Bloodiest Mutiny & Shipwreck in History: Batavia

Summary

After Dark: Bloodiest Mutiny & Shipwreck in History: Batavia

Release Date: August 7, 2025

Hosts: Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney
Podcast: After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal by History Hit

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal, historians Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney delve into one of history's most harrowing maritime disasters—the shipwreck of the Dutch vessel Batavia. This tale intertwines ambition, betrayal, and brutality, offering a stark glimpse into the darker corners of the 17th-century Dutch Empire.

Historical Context

Maddy Pelling sets the stage by situating the Batavia's voyage within the broader landscape of the 1620s, a time marked by European colonial expansion and intense global competition. She explains:

"In 1620 itself, we have British pilgrims establishing the Plymouth Colony in New England. And four years later, the Dutch send their first colonist to establish New Amsterdam, which of course becomes New York. And there's this competition between the English Empire and the Dutch Empire in this moment." ([08:03])

Anthony Delaney emphasizes the significance of the Dutch East India Company (VOC):

"At the heart of this expansion in the 17th century, we have the Dutch East India Company... it's taking goods and enslaved human beings across the globe." ([09:22])

The VOC was not just a trading company but a formidable entity that operated almost like a state within a state, wielding its own currency, army, and territories across Asia.

The Voyage of Batavia

Launched in October 1628 from Amsterdam, the Batavia embarked on its maiden voyage carrying approximately 340 people, including men, women, children, and a cargo of 100,000 silver and gold coins. Maddy Pelling highlights the diversity aboard:

"The passengers are a variety of people. Obviously, we've got sort of military men... merchants... settlers with their families who are hoping to have a new life." ([12:21])

These East Indiamen ships were integral to the VOC's global trade network, transporting both goods and people to maintain and expand their colonial foothold.

The Shipwreck

On the early morning of June 4, 1629, the Batavia struck a reef off the coast of Western Australia. The incident unfolded under a setting moon, creating a perilous environment:

"The ship begins to sway violently on the reef as inside, its occupants wake from slumber panicked... with any luck, the ship will simply float free. It doesn't work." ([03:07])

The immediate aftermath was chaos, with 40 people drowning and the remaining 280 forced onto nearby uninhabited islands, devoid of fresh water and resources.

Mutiny and Cornelius's Reign

Within three months of the voyage, tensions aboard the Batavia had escalated. Maddy Pelling introduces a key figure:

"Francisco Pelsaert... is leaving the Dutch Republic... and he is the captain. He has a journal that survives to this day." ([24:28])

Suspicion arose around Euroni Cornelius, a former apothecary with a questionable past. Pelsaert suspected him of plotting mutiny, a claim that set the stage for further turmoil.

Anthony Delaney reflects on the psychological strain:

"Can you imagine in the context... that you're in charge of those 340 people and there is somebody in your midst who you think is starting to look mutinous." ([26:56])

The shipwreck left Pelsaert with a dire decision to seek help by sailing to Batavia on foot, leaving Cornelius in charge of those stranded. This decision inadvertently paved the way for Cornelius's descent into madness and violence.

Hayes's Faction and Resistance

Left behind with Cornelius was Weber Hayes, a man determined to oppose Cornelius's tyrannical rule. Maddy Pelling recounts:

"Cornelius starts a killing spree... gathering the women and enslaving them sexually... at least 110 people are killed." ([37:07])

Hayes and his loyal men fled to a separate island, where they discovered fresh water and built fortifications—structures that remain visible today as remnants of their struggle for survival and resistance.

Rescue and Trial

In a turn of fate, Pelsaert successfully reached Batavia and organized a rescue mission on September 1629. Anthony Delaney dramatizes the arrival:

"We have this triumphant return of Pelsaert, and we have Cornelius in custody... Then we have this kind of epic battle." ([45:53])

Hayes and Pelsaert joined forces to confront Cornelius's remaining faction, leading to the capture and execution of the perpetrators. This restored a semblance of order, but the trauma endured by survivors was profound.

Archaeological Evidence

The macabre legacy of the Batavia's mutiny is corroborated by extensive archaeological findings:

"In the 1970s, marine archaeologists found the hull of the Batavia... also, loads of small items like cooking equipment, pottery, and navigation aids." ([48:32])

Further excavations unearthed buried bodies with signs of violent deaths, including blunt force trauma and evidence of mutilation, providing tangible proof of the atrocities committed aboard and on the islands.

Legacy in Popular Culture

Despite its grim history, the Batavia's story has seeped into popular culture. Maddy Pelling reveals:

"Jasper Hugendorn... stated in 2023 that the Batavia was the inspiration for The Traitors." ([50:53])

The Traitors, originally intended to be titled The Mutineers, draws heavily from the Batavia's narrative of betrayal and survival, bringing this dark chapter of history to a modern audience through reality television.

Conclusion

The Batavia's voyage serves as a chilling reminder of the depths of human depravity and the fragility of societal order in extreme circumstances. Through meticulous storytelling and archaeological evidence, Pelling and Delaney illuminate the brutal reality of mutiny and survival on uncharted islands, leaving listeners both horrified and fascinated by this dark slice of maritime history.

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Transcript

[Maddy Pelling]

Hello, everyone. It's us, your hosts, Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney.

[Anthony Delaney]

But before we begin the show, we want to ask for a few seconds.

[Maddy Pelling]

Of your time if you're enjoying After Dark. And we love you if you are, we would love you just a little bit more if you could vote for us in the Listener's Choice category at the British Podcast Awards.

[Anthony Delaney]

So go to the Show Notes now, click the link and just then search for After Dark. Fill in your name and your email and don't forget to confirm they will send you an email you need to confirm. The whole process probably takes about 30 seconds.

[Maddy Pelling]

If you've already voted, we are so, so grateful. If you haven't stop what you are doing right now. Vote for us before you enjoy this show.

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[Anthony Delaney]

Hello and welcome to After Dark, the podcast where we sail deep into the dark heart of the past and never stop. In this episode with the nautical poetry puns. In today's episode, we are going to tell you the story of a 17th century Dutch shipwreck that turned into something so much more.

