Batavia's Graveyard (46 page)

“psychopaths have a narcissistic and grossly inflated view of their
self-worth and importance, a truly astonishing egocentricity and sense of entitlement, and
see themselves as the centre of the universe, as superior beings who are justified in
living according to their own rules.”

A psychopath behaves this way because he lacks the range and depth of feelings
that other men experience. He appears cold and unfeeling. Though he may well be capable of
brief outbursts of emotion, “careful observers are left with the impression that he
is play-acting and that little is going on below the surface.”

Plainly Jeronimus displayed many of these symptoms. His practiced tongue and
agile mind, his grandiose plans, and his manipulations were all characteristic of the
psychopath. He appears to have been impulsive and was frequently betrayed by his inability
to plan ahead. At no point in Pelsaert’s account of the mutiny, moreover, is there
any indication that Cornelisz felt genuine remorse for what he had done. On the contrary,
Jeronimus continued to justify his actions all the way to the gallows.

True, not everything that the captain general said or did fits the psychopathic
profile. Few psychopaths would have waited for nearly two weeks to impose themselves on
Creesje Jans, and most would have actively participated in the slaughter that occurred in
the Abrolhos. But Pelsaert’s journals and the
predikant
’s letter are
patchy sources at best, and they may neglect to mention other incidents that might confirm
the diagnosis. All in all, the evidence points strongly to the conclusion that Jeronimus
was psychopathic.

Why
he was a psychopath is much harder to explain. There is little
consensus, even today, as to whether such men are born or made. Some psychologists believe
that psychopathy is actually a form of brain damage, others that it manifests itself in
early childhood, the consequence of a wretched upbringing. All that can be said with any
certainty is that the syndrome was considerably less common in the seventeenth century
than it is now. Modern estimates imply that as many as 1 in every 125 present-day
Americans are psychopaths of one sort or another—a total of two million across the
country, and 100,000 in New York alone. But the same surveys suggest that China has many
fewer psychopaths than the United States, and that psychopathy flourishes best in
societies where stress is laid on individual freedom and instant gratification. If this is
true, the syndrome is unlikely to have been common in the Dutch Republic of the Golden
Age, which placed such powerful emphasis on conformity and the notion of good citizenship.
Most of the people on the
Batavia
would surely never have encountered someone in
whom the major traits of psychopathy were present to such a remarkable degree. Cornelisz
was an exceptionally unusual character for his time.

Even before he boarded the
retourschip,
moreover, Jeronimus would have
been beyond help. There has never been a “treatment” for psychopathy, for those
who suffer from the syndrome “don’t feel they have psychological or emotional
problems,” says Hare.

“They see no reason to change their behaviour to conform to societal
standards with which they do not agree. [They] are not ‘fragile’ individuals.
What they think and do are extensions of a rock-solid personality that is extremely
resistant to outside influence . . . . Many are protected from the consequences of their
actions by well-meaning family members or friends; their behaviour remains relatively
unchecked and unpunished. Others are skilled enough to weave their way through life
without too much personal inconvenience.”

Even if Jeronimus had somehow survived the journey east, therefore, his behavior
would not have changed. He would have remained cold, calculating, and ruthless for the
remainder of his life. Psychopaths may learn to modify their behavior, having recognized
that they can make their own lives easier by doing so, but they do not
“recover.” They never get better. They cannot be cured.

One unanswered question still remains: what drove Jeronimus to act as he did on
the
Batavia
? From what we now know of his psychopathy, there is no reason to
suppose that the apothecary boarded the
Batavia
with the already-formed intention
of seizing the ship. He is much more likely to have conceived the idea quite impulsively,
and in all probability it was indeed Jacobsz’s grumbling, at the Cape of Good Hope,
that first put the thought of mutiny into his head.

