About book Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story Of The Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny (2003)
"We have just come out of such a sorrow that the mind is still a little confused." -- Gijsbert Bastiaensz*****Commerce. Psychopaths.What do the two have in common? If I were asked that before I read this book, I’d be glib and respond with something like “trajectory.” But no. I’ve learned it’s something called antinomianism.If you don’t know what that means, don’t get discouraged. I didn’t either. Not right away, at least. Oh, I’m sure I’d read it before somewhere, probably years ago when I was knee-deep in Karen Armstrong and had a more particular interest in the monotheistic religions that have informed civilizations for thousands of years. But, as the irreligious say, I’ve slept since then.Before I get to antinomianism, though, let me tell you a story. When I was a kid, I knew this other kid. We shall call him Sicko, so as to preserve his anonymity. Sicko was the first person my age I met upon moving to a new town. With adolescence looming, I was overjoyed to find myself just a few houses away from a fellow pre-teen traveler. But it soon dawned on me that age, gender and geography were poor rationales for friendship -- the two of us were completely different. I was an awkward and shy kid, but nevertheless independent, an only child who had just the year before lived in a single-parent home in Los Angeles County; contrariwise, Sicko was athletic and confident, yet oddly deferential, having been home schooled and subjected his entire life to a severely patrician Christian orthodoxy. When my family moved again, this time within the town, Sicko and I lost touch. It wouldn't be until we were both nineteen that we found ourselves in the same social circles. By this time, Sicko's family had moved to Alaska, leaving him the solitary occupant of their 2400 square foot home. He extended an invitation to me to roommate with him and I quickly accepted. Over the next few months, I saw firsthand how manipulative and slyly sadistic he had become. Especially toward women. Sicko was a handsome guy, much more handsome than me, and there were young women at the house on various occasions. Most, however, never visited more than once. Then one night I had to rescue one of those young women from Sicko when she called out my name in distress. Soon after this incident, I moved out. I wouldn't see Sicko again for several years, whereupon I learned that he worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative, had married into a fairly prominent banking family and had developed a taste for bestiality films.What's that saying about water seeking its own level?Anyway, antinomianism. It is defined by wikipedia.org as "belief originating in Christian theology that faith alone, not obedience to religious law, is necessary for salvation." Jernonimus Cornelisz, the fellow at the center of this story of bloody mutiny, took this to mean that he wasn't bound by the same laws as other homo sapiens. He aspired to a life of piracy and manipulated several people into committing all manner of atrocity, the most chilling being the hanging of an infant. Then he was butchered and himself hanged. I give this book five stars because it is meticulously researched, very well-written, and because I will remember the name Batavia for the rest of my life. If you'd like to read more about the actual mutiny itself, the information available on Wikipedia is not contradicted by the book.
This is one of the most readable and powerful accounts of the story of those incredible centuries when companies such as the VOC (Dutch East Indies Company) ruled the sea lanes between Asia and Europe. There are many books that cover this topic, but few with the page-turning alchemy of this book. (The closest that comes to mind is Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History.)Against a background of the spice trade and the hierarchical Dutch society of the 1600 and 1700s, is the story of how the VOC was founded and run, its managers (the 'Gentlemen XVII'), its employees, their families and religion, life onboard a VOC ship, early shipping routes, maps and map-making, and the morals and morays of the time. "Dutch interest in the Indies dated to the 1590s" (p. 57); and for the next 200+ years, a million or so people sailed with the VOC during the lifetime of the Company. However, fewer than one in three returned (p. 22). "During its 200-year history, the VOC lost 1 in 50 of its ships outward bound, and nearly 1 in 20 on the return voyage". This volume covers the story of one doomed ship on its outward maiden voyage, the Batavia, which foundered and sank, leaving hundreds of survivors stranded on a few bare rocks off the coasts of Indonesia and Australia after it went off course. But within its already tragic story is the violent story of a massacre that remains "one of the bloodiest pages in the history of white Australia" (p. 281) as one psychopath by the name of Houtman, carried out the merciless slaughter of the ship's passengers and crew to increase his own odds of survival. Read this book for knowledge of the VOC or for the story of the shipwreck and massacre; both are valuable lessons. The shipwreck site was finally located in the early 1960s; today artifacts from the wreck can be seen in the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle.
