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Supporting Resources stories for teachers & students 2013
Dutch Lives in the World
stories by winthrop professor susan broomhall
Abandoned
The Batavia saw some 250 people remain on nearby islands,
while the Vergulde Draeck left 68 passengers ashore while a
small rescue party travelled north to the colony for help.
Zuytdorp was the only Dutch wreck from which no survivors from
among the 200 or so aboard had returned to report its fate and to
seek assistance; thus, no search was ever made for it by the
VOC. Ninety remained on the islands after the wreck of the
Zeewijk while 12 crew left to get help.
The survivors’ initial joy at escaping from the sea must have
turned once more to fear and despair faced with the unfamiliar
surrounds of the west coast. First thoughts were to provisions and
locating fresh water where it had not been salvaged from the ship.
Pelsaert’s rescue party from the Batavia had little success in
locating fresh water and thus travelled on to the colony. However,
Wiebbe Hayes stationed on West Wallabi Island had been more
successful. The Batavia crew and passengers were reasonably
well provisioned, with plentiful bird and sea life on the islands.
Batavia’s challenges lay elsewhere, as a now infamous bloody
massacre unfolded under the ruthless regime of apothecary
Jeronimus Corneliszoon who had been left in charge.
Religious beliefs were key to how crews dealt with the trauma.
Corneliszoon’s heretical ideas led him to claim that his
leadership of a murderous spree which left over 120 of the
Batavia’s surviving men, women and children dead, was
sanctioned by God himself. However, others found comfort and
sustenance in their faith. Upper steersman Abraham Leeman,
who had been left behind by Captain Volkersen on the Waekende
Boei in 1658 whilst searching ashore for the crew of the Vergulde
Draeck, remembered: ‘I climbed on the rocks and looked out to
sea, praying to God with weeping eyes for help and succour, not
knowing what I should do. I stayed alone most of the time in my
misery.’ He brought his men together to pray and ‘admonished
them to keep God in mind and to beware of temptation for we
were in great peril and God was the right steersman who could
lead us back. Some were moved by this, and they wept.’
Remains of leather shoes, pipes, plates and other everyday items
found ashore suggest some attempts to maintain daily practices
by the Vergulde Draeck’s survivors. Lonely, afraid and a long way
from home, VOC officials attempted to maintain morale by
continuing the rules of shipboard life, with its regulations and
documentation. Second steersman Adriaan van der Graeff ’s
diary of the Zeewijk experience noted struggles to maintain
discipline and rationing among the soldiers and crew. These
survivors upheld the moral codes of their homeland, prosecuting
two boys for sodomy and marooning them on inhospitable
islands nearby. Van der Graeff steadfastly recorded the deaths of
each crew member, which would ensure that the wages of each
would not be paid by the VOC to his relatives beyond the day of
his death. Not prepared to leave their fate to others, the Zeewijk
survivors, most ambitiously, turned their attention to building
their own vessel from the wreckage. They completed the Sloepie
in four months and set sail to the colony in March 1728, carrying
the ship’s surviving 82 passengers.
By contrast, the Zuytdorp survivors had reached the mainland,
where they evidently built a bonfire hoping to attract the attention
of passing ships. A brass tobacco box lid inscribed with the name
Leyden, found at Wale Well in 1990, suggests that the survivors
had arrived there, traded it with the local indigenous population,
or had perhaps been with them. The VOC had often encouraged
contact with the indigenous populations; now it seems likely that
the survival of the Dutch lay in their hands. Survivors must have
hoped that previous crews had treated local peoples with the
noble spirit of friendship their instructions had directed. When
Pelsaert marooned two crew members involved in the Batavia
massacre he had left them optimistic instructions regarding
contact with the local peoples: ‘if they take you into their Villages
to their chief men, have courage to go with them willingly, Man’s
luck is found in strange places; if God guards you, you will not
suffer any damage from them but on the contrary, because they
have never seen any white men they will offer all friendship.’
Image/ David Davidszoon de Heem, Still life with lobster;
oysters, bread, oranges, a lemon, glass, and a pepper basket
and a bottle of wine. 1668. Copyright Rijksmuseum
SK-A-2566.
60 FAR FROM HOME: ADVENTURES, TREKS, EXILES & MIGRATION