op. cit., pp. 41,
59; Kolff and Van Santen, op. cit., p. 42. Roeper points out that the payment of any compensation at all implies that the Company could not entirely substantiate its allegations of private trading, as it would certainly have confiscated the entire amount had the case been thoroughly clear-cut.

  Wiebbe Hayes and the Defenders’ rewards Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 270–1; Roeper, op. cit., pp. 38, 59.

  Records of Winschoten As noted above, only the town’s judicial records (in the Provincial Archive at Groningen) survive from this period, and no signature of a Wiebbe Hayes can be found in them—not even among the marriage contracts. There are no notarial records from Winschoten, either.

  Hayes’s fate Mortality rates for soldiers in the Indies ran to 25–33 percent over the course of a commission. C. R. Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen: Their Sailors, Their Navigators and Life on Board, 1602–1795,” The Mariner’s Mirror 49 (1963): 85.

  The fate of Gijsbert Bastiaensz LGB; Mooij, op. cit., pp. 328, 331–2, 339–42, 344–5, 347, 359, 366–8, 380–1, 446, 456; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 79–80.

  The fate of Judick Gijsbertsdr The 600-guilder payment comprised 300 guilders to which she was entitled as the widow of a Company predikant, and the unusual ex gratia sum of 300 more, paid in recognition of her tribulations in the Abrolhos. Will of Judick Gijsbertsdr, ONAD 58, fol. 817v–819; CAL van Troostenburg de Bruijn, Biographisch Woordenboek van Oost-Indische Predikanten (Nijmegen: np, 1893), pp. 176–7; Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 80–1.

  “. . . like roasted pears . . .” L. Blussé, “The Caryatids of Batavia: Reproduction, Religion and Acculturation under the VOC,” Itinerario 7 (1983): 64, citing the eighteenth-century Dutch historian Valentijn.

  The later life of Creesje Jans Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 63–71. A search of the surviving records of Leyden seems to confirm that Drake-Brockman was wrong in assuming Creesje and her husband went to live in the city. No burial records can be found for the couple and they have left no trace in Leyden’s church or solicitors’ records, with the exception of the two occasions on which they stood as godparents. Furthermore, Cuick’s name does not appear in the Leyden Poorterbooks, which scrupulously list every full citizen of the town. Finally, it defies belief that a couple with some money—and we know that Creesje was reasonably well-off—could have lived for more than 15 years in a city without once requiring the services of a solicitor. Had they dwelled in Leyden, in short, they would surely have left more record of their presence.

  Creesje’s husband Cuick was a widower, having been the husband of Catharina Bernardi of Groningen. Drake-Brockman notes, from the records of Amsterdam’s Orphans’ Court, that Creesje may have taken a third husband between the other two—a certain Johannes Hilkes, of whom nothing else is known. No other records exist to prove the case either way, but the church records of Batavia record that when Creesje married Cuick, she did so as the widow of Boudewijn van der Mijlen and not of Johannes Hilkes. The Orphans’ Court papers may therefore be in error. If Hilkes did marry Lucretia Jans, he must have done so almost immediately after she arrived in Batavia, and died perhaps as rapidly as Judick’s Pieter van der Heuven. Even if that was the case, Lucretia could not have completed the appropriate period of mourning either for Boudewijn or Johannes before marrying Jacob van Cuick. Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 64n, 71.

  Creesje Jans as godmother On the first occasion, 4 September 1637, Creesje alone stood as godparent to twins named Willem and Dirck; on the second, 3 December 1641, she and her husband both became godparents to another pair—this one a boy and a girl—who were christened Willem and Neeltje; presumably the first Willem must have died in the interim. Some years earlier, in Batavia, Jans had also stood as godmother to two other infants baptized in the Dutch Church there. Ibid. pp. 70n–71n.

  It also seems worth noting that the first husband of Creesje’s sister, Sara, was called Jacob Kuyk (ibid. p. 67). The tangled interfamily relationship between the Janses, the Cuicks, and the Dircxes may thus have been even more complicated than it first appears.

  Lucreseija van Kuijck GAA, burial registers 1069, fol. 38.

  The further interrogation of Ariaen Jacobsz Drake-Brockman, op. cit., pp. 46, 62–3. As has already been noted, a good deal of paperwork concerning Jacobsz’s case went missing somewhere between Batavia and the VOC record office. In its absence, it is impossible to say for certain how good or bad the evidence against the skipper was.

  “The skipper was very much suspected . . .” Specx to the Gentlemen XVII, 15 Dec 1629, ARA VOC 1009 in Drake-Brockman, op. cit., p. 63.

  “Jacobsz . . . is still imprisoned . . .” Van Diemen to the Gentlemen XVII, 5 June 1631, in ibid., p. 58.

  The fate of Belijtgen Jacobsdr ONAH 132, fol. 157v; GAH, rood 215, burgomasters’ decisions 1628–32, fol. 94v; for the significance of the burgomasters’ memorials, see Gabrielle Dorren, “Burgers en hun besognes. Burgemeestersmemorialen en hun Bruikbaarheid als bron voor Zeventiende-Eeuws Haarlem,” Jaarboeck Haarlem (1995): 53–5; for the social status of the Cornelissteeg, see Dorren, Het Soet Vergaren: Haarlems Buurtleven in de Zeventiende Eeuw (Haarlem: Arcadia, 1998), p. 17; for the date of the arrival of the news of the Batavia mutiny in the Republic, see Roeper, op. cit., pp. 42, 47, 61.