[Maddy Pelling]

1629 the early hours of the morning of the 4th June, off the coast of Western Australia, the Dutch ship Batavia, weighing in at 600 tons, is sailing under a setting moon. More than 300 men, women and children are asleep on board. Gilded designs spiral around the ship's stern, looming high on the waves, reminiscent perhaps of the frontage of one of Amsterdam's ornate houses. For now, all within her are well. But then there's a shuddering, bumping crash and what had appeared just moments ago to be moonlight dancing off the sea transforms horribly now to surf breaking on shallow rocks. The ship begins to sway violently on the reef as inside, its occupants wake from slumber panicked and forced from bunks or their watch posts to the grimy floor of the deck. Shouts arise as the crew struggle to gain control, ordering that the cannon be thrown overboard to make the vessel lighter. With any luck, the ship will simply float free. It doesn't work. Next, the huge main mast, 100ft high, is cut down. Instead of falling clear though, it crashes across the deck, pinning the Batavia against the reef below. As the sun rises in the western Australian sky, the unlucky souls of the Batavia spy a handful of tiny islands not far off, uninhabited scraps of landscape surrounded by breakwaters. Not an ideal place to seek salvation. But as the day wears on, they see that they have no other choice. It's strange to think that even in this terrible moment in which the crew and passengers face their maker, their groans and cries filling the air, no one could have imagined the horror still to come or the nightmarish, blood soaked future that awaited them. Well, none except one man, perhaps foreign.

[Anthony Delaney]

Hello and welcome to After Dark. I am Anthony.

[Maddy Pelling]

And I am Maddie and we have.

[Anthony Delaney]

Set Maddie sail on the rough seas once more. She loves to be in a boat and we are talking about an episode that apparently a lot of you guys have already asked for. Now, the reason I'm surprised about this is because I have not heard of this history at all. So that's why I'm surprised that we've had so Many requests. Now, usually we'll pop in to do some context, but, Mad, we were just talking before we started this episode and it's probably good for us to just address this upfront. This can be a bit of a confusing one. Right. There's a lot going on here.

[Maddy Pelling]

There's a lot going on. And anyone who enjoys this episode by the end, I do encourage you to go and read about this. If you're in Australia, you can go to the museum that we're going to talk about that holds a lot of the objects associated with this particular case, because there's so much material culture that survives from it. There's so much information, there's so much myth and rumour as well. And as everyone knows, we love to dispel a little bit of that in a complex story. It's also an incredibly, incredibly dark one. I was thinking before we started recording of comparison episodes for this, and I was thinking back to the episode we did, or two episodes, I think, on the Mutiny on the Bounty and how some of those survivors, the mutineers, end up on Pitcairn Island. That's a pretty dark history, and I don't think that touches the sides of what we're going to talk about today. So you have been warned. This is, honestly, it's part Lord of the Flies, part Hunger Games. There's a good dose of sort of fictional Australian gothic added into that. You know, this idea of, I suppose, a tradition, artistic tradition of Europeans in stories finding themselves pitted against this kind of inhospitable environment and therefore driven to these kind of terrible, inhumane actions. It fits that tradition. Only. This is real history. This, at least in part, really did happen. There's a psychopath at the heart of it. There's an isolated community who are taken over by this person. It's very. I don't know, Anthony, if you've ever watched the Walking Dead, but every season there would be an isolated community and a new scary monster in charge of it. And this, this is that, minus the zombies.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, Christ on a unicycle. What have I let myself in for this episode? Okay, let's get into some of the details before we get to the islands themselves, the ship and the islands themselves. Maddy, we are in the 1620s. Give us some context.

[Maddy Pelling]

Okay, so the 1620s, there's a lot going on globally, and we are going to talk about the context in terms of global history, because this is a period. Even though we're looking at a story that's largely concerned with Europeans, this is a period When Europe is expanding its empires, there are different empires at play and they are moving across the globe. So in the east, we have the Ming Dynasty declining. We also have the Mughal Empire. This is three years before the Taj Mahal is going to be built. When the story takes place in Europe, there is a war going on, the Thirty Years War, which is essentially Catholicism versus Protestantism. But that is not the only concern. As I say, there's this huge global colonial expansion going on. There's territories being taken, being claimed in Central and South Americas and also in the East Indies. Right. So this is really an expansion outwards in every direction. In 1620 itself, we have British pilgrims establishing the Plymouth Colony in New England. And four years later, the Dutch send their first colonist with establish New Amsterdam, which of course becomes New York. And there's this competition between the English Empire and the Dutch Empire in this moment. That's really interesting. And we are going to be talking specifically about the Dutch Empire and all of its wealth and all of its troubles.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. I'm so intrigued by this Dutch Empire because it's so overshadowed by the British Empire as we get into the 18th century. It's so often overlooked, but actually what the Dutch Empire does in the 17th century is set a blueprint in many ways for a lot of the troubles that the British Empire will then embed. So, for instance, it's the Dutch that put in place the system of slavery that will then go global, even more global in the 18th century. And it's due to the Dutch that we have that system in place. So the ways in which enslaved people are sold, the ways in which they are transported, that's something that's put in place by the Dutch that's very much expanded by the British in the following century. But at the heart of this, and at the heart of this expansion in the 17th century, we have the Dutch East India Company. And you'll probably have heard of the Dutch East India Company, incredibly famous and formative. So tell us a little bit about them, Maddy.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. And I think a lot of people will know about the English version, the East India Company primarily, perhaps from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies where they're depicted the Dutch version of this, The Dutch East India Company was a sort of forerunner of this and was incredibly powerful in its own right. So this is a company that is set up to in goods and, as you said, enslaved human beings across the globe in this moment. And it really sets the Dutch apart from the English in terms of that early empire. It's taking place during what is known as the Dutch Golden Age, which runs for most of the 17th century. And this is, you know, the Dutch Republic is flourishing in terms of, obviously, trade, but also art and culture. You've got to think of artists like Vermeer. This is the moment of Girl with a Pearl Earring, Van Dyck as well, to give you a sort of visual of what this period might look like. The East India Company itself is incredibly rich and powerful. It basically becomes its own state within a state. It has its own currency. It has its own territories across the world. It has its own army, and it's waging war and enslaving people across that globe. So this is already a pretty formidable setup, as you say. It's this kind of mechanized global thing that's already kind of been put in place. It has key colonies in what are called the Dutch East Indies. Interestingly, the British Empire, well into the 18th century, is still looking to the west and only really begins to turn to the. What is the East Indies towards the end of the century and at the very Beginning of the 19th century, the Dutch holds what is now Sri Lanka, India, South Africa, and they have outposts as well in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Obviously, I'm using the modern names for these places now. And it's trading in things like tea, coffee, spices, as we say, enslaved people, textiles, porcelain, all kinds of things. Things that back home in Europe are a kind of currency of status and wealth. These are the items that you use to show who you are in society. So they're incredibly important. And the whole of the Dutch Empire is absolutely invested in this company. And that's where the Batavia comes in.