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read 2/04/2004If you are planning on reading this, let me give you a heads up. What's between the covers of this book is NOT for the squeamish...I thought the story of the wreck of the Essex was bad but this takes the cake.Batavia's Graveyard was the name given to a small island off the western coast of Australia, now known as Beacon Island. I first became aware of this story, which is true, through a wonderful program on the History Channel about recent finds on that island by archaeologists hoping to solve some of the mysteries of what exactly happened there in 1629 and the years during which the islanders, survivors of the shipwreck of the Batavia, were literally being held captive by a group of mutineers under the command/control of one single psychopathic individual. This book most definitely measures up to my rigorous standards for reading history. It is excruciatingly well documented (this author has notes & sources for every little detail).Synopsis:In June, 1629, a ship filled with goods, money & jewels on its way to Java (the ship belongs to the Dutch EIC) is wrecked on a reef on an uninhabited island. To his credit, the captain managed to get all of the civilians traveling on the ship off of the ship and onto the island; there were in all about 250 survivors. He left them under the charge of one Jeronimus Cornelisz, certified nutcase who believed that anything a person did, including the taking of life, was sanctioned by God. The group divided itself onto three small islands all closely linked. What happens under his "leadership" was an outright tragedy and massacre. I won't go into specifics, but suffice it to say the Cornelisz and the gang that followed him reminded me a lot of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. I've even seen this book called the Lord of the Flies for Adults...it wasn't that bad, but it was close.Throughout the story, the narrative of events on the islands is interspersed with details of history of the EIC; of the spice trade in general; of the process of shipbuilding in the Netherlands; of Java; pretty much anything at all connected with the story historically is brought up in here. Some parts I found to be a bit dull, but only because I'm not really interested in the history of shipbuilding. However, there's enough to keep you focused and indeed riveted when he gets around to the events on the islands and their aftermath.I would definitely recommend this book to those who are interested in shipwrecks or maritime history. Read this book slowly (or skim through the stuff you don't really like but savor the rest), because there is a wealth of information here. The author is thorough and the writing is good.
—Nancy Oakes
The first time I encountered the Batavia and the horrors that it involved was when I visited the Western Australian Maritime Museum in Fremantle, which houses a reconstruction of part of the ship, associated objects, and a skeleton of one of the victims. So when I found this book a few years ago, I knew I had to read it and find out more about the actual events. It's a pretty comprehensive discussion of events. Dash goes through the story from the beginning, discussing the shipwreck itself before going back to give us a history of Jeronimus Corneliszoon prior to his role as the founding member of the mutiny and the individual responsible for the murder of over a hundred people in the Abrolhos. It's definitely not a book for the squeamish. Dozens and dozens of people were brutally murdered (and, in the case of the women, repeatedly raped by multiple men), and in many cases it was for no other reason that because the mutineers were bored. As far as an explanation for the horrific events, it basically boils down to "Jeronimus was a psychopath", so it's definitely not an easy read. But it was totally fascinating from start to finish, and I'm really glad I reread it.
—Kirsti (Melbourne on my mind)
Here is a fascinating and appalling true story about an event that I suspect few people have ever heard of before--I certainly hadn't. It's a story of surviving extreme conditions, greed, and madness that's almost hard to believe, and yet it's not only backed up by plenty of factual evidence, but we've seen this sort of breakdown in civilization and cult of personality take place in modern times. Some reviewers here complained that there's too much focus on details, but in many ways the culture and times is so removed that one needs these details in order to fully understand the context. After all, this was s time when a corporation not only WAS the government, but had the power of life and death over its employees... then again, maybe it's not such a foreign idea anymore these days. Personally, I liked those details because they helped flesh out those people involved by creating a backdrop and motivations.
—Sue
