Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny (History)

By Mike Dash

Publisher: Crown, 1st edition (February 12,2002)

Hardcover, 382 pages 

 

          “From that day on, the captain-general killed to kill. A handful of Jermonimus’s later murders were intended to settle scores or punish dissent, but increasingly they were ordered out of boredom or to diffuse tension among the mutineers. There was no real need for further bloodshed the number of survivors on the island had been satisfactorily reduced… But life had become so worthless on Batavia’s Graveyard that a dispensation to kill became simply another way for [the head mutineer] to reward his followers. In the end he and his men were slaughtering for mere entertainment.”

This is the story of one of the violent mutinies in naval history. Set in the 16th Century, the most powerful company in the world was the Dutch East India Company and dominated the spice trade between east and west. This book is a great in-depth look at the rise of the Dutch trade empire and many of the problems affecting it. All of the dangers one had to go through; scurvy, bad weather, rotten food, stagnant weather, brutal discipline, native attacks; in order to bring nutmeg to the new world.

Where the action of the story takes place off the coast of Australia 

This is given in the microcosm of the merchant vessel, The Batavia, which was home to perhaps one of the most infamous of old-time mutinies after Fletcher Christenson and The Bounty. A power hungry man from an educated background, found himself in financial straits and onboard a convoy of trade ships, so he convinced others to seize control of the vessel. While veering away from the other ships, they accidentally run into some coral reefs and sink the ship. From there he, and his gang, attempt to seize power among the survivors.

He is referred to as a heretic because he was an adherent of the Libertine doctrine, which is basically says that as long as the perfection of God allows it to happen, it cannot be a sin. This is the Libertine philosophy as espoused in the writings of the Marquis De Sade, only a real life example, as opposed to an old lusty man’s fantasies. The term was coined to refer to anyone who disagreed with the strict Calvinist doctrines which dominated The Netherlands at the time.

The Dutch company is in a very real sense a blueprint for a modern corporation, where the exploitation of profits trumped everything else, including the well-being of their own employees. Each ship was not run by a captain, though each had one, but by an Upper-Merchant (or supercargo) and Under-Merchant. All decisions by the captain had to be run through them first. Each action was then weighed against its potential effect on profitability, which can explain certain grumblings from below decks. An example of this with the sinking of the Batavia, the Upper-Merchant tried to save most of the cargo first, before the men.

Dutch illustration accompanying reports of the Batavia mutiny

This is not to say that the mutineers were a group of otherwise decent men pushed too far by a corrupt and greedy corporation. The mutineers were among the worst scum on the planet, as were many who joined the Dutch East India company. It was the last chance employment for bottomed out losers. They were so poorly thought of that other naval vessels and the Dutch Navy itself refused hire a person if they had served with the Dutch East India Company. They revolted because they had decided to turn pirate, had they not accidently hit the reefs around the island now known as Batavia’s Graveyard, they would have killed the same people regardless.

The head mutineer certainly had no compunction about ordering people murdered and allowing women to be used “for common service” i.e. raped at the whim of any of the mutineers. By the end of his reign, his band had butchered or drowned over one hundred survivors from the shipwreck. He was a sociopathic murderer with an inflated ego and an inability to plan ahead.

Batavia's Graveyard today

           For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.