[Anthony Delaney]

I think this is something that's worth bearing in mind before we start to go into the Batavia specifically. Is that rightly so? We have revised this history now where we actually see the power structures that the Dutch East India Company have overseen and instigated in the 17th century. But in the context of their time, these were seen as modernizers. And it's a very strange mindset for us to try and get into, but these guys were just really pushing the boundaries of what everybody thought the traditional world looked like and how it could be shaped and how it could be controlled. There was an element of. And it's a very strange thing to say because we know it's not the case now, but at the time, there was this strange idea of heroism. And we see it with the British East India Company later as well, don't we, Maddie? Where it's this. These are the conquering Heroes, but actually the darkness that they're beginning to spread at this point amidst all those things that you're talking about, the teas, the coffees, the spices, the textiles and we think this rich, luxurious, boundary pushing people. But actually what's happening is they're laying the foundations for something far darker and that is a trade in human beings. But tell me how the Batavia does fit into this. So the Batavia then is part of the Dutch East Indian fleet?

[Maddy Pelling]

I guess it is, yes. So it's a type of ship called an East Indiaman, which is basically a large trade ship that is sent out from Europe. And these aren't exclusive to the Dutch Empire, by the way. We get them later on being made in Britain for the British Empire as well. They are allowed to operate anywhere in the world through European company licenses and they carry both cargo and passengers. And I think that's really crucial because. Because we're talking about this kind of mechanised company, this faceless institution. But actually what's so interesting is in terms of the Dutch Republic and then as we said later in Britain as well, the East India Companies of both respective empires offer people an opportunity to start again, to make something of themselves when they are at home restricted to very kind of tight hierarchies. Maybe they are the second son, they're not going to inherit things like that. It's a way to social climb and make your fortune. And often you would want your sons and your daughters to go out into the world through the East India Company to hold a position somewhere, to marry someone in a position somewhere. And I always think it's interesting the types of people who then go on these voyages. So this ship is carrying goods, but it's also carrying people who are going to be taken to these outposts and are going to be settlers. They're going to stay there at least for a good portion of their lives several years and be part of this system and move to an entirely different place that they've never been to, that they know nothing about. And I think we have to bear that in mind thinking about the types of people on the Batavia and there's a good mixture of them, but they are the sorts of people who don't necessarily want to stay within the Dutch Republic. And that is quite important. So usually in After Dark episodes we describe a picture maybe halfway through the episode, but I actually have one to show you now because I really want to give you a sense of just how chaotic and dark this history is going to get and kind of the scale and scope of the violence that's going to come. So we have a near contemporary print produced just after this story took place. Anthony, can you describe it for us and just give us a sense of the vibe?

[Anthony Delaney]

Okay, I'm going to work my way back through this image. In the foreground we have what looks like a shipwreck. And then floating at various points on the same line of the shipwreck is like barrels and bits of wood and stuff. So I'm anticipating a shipwreck. Then if I'm moving towards a landmass that's in the distance, in between the shipwreck and the landmass, I'm seeing more barrels and then some people that are kind of flailing a little bit, looks like they're drowning potentially. Then we get to the landmass and well, it's a scene of utter chaos, actually. There's 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 makeshift Tenty Hutty type things. Like it's just material thrown over sticks basically and they're scattered around what is supposed to be an island. But the most striking thing about the image overall is that there are people being absolutely slaughtered left, right and center there. I don't know if they're clubs or swords. Probably a mixture of both, actually. Yes, it is a mixture of both. I'm seeing it now. And some people have swords in their hands. Some people are on. Actually I'm just seeing that somebody's on the roof of one of those makeshift tenty things. They're being clubbed to death, they're being stabbed, they're being hit. They are. It's just a jumble of people. Oh, somebody's trying to like crawl away on the ground and then somebody else is chasing him with a sword. It's a scene of utter chaos and I can only assume this is going to be the setup for what's to come.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, you've pretty much nailed it it. Island in the middle of the ocean with people being hacked to death. That's the joy that awaits.

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Wow, that sounds amazing. Can I have a bite?

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Not even a little.

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[Anthony Delaney]

So where are we going? Where is this setting off to? This, as I understand it, is the maiden voyage. Am I correct? What is the remit of the Batavia as it sets out?

