Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!

Summary

Last Podcast On The Left Episode 608: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part IV - My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me! Release Date: February 15, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 608 of Last Podcast On The Left, hosts Marcus Parks, Henry Zabrowski, and Ben Kissel delve into the harrowing historical event known as the Tragedy of the Batavia. This installment, titled "My Boss Is Gonna Kill Me!", serves as the concluding part of a multipart series that explores the dark and gruesome aftermath of the Batavia shipwreck.

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Historical Background

The story begins with the notorious shipwreck of the Batavia in June 1629. The Batavia, a flagship of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), met disaster near the Indonesian coast, leaving 270 survivors stranded on a perilous island chain. The VOC, characterized by its ruthless pursuit of profit through exploitation and violence, played a central role in the unfolding tragedy.

Notable Quote:

Henry Zabrowski [08:11]: "We'll talk a little bit about Pelsart's journal but one of the things he wrote that I thought was really funny is that when you see it it's like they're all very short..."

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The Journey to Java

Upper Merchant Francisco Pelsaert, the ship’s commander, embarked on a treacherous journey to Java to seek rescue for the survivors and report the calamity to the VOC. Accompanied by Captain Ariana Jakobs and the boatswain, who were secretly mutineers, Pelsaert's mission was fraught with deception from the start.

Notable Quote:

Ben Kissel [09:20]: "Hey, these other guys suck."

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Mutiny and Power Struggles

Upon reaching Java, Pelsaert faced immense pressure from Governor Jan's Kuhn, who demanded the retrieval of VOC valuables. With the mutineers Jakobs and the boatswain incarcerated, Pelsaert's failure to secure sufficient loot threatened his position, potentially leading to severe repercussions, including execution.

Notable Quote:

Marcus Parks [30:07]: "You're the white men that did this. Your people, your vinegar loving people. Yeah. Hey."

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Defenders vs. Mutineers

Back on the islands, Euronymous Cornelis led the mutineers in a reign of terror, ordering the murders of over a hundred survivors to seize control and plunder VOC treasures. Meanwhile, a group of survivors, led by Viva Hias, organized themselves as the Defenders to protect what remained and resist Euronymous's brutality.

Notable Quote:

Henry Zabrowski [34:45]: "I watched a 15 year old boy murder a bunch of other boys and then laugh about it. And then I watched a man kill that boy."

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Climactic Battles and Strategy

The Defenders, well-fed and strategically positioned, prepared for Euronymous's inevitable attacks. Despite the mutineers' initial advantage with muskets and primitive weaponry, the Defenders' superior preparation and morale led to successful defenses, forcing the mutineers into retreat.

Notable Quote:

Marcus Parks [41:04]: "They have muskets, we only have the slings and rocks and all this bullshit. But what we can do is we can make their guns useless..."

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Resolution and Aftermath

Upper Merchant Pelsaert's delayed return with additional VOC forces turned the tide against the mutineers. Euronymous Cornelis was captured, tortured into confession, and ultimately executed in a gruesome manner that underscored the brutal justice meted out by the VOC. The aftermath saw the VOC's continued exploitation and eventual decline due to internal corruption and external pressures.

Notable Quote:

Henry Zabrowski [66:18]: "And I think about 911. I think about those investment companies that didn't get to move on. I think about the various private military companies that were inside of that building and how they were doing work with our enemies."

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Lessons and Reflections

The tragic tale of the Batavia serves as a stark reminder of the depths of human cruelty and the perils of unrestrained corporate greed. The VOC's dismantling underscores the inevitable downfall of systems built on exploitation and violence. The hosts reflect on the broader implications for modern society, emphasizing the importance of resilience and collective action against oppressive forces.

Notable Quote:

Marcus Parks [103:02]: "People are smarter, healthier, and stronger, even though that's hard to see sometimes. And we're also far more numerous than we've ever been."

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Conclusion

Episode 608 of Last Podcast On The Left masterfully concludes the Batavia saga, intertwining historical facts with engaging commentary and dark humor. The hosts not only recount the grim events but also draw parallels to contemporary issues, urging listeners to remain vigilant and united against systemic injustices.

Notable Quote:

Ben Kissel [106:00]: "Don't let the fucking bastards get you down."

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Final Thoughts

The Tragedy of the Batavia series stands out as a compelling narrative that blends history with the podcast's signature blend of horror and humor. By dissecting the events surrounding the Batavia shipwreck and subsequent mutiny, the hosts provide both an informative and thought-provoking experience for their audience.

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Transcript

[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

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[Marcus Parks]

How. How did I not know Rack has Adidas? Why do we rack for the hottest deals?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Save on madewell, Vince, Kate Spade, New York, Sam Edelman, Joe's, and more. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

[Marcus Parks]

There's no place to escape to.

[Ben Kissel]

This is the last on the left.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? Yeah, that's how I like to start.

[Ben Kissel]

Hell yeah, man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's how I like to start.

[Ben Kissel]

I can't wait for this episode. I love a happy ending, you know? This is gonna be so. I'm so excited. I like when everyone just great and fucking. It's all filled with kisses.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The best part about this is the very, very end when they do the flash mob together. Forgiveness is our favorite word. My favorite.

[Marcus Parks]

And then mutineers do the Thriller dance at the same time.

[Ben Kissel]

Some Dutch millionaire, man.

[Marcus Parks]

Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zabrowski.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Justice Fed.

[Marcus Parks]

Justice Fed.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I am filled with justice.

[Ben Kissel]

What you do? How did you. Who'd you declare it on?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Not in real life. Oh, okay. Just in this story. And for me. Justice for me.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, justice for Henry.

[Ben Kissel]

An argument with your wife?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, that's the funny. A funny idea. Funny idea. No, no, I. I'm just. This. This story. This ending is probably my favorite part of it.

[Ben Kissel]

It's fucking awesome. I love it so much. How's the nutmeg? You guys been using it in your various nog every day.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I want to say thank you to Gurney today. Did you receive?

[Marcus Parks]

I did. They were fantastic.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Gurney made us a commemorative for the end of the Batavia series. Nutmeg macarons.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, I feel bad. She asked me if I got my macarons. I was like, I don't want it. And I didn't know it was. I thought there was just macarons here. I didn't know she made special Batavian ones.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. You insensitive clod.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You classless simpleton.

[Marcus Parks]

God damn it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I love it.

[Ben Kissel]

Later.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, I will say I've never had a nutmeg macaroni.

[Marcus Parks]

I haven't either.

[Henry Zabrowski]

How was it, Nut Maggie?

[Marcus Parks]

It was delicious.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It was Christmasy. Very tasty. She did a great job.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And we have the future boofer, Ed Larson.

[Ben Kissel]

How you doing? Stick it up there. We'll see in a little while.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Tell me any. Did you actually, did you get your shipment track for the Yay shirt? Because I went and I looked at my order and they're saying that my Yay. My new Yay shirt is going to be fucking delayed by like a month and a half.

[Ben Kissel]

I didn't know you got me one. I just went ahead and made my own. I got a bunch of electrical tape in.

[Marcus Parks]

Now on our last episode, we took you on a journey through the nightmare world created by Euronymous Cornelis and his band of brutes on the islands where upper merchant Pelsart left the survivors of the Batavia to live or die by the whims of fortune. Nice. But if you'll join us as we go all the way back to the end of episode two. Upper merchant Pelsaert had a journey of his own ahead of him as he still had to go to Java to request help for the survivors. But more importantly, as far as he was concerned, Pelsart also had to report to the VOC on the full extent of just how badly he'd up. So today, before we return to the battle between the so called defenders and the evil hordes of Euronymous Cornelis, let's rejoin upper merchant Pelsart and Captain Jakobs for their trip to Java.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, I just love the word java. It's beautiful the more we say it because it's also. You never say it. Java, Nice hot cup of java. Yeah, it's so something you say as you like. Push your child down a well.

[Marcus Parks]

To keep the timeline straight in your head, we're rewinding the story all the way back to the days just after the Batavia shipwrecked, long before Euronymous took over and began ordering the murders of over a hundred people. This is the journey to Java made by the rescue vessel that was supposed to return to the islands with help. So the longboat that sat on the Batavia's deck prior to the ship sinking was a 30 foot long craft with 10 oars and a single mast. Very much the sort of ship you'd expect to see being piloted by a few dozen Vikings. Eddie, you were correct.

[Ben Kissel]

Hell yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, we went to the British Museum, you remember they had the entire Viking ship that they had excavated. And they had all that kind of cool stuff in there. We learn on vacation. That's right.

[Ben Kissel]

I love to go to museums and pretend I'm reading.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah, you're just thinking about food. Mmm, Hamburger. And then also that there's something about the devastation there that really makes it sweet.

[Ben Kissel]

Now, stupid question. Is it ten double ores or they're five and five on each side? Because that's going to depend on how fast I can, you know, it's not.

[Marcus Parks]

Stupid question on the boat.

[Henry Zabrowski]

For some reason, I feel like I'm playing because I do play D and D with Mike Lawrence. And so I think that it's always the questions a lot. Like, how many portcullises are there? And you have to watch your DM Just go three. I don't know.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, as far as the crew on the longboat went, upper merchant Pelsart made sure to bring the most experienced sailors from the Batavia. So his chances of reaching his destination 2,000 miles north was about as good as it could get. The experienced sailors, however, included both Captain Ariana Jakobs and the boatswain, who had both been pegged by upper merchant pelt start as mutineers before the longboat even shoved off. It does seem, though, like all three of them had to just pretend like nothing was going on for the entirety of their journey to Java.

[Ben Kissel]

Beautiful sunrise we're having.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

What a great day to be a loyal ship captain.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes. Yeah. It's nice that you say that.

[Marcus Parks]

It's nice that you say there's also.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm just getting caught on the world. Have you seen the movie the Tragedy of the Batavia, where they peg all the mutineers with the longboats? It's amazing what happens in that film. And it's just that the clove oil is thick and it's coming in hot.

