Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [220]
Jonas’s contrition Interrogation of Andries Jonas, JFP 27 Sep 1629 [DB 202].
Verdict on Cornelisz Sentence on Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 172–7].
Verdicts on the major mutineers JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 154–6].
Men held and released JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 156–7]; list of mutineers, 20 Aug, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 166–7].
Hayes’s promotion JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 157].
“Who had been without a commanding officer . . .” Gabriel Jacobszoon, the corporal, was dead, and Pietersz, the lance corporal, in prison.
“Keep his men supplied with food and water” The main wells on Wiebbe Hayes’s Island had begun to run dry, and it was only after careful searching that new sources of fresh water were at last uncovered on the High Island.
“The only goods recovered . . .” JFP 25 Sep 1629 [DB 150].
“It would not be without danger . . .” JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 151].
Executions set for 29 September This is the only date Pelsaert can have had in mind, since it must have been almost dark when sentences were passed on the 28th, and he states (JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 211]) that the executions would be “postponed” to 1 October. It would have been proper to have carried them out on the Sunday, 30 September.
Cornelisz requests a delay Ibid.
“The predikant put him at ease . . .” Ibid.
Jeronimus again begged to know . . . JFP 29 Sep 1629 [DB 211–2].
“Tut—nothing more?” Ibid.
Jeronimus’s letters JFP 29 Sep 1629 [DB 171].
Jacob Jansz Hollert The journals actually have “Jacop Jacopsz Holloch” at this point, an apparent error since no one of this name is referred to anywhere else in the text. Drake-Brockman interprets the name as a probable reference to “Jacob Jacobsz Houtenman,” the skipper of the Sardam; but the name as given actually seems closer to Jacob Jansz Hollert, the Batavia’s under-steersman, who had returned with Pelsaert; and this man does seem a much more probable recipient of the letters, since he would actually have known Cornelisz. Given that Ariaen Jacobsz is said to have stated [Interrogation of Jeronimus Cornelisz, JFP 19 Sep 1629, DB 164] that he mistrusted both Claes Gerritsz and “the under-steersman, my brother in law,” this reading would imply that Gillis Fransz Halffwaack was the skipper’s relative, but that Fransz’s colleague, Jacob Jansz, was—at least in Jeronimus’s eyes—more sympathetic to the mutineers. Before condemning Hollert as a crypto-mutineer, however, it is worth recalling that by this stage in the story, the under-merchant had wiped out all but a tiny handful of the people he had got to know in the retourschip’s stern; of his immediate peer group, only Pelsaert, Claes Gerritsz, Bastiaensz, and Creesje were both alive and present in the archipelago. Since Gerritsz seems to have been kept busy on the Council and at the wreck, and neither the predikant nor Creesje were at all likely to act willingly as messengers, Hollert may have been nothing more than a last, despairing hope. For a more conspiracy-oriented perspective, see Philip Tyler, “The Batavia Mutineers: Evidence of an Anabaptist ‘Fifth Column’ within 17th Century Dutch Colonialism?” Westerly (December 1970): 36–7.
“Was, perhaps, a remnant of the batch . . .” The other possibility is that the poison was obtained from the Sardam’s apothecary’s chest. (Frans Jansz’s chest had evidently been lost with the Batavia, as the eventual rediscovery of some of its contents at the wreck site showed. 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), pp. 95–6, 99–101. This catalog lists two different sets of ointment jars; in excess of 24 jars, or about one-eighth of the original contents of the chest, were recovered from the seabed. It is however possible that the remainder of the jars were recovered by the mutineers.
The suicide attempt JFP 29 Sep 1629 [DB 211–2].
Pelsaert confronts