by Mike Dash
The difficulties of recruitment In fact, no more than 900 predikanten served in the East in the whole 200-year history of the VOC. C. R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800 (London: Hutchinson, 1965), pp. 114–7.
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.
Pass-times 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. 177; Van Gelder, op. cit., pp. 165–6; M. Barend-van Haeften, Op Reis met de VOC, pp. 66, 72.
“Sir Francis Drake . . .” N. A. M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea, p. 325.
Scarcity of possessions For example, among the dead of the Belvliet (1712), Mattys Roeloffsz left an estate comprising “a little tobacco, a few short pipes, and some odds and ends, which altogether was sold by public auction . . . for 2 guilders and 10 stuivers” and gunner Steven Dircksz “a linen undershirt and underpants, a blue-striped undershirt and pants, a watchcoat, an old mattress, an old woollen shirt, two white shirts, a blue shirt, a pair of new shoes, an old English bonnet, a handkerchief, a pair of scissors and a knife,” together worth 16 guilders, 18 stuivers. It is unlikely many of the men on the Batavia took with them more than that. Playford, Carpet of Silver, pp. 51–2; see also Barend-van Haeften, Op Reis met de VOC, pp. 60, 63.
Cornelisz discusses his ideas LGB.
Ports of call Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, 60–1.
Sierra Leone Adam Jones (ed.), West Africa in the Mid-Seventeenth Century: An Anonymous Dutch Manuscript (London: African Studies Association, 1994); Joe Alie, A New History of Sierra Leone (London: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 13–37; V. D. Roeper (ed.), De Schipbreuk van de Batavia, 1629 (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1994), p. 15.
Abraham Gerritsz Verdict on Abraham Gerritsz, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 232]; list of people on board the Batavia, nd (1629–30), ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r. [R 220].
The Wagenspoor, the equator, and the Horse Latitudes Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, I, p. 65 contains a description of the “cart-track.” Van Gelder, op. cit., pp. 60, 165–6, discusses fun and games; Green, op. cit., p. 163, describes the recovery of some of the Batavia’s pipes and tongs; the Batavia’s likely route is detailed by Jaap Bruijn and Femme S. Gaastra, “The Dutch East India Company’s Shipping, 1602–1795, in a Comparative perspective,” in Bruijn and Gaastra (eds.), Ships, Sailors and Spices: East India Companies and Their Shipping in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries (Amsterdam: NEHA, 1993), p. 191 and Bruijn, “Between Batavia and the Cape,” p. 255. For trapped animals, dried feces, and melted candles, see M. Barend-van Haeften and A. J. Gelderblom, op. cit., pp. 70–1. On the fear of fire at sea—it was a principal danger in the age of sail—see Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., p. 180. On washing in urine, see Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea, p. 107. On rats, see ibid., p. 70. On lice, see ibid., p. 132, Ships, Sailors and Spices p. 203, Barend-van Haeften and Gelderblom, op. cit., p. 53 and Van Gelder, op. cit., p. 159. On the Danish cockroach-hunt, see M. Boucher, “The Cape Passage: Some Observations on Health Hazards Aboard Dutch East Indiamen Outward-Bound,” Historia 26 (1981): 24.
Scurvy On the variety of contemporary treatments for scurvy, see, for example, the English surgeon John Woodall’s book The Surgeon’s Mate (1617). “The use of the iuice of Lemons,” Woodall wrote, “is a precious medicine and well tried, being sound and good . . . It is to be taken in the morning, two or three spoonfuls . . . and if you add one spoonefull of Aquavitae thereto to a cold stomacke, it is the better.” But the same surgeon also saw scurvy as “an obstruction of the spleen, liver and brain,” and recommended an egg flip as a certain prophylactic. Other passages in his book suggest that any astringent would be of equal facility in battling the disease—barley water with cinnamon water was another cure proposed. J. J. Keevi
l, C. S. Lloyd, and J. L. S. Coulter, Medicine and the Navy, 1200–1900 (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1957–1963), I, pp. 220–1. One reason for the VOC’s reluctance to investigate fruit juices as a possible cure was the contemporary belief that citrus juices dangerously thickened the blood. 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). See also Boucher, op. cit., pp. 26, 29–31; for the number of the Batavia’s dead, see Pelsaert’s list of people embarked on board the ship, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220–1].
Sharks Van Gelder, op. cit., pp. 167–8.
Homosexuality Pérez-Mallaína, op. cit., pp. 164, 170–1; CR Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” pp. 98–9.
Women on board On the number of women, see Pelsaert’s list of people embarked on board the ship, ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220–1]. They included Lucretia and her maid, Zwaantie Hendrix; the predikant’s wife, Maria Schepens, three of her daughters, and her maid, Wybrecht Claasen; a widow, Geertie Willemsz; a young mother called Mayken Cardoes; and a pregnant girl named Mayken Soers, who were probably the wives of noncommissioned officers or men among the soldiers or the crew; a French or Walloon girl, Claudine Patoys; Laurentia Thomas, the corporal’s wife; Janneken Gist, Anneken Bosschieters, and Anneken Hardens, all of whom were married to gunners; two sisters, Zussie and Tryntgien Fredericxs (Tryntgien was the chief trumpeter’s wife); and the wives of the cook, the provost, Pieter Jansz, and Claas Harmanszoon of Magdeburg. On the VOC’s policy toward women, and encouragement of affairs with the women of the Indies, see L. Blussé, “The Caryatids of Batavia: Reproduction, Religion and Acculturation under the VOC,” Itinerario 7 (1983): 60–1, 62–3, 65, 75; Taylor, The Social World of Batavia, pp. 8, 12–14. The quotation from Jan Coen is cited by Taylor, p. 12. The quotation from Jacques Specx is cited by Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 100.
Ariaen and Creesje Confession of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 29 [DB 161].