[Ben Kissel]

So it is ten half oars. Because one side's made for the pegging.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They always get the short side of the oar inside themselves.

[Marcus Parks]

How are they going to do that? Most don't. Most oars have, like, the T at the very end of it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah. You work it in the old corner way. You ever try to get it? Oh, like a couch.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I see.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hook in the corner.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, the experienced sailors had correctly surmised that they'd shipwrecked about 50 miles from Australia, which Australia back then was little more than a large blob on all the maps, and it was still about a century and a half away from being settled by Europeans. But land was land. So the rescue boat's initial plan was to find water somewhere off the coast of Australia and bring it back to the survivors on the islands before the boat made its final push to Java. But after taking six full days to find even a safe spot to put in due to the coast's cliff ridden geography, the rescue boat was too far away to return to Batavia's graveyard once they finally found water. So upper merchant Pelsart had his men gather what little water they could before heading straight to Java with the hope that the survivors would figure out something until they got back.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We'll talk a little bit about Pelsart's journal but one of the things he wrote that I thought was really funny is that when you see it it's like they're all very short, you know like one this many knots, this many miles and the clouds the day two, blah blah. But then like they get to Australia and the first one's like day three men on the, the coast doesn't want us to land. Pulling away as quickly as possible. Like they literally like they keep also hitting the indigenous people.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, aboriginals.

[Henry Zabrowski]

So they're keep hitting them and they're all like no thank you. No thank you. Please don't stop here. We know what you guys do.

[Ben Kissel]

Those good instincts by them.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh yeah. They're like we heard what you guys did for nutmeg. Don't want find out how thick and juicy our butts are here. I don't want you to park permanently.

[Marcus Parks]

But by the time Pelsart's boat left Australia they'd already put a good amount of sea behind them. But there was still 900 miles of open ocean to go. But with a good crew and boat sailing, fair weather and winds, they made it to Java presumably without incident. Although we don't know exactly what transpired during the journey because Pelsart only recorded notes about weather and estimated locations in his journals.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because that was his essentially what he was going to have to show Coon when he arrived.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

And he kind of didn't know what story he was going to tell.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No. Cuz he wasn't quite certain how many mutineers there were. He knew that Jakobs was one and he knew that the boson was one but he did not know who else was on the boat.

[Ben Kissel]

Also it's like if you're writing it down in this little book at any moment they could read it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh yeah. You know it's true.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. If you're over in the corner writing like making sure that no one look good.

[Henry Zabrowski]

What you're journaling?

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, just checking to see. This water's beautiful, ain't it?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Blue like my mother's. Yeah, you can put that down for.

[Ben Kissel]

One of your skits.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Mother's eyes. It was teal. Was it? When you do your skits on the island, you can tell them my old story.

[Ben Kissel]

Let's talk about 2,000 flushes.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You know, someone posted a very interesting article on the Reddit that got to me that I thought was really interesting about why one in seven sailors could swim. It is because they had. One of the big things was that superstition, which I thought was fascinating, was that, you see, takes what it takes and that it gets a taste for you. So their belief is that if you swim in the water, the ocean gets a taste for you and will reclaim you. They have this fatalist view about the ocean that it just takes and takes and takes and takes. So they. They are like it's. And it's this unfeeling beast that they're on, and they. And they also believe it seeks retribution.

[Ben Kissel]

I'd ra rather be reclaimed than just claimed.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's right. Yeah. I mean, because then somebody's choosing me. Because if you love something, you let it go. Unless you really love something. And then you put it in the basement and you create several walls, especially a daughter. You park her in a bed and you chain her to it and you fill her full of your own grand.

[Marcus Parks]

Did you bring your shovel or did you want to use mine?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, Joseph Fritzel is gonna be free soon, and we better clean up our act before. If we're not gonna get him on the show, because he is gonna look through it. You know, he's go look and listen to our entire catalog to see if he'd be willing to give us his spot.

[Ben Kissel]

I think Casey Anthony already booked him.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Whoa. That would be me. Cute.

[Marcus Parks]

My name's Casey. And my name's Ya Boobies.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You used to be a doctor?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's fun to think about how a doctor can make a dancer back to Java.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, every person who left Batavia's graveyard on the longboat arrived safely in Java in late June after just 19 days at sea. And that drives me fucking crazy that when the Batavia, when it shipwrecked, it was about two and a half weeks.

[Ben Kissel]

And then we've been on the ocean for like a year.

[Marcus Parks]

Six months.

[Ben Kissel]

Crazy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Actually eight months. I think six to eight months. Somewhere around there, Upper merchant Pelsart soon regrouped with one of the other boats that had been in the Batavia's original flotilla, the sardo. And by July 7, the 48 survivors had arrived in the VOC colonial capital, which confusingly is also named Batavia. So just to make it as clear as possible, here, there's Batavia, the ship dead and gone at the bottom of the ocean. And Batavia, the colony located 2,000 miles north of the shipwreck on the island of Java.

[Ben Kissel]

It was easy for me to remember there were two Batavias because it almost rhymes with labias and so. And you know what they say is loose lips must do Kegels.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Very funny because it's a pirate. When they pull into Batavia, is it like, like when they arrive, is it like, you remember the get was the gambling planet in the worst part of the Last Jedi with like when they arrive, is it like a fun thing? Are they excited?

[Marcus Parks]

I don't think anybody is excited that Pelsart's not excited to show up on one of his escort ships. And I'm about to get into exhib. Exactly why the people of Batavia were very, very, very upset that the Batavia the ship had sunk.

[Ben Kissel]

Let's rock.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, if you'll remember from episode one, the colony of Batavia had been hard won territory for the voc. See, before the Dutch, Batavia was the site of a thriving indigenous community of 3,000 people, a town known as Jakartra. Today this territory is known as the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, which won its independence from the Dutch in 1949, over 300 years after the VOC first arrived on their shores. But back in the 17th century, the Dutch weren't even the first European settlers to arrive. The English East India Company had already begun building warehouses on java when the VOC showed up. So after a series of skirmishes, the VOC engaged in a hostile takeover of sorts by sending 2,000 mercenaries to burn Jakarta to the ground.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Ah, it's no middle ground here.

[Ben Kissel]

No.

[Marcus Parks]

They then overthrew the local indigenous leaders, built a castle on the ashes of the town. They destroyed and named the settlement Batavia in 1619, making it the center of all VOC trade in the Indies. Because remember, when I'm saying like the Dutch did this, I'm saying like Dutch people did this, it wasn't the Dutch government. This is a private company, the Vocal, taking land, killing people, enslaving people, and doing whatever the fuck they want.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And I will say that the country that it represented did definitely take those spoils with a smile. Which is what we're in the middle of now too. Which we're in the middle of now. That we'll see with what it means to have a bunch of oligarchs do all of your foreign policy.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, as far as who lived in this settlement, the majority of the population were enslaved locals, while the rest were a motley crew of 2,000 European soldiers, merchants and craftsmen. Batavia, however, was a true company town, as every single person who lived there either worked for the VOC or was married to someone who did. Most of the people who lived in Batavia never actually left the castle walls in all the years they spent there because the land surrounding the settlement were filled with rhinos, tigers, monkeys and bandits who were ever so happy to kill a Dutchman if given the opportunity.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You know what they say, if you give a monkey some nutmeg.

[Ben Kissel]

Monkeys have nutmeg. They kill a Dutchman.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They kill Dutchman. You got to train. You got to train them to kill a Dutchman.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, I live my life by that attitude.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Every day I think about if I was just a monkey with some nutmeg, I'd cross this goddamn world and I'm subjugated people. And I'd squeeze so much Godamn spice out of them. My God, what freedom.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, the man who is in charge of Batavia, the colony at this point in time, the one upper merchant Pelsart had to report to was Jan's Kuhn, the thin spindly fingered governor we talked about in episode one, who should be played by the same dude who played the father and the witch. If the Batavia movie is ever made.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Let'S just say I am not the most pleased to see you so early in your trip.

[Ben Kissel]

I mean, like, that's my impression of a very good impression actually. The Batavia movie should not be made. I've thought about this long and hard throughout these this month.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Why? Because it can never be done as funny as we talked about it. Because no one, no one can do the little noose for the babies in the movie. Everyone's gonna be upset.

[Ben Kissel]

I feel like that's the only chance that has to be made is if it is in fact a comedy. Yeah, because like, it is just the.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Comedy of the Batavia. Very funny title for a film.

[Marcus Parks]

It could be a hell of a mini series. Yeah, I'd say that. Give it three, four episodes and man, you got something fucking special there. But John's Kuhn, if you'll remember, he was the man who'd secured the world's nutmeg supply for the VOC through a campaign of genocide and slavery. He hid behind a strict Christian faith to justify his crimes against humanity in Other words, if you'd fucked up as badly as upper merchant Pelsart had just up by sinking the company's flagship, stranding 270 people, and losing over $50 million in guilders and treasure, Jans Kuhn was the last man you wanted to go to, hat in hand.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Also, I have a hangnail. I am extremely irritable. I've been drinking too much coffee. We're in Java after all. No one tell me, could someone find half and half Ireland? Because I'm dying here. The acid alone, I'm just. I am up to. I can't sleep. I'm burp. I'm burping. Pure hydraulic. It's coming right out of my mout.

[Marcus Parks]

Making matters worse for Pelsart was the fact that Jan's Kuhn was in a particularly bad mood in July of 1629 because things were not going well at all for the VOC in Batavia. And to really understand the decisions Pelsart and Kuhn were about to make, you've got to understand what was happening in the Indies outside of the shipwreck.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You're gonna take that context and you're gonna choke on it. You're gonna take that context and you're gonna understand it for the very basement. Because if you don't, don't. You've lost everything. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

We didn't get to the fourth episode to skim some context.

[Marcus Parks]

You piece.

[Ben Kissel]

You open up wide and throw some KY down your throat because you're gonna jam some context.

