Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [207]
Andries Jonas Interrogation of Andries Jonas, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 200].
The declarations of the minor mutineers It can hardly be argued that these men were anxious to become killers, since practically none of them took any part in the violence in the archipelago.
Frans Jansz changes loyalties Because Jansz never signed the mutineers’ oaths (see chapter 7), his involvement with Cornelisz emerges only from vague hints in the journals and in his participation in the massacres on Seals’ Island (below).
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.