[Maddy Pelling]

Okay, so yes, you're absolutely right. It's the maiden voyage of the Batavia and it is heading to Drumroll Batavia. I see what they've done just to confuse everyone. Not very imaginative. Yes. So Batavia was a Dutch colonial city. It's modern Jakarta, which is the capital of Indonesia now. It's where the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company was. So essentially it's the kind of capital of the whole of the company's empire. Essentially. So they're going right to the heart of things in what is now Indonesia. The voyage begins in October 1628 from Amsterdam. So you can imagine it kind of setting off from this beautiful cobbled street with all the tall, beautiful houses with gorgeous gables. There are 340 people on board, including quite a lot of children. I always find that fascinating because, you know, you think of like the golden age of the sail. Later on you think of like pirates and you Think of, you know, very, very much like Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean. You think of the East India. Think of the transatlantic slave trade. You think of. It's very sort of commercial. It's got all these kind of dark edges. And you don't necessarily think of children within that remit. But of course, there were children in terms of the passengers, families that were coming across, but also there were children in the crew as well. Let's not forget, you could go to sea when you were extremely young in this period. So there are several children on board. The passengers are a variety of people. Obviously, we've got sort of military men who are just being moved around the empire as part of the. The company army. We've got the crew themselves, but we've also got merchants, people who are hoping to set up little bases either in Batavia or, once they get to Batavia, you know, to move on to somewhere else within the region. There are different kinds of officials in terms of the company, and there are, as I said, these settlers with their families who are hoping to have a new life and to find a kind of positive experience. The other thing to say is that the ship is also carrying a lot of precious cargo when it sets off, including approximately 100,000 silver and gold coins. And that's the other thing to say about a ship like this, is that it is heavily armed. Right? These are not just floating around with all this wealth and expecting to be fine. Already at this moment in the 17th century, there is a threat to this global trade network. So they're armed with cannon and all sorts of handheld weapons as well.

[Anthony Delaney]

It's also worth bearing in mind because I like this idea that you're painting of families on board and lives happening and unfolding there. But the other thing to bear in mind, although it pales in comparison to anything we talk about in terms of the transportation of enslaved people, but the conditions aren't necessarily always a joy. And you're potentially going to be on this ship, particularly on a journey like this, for, you know, the guts of a year. Like, you could be on this for up to 10 months making this journey. So it requires stamina, it requires a focus that children are not necessarily going to have, even though some of them are working on the. On the ship itself. But despite the fact that this is supposed to take, you know, eight to 10 months, what we're faced with is that actually after three months, things go a little bit tits over ours.

[Maddy Pelling]

Correct? Yes, they do. Side note to that, I'm always obsessed with people who are born on ships during this period, you get so many people, especially actually children of people in the East India Company. You know, when officers of the East India Company are bringing their wives to various outposts and they get on board pregnant, or sometimes they get pregnant on board, depending on how long the journey is, and actually give birth on board. Obsessed.

[Anthony Delaney]

Absolutely. Not ideal, like. But yes.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, not ideal. Can you imagine morning sickness on a boat? Not great. Okay. So, yeah, three months in to this journey, things start to go wrong. At this point. They are in the southern hemisphere, just off the coast of Australia. The first thing that goes wrong before the shipwreck that we heard about at the opening of this episode is that there are already. We think, and I'm going to caveat that because we need to talk about what the sources actually give us in a minute. We think there is an early attempt at a mutiny, or at least whispers of it. So there are two kind of main characters here that I need to introduce. And the first one is Francisco Pelsaert. He is an officer of the company and he's also a merchant back home. And he is essentially put in charge of the Batavia. For all intents and purposes, he is the captain. He has a journal that survives to this day, and it's used often as a kind of key primary source. Now, it is later titled the Unlucky Voyage of the Ship Batavia, which is presumably not what he titled it when he set off from Amsterdam.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, my God, if he had, that would have been amazing.

[Maddy Pelling]

Hedging his bets. Yeah. So in that journal, he talks about another person on board who is trying to stir up rebellion against him. And this is a man called Euroni. Nope.

[Anthony Delaney]

Keep this in. Keep this in. And I'm going to attempt it after she does it. Go on.

[Maddy Pelling]

Oh, my God. Apologies to any Dutch listeners. Euronymous Cornelius.

[Anthony Delaney]

I might go Euronymous. Euronymous.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yes, let's go with that. That sounds more sensible. Yes.

[Anthony Delaney]

Euronymous Cornelius. Okay.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yes. He is a very interesting character and he is possibly our psychopath of the story. He is a former apothecary who has worked under the Dutch East India Company as a whole.

[Anthony Delaney]

So he could poison you, Number One?

[Maddy Pelling]

Yes, he could, potentially. He's a man who thinks more with his fists. Sharp weapons, though, so let's bear that in mind. But he's been working as a kind of under merchant, you know, sort of lowly underling of the company. There is a hint that we have that he was potentially. He had some kind of disgraced reputation. Possibly he was a Heretic. And he is leaving the Dutch Republic in a little bit of a hurry. We don't know anything more about him, but considering what he is going to go on to do, I'm assuming he was leaving some bad stuff behind him. So Pelsaert, who is in charge, claims that Cornelis is planning this mutiny and we don't know the truth of that. That could be hindsight based on what we know comes afterwards.

[Anthony Delaney]

Can you imagine in the context, and this is why you mentioned mutiny on the Bounty earlier, but can you imagine in that context where you're enclosed, you're trapped in here, there's 340 of you on this and you are in charge of those 340 people and there is somebody in your midst on your crew actually, who you think is starting to look mutinous. And here's the thing, even if this was properly accounted for after the fact, there will have been stirrings. You will become aware that you are traveling on this big old wooden town and you have ammunition, you have money, you have all these things and you have people and there's somebody in your midst who you're maybe not afraid of, but that's unnerving you or that's, you know, pushing up against your authority. That, to me is actually quite petrifying because I remember that from the mutiny episodes, thinking that's less than ideal. I don't want that happening if you're in the middle of an ocean. You know what I mean?

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. And I think it's so interesting that you make that connection with the Bounty, because I think when we talk about those kind of meet and neat situations later on, we're talking about vessels that have very clear hierarchy because they are military run vessels that don't have civilian passengers aboard, that they are there to do a mission, whether that's in terms of fighting somewhere or colonising somewhere or going to collect samples and doing natural history, whatever it is. There's a very clear structure and the problem comes when people step out of that structure. Now, the problem with the Batavia and ships like it in this moment is, yes, there is a hierarchy in that there is someone in charge and that there is a crew manning the ship, but everyone on board in their own little family units, no matter who they are, they're bringing with them something of the hierarchy of the society that they've left, but they're going to something new. They're starting again at a different. They're hoping to go in at a different strata of society. And so everything's already chaosy. Everything's already upended, disrupted, and then you've got the claustrophobia, as you say, you know, this is only three months in, but, I mean, I couldn't do three days on a ship like this.