[Marcus Parks]

See, as we discussed on episode one, Jan's Kuhn had secured the nutmeg and clove fields of the Indies by committing genocide on the people known as the Bantos. And while the VOC didn't necessarily agree with Kun's methods, they still made him governor of the islands after the genocide because Kuhn was a loyal company man who got results. But the Bantonese weren't the only people native to the Indies. Amongst many established societies, there was an entire kingdom of indigenous people called the Mataram Empire. They ruled over much of the island of Java, where the colony of Batavia was actually located.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And these are the guys that are always a problem at the beginning of Civ 6. There's always a hyper aggressive local colony. It starts picking at you while you're trying to start your very first couple of cities.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Meanwhile, the Russians got nothing around them and they're just going miles ahead of you. They're already. They've already discovered a goddamn art, and I'm sitting over here trying to just get a settler Made.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But that's why it's important. You gotta use scouts.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Boy scouts.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I always throw five boy scouts at any problem because three of them can be kill.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, the Mataram empire was an agrarian society.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Should I?

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, please. Agrarian, that operated on the barter system. So the VOC was fine with letting them do their own thing, just so long as they didn't interfere with the spice trade.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Spice.

[Marcus Parks]

But the leader of the Mataram empire fancied himself a bit of a conqueror.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They always are.

[Marcus Parks]

And suddenly decided that he wanted Batavia for himself. So about a year before the VOC's flagship sunk to the bottom of the ocean, a force of 10,000 Madame Marie's warriors attempted to take the VOC's colonial capital.

[Henry Zabrowski]

So such a pain in the ass. Especially if you haven't fortified anything. Yeah. And all of a sudden they're all over your. And they're destroying your resources and they're pillaging. You're like the little areas of your. It's just such a pain to deal with these other cultures, you know.

[Ben Kissel]

But like, if they're bringing 10,000, what are these hundred soldiers really? Gonn.

[Marcus Parks]

Couple thousand? Well, they've got fortifications. That's the thing, is that the other soldier. I mean, it's not like these 10,000 people are showing up with guns and catapults and trebuchets and all that. They've got pretty primitive weapons. And Batavia, like they have built an actual castle on the ashes of the town they destroyed. So they can just go behind the walls. And that's exactly what Jan's did. Like he led his people into the most fortified section of the fortress and he burned down the rest of the settlement in your classic scorched earth maneuver. The VOC were under siege for three months before the Mata Marie's ran out of supplies and left but gallons. Kuhn knew that when the Madam Marie's harvest came in the next August, the indigenous forces would return and attempt to take the city again.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Which is also how humankind beat the Homo sapien. Beat Neanderthal how?

[Marcus Parks]

By hiding behind the castle walls?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, what we did was that we realized that they would attack against. And then we fortified and changed. And that's something the Neanderthals weren't expecting. So that's why in the end we defeated them.

[Ben Kissel]

And also, it's hot in August.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, this inevitable second attack was a big part of why Jan's Kuhn was counting on the Batavia to arrive. Because he desperately needed the soldiers the Batavia was carrying to fortify the Castle defenses. When the Maturan Empire mounted its next attack, the Batavia colony was also still. Still mostly in ruins almost a year later, which would have made those sandstone blocks being carried by the ship Batavia quite useful. There was also the matter of the cash, the equivalent of $52 million, which was central to the VOC's future plans in the Indies. But that's all to say that when upper merchant Pelsart showed up in Java with a boat of mostly sailors and nothing else, he was about to deliver the worst news possible to the biggest hard ass in the voc. Right when said hard ass desperately needed good news.

[Ben Kissel]

Why wouldn't he bring some gold?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, that's actually what young Cohen, like, brought up. Like you didn't bring anything. Yeah, like nothing. You just brought a bunch of fucking sailors. They're a dime a dozen. We can get sailors anywhere.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And he was like, you know, it's just kind of like what I did. I just made a couple decisions real fast. The truth is that I didn't know what to take. And I knew that no matter what because you don't think that Yan Kun would have been like, so you're bringing me five gold pieces? It would be the other way.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah, like he's gonna lose out no matter what.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. He didn't even bring the hats.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Where are the hats? All of my men look stupid showing their stupid Dutch hair. It's bad. Their hair is bad and it's dumb. They need hats. I hate looking at them.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, Pelsaert's here. Did he bring the hats?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No. Back to looking like a bunch of idiots. You all look like a bunch of ventriloqu dolls.

[Ben Kissel]

Gotta be so embarrassed when the Mata Rams show up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

None of you could be seen with me if I met Jennifer Anderson. None of you could be seen with me. You're embarrassing. Stay safe from your grave.

[Ben Kissel]

Hello, Florida. Your favorite son and biggest baby are coming home to bring you the laughs you deserve. Everyone likes to poke fun of the Florida man. Everyone likes to use Florida as a punching bag whenever an alligator on meth eats an old person. It can happen anywhere. As a famous Floridian baby, I feel your pain. So that's why I'm coming home to let you know it's okay to be who you are. It's okay that the rest of America is scared of us. It's okay that books are illegal in our schools. It's okay whenever it gets cold that rains. Iguanas. I'm here to support, support you. So come on out. March. I'll be in North Florida and in May I'll be in South Florida and Orlando. It's the Invasive Species Tour. Ed Larson me is coming to Florida in March and May. I'm coming to Jacksonville, Panama City, Tallahassee, Marco Island, Dania Beach, Orlando and Key West. So lock up your public subs and start singing the Miami Dolphins Dolphins fight song because we're gonna party like it's Florida, baby. [e-mail].

[Henry Zabrowski]

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp People ask me, Henry, what are some of your relationship green flags? And mine is is she willing to help me fight my enemies? Is she willing to stand with me at the edge of the crater of men madness and look deep into the pit of despair and still jump with power of a thousand suns as our love blazes through the epics of time? Then in the end, the end of eternity, we sat staring at each other on the beach of the universe, staring in each other's eyes until we make love with our lungs. That's my thing. But whether you're dating, married, building a friendship, or just working on yourself, it's time to form relationships that love you back with better help. Better help us fully online making therapy affordable and convenient. Serving over 5 million people worldwide. It's amazing. Easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost and you should discover your relationship green flags with better help. Visit betterhelp.com lastpod to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp. H E L p.com lastpod this podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. You make a website, you use the website succeed. Thanks Squarespace. Now that I found the little boy that now is running the horse picks empire, I am angry with the way that he is handling it. A lot of these horses, honestly it's subpar and a lot of it's pretty lazy. The current J.D. vance horse that they just put a beard on is honestly as far as I'm concerned extremely, extremely offensive to me as a person with a former bearded face. So now that's why I have started my own new website thanks to square space destroy horsepix.com because the goal is to go after this rogue child that took my dream and perverted it and ah. And the only entity that can help me in my search for revenge against this one childlike entrepreneur, Squarespace. Check out squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're Ready to launch squarespace.com left to save 10% off your first purchase of a website. Website or domain. I'm coming for you, Charlie Bucket. It's always nice to keep your money where you can see it. Tell me about it. I turn all my money into doubloons that I bought on ebay and I look at them. I keep it in a bucket in my office. Unfortunately, traditional big wireless carriers also seem to like keeping your money too. How dare they? If you're tired of crazy high wireless bills, bogus fees, and quote unquote free perks that actually cost more in the long run, switch to Mint Mobile. Come on, listen to Ryan Reynolds, right? He's the sweetest man in the world, right? He told you. You believe Deadpool, right? Mint Mobile offers premium plans starting at $15 per month with high speed data and unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network. That's 5G's. Wait till we get to 9H's. Mint is gonna be. It's incredible. Mint works at the bottom of the ocean and it works in space. Go and you get that. Mint Mobile. It's. It's good for you to do you saving money. You're spending money for no reason. Go to Mint Mobile if you like your money. Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans@mint mobile.com lpotl that's mint mobile.com lpotl upfront payment of $45 for 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for first 3 months only. Then full price plan options available. Mobile taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, luckily for upper merchant Pelsaert, Governor Coon had nearly been shipwrecked two years earlier in almost the same spot where the Batavia sank. So he did have the tiniest bit of sympathy towards Pelsaert's plight. But Kuhn was ultimately unimpressed by the fact that Pelsaert had arrived with no valuables whatsoever. Kuhn was a company man through and through, and since he knew that the top priority for the gentleman 17 would be the cargo, Kuhn's first priority was the same. So Kuhn gave Pelsaert explicit instructions to return to the islands immediately, where he would prioritize not the survivors, but the loot.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, Mr. Coon, absolutely, Mr. Kuhn. You couldn't be more right. Fuck the children, the women. You're absolutely correct. Let's get the money.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. It took months. And whoever was still alive when Pelsart returned would just have to wait until the VOC had Scraped every inch of ocean for every last bit of recoverable loot before being brought back to civilization. The implication here was that if Pelsaert did not recover enough VOC property to satisfy Governor Coon, then Pelsart could very well have found himself totally responsible for the losses, which could have resulted in jail time or even execution if Kuhn was feeling particularly saucy on the day he made his decision.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And you better be careful, because it's Marinara Monday and the sauce is getting thicker than it's ever been, and I'm about to bring you down deep like one of the meatballs putting their Sundays.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, you people casually say today, like, oh, my boss is going to kill me, but with the voc, your boss could actually kill you.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We really need to bring that back.

[Ben Kissel]

Up to you two to do it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I can't wait.

[Marcus Parks]

All right, well, we'll have a. We'll have a pow wow.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Can we execute someone?

[Marcus Parks]

Let's put it out on the slack and see what everyone thinks.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Come on, Rob.

[Marcus Parks]

Let's execute.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Let's choose one.

[Ben Kissel]

Travis.

