Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [221]
“Godless” Verdict on Andries Jonas, JFP 28 Sep 1629 [DB 203].
“Evil-minded” Ibid.
“Innately corrupt” Pelsaert to the Gentlemen XVII of Amsterdam, 12 Dec 1629, ARA VOC 1630 [DB259].
“See how miraculously . . .” JFP 30 Sep 1629 [DB 212].
Site of the gallows Edwards, op. cit., p. 177.
Creesje and Cornelisz Testimony of Wiebbe Hayes, Claes Jansz Hooft et al, 2 Oct 1629, OV, pp. 59–60 [G pt. 2, p. 37]. As Drake-Brockman points out (op. cit., pp. 67–9), this testimony does not appear in JFP and there are no places in Pelsaert’s journal from which it could reasonably have been excised. Its first appearance was in Jan Jansz’s Batavia pamphlet of 1647. Drake-Brockman adds that it may [1] be a genuine addition to the record, which the pamphleteer somehow got hold of (it is in the first, rather than the third person, unlike JFP, but its content is consistent with the unpublished records of the VOC, making outright forgery unlikely) or [2] a fake, invented by someone who wished to make quite certain that Creesje Jans was cleared of any imputation that she submitted willingly to Cornelisz. Both modern editors of Pelsaert’s journals—Drake-Brockman and Roeper (op. cit., p. 210) tend to favor its authenticity.
“So that their eyes could see . . .” JFP 2 Oct 1629 [DB 213].
Amputation of hands OV [G pt. 2, p. 37]. There is some uncertainty as to whether the full sentence was carried out, as Bastiaensz, in LGB, mentions the amputation of only Cornelisz’s right hand. I tend to think the predikant was simply being inexact in what was not, after all, an official account.
“They all shouted . . .” JFP 2 Oct 1629 [DB 213]
“If ever there had been a Godless Man . . .” LGB.
Chapter 9: “To Be Broken on the Wheel”
Henrietta Drake-Brockman did invaluable work, in the 1950s and 1960s, on the aftermath of the Batavia mutiny, and her Voyage to Disaster, while inaccurate in some small details, includes almost all that is known about the later history of Pelsaert, Gijsbert Bastiaensz and his daughter, Ariaen Jacobsz, and Creesje Jans. My own research has added only a little to Drake-Brockman’s findings. The archives of Dordrecht, Haarlem, and Amsterdam did provide some fresh information, and the massive early Dutch histories of the Indies also proved invaluable—in particular the first volume of J. Mooij’s Bouwstoffen voor de Geschiedenis der Protestantsche Kerk in Nederlands-Indiï (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1927), which translates as “Building Blocks for the History of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands Indies” and contains additional details concerning the fates of the predikant and his daughter.
Death by hanging John Laurence, A History of Capital Punishment (New York: Citadel Press, 1960), pp. 41–5.
“He could not reconcile himself . . .” JFP 2 Oct 1629 [DB 213].
“Dying as he had lived . . .” Anonymous Batavia survivor’s letter, December 1629, in anon., Leyds Veer-Schuyts Praetjen, Tuschen een Koopman ende Borger van Leyden, Varende van Haarlem nae Leyden (np [Amsterdam: Willem Jansz], 1630), pp. 19–20 [R 236]. For the identification of the author, see the general comments at the beginning of the notes.
Final confessions of the Batavia mutineers JFP 2 Oct 1629 [DB 213].
Display of executed prisoners at Haarlem William Brereton, Travels in Holland, the United Provinces etc. . . . 1634–1635 (London: Chetham Society, 1844), p. 49.
Salvage operations JFP 25–26 Sep, 3 Oct–14 Nov 1629 [DB 150–1, 213–22]. Pelsaert indicates, and other writers have assumed, that only one chest remained unsalvaged. However, the numismatist S. J. Wilson, in Doits to Ducatoons: The Coins of the Dutch East India Company Ship Batavia, Lost on the Western Australian Coast 1629 (Perth: Western Australian Museum, 1989), p. 9, reports that salvage operations undertaken in the period from 1963 brought up so much money—in excess of 10,000 coins—that the cash seems to have once filled two chests rather than one.
“With heart’s regret” JFP 12 Oct 1629 [DB 215].
“. . . well in excess of 150,000 guilders . . .” The