  Decomposition of the bodies and the blooming of Batavia’s Graveyard Archaeological excavation has revealed that many of the Batavia corpses lie partially buried in a dense black mass. Analysis of this substance has shown it is composed almost entirely of decayed plant roots, with a 1 percent trace of human fat. The explanation appears to be that plants were tapping into the nutrients offered by the decomposing bodies; food of any sort was so scarce on the island that competition for such resources must have been fierce. Author’s interview with Juliïtte Pasveer and Marit van Huystee, Western Australian Maritime Museum, 12 June 2000.

  Epilogue: On the Shores of the Great South-Land

  It is impossible to say with any certainty what became of the Dutch survivors thrown up on the Western Australian coast. The most important sources, which are archaeological, are well summarized by Phillip Playford, the rediscoverer of the Zuytdorp wreck, in his Carpet of Silver: the Wreck of the Zuytdorp (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1996), which is probably the most interesting and best-researched contribution to the subject yet published. The case for survival is put by Rupert Gerritsen in And Their Ghosts May Be Heard . . . (South Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1994), though many of his most important points have subsequently been rebutted. For the archaeology of the Batavia victims’ skeletons, I turned mainly to Myra Stanbury (ed.), Abrolhos Islands Archaeological Sites: Interim Report (Fremantle: Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology, 2000), Juliïtte Pasveer, Alanah Buck, and Marit van Huystee, “Victims of the Batavia Mutiny: Physical Anthropological and Forensic Studies of the Beacon Island Skeletons,” Bulletin of the Australian Institute for Maritime Archaeology 22 (1998), and Bernandine Hunneybun, Skullduggery on Beacon Island (BSc Hons dissertation, University of Western Australia, 1995).

  The fate of the two mutineers “Instructions to Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom de By van Bemel,” JFP 16 Nov 1629 [DB 229–30]; J. A. Heeres, The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606–1765 (London: Luzac, 1899), pp. 64–7; Henrietta Drake-Brockman, Voyage to Disaster (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1995), pp. 81–3; Gerrilsen, pp. 64–8, 224–32; Playford, pp. 237–42.

  The champan As Drake-Brockman points out (op. cit., pp. 123n, 229n), Pelsaert’s nowhere else uses the word champan in his journals. Normal ship’s boats are referred to throughout as boot—a longboat or yawl—or schuijt—a small jolly-boat or dinghy. It defies belief that the commandeur would have supplied the two mutineers with a VOC boat, which he would certainly have had to account for on his return to Batavia, particularly as it would have meant leaving himself and the people on the Sardam without a single boat of their own.

  Wittecarra spring The spring could be seen in its
original state as late as 1967, but by 1996 it had dried up due to the extraction of groundwater from a nearby bore. Phillip Playford, Voyage of Discovery to Terra Australis by Willem de Vlamingh in 1696–97 (Perth: Western Australian Museum, 1998), p. 47.

  “. . . the first western vessel . . .” The identity of the first Westerners to discover the fifth continent remains a matter of dispute. George Collingridge, author of The Discovery of Australia: a Critical, Documentary and Historical Investigation Concerning the Priority of Discovery in Australasia Before the Arrival of Lieut. James Cook in the Endeavour in the Year 1770 (Sydney: Hayes Brothers, 1895), and Kenneth McIntyre, in The Secret Discovery of Australia: Portuguese Ventures 200 Years Before Captain Cook (Medindie, South Australia: Souvenir Press, 1977), have both argued for the primacy of the Portuguese, and a date somewhere in the sixteenth century. This is not unlikely, although some of the specific evidence these authors advance—early maps, and, in particular, the discovery of “Portuguese” cannon off the northwest coast—has since been called into question. There is, in addition, a tradition on the southern Australian coast of a so-called mahogany ship, popularly supposed to be of Spanish origin, aground on a beach near Warrnambool, Victoria, and discovered sometime between 1836 and 1841. This vessel, if it ever existed, is supposed to have vanished subsequently beneath the sands and has never been rediscovered. See “Notes on Proceedings of the First Australian Symposium on the Mahogany Ship: Relic or Legend?,” Regional Journal of Social Issues, monograph series, no.1 (copy in the library of the Western Australian Maritime Museum). A balanced, popular view of the controversy is provided by Miriam Estensen, Discovery: the Quest for the Great South Land (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998), pp. 47–50, 52–81. The latter book also mentions the alleged salvage of a “Spanish helmet” dating to ca. 1580 from Wellington harbor, New Zealand, around 1904 (p. 97).

  The Duyfken, the Arnem, and the Pera on the northern coast James Henderson, Sent Forth a Dove: Discovery of the Duyfken (Nedlands, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1999), pp. 32–42, 212n; Heeres, op. cit., pp. 4–6, 22–5; Günter Schilder, Australia Unveiled: The Share of Dutch Navigators in the Discovery of Australia (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1976), pp. 43–53, 80–98; J. P. Sigmond and L. H. Zuiderbaan, Dutch Discoveries of Australia: Shipwrecks, Treasures and Early Voyages off the West Coast (Adelaide: Rigby, 1979), pp. 20–1, 47–9. Records of the Duyfken’s voyage are, however, so incomplete that it is uncertain whether her men were killed on the shores of Australia or New Guinea, though most authorities argue that at least one was lost on a riverbank somewhere on the Cape York Peninsula.