[Marcus Parks]

But then there was, of course, the matter of what to do with the mutinous Captain Jakobs and the boatswain. Now, we don't know exactly how it went down, but soon after their arrival in Java, Pelsaert distanced himself from his former shipmates. At some point, Pelsart had to tell Governor Kuhn, on top of everything else, that a mutiny had been fermenting on the ship just before it wrecked. This was the cherry on top of Pelsa Sunday, of incompetence. And it seems like it took Pelsart about four days to work up the nerve to mention it to his boss. But once Kuhn was told, Captain Jakobs and the boatswain were immediately arrested and thrown into the dungeons of Castle Batavia to either await justice or rot until the end of their days. God damn it, he deserves it now. Two days after the captain and the boatswain were arrested, upper merchant Pelsart was given command of the Soldier, a smallish yacht staffed with a skeleton crew of 30 guys so as to make sure they had enough room for survivors and loot.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Mostly loot.

[Marcus Parks]

Mostly loot. They set sail from Java for a relatively short journey to the islands, where Pelsart hoped he would find most of the survivors still alive, if not thriving.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You just never know with these people.

[Marcus Parks]

You never know.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Some people, you know what they say? A woman. The woman's like a packet of tea. You never know how strong she is until you Put her into a. Into hot water. And you never know with these people. This could be the best time of their life. Lives.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, I'm sure they're great.

[Marcus Parks]

I need a vacation.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I bet you when we get out there, they're going to say, hey, take the gold, get out of here. We want to stay right here.

[Ben Kissel]

The snorkeling's phenomenal.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, instead, when Pelsart arrived at Batavia's graveyard, he found the survivors in the middle of a war.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And so now that we've told you all about what happened to upper merchant Pelsart after he left the survivors, let's back things up a couple of weeks in the timeline to where we left things off in episode three. We're now back on the island chain with Viva Hias and the Defenders on the highlands and Euronymous Corneli's on Batavia's graveyard with his band of murderous mutineers.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Back to the boredom.

[Ben Kissel]

You think those guys are going to attack us, man?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm thinking so. Man, thank God we found that crazy plant. Yeah, dude. That one plant sure does make me not can jamming. What is that you're doing? What are you doing there?

[Ben Kissel]

Who are you talking to? Me?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. What's that? What's that sound you just made?

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, oh, It's a steel drum.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh my. That's the funkiest sound.

[Ben Kissel]

Wow.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I almost forgot I was right.

[Marcus Parks]

Now if you'll remember, refugees from Batavia's graveyard were washing up on the highlands for weeks in groups of four or five. Where they found that Viva Hayes and his men were having a grand old time. Enjoying near unlimited water and a veritable buffet of island creatures for sustenance. But each and every person who arrived at the highlands had a new horrific story to tell about what was going down over on Batavia's graveyard. From casual murder to full on massacres. All committed in service of Euronymous fantasy of becoming a pirate.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I watched a 15 year old boy murder a bunch of other boys and then laugh about it. And then I watched a man kill that boy.

[Ben Kissel]

Bummer, man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Should we check that out or something? Did you buy a ticket for that?

[Ben Kissel]

Someone passed me some tiny kangaroos.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I love this tiny kangaroo. I love. I love how unafraid there.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, after hearing all this, Viva Highest knew that it was only a matter of time before Euronymous and his men came for them. See, both Viva and Euronimous knew that the first group who made it to the rescue boat was going to be the ultimate winner here. If Viva made it first, then his group could warn their rescuers about the mutineers. And after defeating the mutineers, they could all go to Java to continue living the soldiers life. But if Euronymous made it, the mutineers would likely kill everyone aboard the rescue ship and leave Viva's men to die. And that's if the mutineers didn't use the rescue ship's cannons and weapons to slaughter Viva's group just cuz they wanted to.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We seem to be doing quite a bit of that.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, so I think that that makes. Oh yeah, they're definitely going to them all up.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

But aren't the mutineers like weak as hell at this point?

[Marcus Parks]

At this point are. But if you've got weapons, if you've. Especially if you get superior weapons, it can really make all the difference.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Also, you know, when you listen to anything about history, there are certain X factors. Dan Carlin talks about it all the time, where sometimes that level of hunger and desperation and more like that, you have more murders under your belt. And that actually makes you a stronger adversary. Because these guys have been killing people left, right, but they're also getting drunk and lazy.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, but this is also an island full of soldiers and sailors. Think they'd be strong as well.

[Henry Zabrowski]

See.

[Marcus Parks]

But that's all to say that Viva knew that the stakes were high and he had to be prepared. The biggest problem Viva had though, was that Euronymous's men had all the muskets and swords. But that didn't mean Viva didn't have advantages himself. Most importantly, Viva had made sure that everyone who showed up on the Highlands was well provided for, which engendered real loyalty. And the abundance of resources on the Highlands meant they had no less than 50 healthy people willing to fight. In contrast, Euronymous ruled his men by fear. And their rations were limited to what rainwater they could catch with tarps along with stray birds and a rapidly dwindling supply of hardtack. Viva was also a hell of a soldier. So he and his men studied the geography of the Highlands to surmise where they could best defend the island against Euronymous when he and his men finally mounted their attack. Eventually, Viva pegged a shore of mud flats as the most likely landing spot. So a lookout was posted there at all times with clear vantage points to send signals inland, where most of the real defenses actually were. But since their strategy was based almost solely on defense, Viva's men took to calling themselves the Defenders.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Go, Go, Island Defender.

[Ben Kissel]

Everything doesn't need a name.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, I don't know, having a name for your group, it's a team thing, I guess.

[Ben Kissel]

So I would. The gorillas.

[Marcus Parks]

They don't know what a gorilla is.

[Henry Zabrowski]

How about. Yeah, something like, you know, the, the. The football team. The high. The highest island football team.

[Ben Kissel]

The flotillas, the commanders.

[Marcus Parks]

I like the flotillas. Yeah, that's fun. The tiny kangaroos. Yeah, the cats. O the cats. Now, having no military experience, no understanding of strategy, and a shallow bench when it came to military advisors, Cornelis fell back on manipulation and deceit. As his opening volley in the war, he wrote a letter to Viva warning him that the people who'd escaped to the highlands were all telling lies. They were the evil ones who were planning to betray Viva. So Euronymous suggested it would be in Viva's best interest to arrest those who had escaped and wait until Euronymous came to take them away.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, don't worry, we're on our way. Let's go. We're going to do big investigation. We're gonna get to the bottom of this and find out what's really going on. And I want to try one of these tiny kangaroos.

[Ben Kissel]

Xoxo.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Thank you much love. You're animus. Because it's also funny too that they're on an island and the first thing is like dictate a letter. Yeah, yes, bring me my quill. And it's just like you're on a fucking. You're surrounded by the corpses of infants.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Euronymous letter was delivered by a young VOC cadet who'd helped with the drownings in the early days of Euro executions. But since Viva wasn't an idiot, the defenders took him captive as soon as he landed. When the cadet didn't return, Euronymous knew his plan hadn't worked. So he decided for an all out attack. A group of 20 men led by the psychopathic David Zavank boarded boats to attack the highlands. But the defenders were well prepared. The mutineers landed exactly where Viva thought they would. But when faced with the full force of healthy soldiers armed with homemade weapons, the mutiny retreated immediately.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They figured out that. So muskets take a lot to use, right? It takes a second.

[Ben Kissel]

Especially back in the 1600s, you got.

[Henry Zabrowski]

A pack it you have to put in the wick. You cite you like light the fuse or whatever it is like you have.

[Marcus Parks]

To do about around a minute.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. And so what he's. What they realized is that okay, they have guns, we only have the slings and rocks and all this bullshit. But what we can do is we can make their guns useless by instead of using the rocks, which is at first they thought like, oh, they're going to sling rocks at us. We're got guns. He was shooting it at the water so that when they were waiting, when they. Because the way they put it, they had to get out of the boat and wade to the beach. Mud flats, like mud flats is literally like what they did they try to do on D day. And so they. They had a wade through the water with the muskets held up like this so that they would shoot the slings into the water to splash all over them to get the. The wicks wet and to make the guns useless.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

You know how good they got at slinging rocks? They got nothing else to do and.

[Marcus Parks]

There'S a lot of rocks.

[Ben Kissel]

And not to mention they're a lot harder to kill than starving children.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I mean, I don't know.

[Marcus Parks]

So now that the mutineers knew what they were up against, they returned with their entire crew a few days later. All, of course, except for Euronymous, who stayed behind on the graveyard. This time, the defenders and the mutineers actually clashed. But the mutineers again retreated without any real casualties on. On either side. Totally at a loss on how to break through, the mutineers made no further attempts at attack for another month. But in that month, the survival situation for the mutineers became dire. Their food and water rations were running dangerously low, while it was quite obvious that Viva's group was living high on the hog, relatively speaking. So what started as a war to save the mutineers from execution became a battle for resources. Now, like many demagogues throughout history, Euronymous thought he was much more clever than he really was. While he had no problem manipulating men who were already dissatisfied, ignorant and prone to violence, he had a much harder time fooling anyone with a sense of decency. So when Euonymus moved on to his next plan of taking the highlands through subterfuge and deception, Viva Hayes saw through Euronymous almost immediately and was able to turn Euronymous plan against him.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, all it takes is. It's amazing how sometimes incompetence comes up against the barest form of competence and how it falls apart. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

See, the defenders had plenty of food and water, but they were dressed in rags and they had to use driftwood planks strapped to their feet for shoes. Euronymous, meanwhile, had plenty of material for clothes, since Batavia's graveyard was far closer to the wreckage of the Batavia itself, and more stuff had washed ashore on his side of the archipelago.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I dare them to fight without hats. Do look stupid or you found the hat box? Yeah, I'm keeping it for myself because as a CS stance, so do hats.

[Marcus Parks]

So Euonymus proposed a simple trade. Red wine and canvas for food and water. The trick Euronimus plan to pull, if you could even call it a trick, was that when the trade was made, the mutineers would take a few of the defenders aside to sow dissension and convince them to come and turn coat.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I want to ask you a question. Is it harder to kill a baby or a six year old that whatever ancient you got we support?

[Marcus Parks]

All right, well, if the mutineers were successful, then it would be far easier for Euronymous to mount an attack and murder every defender on the highlands. But like most of Euronymous plans, it was about as ham fisted as you could get. No offense.