[Anthony Delaney]

So it ain't for me.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's not for them. No, no, no. Absolutely not.

[Anthony Delaney]

Right, so we have the potential mutiny, and that's bubbling away there. But then take me to the 4th of June, 1629, because things start to ramp up in a bad way then.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yes. So the mutiny never has chance to materialize because the ship is wrecked on a reef off the coast of Australia. It doesn't sink, which I'm so interested in shipwrecks, where the ship is kind of still visible for a long period of time. I find that so fascinating and so kind of poetically emotive. The hull, however, hits this shallow reef, it breaks. And in the initial impact and the chaos afterwards, because, don't forget, it is the early hours of the morning. The moon is kind of still up in the sky. It's relatively dark. 40 people do drown out of the 300 odd that are on board. So it's a big disaster. And obviously they're kind of in the middle of nowhere. They're, I think, 50 miles off the coast of Australia. This is a period in which I think as early as about 1606, 1609, something like that. There has been an early encounter in averted commas between Europeans and Australian aboriginals, but there is no settlement on the mainland yet. So this is. There is nowhere to go. There's no one to help, essentially. And we have here, from Pelsaert's journal, an account of this moment of the shipwreck. And I want you to read it because, again, I think it's sort of. We have to imagine this is written in hindsight, or at least edited in hindsight. So bear that in mind. But I do think it gives a sense of this event.

[Anthony Delaney]

Okay, so it says, 4th of June being Monday morning. I was lying in my bunk feeling ill, and felt suddenly, with a rough, terrible movement, the bumping of the ship's rudder. And immediately after that, I felt the ship held up in her course against the rocks, so that I fell out of my bunk. I said, skipper, what have you done? That through your reckless carelessness, you have run this noose round our necks. Yeah, that sounds like something that's written after, doesn't it? Or as you say, edited it afterwards. It's like.

[Maddy Pelling]

Like.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, yeah. It just sounds very foreboding, foreshadowing. As if it's written with information of what's coming next.

[Maddy Pelling]

I'm not gonna lie, it sounds like when I've done something wrong and then I'll be like to my husband, look, what have you done? And he'll be like, yeah, it does.

[Anthony Delaney]

Ring of that, doesn't it? Yes, you're absolutely right.

[Maddy Pelling]

This is the skipper's fault. It's like Kelsa, you're in charge. Basically, they have to get off the ship. And as we heard at the beginning of this episode in the opening, they see these tiny islands. There's a kind of, you can look at them online. There's a kind of smattering of tiny islands or islands of varying sizes quite close to where this reef broke the ship apart. And so over the course of the first day they become aware the ship's not really going to sink, but it's breaking apart and it's, you know, going to be carried off eventually. And so they make the decision. They've got some small boats aboard obviously and they make the decision to row to the nearest of these islands, which I suppose is the only option available to them. But you have to remember they will know where they are and they're not near anyone. They've now lost the big vessel that protects them in this ocean and they're moving to these tinier boats which you know, are not built for large journeys. So they're really committing out of necessity to these tiny spits of land. They gather the supplies that they can, so fresh water, any food that they've got. And I would be interested to know what kind of other things people are grabbing from the ship. Right. Are people being like, oh, just put some of these hundred thousand gold and silver coins in my pockets. I'll just sew some of them into the inside of my coat just in case. So, you know, there's a lot of that going on. It's total chaos. Authority is already breaking down and so they make their way to the nearest island. Now on the island they find that it's uninhabited. Great, that's fine. It is full of vegetation and there is some wildlife there, but there is no running water. So obviously they're in trouble because this is not a long term plan. Approximately about two hundred and eighty of them, remember, 40 drowned. 280 make it to the land that is a large community of people to be stuck on a relatively small island with no fresh water.

[Anthony Delaney]

It's a village, right? Like it's a village that now is stuck on an island. They've Never even heard of, have no knowledge of. And that's where they are now.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. And as I say, authority's broken down. Pelsa is still technically in charge, but that is not going to remain the case for long. So they do this initial hunt for the water and the food. They find that. That this island's not going to sustain them. And so Pelsa makes, I think, the sensible decision, but a difficult one, that he's going to take 40 people and he's going to go off and seek help. His idea is that they're going to go all the way to Batavia in Indonesia, which is pretty far away. So, you know, they're setting off in a tiny boat. The conditions are bad. This is very risky in terms of crossing a large ocean. Also, sharks.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, look, I mean, you'd be at nothing if you didn't have a few sharks swimming around.

[Maddy Pelling]

I mean, immediately, no, I'd be like, I'll just stay on this island. I'm not going anywhere near those sharks.

[Anthony Delaney]

I'll tell you what, I know you said, oh, he makes the right decision. If I were him, though, I would have stayed behind and I would have sent others.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. Yes.

[Anthony Delaney]

I'm just like, someone's gonna need to be in control of the big group.

[Maddy Pelling]

And if only he had stayed behind. So it's gonna take him, he works out about 33 days to get to. To Batavia, if they make it. And his plan is that obviously he's going to ask for help. And hopefully he says to all the others that he's leaving behind, we'll come back for you. Okay, Maybe grand. Just sit here, hold tight for a month. It'll be fine.