Pelsaert was therefore right, in one respect, to think of Ariaen as the key
figure in the story. Sailing with another skipper, or on a different ship, Cornelisz would
almost certainly have reached the Spiceries without undue incident—and, once there,
he could well have been successful. His psychopathy might not even have been noticed by
the self-serving servants of the Company, for though Jeronimus would no doubt have tried
to cheat and lie to his employers, most of them were cheats and liars, too. A psychopath,
indeed, would have enjoyed certain advantages over the petty criminals who infested the
Indies; given the opportunity, he would steal more ruthlessly and recklessly than any
ordinary man, and with such single-mindedness that he would soon amass a fortune if not
stopped. Jeronimus might, perhaps, have overreached himself and been detected and
disgraced. But since he would not have had to kill anyone to achieve his aims, he would at
least have avoided the appalling death awaiting him in Houtman’s Abrolhos.

Nearly 400 years have passed since then, but the islands have hardly changed in
all that time. Visions of the past persist in places such as these. At dusk on an October
evening, with a full moon sailing in the sky, it is still possible to glimpse Jeronimus
Cornelisz in the shadows on Seals’ Island. His body hangs there, swinging in the
southwest wind that first brought him to the archipelago; the noose’s knot is tight
under his ear and the head has snapped grotesquely to one side. The rope groans and creaks
its way across the gallows tree, but the noise it makes cannot be heard. It is drowned out
by the ceaseless shrieking of the mutton birds.

Footnotes

To return to the corresponding text, click on the reference number or “Return to text”.

^*1
Surnames were still relatively uncommon in the United Provinces in the early seventeenth century. Most people identified themselves using patronymics—Ariaen Jacobsz would have been the son of a man named Jacob. Because it was unwieldy to spell out the full patronymic, which in this case is Jacobszoon, it was also common practice to abbreviate written names by omitting the “oon” of “zoon” (son) and shortening “dochter” (daughter) to “dr” When spoken, the name would have been pronounced in full.

^*2
The officer in day-to-day charge of the crew and—other than his commissioned rank—the equivalent of a modern-day bos’n.

^*3
The equivalent of just over $4.5 million at today’s prices.

^*4
“Abrolhos” is generally held to be a loan word from Portuguese, a corruption of the sailor’s warning
“abri vossos olhos,”
or “Open your eyes.” A similar archipelago off the coast of Brazil is known by the same name.1

^*5
The word derives from the Greek
theriake
and is the root of the English
treacle.

^*6
Van den Broecke, who evidently took real pride in her work, later testified before a solicitor that the resultant product tasted good.

^*7
The final flourishing of antinomianism actually occurred in Britain in the aftermath of the English Civil War, when a sect known as the Ranters espoused very similar ideas.

^*8
Commonly called the “Dutch East India Company” by historians to distinguish it from its rival, the English East India Company.

^*9
The name “Jan” is the Dutch equivalent of the English “John” and was the most common Dutch male name of the time. The VOC’s nickname thus reflected its status as the “everyman” company of the United Provinces—one that affected every citizen’s life for better or for worse.

^*10
Weapon of Zeeland.

^*11
The name means “World-grasper.”

^*12
De Jongh was an old enemy of Pelsaert’s, thanks to an incident in which the resident at Agra had paid a visit to his trading post carrying a Dutch flag before him, thus implying to the local Indians that he was the latter’s superior, which he was not. De Jongh retaliated by charging that Pelsaert “was considered by everyone to lie with every third word he said, and his mouth is rarely quiet.”

^*13
“The Hague of the Counts,” which is the Dutch name for The Hague.

^*14
Golden Lion.

^*15
When the stern of the Batavia was salvaged in the 1970s, archaeologists discovered large quantities of a black, phosphate-rich substance inside the hull. Analysis revealed the presence of gristle and cereal husks, suggesting the black mass was a layer of human feces deposited in what had probably been the bilges.

^*16
So called because the region was prone to prolonged calms, resulting in water shortages that sometimes forced transport ships to force overboard the horses that they carried.

^*17
Indeed the word
strike
itself has nautical origins; it refers to the striking of a vessel’s sails, which was usually the first thing rebellious sailors did to assert their control over the ship.

^*18
White Bear.

^*19
The
Little Seagull
and the
Great Moon.

^*20
So freely did the townsmen engage in vicious tavern brawls that in seventeenth-century Holland the act of smashing a glass of beer over an opponent’s head was known as a “Monnickendam Kiss.”

^*21
A member of the Dutch nobility.