[Ben Kissel]

None taken. So basically his plan was like, for him and his boys to be like, listen, I know you got all this food and water, but how about shoes?

[Marcus Parks]

Look like, okay, well, not just shoes, but how about shoes and gold? We've got a lot of treasure over.

[Henry Zabrowski]

There, but out here it doesn't matter, bro.

[Marcus Parks]

It doesn't matter at all. That's why the plan's stupid. Now, this time around, Euronymous got a little more clever with his envoys. Instead of sending a mutineer with a trade offer, he sent the minister, who was received kindly and told that the defenders were open to negotiations, even though they knew Euronymous was planning something. So Euronymous took his full company of 37 men to the highlands with the red wine and canvas to complete the illusion. See? Yeah, see, See? And it's also, this just. It speaks to Euronymous narcissism as well that he even. It's. This is very much magical thinking, you know that he knows that 20 people have showed up and told Vive Hias all about the massacres that have happened, but he thinks that he's clever enough to work his way through it.

[Ben Kissel]

And how did they get there? Did they SW swim?

[Marcus Parks]

No, mostly that like there were rafts.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They were building boats out of the leftover wood from the Batavia. So you remember that he had the other side of the island. There were the people that were technically not members of the mutineer party that were stuck on one side. So what they did was build boats. So they built their own boats. They had some of their own, like kind of half made boat raft things. And then kind of like basically the first couple of people that landed on the highlands that were running away from Batavia's graveyard, they left those boats. Boats. And then those boats. Would you go back and forth?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, so as to not appear too aggressive, Euronymous left most of his men on a small islet 400 yards off the highlands when he went to go do his little trade subterfuge, while he and his five best men continued to the mud flats to meet with Viva. Now, Viva could immediately see how pitiful Euronymous and his men really were once they were not in the heat of battle, as each man was rail thin from three months of trying to survive on whatever meager rations they could obtain on their barren wasteland.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Still fit. We're still strong. Just. My fingernails are falling off.

[Marcus Parks]

And they're also all dressed in these ridiculous costumes that they've, like, put together through, like, other officers, you know, people they've killed.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I couldn't notice. But you don't have a hat on. And as you can see, I've got two on my shoulders.

[Ben Kissel]

They're all like broomsticks dressed like kings.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, exactly. Viva also saw through Euronymous's plan immediately, especially after Euonymus's five companions walked up to Viva's men and clumsily offered them gilders to switch sides right in front of Viva.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's so funny because I feel like I'm getting called out for my own now, obviously. I'm sorry that it's all Civ 7 came out. I haven't started it yet, but I've been kind of watching a lot of videos on it, and I am stuck in that mode right now because it's really. It's embarrassing because this is one of my big moves that I love to do, and I'm kind of mad that highest, like, pulled this apart so quickly. But it works in Civ, where what you do is you send somebody in.

[Marcus Parks]

You send the diplomat in, you send.

[Henry Zabrowski]

A diplomat in, but then what you do is you park an army too far for them to see, and then while they're doing the negotiations, you just attack. Yeah, that's awesome. But he's saying it's not. He sucked me because. And honestly, it works for me quite a bit.

[Marcus Parks]

It. It's a video game. This is a. Yeah, people. Now, when the mutineers attempted to bribe his men right in front of him, Viva figured enough was enough and took the opportunity to arrest Euronymous and his five mutineers on the spot.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They got him. It's just that easy. He's such a. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

400 yards away on the iset, the rest of the mutineers saw the arrest of their companions and prepared to advance. Seeing this, Viva Highas ordered the immediate execution. Execution of every mutineer except Euronymous. And five men, including the psychopathic David Zavank, were exterminated on the spot.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is when bullies meet actual bullies.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. The other mutineers were shocked and demoralized by the executions, although I don't know exactly what they expected to happen here.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

But instead of attacking God, we can die.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But I thought you were as bored as we do you have there. Oh, my God. It's per cheesy.

[Ben Kissel]

Listen, don't kill me. There's women to kill.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Kill a woman. Don't you want to kill a child?

[Marcus Parks]

But instead of attacking, the mutineers returned to Batavia's graveyard. And in the end, the defenders also got the red wine and the canvas without having to give anything in return.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I will say there is something to chopping the head off the snake.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I think that they fall apart. I think that you also. When you're stuck out there. And this also calls from, like, this is a little bit of a culty thing. Right. Where they have the sunken cost fallacy of just the six weeks of being under this man's control that they just jumped under. Right. They literally just said, all right, rolling with you.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And then they realize, like, oh, like, the whole world is not going to sort of like, bend over for us.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it's the paper tiger thing where. Where they. They immediately see, like, oh, like, he's just a bunch of talk. Doesn't really work.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You just collided with the wall that is reality. Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

And if Euonymus had half a brain and was a decent apothecary, just poison the wine.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's what you do in the Goblin camp.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

God damn it. I need a life.

[Marcus Parks]

I need.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I need to kill people for real. I need. I need more interesting stories. I need to, like, go and join a mercenary group or do something so that I can come in with these types of scenarios and I can really tell you stories. Like how Christopher Lee told. Everybody said of Lord of the Rings, like, what it actually sounds like when you stab a man in the back.

[Marcus Parks]

He's done it a bunch.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You know, like, I need that. I need that type of. Especially as a podcaster.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. No, no. Podcasters definitely need war experience.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I need more time in the. Maybe in a prison cell or something. I can fight my way out.

[Marcus Parks]

We could get you into a Prison easier than we can get you into a war legally.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Let's say I go in not having committed a crime, but find out if I can get myself himself out.

[Marcus Parks]

Ah, that's I believe an arrested development plot line.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Wow.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Ben Kissel]

Or the escape plan movie with Stallone.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I didn't come up this as a movie. Saying this as my life. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, okay. All right. Now, after arresting Euronimus, the defenders tortured and humiliated the now former mutineer leader by throwing him into a limestone pit where they gave him the task of plucking and cleaning all the birds the defenders hunted.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It sucks. I promise I'll learn my lines.

[Marcus Parks]

They allowed Euronymous to keep one bird out of nine as so called salary. But his job kept him constantly covered in blood and feathers languishing in a pit quickly filling with bird guts.

[Ben Kissel]

The health department have a field day with that?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Not anymore.

[Marcus Parks]

Not.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Thanks. I honestly sound like that's incredible. What an amazing way to. I. I love an entire pit filled with burn guts. That's actually how I sound like this. I take feathers anally. Do you know bird guts can actually cure the measles? You actually give it a shot, it's gonna be one of the most miracle cures you've ever seen. Sorry, I had one of Cheryl hines hair stuck in my lungs.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh wait, no.

[Ben Kissel]

That's just a worm screaming out of my brain.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I love my worm.

[Marcus Parks]

That's a curb your enthusiasm plot line.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yep.

[Marcus Parks]

Meanwhile, back on Batavia's graveyard, the mu the mutineers were going through a crisis of leadership. The next in command, a soldier named Stone Cutter Peterz was ineffectual and unpopular. So the mutineers elected a 24 year old Dutch soldier as the graveyard's new leader. Might be the worst name I've ever heard. Vowder Losh under Don't you say that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I am the leader of the island group and everybody wants us to know we are going away. We are doing lip sync. It's not doing lip syncs.

[Marcus Parks]

Instead Bouder Lar Sounds like the cum boy at a Berlin nightclub.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I was I didn't find a good job before the recession because now people come for free. They clean it up. They get their people. They got their families to clean it up for them.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, under Bowder Loss's command, nobody else was murdered on Batavia's graveyard. And the reign of terror was a effectively at an end. Unless of course you were a woman. Things continued to be horrible for them.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But not now. That's for certain women. The problems for them and of them have Been cured, solved finally.

[Marcus Parks]

But at the very least, no one lived in fear of random stabbings or stranglings from that point on. And they even reinstated the council. But even though some semblance of civilization had been restored, it didn't solve the inevitable execution or resource problems. So the plan to attack the Highlands was soon back on. And so, after trying to send the Minister one more time with a false peace offering that was immediately rejected, the mutineers launched another attack on September 17th. An attack that would prove to be their last.

[Ben Kissel]

Why wouldn't the Minister just stay at the Highlands?

[Marcus Parks]

I've actually asked myself that question. I think it's fear partly. And he also signed the loyalty oath. And for these people, paperwork is sacred. I'm not even fucking joking here. Paperwork is very sacred. He signed a loyalty oath to Euronimus Cornelis and his men. His men are still there. They're still hanging out. So he has to honor that loyalty contract.

[Ben Kissel]

He also signed a loyalty contract to his dead wife.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, he sure did.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He sure did. But it just something about when it comes to wives, they don't care as much.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Till death do his part, though. Yeah. Over.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, his contract ended.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now the mutineers were at their greatest disadvantage yet in this offensive. All their best military men had been executed on the mudflats, and Viva had larger numbers who were better fed as well as the high ground. But the advantage the mutineers still hadn't brought into play were the guns. Either because they were saving them for the rescue ship, or because Euronymous thought he was clever enough to get by without him. The mutineers still hadn't fired the muskets that they'd had since day. Day one. But with no other options, the mutineers incorporated the muskets into a strategy that had a good chance of working.

[Henry Zabrowski]

What we will do is we will use the guns to shoot at the birds, and the birds will make so many noises that it would make the satis frustrated and they will give up. They'll give up the whole thing because they're like, damn, birds are yelling. I can't think straight enough to my. I can't think straight enough to make decisions about the wall.

[Ben Kissel]

Euronymous just became Josef Fritzel.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Just saying that. Eurom.

[Marcus Parks]

That's Wouter.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Louder Lorry is a lighter version of Fritzl. Different character.

[Marcus Parks]

Vow. Under your new. Under your new regime, what is your hat policy?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I still believe that hats are important for our reputations as soldiers and they are important for our feelings as men. So Hats on.

[Marcus Parks]

Your very happy feelings are being taken into account.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I love a brim. I love a brim.

[Marcus Parks]

My feelings have been pushed down for too long.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Now.