[Anthony Delaney]

So it's like, bye, Pelsaert. He's off now.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, he's off. So they're like, okay, it's going to take you a month to get there and presumably a month to get back. If all goes well, if you're not eaten by sharks, or your boat overturns, or you dehydrate and die, etcetera, and he leaves Cornelis in charge. Now, I think this is very interesting because you'd think if there are whispers of a mutiny, why would he do this? Perhaps he knows that Cornelius will mutineer anyway. And so he thinks by putting him in charge, he's ensuring some kind of stability. That is his big mistake. Cornelius is ungovernable, and he starts what is retrospectively called a reign of terror. So immediately he takes control. He gathers around him a group of men who are going to do his Bidding and are sort of like minded. Obviously, there are people who oppose him. Amongst them, a man called Weber Hayes. He just wants to get rid of him. He's like, you're a threat to me being in charge. Now, Cornelius's plan, which I think is quite clever, is he says to Hayes, right, let's go to one of the other islands on one of the little boats that are left, and we'll search for water there, right? Like, everyone, calm down. I'm in charge, but it's fine. It's all going to be okay. So Hayes and his loyal men, including a group of soldiers, go over to the island in a little boat, presumably with Cornelis or some of his men, and they get off onto this other island. And then Cornelius just rows away in the little boat and is like, bye. You are left on the island, problem solved. You know, and these are kind of. These are good men who want to actually look after everyone and help. So now they've been marooned on a different island with no way of getting back.

[Anthony Delaney]

So we might imagine that the Hayes faction are more part of the Pelsart faction, right?

[Maddy Pelling]

I think so.

[Anthony Delaney]

Potentially, yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yes. And I would say that's where the tension has arisen. The fact that Cornelius has gone, I'm in charge now. And Hayes has gone, whoa, whoa, whoa. Pelsart has not left you in charge. He's gone to get help. We have to behave ourselves.

[Anthony Delaney]

So we have. The Hayes faction is left behind. We know that Cornelius goes back to the main island where they initially landed before they went looking on this little expedition. He's back there. He's in charge. Chaos. Yes, yes.

[Maddy Pelling]

Brutal, terrible chaos. So it's not like he just builds himself a little throne, sits there and is like, right, I'm in charge. And everyone's like, okay, there's resistance against him. And so he starts a killing spree, essentially. He starts to kill anyone who doesn't agree with him. At first, he's kind of killing people because they're trying to resist his rule, but then it kind of, according to the witness statements afterwards, it becomes kind of for pleasure. It's pretty dark. And he also starts to coerce the people who are allied with him to kill others on his behalf. So this is a whole regime that he's set up now.

[Anthony Delaney]

And it's really important to point out that this is not normal behavior, even in the extreme circumstances that they're in, you know, because you might think, oh, they're stranded on an island, you know, chaos will reign. This could happen. No, there Are rules in place. Like, people know what's expected of them in this scenario. They have. Have kind of planned for this to a certain extent, as much as one can. And this is not part of that story.

[Maddy Pelling]

No, no. And the behaviour they then exhibit, it transcends and violates most sort of normal human boundaries of behaviour and morals. Right. So they do things like they gather the women up from the different family groups and they enslave them sexually, basically, to Cornelius and his men. Cornelius also is described, and this is really, really grim, as poisoning and strangling a baby.

[Anthony Delaney]

I told you there'd be poisoning. I told you he's an apothecary.

[Maddy Pelling]

So there you go. I don't know why I needed to do the poisoning and the strangling, but, I mean, he really is a monster. He's an inhuman monster. This isn't sort of, you know, a little bit of squabbling for power. This is like brutality at its darkest. He also does things like to get rid of other groups. He kind of does the same thing that he's done to Hayes, where he'll take people out on the little boat that they have left, and he'll say, right, we're gonna go and look for water on one of the other islands. And then he'll just shove them overboard to the sharks.

[Anthony Delaney]

Right. Okay. That's weird.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. So, I mean, he's creative. He's killing people in a lot of different ways. He'll also do things like under the regime that he sets up, he'll accuse people of committing crimes that they haven't committed, like theft and stuff, and then he'll have them killed publicly. It's bizarre.

[Anthony Delaney]

So we really are dealing with the psychopath here.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, it's bizarre. In total, at least 110 people are killed.

[Anthony Delaney]

So we're nearly half of the people, too, Az.

[Maddy Pelling]

And then, yeah, yeah, he's a serial killer, essentially, who's taken over this community and is absolutely traumatizing them. Yeah. Really interesting. And one really interesting and horrifying. One of the women that is kind of enslaved in this way is a woman called Lucretia Yan. And she is on her way to join her husband in the city of Batavia. So she's alone, essentially, and she's from the kind of middling to upper classes of Dutch society. And Cornelis enslaves her to himself. He sort of takes her as his consort, I guess. And interestingly, later on, when there is going to be recompense for this, she's initially named as his collaborator and then.

[Anthony Delaney]

Is released you know what that says to me? That says to me she played her part to perfection given the circumstances that she was given to survive. She went, I am doomed unless I do this. And so obviously there was some element of perception that she was involved or she was too close to the power. But clearly she was essentially enslaved and coerced and she did what she had to do to survive. Especially if we know that she was released and there was no evidence to support those claims later on.

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[Maddy Pelling]

There's a lot of complication going on here and I think we can never really get to the bottom of exactly what happened. There's a lot of myth surrounding this. Now we do have records of the recompense that is coming. There's going to be a trial or trials. There is going to be punishment dealt out. And so we do have some of that documentation. We also have the archaeological record. Right. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. But, but it is hard to get to exactly what happened. And I think yeah, with Lucretia there, there is kind of a grey area. Right. And room for a little bit of speculation which I always find so fascinating about these kind of histories where you can't quite get to the concrete truth. There are lots of myths around Cornelius, just descriptions of him as sort of a Satanist, going back, I suppose, to his. The claims of him being maybe a heretic fleeing from the Republic. There's also claims of cannibalism on these islands, and that Cornelius kind of creates what is essentially a cult.

