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In 1628 the Dutch East India Company loaded the Batavia, the flagship of its fleet, with a king’s ransom in gold, silver, and gems for her maiden voyage to Java; the ship itself was a tangible symbol of the world’s richest and most powerful monopoly.
The company also sent along a new employee to guard its treasure. He was Jeronimus Corneliszoon, a disgraced and bankrupt man with great charisma and dangerously heretical ideas. With the help of a few disgruntled sailors, he hatched a plot to seize the ship and her riches. The mutiny might have succeeded, but in the dark morning hours of June 3, 1629, the Batavia smashed through a coral reef and ran aground on a small chain of islands near Australia. The captain and skipper escaped the wreck, and in a tiny lifeboat they set sail for Java—some 1,500 miles north—to summon help. More than 250 frightened survivors waded ashore, thankful to be alive. Unfortunately, Jeronimus and the mutineers had survived too, and the nightmare was only beginning.
Murderous Tyrant
| Customer Rating:   | This was a very well researched story about history's bloodiest mutiny. I found the most interesting parts of the book were the details of life on board a Dutch spice trading ship in the early 1600's. The story of the shipwreck & the life of terror that followed for the survivors was also well written. If you are interested in historical non-fiction adventure books this one should be on your list to read. I would say "Skeletons on the Zahara" is slightly better & if you haven't read it already Nathaniel Philbrick's "In the heart of the sea" is one of the best in the non-fiction adventure realm.
I had a couple of minor criticisms that kept me from rating this a 5 star book. First of all sometimes it was hard to figure out what character the author was talking about. For example one of the main characters in the story was Jeronimus Cornelisz. Sometimes the author would use his first time , then he may use his last name, then both or he may just switch to calling him by his trade (apohecary)...then maybe call him by his position of a member of the crew or maybe just a random word to describe him. Add to this the fact that several people in this book have the same or almost the same first / last names it can get a little confusing. I flipped back to the index many times to make sure I knew who the author was talking about.
Another minor point was that the story really takes up about 200 pages of text. 130 more pages are detailed info about characters before & after events in this story took place. Another 150+ pages beyond this are notes & Index. In total the book is almost 500 pages but like I said the meat of the story is less than half of this.
These are minor points which don't take away from the fact that this is a great but gruesome adventure story.
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Outstanding History of Horror on the High Seas
| Customer Rating: | I came across the bloody story of the shipwrecked Batavia as a footnote somewhere and decided then and there that I needed to learn more about it. I was not disappointed. In fact, I was wowed by the almost unbelievable story of mutiny and murder in the seventeenth century.
The nonfiction book "Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny" by Mike Dash is a detailed, readable, and exciting portrait of Jeronimous Cornelisz, a Dutch apothecary (and heretic) who lost his child and abandoned his wife to escape dept and scandal by going to sea. He ended up on the Batavia, the flagship of the Dutch East India Company, which was making its maiden voyage to Java. While on board, Cornelisz helped incite a near mutiny, and then survived a horrible shipwreck on a desolate chain of islands near Australia. Only after the Batavia's commander and his officers sail away on a gunboat to find rescue does Cornelisz make a true power play, taking over an island with his cronies and engaging in deliberately vicious acts of violence meant to terrorize and subordinate those survivors allowed to live.
The detail in this book is amazing. If you want to know what life in seventeenth century Netherlands was like, look no further. If you want to know what life was like at sea in the seventeenth century, this book is for you. If you are at all curious about the Dutch East India Company, this book will give you a great introduction to one of the most powerful companies in the world ever. And, if you want to read about a real horror story and real-life adventure, well, "Batavia's Graveyard" has it all.
Do note that this story has moments of extraordinary violence, including rape and the cruelest of murders. The rapes are not provided in detail, thankfully, but the murders are. The fitting executions of the killers are also described in astounding detail. All in all, it is not a book for those with weak stomachs.
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Puts modern serial killers to shame
| Customer Rating: | It says a lot for a story when it begins with a shipwreck and builds in intensity from there.
Batavia's Graveyard, painstakingly researched and written by Mike Dash, starts shortly before the proud, richly laden Dutch merchantman Batavia, on her maiden voyage for the Dutch East India Co. in 1629, shattered its hull on a coral reef near Australia and some 1,500 miles shy of its destination in Java. It could have been a simple story of survival if not for the presence of Jeronimus Cornelisz aboard the doomed vessel. At first glance a simple, mid-ranking official for the company, Cornelisz harbored heretical ideas and an overblown sense of his own importance in the scheme of things -- and he had the intelligence and charisma to bend others to his will. Long before the shipwreck occurred, Cornelisz had plotted mutiny and piracy on the Batavia. But once he found himself stranded with more than 250 survivors and limited resources to keep them alive, the Dutchman decided to take matters into his own hands and decide who should live and die.
It might be somewhat hard to believe if this were fiction, but Dash has drawn his story from the logs, court records and testimonials of the day. As history, Batavia's Graveyard is a gripping, deeply disturbing tale. Dash should be commended for his ability to present the story with such perfect balance between sensational drama and stark historical facts. There are enough notes and references to sate even the most passionate researcher, and the narrative never falters in its flow.
by Tom Knapp, Rambles.NET editor |
The Senseless Death of One and All
| Customer Rating: | This is a first rate historical book. Mike Dash has done a wonderful job of writing about a dreadful into the evil of man, in such a way that makes it readable. It is straightforward and unapologetic. "Batavia's Graveyard" accounts the action taken by the people who were shipped wrecked in truly desperate conditions, and explains how certain flaws in personalities can feed off each other. This is not a book for the faint of heart, because it is a story about mass killing, committed in most violent means contrived.
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Mutiny ,murder, mayhem
| Customer Rating: | | This was in my view an edge of the seat thriller of the world greatest mutiny. The author placed the historical narrative in perspective by outlining in sufficient detail, the individuals involved, the prevailing political and religious climate and the Dutch East India company mentality and methodology, placing all in their historical context. The scheming, planning, execution and finally the retribution of the mutiny are all stripped bare to provide a brutal insight into the the human psyche of paranoia and survival nearly 400 years ago. The development of and the understanding of the lead protaganist Jeronimus Cornelius was excellent.The narrative is fast moving from begining to end but interspaced with periods where the reader can really reflect and understand what it mght have been like to be trapped on a flat barren island off the West Coast of Austalia with your family, friends and some callous schemers and murderers for company. The coincidental appearance of the rescue ship on the day the mutineers attacked the remaining survivors and the subsequent race between survivors and mutineers to reach the vessel was thrilling. The final summarization was also very helpful and re-assuring that the punishment actually did fit the crime in those far off days. An excellent read. |
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