[Marcus Parks]

Once the mutineers loaded into their boats, rode over to the highlands and landed on the mud flats, they used their two muskets to keep the fight at long range by firing one round a minute. And while this sounds like it wouldn't work, the mutineers were able to injure three defenders and kill one. The rock thing, it sounded like a good idea. Didn't really work in practice.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It started it because again, if they stayed on the boats and the. It is interesting, though, because they really just show that musket warfare had its, like, time.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You know what I mean? They worked hard on it. Like when we were watching the armored a. The amma.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Where it's like you kind of forget that. Like. No, these weren't like, you know, the. The. The entire body suits of armor. They were built to be functional. They're not just art pieces. Like, you can roll around and like, that was a whole thing.

[Marcus Parks]

Now there's tactics to every single one of these weapons. If there wasn't tactics behind them, they wouldn't be a part of warfare. Now, this strategy very well could have translated to total victory for the mutineers, a rescue for Euonymus Cornelis, and the slaughter of every man, woman and child on the highlands. But just as the mutineers were about to overtake the defenders and kill them all, they spotted something on the water off in the distance. It was upper merchant Pelsart, returning after three months with 30 men and a fully stocked Voc ship. Right in the middle of a battle.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't know why that.

[Marcus Parks]

Why Jurassic Park?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't know. That's the hell. When the helicopter showed up, like, all show up and they're like, it's a boat. Like, it's fun.

[Marcus Parks]

I love this part.

[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Ben Kissel]

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[Marcus Parks]

And any voice line plus price lock.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We won't raise your rate on Internet.

[Ben Kissel]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

Now. Pelsart should have shown up days before his dramatic entrance, but with Captain Jakobs and the boat Swain in jail back on Java, it took Pelsaert forever to find the islands again.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Where exactly was that island? Left.

[Marcus Parks]

Shit.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Right. Fuck off backwards.

[Marcus Parks]

Let me orient myself. Let's go back to Java and then I'll think about it.

[Ben Kissel]

It's this way.

[Henry Zabrowski]

More than this way.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Pelsart actually had no idea if anyone was even alive on the archipelago. But when he saw smoke coming from the islands, he dropped anchor and had his crew load the ship's boats with supplies. And just by a fluke of geography, the first island Pelsart came to was the highlands. Now, had Pelsart landed on Batavia's graveyard with no knowledge whatsoever of what had transpired in the three months he'd been gone? It was entirely possible that the mutineers could have surprised them and taken the ship. Because Pels Art's crew was mostly people focused on recovering the loot. But the mutineers didn't know that. And when they saw that the rescue ship was definitely heading towards the highlands, they broke off their attack and retreated to their camp. While Viva Hayes raced to meet Pelsart's boat to warn him about the mutineers. Yeah, it's the lost music playing in my head.

[Ben Kissel]

Hey, these other guys suck.

[Marcus Parks]

They suck.

[Ben Kissel]

Did you say they?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I think that they suck. I think he.

[Marcus Parks]

I. I mean, I. I wonder, you fuck.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Do we.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I think we could.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I wish I could.

[Marcus Parks]

No. Why don't we go to the other island, the one where they talk.

[Henry Zabrowski]

All right, we'll suck, I guess.

[Marcus Parks]

Now with the VOC back in the picture, the fight had gone out of many of the mutineers. But of all people, the rabid yet impotent cabin boy, Jan Pilgrim acted as the mutineers mascot and got the men fired up again.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Don't you guys want to kill? Don't you know when that boat comes and takes us to Java, we'll never be able to kill another boy again? Don't you wish that we could just. We're gonna take that boat and I swear boys, we're gonna cut out of that high seas and boy, oh boy, we're gonna be the rudeness dudenest bunch of pirates the whole world's ever seen.

[Marcus Parks]

If I go, will you shut the fuck up?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Will you shut the fuck up?

[Marcus Parks]

Okay, I'll go, I'll go, I'll go.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Have a positive outlook. You fucking stab the little girl to death.

[Marcus Parks]

Within minutes, Jan P convinced a group of mutineers to get back in their boats and row for one last shot at taking the rescue ship and killing everyone who stood in their way. Because at this point, death was coming for them no matter what they did.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You just gotta remember that at this point, death is coming for us no matter what we do. So let's kill voluntarily.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, just, you know, he's a good mascot.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Positive.

[Marcus Parks]

Out.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Come on, guys.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I guess it's. It's not fun if everyone's got a bad attitude. That's the thing.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No one's having fun and no one's having fun. Can I ask Eddie, did you fart?

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Okay, good.

[Marcus Parks]

No. Neither did I. Well, that's funny. You didn't even ask me.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I. I'm sorry, Marcus. I know your farts. And I do know Eddie's farts.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, my farts are much worse than this part.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Partly my wonder if I farted.

[Ben Kissel]

There is a smell.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Rob.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No.

[Marcus Parks]

All right, well now over on the Highlands. The problem the defenders had was that they'd hidden all their boats on the north side of the island to keep them safe from capture during the battle. That meant that Viva had to cross two miles of rough ground, then row his boat another three miles to the Sardam before the mutineers got there first. Upper merchant Pelsart had also somewhat foolhardly boarded a boat full of supplies along with half his men to look for survivors on the Highlands. So the stardom was lightly crewed by just a dozen sailors, easy pickings for armed mutineers. But once Viva Hayes reached his raft, he rode out until he spotted upper merchant Pelsart standing dumbly on the beach, waiting for something to happen.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You know what I see? I'm gonna stand up. You can see this on the Patreon. You know the Forrest Gump meme.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. He's got his hands in the back of it and the small of his back just, huh, waiting.

[Ben Kissel]

The only ship that survives.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Something's gotta happen soon.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Viva quickly made his way to Pelsaard and told him to go back to his ship immediately because a party of scoundrels from the other islands had intentions to seize the Sardem after hearing a very brief version of what had transpired over the last three months.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Lots of up. There was a kid and there's another guy and he did a bunch of.

[Ben Kissel]

Stuff, and they were.

[Henry Zabrowski]

There's a lot of stuff, man, and my belly hurts and I'm eating all the biscuits.

[Ben Kissel]

These tiny kickers are delicious, obviously.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Try them if you got a shot.

[Marcus Parks]

We call them cats. Pelsart jumped into action and got back in his boat, but not before he told Viva to bring euronymous Cornelis to the Sardem with all haste. Pelsart, however, was still some distance from his ship when he saw, rounding the southern point of the Highland, a sloop carrying the mutineers. So he told his men to row, row faster, faster. And he barely had enough time to clamber up the side of his ship to alert his crew before the mutineer sloop pulled aside. It was a photo finish. But the defenders had warned Pelsart just in time. Minutes. And when Pelsart looked down at the 11 men in the sloop below, dressed in their ostentatious homemade uniforms and armed with swords, he knew that Viva Hias had told him the truth.

[Henry Zabrowski]

There's the hats.

[Marcus Parks]

After a brief standoff, the mutineers saw a sense that their cause was finally lost. And with their surrender, the three month long mutiny on the Batavia was finally over at the cost of over 120.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Lives, dude, on fucking islands. Less than, like less than a football field. Links across and over like maybe two months.

[Marcus Parks]

Three months. Yeah, yeah, it's a three. Three months from the. From the arrival. It's like June. June to September.

[Ben Kissel]

20 people.

[Marcus Parks]

120 over. 120 people. I think it's something. They don't really know exactly how many people died, but they think it's somewhere between like 120 and 130.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And I gotta say, that was the best summer of our lives.

[Marcus Parks]

Summer of 1629. Now, Pelsart began interrogations immediately. And one of Euronymous's top men, perhaps tired of the whole goddamn affair, he quickly confessed to the murders of 20 people committed on the orders of Euronymous Corneli.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We were bo.

[Marcus Parks]

He then laid out the entire conspiracy, starting with the original mutiny plot that began three months earlier on the Cape of Good Hope, continuing with Euronymous's brutal reign, and ending with the attempted capture of the rescue ship. Now, once Euronymous was brought before upper merchant Pelsart, still covered in the blood and feathers of dead birds, he tried blaming everything on the men who'd already been executed by the defenders on the mudflats a month earlier, who were too dead to say otherwise.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Have you ever tried to say stay popular and how difficult it is? Do you know what it is, how hard it is to stay popular with a bunch of this. These man. I mean, the man I gotta be mean to be in charge of them?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, they were the ones, Euronymous said, who had wanted to murder the survivors. This whole thing was just one big misunderstanding, because all Euronymous had ever wanted was to maintain the peace and save as many survivors as he could from these terrible soldiers and sailors. And he'd never had any plot to seize the Batavia, nor any other ship. Now, Pelsart was understandably overwhelmed with information here. So he put Euronymous in the brig and sailed to Batavia's graveyard the day after his arrival to arrest any remaining scoundrels and save whoever was still in the thrall of the mutineers. Pelsart was of course, prepared for a fight. But once the mutineers saw a boat of fully equipped soldiers sailing towards them, the defenders with new gear, they all surrendered and were arrested, then bound on the spot. In searching the island for VOC valuables and gilders, Pelsart found the written oaths the mutineers had sworn to Euronymous. But that was only part of the evidence. Euronimus had also kept extensive journals which were soon cross referenced with the accounts of survivors and the confessions of the mutineers.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's why this story, which I'm thankful for in one way, is that I'm so. I hate. I am so sick of when stories become a debunking.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because you're like, ah, well, we went through all this and then it's not real. And now actually we know that all of the things that we talked about on this island definitely happened.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because Euronimus detailed it.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, not just Euromus, but many people detailed it. A lot of people like the. The minister actually wrote a book, an entire book after being rescued from the island that detailed like everything. So there's a ton, a ton of firsthand accounts. Primary sour on this.

[Ben Kissel]

I feel like no man should ever have a diary.

[Marcus Parks]

I have a diary. It just.

[Ben Kissel]

It just gets you in trouble. Fill it with lies.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, I certainly don't fill it with incriminating information.