^*22
At this time the Dutch surgeon’s guild possessed the right to dissect one executed criminal annually for the instruction of its members, so that—as its charter put it—“they would not cut veins instead of nerves, or nerves instead of veins, and would not work as the blind work in wood.”

^*23
Strong taste was frequently thought to be a guarantee of potency at this time.

^*24
A contemporary Dutch phrase meaning “to have a right royal time.”

^*25
Concord.

^*26
Seawolf.

^*27
She was named after a lordship in the southern part of the United Provinces.

^*28
Turtledove.

^*29
This brutal internecine conflict had raged throughout the Holy Roman Empire since 1618. It was notable not merely for its battles, but for the unusually appalling treatment meted out to the civilians on either side. The slaughter of women, children, and other noncombatants was commonplace throughout the war. It is not impossible that men such as Hendricxsz, Beer, and the other German mercenaries who joined Cornelisz may have been hardened by participation in such massacres.

^*30
The indications are that Ariaen Ariaensz somehow escaped and contrived to make his way to Wiebbe Hayes’s Island.

^*31
The word
draijer
means “turner” and thus denotes Hendricxen’s profession.

^*32
A species of petrel, common throughout Western Australia.

^*33
Modern Liège.

^*34
Present-day Yardie Creek, at the southern end of Exmouth Gulf.

^*35
A little later in the century one in seven of the entire European population of Batavia, excluding merchants and soldiers, were tavern-keepers. “I think it no exaggeration,” writes the historian C. R. Boxer, “to say that most of the Dutch and English males who died in the tropics died of drink, even making due allowance for the heavy toll taken by malaria and dysentery.”

^*36
Coen was also capable of serious mistakes. The most spectacular came in 1621–22, when he decided to attempt the conquest of China. His tiny fleet of eight ships and just over 1,000 men got no further than the gates of Portuguese Macao, where they were comprehensively defeated.

^*37
Coen had been so enraged when he heard of this that “his face turned white, and his chair and the table trembled.”

^*38
“Weapon of Hoorn.”

^*39
French trimming, usually of gold or silver lace.

^*40
Wool of exceptional quality.

^*41
Another Soldier, and one of the minor mutineers.

^*42
In this instance, the phrase appears to denote Australia.

^*43
Some of these men have been met before. “Lucas the steward’s mate” was Lucas Gerritsz, whom Allert Janssen had attacked on his way to the liquor stores when the
Batavia
was wrecked. “Cornelis the assistant” was Cornelis Jansz, and “Ariaen the gunner” may have been Ariaen Ariaensz, who had tapped a barrel of wine with Abraham Hendricx at the beginning of July and set the whole mutiny in motion.

^*44
By now they numbered 47: 31 mutineers, 6 women, and 10 other men and boys.

^*45
Pelsaert here confuses the ranks of these two mutineers. Van Os was the cadet, and Beer the soldier.

^*46
“Wooden man,” a prototype surname adopted to distinguish him from his many namesakes; his was one of the most common names in the Dutch Republic at this time.

^*47
Allert Janssen. Assendelft was the gunner’s hometown.

^*48
The lance corporal and member of Cornelisz’s council also known as “Stone-Cutter.” “Cosyn”
(cosijn),
his other nickname, means “window-frame.”

^*49
The spot has been identified as Wittecarra Gully, which lies just south of the mouth of the Murchison River near modern Kalbarri.

^*50
Weapon of Enkhuizen.

^*51
A valuable scarlet dye, made from the crushed bodies of insects.

^*52
Weapon of Rotterdam.

^*53
He gave his name to Tasmania.

^*54
Gilt Dragon.

^*55
South Village.
This ship was named after a place in Zeeland.

^*56
Bottles with a narrow neck and substantial circumference.

^*57
“Knighthood of Holland.”

^*58
“Fortune.”

^*59
She was named after a village in Zeeland.

^*60
Edwards’s team had thought him less than 20 and speculated that the body might have been that of Andries de Vries.

^*61
Pelsaert’s journals cannot solve the mystery; a total of 108 deaths are mentioned in its pages, but the
commandeur
does not include Abraham Hendricx or the dead Defender, Dircxsz, among the casualties and is never precise about the number of sick people killed by Andries de Vries on 13 July.