[Anthony Delaney]

It sounds quite cultish.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, it does sound cultish. But I think calling him a Satanist, I think that adds a level of sort of sensationalism to it. And I think we need to strip that back, actually, because this is a man who did real and terrible things with other people helping him as well. Right. He's not doing this alone, but he is leading this. And I think a lot of that myth obviously kind of builds on the incredible darkness of the story. But I think, like, let's call a spade a spade. This man is presumably mentally ill and does terrible, terrible things to other human beings. I don't think we need the sensationalism on top of it. Let's talk now about the ending, because there is an end to this story, Right. So it kind of comes in two parts. So obviously Hayes and his group have been left on a different island, left to die, essentially, but they find fresh water on the island, so they're surviving. Not only that, but they have the clever foresight to build some defences. And these, interestingly, become the first European structures in Australia, obviously not on the mainland. But, you know, it's kind of an interesting side note. So they improvise some weapons and they build defensive walls. And if you go to this island today, you can still see the remnants of those fortifications, which I think. Yeah, which is just incredible. Cornelis somehow gets wind of this. I don't know if these islands are sort of close enough to see each other. Maybe. Maybe he goes back to the island to check that they have died, you know, just to absolutely peace of mind. But he sees that they've built these defences and he and some of his men attack Hayes. There's a little battle that ensues. There's another account that we have from one of the soldiers who was with Hayes, who's recalling some of the atrocities that were committed. And I want you to read this because, again, it's written in hindsight, it's quite poetic, but it does give a flavour of the terror that everyone is feeling under the reign of this man.

[Anthony Delaney]

Okay, so this is by, oh, Gibert Bastianes, who was a soldier in Hayes's army. As many said. And he's recalling these atrocities and says, so we, all of us together expected to be murdered at any moment. And we besought God continuously for merciful relief. O cruelty. O atrocity of atrocities. They proved themselves to be nothing more than highwaymen. Murderers who are on the roads often take their belongings from people, but they sometimes leave them their lives. But these have taken both goods and blood.

[Maddy Pelling]

Ooh.

[Anthony Delaney]

It's interesting to say highwayman. That's a really good comparison, actually, and it paints a really good picture for us. People that are not there, is what I mean by that. Not people you know, 400 years later. Because it goes, this is their moral code. They haven't stayed with that naval code that we are supposed to uphold. When this happens, they've just gone off the rails. They are a bunch of criminals, and here we are. But also, I like the idea that the Hayes faction defended themselves and successfully defended themselves, because it just goes to show that that order that they ascribe to is successful when it's applied.

[Maddy Pelling]

I know what a hero Hayes is. Cornelis tries to attack Hayes, and Cornelius is taken hostage in this attack.

[Anthony Delaney]

Hayes himself, like, literally person to person?

[Maddy Pelling]

I believe so, yes. So he is captured, and he is in the custody of Hayes. But obviously, back on the other island, there are still Cornelius men doing terrible things, carrying on with that terrible regime. So now you've got these two islands. Cornelis is captured on Hay's island, but we still have the atrocities continuing across the water. And then the ending of the story. The rescue ship arrives. Pelsart made it all the way to Batavia.

[Anthony Delaney]

Stop. Oh, my God. I'd forgotten about Pelsurt.

[Maddy Pelling]

I know. Thank God for Pelsur. So he comes back on a ship called the Saardam, which is another East India. And there is basically an epic battle that now takes place where Hayes and Pelsaert join forces and they go after Cornelis's men.

[Anthony Delaney]

I'm hearing the Pirates of the Caribbean music now playing in the background. Triumphantly.

[Maddy Pelling]

Wow.

[Anthony Delaney]

That is quite the glorious return, isn't it? This other ship swooping in just as it's all kind of going.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's so improbable.

[Anthony Delaney]

And so we have this triumphant return of Pelsaert, and we have Cornelis in custody. I can nearly imagine how this is gonna wrap up, but let's tie a bow on it in terms of this particular narrative.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. So they have this kind of epic battle where Hayes and Pelsa team up together, and they go after Cornelius's men on The Bad Island. And don't forget, like, this is in a remarkable timeframe, right? The shipwreck is in June of 1629, and the rescue ship turns up in September of that same year. So things have gone south so rapidly, and now they're about to be rectified so rapidly. So they have this kind of battle. They've already got Cornelius in custody. They take his henchmen into custody, and Pelsa oversees a trial there and then on the island. And these men are executed. They are hanged for their crimes, and order is restored. Although I imagine everyone who survived that carried an enormous amount of trauma for the rest of their lives. Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

That means traumatic enough listening to your back. One of the things that is incredibly fascinating about this, because you wouldn't necessarily expect it, actually. There's a lot of unexpected things in this history, but I am not expecting there to be a lot of archaeological legacy pieces from this history available to us today. But I am wrong in that imagination, because actually, there's quite a substantial amount of things that still exist.

[Maddy Pelling]

I think that's so key because it's such an unbelievable story, right? There are so many bizarre twists and turns, and you just think, think, sorry, what? There's, like, a cult, and women are being enslaved, and there's fortifications. There's babies getting murdered. And then Pelsa survives the trip to Batavia and makes it back. Like, no, no, no. This seems like a fantasy, but we do have the archaeological evidence, and there's plenty of it. So in the 1970s, marine archaeologists found the hull of the Batavia, the ship, which was 20 tons of timber, about 3.5 of the original material of the ship overall. But they did find that, which is an incredible find in and of itself. But also they found loads and loads and loads. We're talking like 20,000 plus, I think, small items from the ship. So things like cooking equipment, pottery, navigation aids, the cargo that they were going to trade. The cannon and the anchors are still on seabed, but they've identified them, and they're still there. I just think it's so incredible. You can go and see all of this, or the majority anyway, at the Western Australia Museum that has, I believe, like a permanent display to the Batavia.

[Anthony Delaney]

If you are going there, by the way, please, can you make, like, a story or a reel and tag us in them? Because I want to see that. If you are the Western Australian Museum, please make something and tag us in it, because I want to see those. And I am not planning a trip to Australia anytime soon, but they would Be incredible to see.

[Maddy Pelling]

They really would. The other thing that they find in terms of archaeology in this is in between the 60s and the 2010s. This is, you know, a long term archaeological project on these islands is bodies themselves. They find people buried in shallow graves. A lot of the skeletons have evidence of blunt force trauma. There's evidence of them being clubbed or beaten to death. In some cases hacked to death with swords and knives.