[Henry Zabrowski]

My huge hurts from today. I hope that one day my wife. My wife, Christy Canyons. What's her name?

[Ben Kissel]

No, you got it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, as I said earlier, Pelsart's ultimate mission here was not the rescue of the survivors. This was primarily a recovery mission. So while Pelsart sussed out the crimes of Euronymous Cornelis and his men, he ordered the divers he'd brought with him to begin scouring the Batavia shipwreck to salvage whatever they could. An operation that was set to take months. But I suppose, thankfully, as far as entertainment went, the months of recovery gave Pelsar plenty of time to form a council that would be in charge of punishing the mutineers right there on the island. Island with full criminal trials and executions, backed by the authority of the voc, which again, was a private company. Ironically, though, one of the men on the council was himself a mutineer and a murderer. Pelsart's former clerk, the man who'd killed the baby on Euronymous's order, the one with the tiny little news.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Sorry.

[Marcus Parks]

He was the only person available who could read or write, so he made recordings of the proceedings and signed judgments of his former comrades.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We need more beachside courts. Yeah. Is that volleyball courts? You know? Yeah, and have a judge on them, though, and be able to have like, they have referees in a high chair volleyball traffic court. Oh, where you versus a lawyer in volleyball, like, and then if you beat the. The lawyer in volleyball, you get off.

[Marcus Parks]

MTV Spring Break Justice.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is, I feel like in the private Prison industry, which is huge right now.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Big it in the ground floor with that. With a nice. Let's just call it a captive resort. That's all it is. It's a full. It's an all inclusive.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

It's right off the coast of Cuba.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Cuba right there. It's my favorite. There an island available that we can get.

[Ben Kissel]

Can I have a quick stupid or type question? So the divers are. Every day they're going down, they're trying to get the gold. Right.

[Marcus Parks]

Trying to find it, trying to recover it. Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

How.

[Ben Kissel]

What's the diving equipment like in the 16. Yeah. Right.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. I mean, I don't know if they have.

[Ben Kissel]

Do they have like a hose?

[Marcus Parks]

I don't know. Actually. 16, 29.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, sorry, sorry.

[Marcus Parks]

That up. You get out of here. You get out of here right now. I actually don't know exactly.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Unrecovered time. Oh, my God.

[Marcus Parks]

We don't need to get into doing this today.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm just.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Why are you doing this?

[Ben Kissel]

I imagine they held their breath.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, probably. But they might. There might have been hoses. They might have been something like that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. The diving suit wasn't there till the 1860s.

[Ben Kissel]

Okay.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

All right.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Open diving dress.

[Marcus Parks]

It's really. They're just really good swimmers.

[Ben Kissel]

Okay.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, they had a diving bell.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, you have a div.

[Ben Kissel]

Diving bell and butterflies as well.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes. They would put you down to the water and they would. You go through a thing and I guess it was like a. Oh.

[Ben Kissel]

Cuz it has like air in it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes. In it.

[Ben Kissel]

That's kind of fun.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, the proceedings were held in accordance with Dutch law, which stated that a man could only be condemned to death if he freely confessed. The loophole was that confession under torture still counted as freely confessed. So if a mutineer resisted questioning on the island, he was tortured until he admitted to murder.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Simple.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Euronimous, however, held out for a surprisingly long period of time and only broke under the dreaded water torture, which is far worse than it sounds.

[Ben Kissel]

He was like super duper thirsty.

[Marcus Parks]

But then super, super ironic if Euronymous went through what most people went through with water torture. He was stripped naked and tied up spread eagle to an upright wooden frame.

[Ben Kissel]

Hey, you guys, take me out to dinner.

[Marcus Parks]

Where his captors tied a canvas collar around his neck that reached up to his eyes, something like a doggy cone. Once the interrogation started, his captors poured water over his head which trickled down the collar and formed a pool of water at the bottom. If a Question wasn't answered. Or if his captor didn't like his answer, they poured more water into the cone until it overtook Euronymous's mouth and nose.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I can hear that too. It's the. It's the.

[Marcus Parks]

Or.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Looks like somebody's still thirsty, you know.

[Ben Kissel]

Like.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I can see that afternoon. Really?

[Marcus Parks]

Here comes the airplane.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like, you know, that's fine.

[Marcus Parks]

The only way to breathe, therefore, was to drink the water. So Euronymous alternated between gasping for air and gulping down liquid until he passed out, hideously bloated. Once unconscious, Euonymus was cut down and forced to vomit so the torture could begin again. After going through that cycle three or four times, Geronimus's body was swollen to two or three times. At its original size, his cheeks would have looked like balloons, and his eyes would have swollen out pathways. His forehead.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And he would slowly have slid into modern Marlon Brando.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But even as horrible as this is, it still took several days of water torture before Euronymous confessed to both the mutiny plot and ordering the murders. Although he continued blaming others for his crimes. It was only after the. And I don't know why I find this funny, but they brought in all the confessed mutineers one by one, one to confront him.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And then you. And that's when Euronymous finally admitted to ordering the murders of three dozen people of his own free will.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You're mean. And you made us do mean things just cause we were bored. We should have done bad things. So you should feel guilty for that. I'm gonna go to have sex with my hands.

[Marcus Parks]

Euronymous then signed a confession, entrapping all the mutineers at once. And with that, it was time for sentencing.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

For leading the mutiny and turning Batavia's graveyard into a slaughterhouse, Euronymous Cornelis was given the maximum penalty under Dutch law. He would be hanged, of course. But the Dutch added the extra indignity of cutting off the condemned's hands first.

[Ben Kissel]

Whoa.

[Marcus Parks]

Not also.

[Ben Kissel]

No, just a very blown away.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Being able to be a manager and board Borders and get their hat somebody's hands off. That's awesome.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, it's like, how do you kill someone? Worse. And then they figured it out.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. It's human ingenuity.

[Marcus Parks]

I find it interesting that the first place you went to was Borders. Manager of Borders, which was a job that you once held.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yes. I always think about the manager I had that used to wear knee pads. And he used to have. He had many, many pewter rings. And he was a Swinger. And he used to talk all about time. He would be like, you should check out my pad. Like, he was like that style of guy. Like he's a 50 year old dude who was talking about his pad.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And he was the guy that told me that if anybody tries to walk out of here with a book, I need you personally to chase him down in the parking lot and get that book back. And I remember just being like, no, absolutely not. Absolutely not. I'm 18.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. So no one's gonna steal your stupid book.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's a book. Also, it's Florida State let them steal the books they should be reading. They can read the books. It's okay. Is this. This is information they need.

[Marcus Parks]

And also they're asking you of all people at 18 years old, to chase down.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I was a unit. I could be pretty fast, you know?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. As long as they're 10ft away.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They were the bookstore.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, also, in accordance with Dutch law, all of Euonymus Cornelis's worldly goods and possessions, including anything owned by his wife, were to given to the VOC because it was deemed that the corporation had been the one most harmed by Euronymous's actions.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And I think about them a lot.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And I think about 911. I think about those investment companies that didn't get to move on. I think about the. I think about the various private military companies that were inside of that building and how they were doing work with our enemies. And I. I miss them.

[Ben Kissel]

I missed the restaurant on the top floor.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, it. I think it was called Spinnies.

[Marcus Parks]

Now four more mutineers were given the same sentence as Euronymous, while five others, including cabin boy Yan P, were allowed to be hanged without having their hands chopped off first.

[Ben Kissel]

Gee, thanks.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Honestly, I wish I could. Come on. It'd be kind of fun, right? I want to see what st. Could.

[Marcus Parks]

You please chop off his hands?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Come on. I want to see what it's like. What my is not.

[Ben Kissel]

We got it. Just hang him Normal.

[Marcus Parks]

He won't shut up until you do what he asks you to do.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Straight up, man.

[Marcus Parks]

14 more mutineers would be taken to Java for further interrogation and punishment, while the rest of the men who'd signed loyalty oaths to Euronymous just to survive, they were freed until it was proven that they had done something to deserve punishment. Really, the only person who came out of the wreck of the potential Batavia on top was Viva Hias Pelsar raised his rank to sergeant, placed him in charge of the soldiers, and doubled his Pay.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He did his job.

[Ben Kissel]

He deserves it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, all the defenders actually got raises.

[Ben Kissel]

Now, wouldn't the murder be going backwards again? I'm sorry.

[Marcus Parks]

Sure.

[Ben Kissel]

Chopping off the hands.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, you know, we're going to get to it again.

[Ben Kissel]

Okay, good. But isn't it good? Wouldn't it be better to not hang them and just let them bleed out on the beach?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, that's too relaxing.

[Ben Kissel]

You think so?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. You. Cuz that's just kind of. You're just kind of going to sleep.

[Ben Kissel]

What, do you slap them to death?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, they cauterize the wound. Oh, they do.

[Marcus Parks]

They don't cauterize though. They. They wrap them up. Yeah, okay.

[Henry Zabrowski]

All right.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, we'll get into it. Now, the executions were set to take place on Seals Island.

[Ben Kissel]

I want to see. They killed all my family.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Seals island is actually very nice. Seals island is really nice. Just don't go to Heidi Clum's island because she will tear you to sh.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, this is of course, where Euronimus had ordered the massacre of well over a dozen people just a few months previous. The condemned were therefore held in makeshift jail cells on the island until the execution date. But Euronymous decided that he was going to take himself out before the VOC had a chance to. He somehow convinced someone to bring him items from his apothecary kit, which he used to concoct a poison reason to kill himself. But again, Euronymous was a shitty apothecary. And just like the botched murder of the baby months before, Euonymus only succeeded in making his last hours on Earth a living hell of writhing stomach pain.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Honestly, I should have went to school. Ultimate irony that he just tortured himself.

[Ben Kissel]

Such a pathetic idiot. And so also he just like, if he was just kind and went to the High island, everyone would have just ate. Yeah, he deserves the fuck out of it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, he deserves every that. I thought about cutting that from the story, but I thought like, nah.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, that is hilariously such a bad.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Apothecary and a bad villain and bad villains. They are literally bad at being villains. They cause a lot of damage. Damage. But what's really nice is sometimes they also collide with those consequences so hard, it's really satisfying.

