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

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I've read many seafaring/adventure/historical non-fiction narratives (as well as novels) and Batavia's Graveyard does them all one better. Like most Americans, I had never heard of the Batavia incident, so I was in suspense during this entire reading experience. The author, Mike Dash, gives a engrossing account of the survivors' ordeal, but, more importantly, he does an excellent job of placing the Batavia's story within the context of the 1600s and the Dutch sea trade. I was fascinated by the description of life in the Netherlands by the history of the Dutch East India Company--a corporation so heartless and corrupt that it makes Enron look warm and fuzzy.

Like In the Heart of the Sea, this is a book that places one sensational, disturbing event within a much larger, and richer history. Mike Dash's stylish, compelling writing are to be commended, as well. Even the nearly 100 pages of endnotes themselves (which detail Mr. Dash's outstanding research) add a lot to the appreciation of this book.

Take it from a history--and reading--addict: this is one of the best historical narratives to be written in years.

"Absolutely nothing in this book is invented." Mike Dash starts off his book _Batavia's Graveyard_ (Crown) with this declaration for a good reason. The story is quite literally incredible. Dash's previous book, the excellent _Tulipomania_, wittily described the improbable craze of speculating on tulip bulbs in Holland in the seventeenth century, but the tulip madness is relatively well known. Stories of the fate of the ship _Batavia_ in 1629 in the service of the Dutch East India Company, however, were wildly popular at the time, but have gradually been forgotten. The story was spectacular enough that there were memoirs, eyewitness accounts, pamphlets, books, and court testimony, all of which Dash has dug through with notable thoroughness. The bizarre tale of the _Batavia_ reads like a thriller.

The main character in the tale is Jeronimus Cornelisz, who had newly joined the Dutch East India Company to make his fortune. He was probably brought up as a member of the Anabaptists, a small protestant sect with a history of fanaticism and resistance to worldly governments, based largely on the belief that the Second Coming of Christ was just around the corner. He had also joined a social organization which had dangerous philosophies, and he came to antinomianism, the creed that one can exist in a state of perfection and thereby avoid following any moral law. "All I do, God gave the same into my heart," he explained. He planned a mutiny to take over the ship and become a pirate, but about a month before arriving at the destination Java, it crashed into a coral reef off Australia's western coast. Cornelisz, the highest ranking official left on the islands, took charge with real self assurance, eloquence, and charisma, and hell descended. The sailors seemed to have found his talk and his leadership irresistible, and he frequently spoke of the wealth that could be theirs if they were to take over any rescue ship. He began to thin the population by the simple means of murder. He and his loyal henchmen began killing those whom they distrusted, and then those who were unneeded. After that, although there was sufficient drinking water from rainfall and sufficient food from seals and birds, the killing continued because it was entertaining for those in power to continue it.

The scenes of murder and mayhem are unpleasant, but not much more so than those of the legal interrogations under torture and the executions which followed the affair. There are few pure heroes described here, and the book shows that while the Company got richer and richer, those on the sea who made it happen had brutal lives and little recompense. That may strike a chord for our own times, as may the picture of a man of God bringing unimaginable destruction for the sake of his own power. Dash has, however, wisely avoided any parallels to the present, and any didacticism. He has told an amazing tale, with extraordinary detail for events of so many years ago, and has brought it up to date with archeological and forensic research. This is as gripping a page-turner as a factual account has any right to be.

The setting for this book is an obscure chain of coral reefs in the 1620s. I would've never thought that incidents from so long ago and far away could inspire nightmares. But this book is every bit as chilling as "In Cold Blood" or "Helter Skelter." We'll never understand how people can commit barbarities against innocent women and children, as Jeronimus Cornelisz and his sycophants did. But eyewitness accounts and archaeological evidence, which were utilized by Mike Dash for this book, offer a testament to the grim reality of such atrocities.

The story of the "Batavia" has been related before: in the year 1628, the flagship vessel of a fleet of Dutch East Indian traders smashed into a previously unknown group of jagged coral islands off the west coast of Australia in the dead of night. While the captain and over-merchant sailed to Indonesia for help, the charismatic under-merchant set himself up as caretaker/dictator of the desperate survivors of the wreck. He turned out to be a 17th-century version of Charles Manson. He not only convinced enough naïve, under-educated, and cowardly sailors to follow him into mutinying against the East India Company, but he managed to order them into gleefully murdering over 100 of their fellow castaways.

Mike Dash's book is undoubtedly the most complete account of the "Batavia" incident written thus far. The bibliographical notes he provides comprise a book in itself. For the first time, he examines the culture and background that produced a monster like Cornelisz, digging into ancient town records in Friesland, Amsterdam, and Haarlem. It's riveting to think that Cornelisz may have been acquainted with the infamous bacchanalian painter Torrentius, who was a neighbor of his in Haarlem. Dash tries to make this claim, but he is unable to provide any proof. Similarly, there is no evidence that Cornelisz' behavior was inspired by a radical Anabaptist religious philosophy, although Dash makes a number of such implications early in the book. He contradicts himself at the end when he (more convincingly) argues that Cornelisz was a classic example of a sociopathic personality, who possessed an exaggerated egocentrism while lacking the human emotions of empathy and remorse.

This is an engrossing, albeit disturbing book. I would not recommend it for anyone who's sensitive to graphic and detailed descriptions of ways to exterminate humans. Also, be aware that the "mad heretic" claim under the main title is very misleading. Heresy was a popular word bandied during the days of the Roman Catholic Inquisition, but it has nothing to do with Cornelisz. From the evidence available, his actions don't seem to be informed by any obsessive religious creed. And as far as being "mad," there is no evidence of his being insane under our modern definitions. He was very much in control of himself. Which is the most chilling reality of all.