[Anthony Delaney]

We don't get this in many. In most histories, this amount of physical evidence left behind. This is wild.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's incredible. It is incredible. And one of the victims is on display at a different museum, the Fremantle Shipwreck Museum. And he's a male of about 35 to 40 years old. He has a broken shoulder, a damaged skull and a missing right foot.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, wow. I mean, the foot might have been missing before death given the time period and the fact that he's a sailor. I'm just, maybe I'm being stereotypical to pirates now.

[Maddy Pelling]

Or maybe the foot's been lost in the archaeological record. Right? It might have been, but I don't think the broken shoulder or the damage to the skull could have been done later. That is contemporary with the moment of death.

[Anthony Delaney]

Now come here. To me, why haven't I heard of this? Like, this is a thrilling, thrilling, thrilling story. History, real history. It's not only is it thrilling, of course, it's grim and it's bleak and it's harrowing at times as well. But all of those things add to something that I'm like, where's the movie? Where's the TV series? We've seen the terror, for instance, we've heard about the wager. So talk to me about how this has navigated itself into popular culture since.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, I think it's so interesting, isn't it? Because it has all the ingredients of an incredible story. Surely there's a film of it. Of course, in Australia, as we mentioned, there's museum displays. There's, you know, this has more of a legacy there than it perhaps does in Europe, which is interesting considering these are European people who were involved in this. You know, these aren't aboriginals committing these crimes. These are Europeans. The wildest legacy of this. When I heard this, I was like, I'm sorry, what are you talking about? So Jasper Hugendorn.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yes.

[Maddy Pelling]

Apologies for the pronunciation. So he's the developer of a little show you might have heard of called the Traitors.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yes.

[Maddy Pelling]

And he stated in 2023 that the Batavia was the inspiration for the Traitors. Yeah. Which was Originally gonna be called not the Traitors but the Mutineers.

[Anthony Delaney]

That's incredible. I love that. That is my favorite piece of information from this entire episode. Potentially from the entire series of After Dark so far. No, that is my piece of gold right there. Wow.

[Maddy Pelling]

I will admit I've never seen the traitors.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, you'd love it, Maddie.

[Maddy Pelling]

I don't really like reality tv. It just doesn't speak to me.

[Anthony Delaney]

You'd love this. It's not like, look at the cast for celebrity traitors and see the caliber of those people and then you'll see why they are. This is such a great show. Honestly, you have a treat in store if you've never seen that. Go and watch season one. It's so, so good. And watch the British one. It's the best there is. A legacy then, just in a reality TV show. That's so strange in a way, but.

[Maddy Pelling]

Especially given how dark this history is. Yeah, I mean, I think. What do you make of this story? Because I always love a ship story. You know, I really loved doing Mutiny on the Bounty.

[Anthony Delaney]

No, you said it.

[Maddy Pelling]

Mutiny on the Bounty.

[Anthony Delaney]

It's staying in Mutiny on the Bounty.

[Maddy Pelling]

I think I did that about 20 times in the episodes that we did of that, and they were all cut. So there we go. One slipped out. Mutiny on the Bounty. I loved that story. I love when. I would hate to be in this scenario myself, but I love people in history and enclosed spaces and things start to go wrong and you can kind of see the mechanics of everything kind of shifting. But this, this is too dark. This is horrendous. It's sort of a fascinating condemnation, I suppose, of human nature. It's, you know, it's a damning indictment of what people are capable of left to their own devices, albeit a handful, a minority of very odd individuals. But it's a warning to everyone, I think.

[Anthony Delaney]

Do you know what? It's funny. It is really dark. And I agree with you on all those points. I have been reading a book that's coming out quite soon, another shippy book, this time in the 18th century, called Zorg. And it is very much centered on slave narratives and transportation of enslaved people. And that to me is so much worse that actually in this I can see the. Yes, this is horrendous. This is horrendous. Don't get me wrong. But. But actually it's also somewhat self inflicted to a certain extent. Like, stay at home, guys. Do you know what I mean? Nobody's asking you to make these trips, but you're out for wealth and you're out to try to. Exactly. So, I mean, I'm not saying anybody deserved anything. That's not what I'm saying. But when you undertake these trips in these enclosed spaces, like you're just saying.

[Maddy Pelling]

They have consented to do so.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, yeah, I mean, certainly those women who were enslaved were not unused. They did not consent to that by any stretch of the imagination. But it's a collection colonial legacy, isn't it? In a way that comes back to bite the colonizers in the arse. And that's something strange to grapple with. And I think maybe where, I don't know where the sense of thrill comes from it. I'm not saying I find this history thrilling, but there's something about it that's quite filmic. It's dark, it's grim, it's horrendous, and especially if you look at it from the angle of the women. But it still pales in comparison to the history that I find on the Zorg or on some of those transportation ships. It's grim. But it's part of a very long legacy of grim naval history, isn't it? Part of which you've told us so many times on After Dark. But I've liked. I've really, really liked it. And of course, as I say, I'm taking away the Traitors trivia as my favorite piece of After Dark trivia so far in the entire almost two years.

[Maddy Pelling]

Well, there you go. Go and check out the traitors, as I am now going to have to do as part of my homework.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh my God, you so should.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, I really should. I feel kind of ashamed that I haven't seen it.

[Anthony Delaney]

Ashamed. Don't take shame, Maddie.

[Maddy Pelling]

That's what everyone should take away from this episode.

[Anthony Delaney]

Shame, not shame.

[Maddy Pelling]

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[Unnamed Speaker]

AI is transforming customer service. It's real and it works. And with fin, we've built the number one AI agent for customer service. We're seeing lots of cases where it's solving up to 90% of real queries for real businesses. This includes the real world complex stuff like issuing a refund or canceling an order. And we also see it when FIN goes up against competitors. It's top of all the performance benchmarks, top of the G2 leaderboard. And if you're not happy, we'll refund you up to a million dollars, which I think says it all. Check it out for yourself at fin AI.

[Penn Holderness]

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