Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [210]
Deschamps as a clerk In fact, Pelsaert’s journals state in several places that Deschamps was not an assistant but an under-merchant (Verdict on Salomon Deschamps, JFP 12 Nov 1629 [DB 231])—an unexplained anomaly, given that this was Jeronimus’s rank, and retourschepen were supposed to carry only a single under-merchant.
Salomon Deschamps and Mayken Cardoes’s child Ibid.
Number of deaths “List of those on board the Batavia,” ARA VOC 1098, fol. 582r [R 220].
“To have murdered or destroyed . . .” Verdict on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 172–3].
Gijsbert Bastiaensz and his family LGB. Bastiaen: GAD baptismal registers 3 (1605–1619), June 1606; interrogation of Wouter Loos, JFP 24 Sep 1629 [DB 225]. Pieter: GAD baptismal register 3, March 1610. Johannes: Ibid., December 1615. Roelant: GAD baptismal registers 4 (1619–41), May 1621. Judick: GAD baptismal registers 3, January 1608. Willemijntge: Ibid., October 1614. Agnete: Ibid., March 1618. For details of the family’s early life in Dordrecht, see chapter 3. Father and children were temporarily separated after the wreck, but reunited on Batavia’s Graveyard, LGB.
“. . . no more than three unmarried adult women . . .” The only other definite example who can be traced in Pelsaert’s journals is Wybrecht Claasen, who as a servant would have been a much less attractive catch than Judick. One other women, Marretgie Louys, is not explicitly mentioned as having either a husband or children, but it may be presumed that to have come on board she probably was married to a member of the crew.
Judick’s betrothal to Van Huyssen LGB. The precise chronology is very slightly unclear here, as the predikant does not say explicitly whether the betrothal took place before or after the murder of the remainder of the family. He does note that Judick and Van Huyssen were together “for about five weeks” before the mutineer’s death on 2 September (see chapter 7), which would place the couple’s engagement on about 29 July, or a week after the murders, which took place on 21 July. It is evident, however, that the relationship between the two predated the killings.
“. . . a pleasant outing . . .” Confession of Andries Jonas, JFP 27 Sep 1629 [DB 204].
Murder of the predikant’s family Ibid; sentence on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 174]; confession of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 180–1]; sentence on Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 184]; confession of Mattys Beer, JFP 23–24 Sep 1629 [DB 190–1]; confession of Wouter Loos, 24 Sep 1629 [DB 224–5]; testimony of Judick Gijsbertsdr, JFP 27 Oct 1629 [DB 225–6]; sentence on Andries Liebent, JFP 30 Nov 1629 [DB 243–4].
Murder of Hendrick Denys Confession of Jan Hendricxsz, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 181]. The skull of a Batavia victim, now in Geraldton Museum, has been identified as possibly that of Denys; see 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): 47–8. My description of the wounds is largely based on an interview with Dr. Alanah Buck of the Western Australian Centre for Pathology and Medical Research in Perth, 12 June 2000. This skull (the jaw is missing and the remainder of the body still lies buried under the foundations of a fisherman’s house on Beacon Island), catalogue number BAT A16136, was originally excavated in 1964, during filming for a television reconstruction of the Batavia story (Hunneybun, op. cit., section 4.11), and in 2000 was the subject of detailed reconstruction by a forensic dentist, Dr. Stephen Knott. See the epilogue for additional details. The identification with Denys is conjectural; the wounds agree with the description given in the journals, but nothing definite is said about the disposal of the body. In general it may be stated that the sex, age, and