[Marcus Parks]

I'd say almost 100 of the time. Like much of the time, the they do collide with the consequences. The consequences come in hard and fast, but yes, you're right. The problem is all of the damage they do before that.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes, try and hang me and cut my hands off. I'll show you.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, My.

[Ben Kissel]

It'S like when I ordered too much sushi.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Or the time you got that weird ass egg pizza in Italy. That and then you were just going like carbonara pizza, not weird thing.

[Ben Kissel]

It sounds delicious.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It had a bunch of warm luka luke eggs.

[Ben Kissel]

That's how Italians eat eggs.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's not how they eat eggs.

[Ben Kissel]

So the egg was black. I was like, holy, this Italian's got black.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Remember the look on the man's face? He was like.

[Ben Kissel]

When you just called me fat.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Remember?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I miss her.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, once the gallows were constructed on Seals island, the condemned were executed on October 1, with Euronymous going first. After his hands were chopped off with an axe by the executioner. Tourniquets were tied around his wrists to ensure he was conscious for his ultimate death. Because it hurts having your hands chopped off.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Euronymous was then walked up the gallows ladder to meet his doom with the minister at his side. The very minister whose family Euronimous had ordered to be slaughtered doing his job. The minister asked Euronimus if he wanted to confess his sins. Euronimous, however, ever the heretic refused.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You are gonna have to buy the DLC for that.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, in those days, Dutch gallows involved a short rope tied to a horizontal beam. The prisoner was walked up a ladder and the noose was wrapped around his neck. Then it was the executioner's job to thrust a knee into the small of the prisoner's back, launching him to his death.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is my death knee. This is the knee I heard playing skip rope when I was 9. So this D can't do the killing, but this one does the killing each time. The worst part is when the rain comes. Because then my killer knee kills me.

[Marcus Parks]

This is my killer knee. This is the knee I used to bounce my granddaughter.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh no.

[Ben Kissel]

She bounced off and died.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Now they're both killing me.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, if the condemned was lucky, his neck would snap instantly. But that was a rare occurrence, most slowly strangled to death over 20 hours agonizing minutes. And indeed, Euronymous Corneli's entertained the crowd with his convulsive kicks for quite a while before the evil bastard finally left this earth.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You know, I was bored all this whole time until today. This is by far the most entertaining time on the island.

[Ben Kissel]

Yes, I call his hat.

[Marcus Parks]

Why haven't we been hanging people this whole time? Now, many other mutineers did confess their sins to the minister and many pled for mercy. But only one mutineer was successful that day. The half mad cabin boy, Jan Pilgrim, wept and wailed and begged for grace. So Pelsart took pity and spared the boy's life because he technically didn't kill anyone despite his best efforts.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I wanted to kill and I wished I could kill. And God damn it, you. You won't take the chance from me. I will grow and I will kill as an adult no matter what I do, Mr. Palsart. Because that's my dream. That's my passion.

[Marcus Parks]

Instead of execution, Palsart exiled Jan Pilgrim to Western Australia, making Jan the ineffectually murderous cabin boy. And this is absolutely true. One of the first two white men to settle Australia.

[Ben Kissel]

That explains.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Just makes so much sen. I could totally, absolutely be like, oh, my God, this place is fucking amazing. Fucking the birds will kill you here, man. Wow. I can fucking. Holy shit, I can. Am I surfing? You get a dead surf, I call this a billabong. That's a jazzwazer, that's a bing bonga. Stop making stupid noises and navin birds.

[Marcus Parks]

The other man, cursed to survive the wilds of Australia with Yan was the same guy who took over for Euronymous after his capture by the defenders, Vooder Luch.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Our voices together are going to get us Mortar island boy murderer.

[Marcus Parks]

Despite the fact that he'd been the one who bashed in the minister's wife's head during the massacre of her family, Bouder also earned exile. This put yan and Vowder 160 years ahead of the first British convicts who eventually settled Australia. Unfortunately, though, we have absolutely no idea what happened after this odd couple was dropped off on the coast with nothing more than supplies and a couple barrels of water.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I just see this, like, cut to them, like 20 years later, she comes out, you know, like, you got the yawn. He comes out with his oven made out of seashells and he's baked a cake for his birth. Comes out in Vowder sitting there like they're married now. You know what I mean? Like, she's dressed. He's dressed in a full dress, wig made out of seaweed. You know what I mean? Like, I'm so glad we got married 20 years ago when I was frozen in the form of this boy. I'm so glad we've had the time to take care of each other and enjoy ourselves here in the wonderful island of Australia. Quick.

[Ben Kissel]

Another jerk off contest.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you bet you. Ow, ow, ow, ow.

[Marcus Parks]

I didn't know this magical land arrested everyone in boyhood.

[Ben Kissel]

I mean, that is the movie that should be made about this.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah, no, the Batavia movie. Begins with these two getting dropped up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

With them on the beach.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, no records exist as to what was done with the bodies of the executed men, but the tradition in the Netherlands was to leave the bodies of executed prisoners on display as a warning to others. So it was likely that these nine men were left on the gallows as food for the mutton birds. It's actually almost certain that the bodies were just left there because subsequent voyages to the islands, even 10, 20, 30 years later, noted a sudden spurt in plant growth, which was likely due to the fertilizer the corpses provided.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's a most metal gardening course ever exist, that corpse. We.

[Ben Kissel]

So it finally became like a fruitful island.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, a little bit.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And it just took the bodies of colonizers.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, that's really nice.

[Marcus Parks]

Nature heels. But those men would not be the last to die because of the Batavia. See, Pelsart was eventually able to recover almost everything of value from the shipwreck, including six out of the seven VOC money chests, most of Pelsart's personal valuables, and all but two of the treasure chests. But as we said, Pelsart was trying to make the best impression he possibly could on the voc. So he was dead set on recovering every possible piece of merchandise so he could bring it back to his bosses to show what a good boy he was. So he ordered five men to try and recover a barrel of vinegar from the treacherous coral reef. But during the recovery, a storm swept in. This was expected. The weather had been bad for almost the entirety of the recovery operation. But because of Pelsart's need to please his corporate masters, the five men on the recovery boat were swept out to sea. They disappeared on the open ocean and likely died terrifying deaths by thirst or drowning, all in the service of recovering a goddamn condiment.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, don't you like salads?

[Marcus Parks]

I do love vinegar. Vinegar is one of my favorite things on earth. See? Worth the deaths of five men.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You're the white men that did this. Your people, your vinegar loving people. Yeah. Hey.

[Marcus Parks]

My vinegar loving people. Everyone loves vinegar.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They do. It's honestly, it's actually a secret agreement Indian, in a lot of restaurants that you don't actually understand. Many of your favorite sauces, especially the five mother sauces of French cuisine, are normally finished with a splash of vinegar and other different things. Vinegar helps quite a bit. It adds a needed hit of acid to most foods.

[Marcus Parks]

Indian food's full of vinegar.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah, it's full of vinegar.

[Ben Kissel]

And you can clean the floor with it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, you could fucking drink It.

[Marcus Parks]

It's a magical liquid.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. You could spit it in your fucking boss's.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't know. I don't know if you can. I don't know what that means.

[Ben Kissel]

Are you asking?

[Marcus Parks]

You can spit anything in your boss's.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Anything. But I will.

[Ben Kissel]

But isn't vinegar battery acid?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I will say though, vinegar wasn't just a condiment. Vinegar had many purposes. That's why it was. It was useful. It's why it went after. Because they would pickle all the stuff.

[Ben Kissel]

But it was. It wasn't really that useful.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, it was.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, I mean, but five men dead.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They just killed a bunch of children. Men were expendable back in the day.

[Ben Kissel]

These are good men.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They're fine guys.

[Marcus Parks]

They're sailors.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We don't know their whole story.

[Marcus Parks]

God, you guys are heartless. No, you never know. This is like the historical equivalent of like not knowing whether or not you should say you really like a video because you haven't checked out the person's Twitter yet.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The key is to always say, I won't vouch for the rest of their content.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, but this is good.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Well. Finally, after making sure he recovered as much loot as possible, Pelsart ordered the Saardam to leave the islands on November 15, two months after he returned in almost six months. Six months after the Batavia shipwrecked. Out of the 270 people who've been left behind by upper Merchant Pelsart, only 77 remained alive. But most of the survivors were Viva's defenders. The rest were a part of the 133 people who'd remained on Batavia's graveyard after Euonymus sent his competition away. Out of those 133, only 32 people from Batavia's graveyard were still alive. And that included the 14 mutineers that were taken back to Java for further other questioning and torture. Worst of all was that out of all the children who'd set sail on the Batavia, only one had survived to their ultimate destination.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And that kid, don't even start talking with him. He is sad as hell. He is a bummer.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. To be frank, it's a big bummer. My biggest bummer 8 year old I've ever met in my life. He just sits there and goes shivering.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He can't talk. He's fully entirely traumatized.

[Marcus Parks]

That's why they call him Shivering Johnny.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Shivering. Shivering Johnny of Batavia.

[Ben Kissel]

You ever thought of making your diorama a little happier? Putting a little sun in there, you know, maybe some flowers?

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's always just dead babies on the coast. Like that's all he does. And then. But you know what is nice about him is that no matter what, if you have a drink to mix, you just put in his hands.

[Marcus Parks]

Now I'm sure that upper merchant Pelsart was dreading the return to Java to fully report on all the atrocities that had occurred on his watch to Governor Jan's. Because, man, that the thing at the end, on top of everything else, he has to come back and be like, oh yeah, no, I created a full nightmare world.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah, they did. They created a rape market. I didn't know that they were going to do that. You know, like I didn't leave them with those instructions.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Does Coon care about that though?

[Marcus Parks]

That's the thing. Unbeknownst to Pelsart, he didn't have to worry about K anymore. Just after the Sardam set sail from Java to recover the merchandise, