AN AUSTRALIAN HORROR STORY OF MUTINY AND MURDER

(The following post contains murder, torture and sexual violence)

On June 4th 1629, the ship Batavia ran aground on Morning Reef, a coral outcrop in the Houtman Abrolhos Islands in Western Australia, beginning one of the most bizarre and horrific episodes in maritime history.

Batavia was a Dutch East India Company (VOC) ship that was supposed to sail from Amsterdam to VOC East Indies headquarters in Batavia on Java. Batavia had followed the Brouwer Route which had been compulsory for all VOC ships since 1616. From Amsterdam it sailed to Cape Town where it restocked, then sailed further south to a latitude of between 40 and 50 degrees to catch the strong winds, the ‘Roaring Forties’, that blew east.

At the right moment, Batavia was supposed to swing north, exiting the Roaring Forties and sliding between Sumatra and Java to arrive a stone’s throw from the port of Batavia. Unfortunately, in 1629 there was no way of accurately calculating how far east a vessel had travelled. Batavia rode the winds some 600 km too far east, ending up far too close to the western shore of Australia. On 4 June 1629, about 2 hours before dawn, Batavia ran aground on Morning Reef, a coral outcrop in the Houtman Abrolhos Islands.

About 260 of the ship’s crew and passengers were ferried on the ship’s longboat and dinghy to the tiny Beacon Island. These included several soldiers whose job was to protect the chests of silver and jewels meant for trade in Southeast Asia. It also included about 30 women, children and babies, for the Governor-General of Batavia was concerned about the predominantly male population of the colony, and thus encouraged merchants to send for their families from the Netherlands.

Since only a limited amount of supplies had been salvaged from the wreck, on June 7th, the ship’s captain, Francisco Pelsaert, announced that he was going to explore the adjacent islands to search for water. It was a reasonable idea but its execution was quite lacking. Pelsaert took with him about 45 people in total. This included most of the senior members of the crew, including Ariaen Jacobsz, the skipper, who in turn took his girlfriend. The party also took with them much of the salvaged food and water, and embarked on the Batavia’s longboat and dinghy, the only forms of transport available. Pelsaert left behind no command structure or instructions, and the camp rapidly descended into confusion and chaos.

Meanwhile, Batavia was still teetering precariously on the reef. While it had taken a harsh blow, it was still intact, and, indeed, several dozen sailors had opted to remain on the wreck because the ship’s considerable store of alcohol was still intact. They had such a roaring good time, in fact, that when, on June 13th, the ship’s hull finally gave way and the sea came rushing in, all but 20 drunken sailors drowned.

Among the survivors was the ship’s under-merchant, Jeronimus Cornelisz, a bankrupt heretic ex-apothecary who couldn’t swim. Swept out of the ship, he clung desperately to a piece of the ship’s bow for 2 days before being washed up on Beacon Island.

There, he was greeted with great joy by the survivors. As the ship’s under-merchant, Cornelisz reported directly to Pelsaert and was of more or less the same rank as the ship’s skipper, Jacobsz. He was thus a senior officer and the camp turned to him to sort out the mess they were in.

Cornelisz immediately took decisive action to start his own little kingdom of evil. He first identified a potential competitor for his position, the soldier Wiebbe Hayes, who had led some of the other soldiers in constructing shelters. Cornelisz ordered him and his men to build makeshift rafts, sail to East and West Wallibi Islands and search for a more suitable campsite with food and water. When they found it, they were to light signal fires and the rest of the survivors would follow. Cornelisz was, essentially, sending them to die. If their makeshift rafts did not fall apart, then surely they would fail to find water and die of thirst. After all, Pelsaert had been gone for a week, apparently searching for water, and he hadn’t returned.

Pelsaert had indeed not found any water, though it is doubtful just how hard he was looking. On June 16th, Pelsaert gave up the search for water. He did not return to Beacon Island to inform the survivors or set things in order, instead he decided to sail for Batavia in his little longboat and dinghy, a journey of over 3,000km.

Back on Beacon Island, Cornelisz now gathered a small group of loyal henchmen, and in the first week of July, they began to murder the survivors one by one. The first to go was one Abraham Hendrix, who was caught siphoning wine from a barrel. For this crime he was executed by stabbing. Cornelisz then accused 2 carpenters of conspiracy, and they too were executed.

Meanwhile, on 8th July, against all odds, Pelsaert and his men limped into Batavia in their longboat. There, Pelsaert had a meeting with the Governor-General and immediately began trying to deflect blame from his less than stellar command. In fairness, Pelsaert was a merchant and was not expected to have any maritime skills - under the VOC command structure, actually sailing the ship was the responsibility of Jacobsz, the skipper. Jacobsz was thus blamed for the shipwreck and put in chains. On 15th July, the Governor-General ordered Pelsaert to take the Sardam to salvage Batavia’s treasure and rescue the survivors.

