Batavia Wreck Essay

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The Batavia ship was a ship of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). It set sail on October 28, 1628 from Texel in the Netherlands on their maiden journey to Batavia (now known as Jakarta) in the Dutch colonies in Indonesia. The ship had 341 people onboard. Francois Pelsaert was the commandeer, with captain Ariaen Jacobsz and also under merchant Jeronimus Cornelisz. The ship carried a king’s ransom in various treasures and precious materials. During the trip Jacobsz and Cornelisz made a plan to hijack the ship and start a new life somewhere else using all the supply of gold and silver onboard. Then around midnight on June 4, 1629 the Batavia struck a reef in the Abrolhos Islands, some 80 km off the Western coast of Australia. As soon as the situation became clear evacuations to near by islands commenced, but unfortunately 40 drowned. Pelsaert, being the commandeer went to seek help from the port of Batavia with 30 others at his side as it was some 1,200 miles away. They left behind 268 castaways including Jacobsz and Cornelisz. In the first week many people died of starvation and thirst. Then Cornelisz constructed plan and convinced a small group of followers that there only chance of survival was to kill off everyone else and wait for Pelsaert to return and set off with the rescue vessel or if he didn’t return they would just build a new ship out of the wreckage. After moving a group of 45 soldiers to a nearby island under false pretences Cornelisz’ followers began to kill off people that posed a threat to them or caused any trouble. They walked around the island wearing gold and red clothing and doing as they wish. In total they murdered 125 people including men, women and children. The only problem for them was that the soldiers that he intended would die actually didn’t and when they had heard of the killings started to make
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