It's been a long time since I read a book that I've found so utterly fascinating. The story of the Batavia mutiny and the lives of the castaways comes on like a train wreck, right from the first chapter. You can't look away. By the time I finished chapter 1, I was hooked.

The amount of research this author must have done is amazing, but it never gets in the way of the story (thankfully, there are no footnotes). It's rare that you find this combination of great storytelling and great information: you can have good research and a completely unreadable book, or a good book with lousy data. But this was a match made in heaven--a knock-down story and an author who can do the detective work AND tell it like a pro. Very highly recommended by this reader.

"Batavia's Graveyard" what a name for a book! I could not resist picking this book up as soon as I saw it and I am so happy that I did. It was one of the best historical tales I have read for some time. Being an Australian I knew something of the Batavia but not the full story. In fact I had examined in detail the re-constructed Batavia at the Maritime Museum in Sydney. I walked through the ship, checking out every nook and cranny on the upper and lower decks. However that was way before I read this book. I never knew of the murder and mayhem that took place off the Western Australian coastline.

This book not only gives you the full story of the voyage of the Batavia, its shipwreck, the fate of the survivors and the subsequent fate of the mutineers under Jeronimus Cornelisz. It also offers the reader a complete and compelling picture into the background to this disaster and at the same time it offers interesting stories on all the participants. By the time I was half way through the book I was furious that the mutineers had carried out their terrible deeds. The book had me caught up in the story so much it was like reading about a current disaster in the newspaper. I wanted Cornelisz and his followers to suffer untold pain and misery for their acts.

The story is well told and gripping and the author has done his research well. The author supplies the reader with numerous tidbits of information regarding this period and this never detracts from the story but adds to it. It would have been nice to have some photographs of the Islands concerned to help paint the picture of desolation and even some photos of the recently re-constructed Batavia. Regardless of these very minor criticisms this book is a great historical story and I am sure that anyone who enjoys a good history will love this book.

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 Batavia, a huge new merchant ship of the Dutch East India Company, set off on her maiden voyage in 1628, bound for what is now Indonesia. She was shipping cases full of silver and jewels to be traded for Asian spices at incredible profit. She was also shipping a weak-willed skipper, a psychopathic commercial officer named Jeronimus Cornelius, and a gang of disgruntled sailors before the mast. After long months at sea, a mutiny was already brewing when the ship ran aground on deserted islands off Australia. The next few months became an infamous page in naval history as Cornelius embarked on a rampage of torture, murder, and rape of hundreds of shipwrecked crew and passengers. The Batavia Affair that horrified 17th century Amsterdam has lost none of its power.

More than a real-life "Lord of the Flies", the saga is a thoroughly-researched piece of Dutch history. Author Mike Dash has poked among the historical boneyards not only on remote coral islands, but among the civic and commercial records of the long-ago United Provinces of the Netherlands. He is a careful scholar, making educated guesses, pointing out which conclusions are supported by the evidence and which are mere speculation. His stories of heretical sects in northern Europe, the awful life aboard a merchant ship, and the operation of the East India Company are certain to be new and fascinating reading. Dash's careful work, gripping prose, and dry wit need no further embellishment. The truth of the Batavia is stranger than fiction.

Batavia's Graveyard (The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny) by Mike Dash is a fascinating book of history that is hard to read at times and even harder to turn away from. I am not sure if the subtitle is true concerning this being the bloodiest mutiny ever but I would not want to learn about one more bloody. The author does a good job of presenting the details of the actual mutiny in an exciting and readable manner, and even a better job of giving an historical context for the events without swamping the tale. It illuminates as it reaches into darkness. The story of the ship Batavia in 1628 and the psychotically cruel and mad plans of Jeronimus Corneliszoon will shock even jaded twenty-first century readers. This book is not for the faint at heart but will be gripping for readers not afraid to look at history's darker moments.

Batavia's Graveyard is both a page turner and an excellent history book. There's so much here: 17th century European life, medicines of the time, religious movements, the machinations of the rich and powerful, and the vagaries of sea travel.

Indeed much of the horror in this tale comes from the depiction of life aboard ship. The cramped living quarters, the poor quality of food and the horrendous sanitary conditions were suffered by all, but particulary the common seamen and soldiers.

Dash relates all the detail while skillfully setting readers up for the mutiny and shipwreck and the mad rule of the leading mutineer. Jeronimous is clearly a pyschopath, one capable of rallying men to do his evil bidding. Those not taken in by him faced a near certain death. But as if a Disney movie there are the good guys, a band of "loyalists" who escape to another island to fight on.

Batavia's Graveyard reads like a novel while teaching history and raising questions about the human condition.

My only quarrel is that while Dash does an admirable job of discussing the ringleader, he fails to address why so many were so willing to follow him and butcher their fellow man.

This history was, quite simply, one of the best I've read in years, right up there with award-winners like In the Heart of the Sea and Seabiscuit.

Mike Dash's research into this bloody historical event is impeccable (the notes themselves make interesting reading) and unlike many historians, he is a first-class writer. It was a real privelege to read something that is at once a stellar piece of research and a whopping great read with an almost cinematic quality to the narration. I literally did not put this book down until I had finished it, I was so caught up in the drama of the characters and their stories. The ending was one of the best I've ever read.

Very highly recommended by this admittedly picky reader.