Pelsaert may have been wondering whether the Sardam would be able to hold all the survivors without getting overcrowded, but he need not have worried, for there were fewer and fewer survivors with each passing day.

As Pelsaert was leaving Batavia, Corneliusz was turning his attention to the sick and injured. Ostensibly to make their limited store of supplies last longer and to increase everyone else’s chances of survival, Corneliusz had them smothered. The killings went on for weeks, with the reasons for execution becoming flimsier and flimsier.

Cornelisz himself did not personally kill anyone, though he did try. Having been irritated by the crying of a malnourished baby, Cornelisz recalled his past life as an apothecary and tried to poison him with mercurium sublimatum. All he succeeded in doing was to put the baby in a coma, and he then asked one of the mutineers to finish the job with strangulation.

(Continued in reply)

My curiosity strikes again!

Did you know that one of the smallest countries in the world - third-smallest behind Vatican City and Monaco, in fact - is in Oceania? Oceania itself is a geographical region of the South Pacific Ocean that encompasses the Eastern and Western Hemispheres between Asia and the Americas. Were I speaking of the largest nation in this geographical region, I would be speaking of Australia. It is far and away the largest land mass in a region that encompasses an area of 8,525,989 sq km (3,291,903 sq mi). Most of that area, though, is water. Hence, Oceania.

But this isn't about Australia although Nauru and Australia share colonial pasts.

The Republic of Nauru is not only the third-smallest nation in the world, it is the smallest island nation in the world, the smallest independent republic, and the only republic in the world that lacks an official capital. To add to the diminutives, it's also the United Nations' least populous member (approximately 10,000 people, including 1,000 non-Nauruan).

Nauru is a tiny (21 sq km, 8 sq mi), oval-shaped island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, about 42 km south of the equator. A neat geographical feature is that the entire island is surrounded by a pinnacle coral reef; the reef, esp the pinnacles, is exposed at low tide (enlargeable satellite image). Because of this reef, there are no seaports: channels in the reef allow small boats to access the island.

Where on Earth is Nauru? A good place to start your travels would be the northeastern coast of Queensland, Australia (Cairns, perhaps). Travel northeast, past the Solomon Islands. Nauru is closest to Banaba (Ocean Island) in the Republic of Kiribati - which is 300 km (185 m) due east of it. Nauru's proximity to the equator makes the nation's climate hot and extremely humid year-round. The monsoon season (November-February) brings variable annual rainfall, and droughts have been recorded. There are no rivers nor lakes on the island; the inhabitants collect rainwater in roof tanks and there is a single desalination plant when more fresh water is needed.

People! According to the nation's website, Nauruan society is divided into 12 tribes who are believed to be a mixture of Micronesian, Polynesian, and Melanesian ancestry. No one is sure of the origin of the Nauruan people as of this time; the hypothesis is that the first people to the island were shipwrecked Polynesians or Melanesians who established themselves there over 3000 years ago. Before them, there was no indigenous population. The Melanesians and Micronesians had previously intermingled. The 12-pointed star on the Nauru flag symbolizes these tribes.

Language! The Nauruan people speak Nauruan as a native language, but English is also spoken as the language of government and commerce. Want to learn Nauruan? You can get a feel for the language from native speakers here.

Food! A fertile strip 150-300 m (490-980 ft) wide runs inland from the beach. That small area is where you will see coconut palms. The land around Buada Lagoon (SW Nauru) can support bananas, pineapples, vegetables, pandanus trees, and tomano trees. Seafood is a staple, esp fish. Raw. Dried. Cooked. Have a nosh.

Holidays! Independence Day is celebrated on January 31. On that date in 1968, the Republic of Nauru gained independence from its status as a UN trust territory (under which the island was placed in 1947) administered mainly by Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. January 31 is also the anniversary of the Return from Truk: Nauru was occupied by Japan during World War II (1942-1945) and, in order to exploit the island's resources, the Japanese deported the majority of indigenous Nauruans to the Truk Islands beginning in 1943. The end of the Japanese occupation enabled surviving deportees to return.

October 26 is Angam day. Angam means "homecoming, coming home", though it can also mean, "jubilation and celebration to have triumphed, over all hardship", according to the October 30, 2012 issue of the Nauru Bulletin p.2. Angam day is a day for reflection as twice in the island's history, the population dropped to the point of extinction due to the individual and combined factors of disease, war, death.

While both holidays are national days, the celebration of Angam Day is more personal to individual communities and is commemorated with families, friends, and other loved ones.

Animals! There are no native land mammals, though the island does have native birds (Nauru's own warbler! photos), insects, and land crabs. Subsequent waves of settlers introduced rats, cats, dogs, pigs, and chickens.

Currency! The Australian dollar is the legal tender. Credit/debit cards are not accepted, only cash. And make sure to exchange your currency before you get to the island as, according to the government website, foreign exchange there is difficult.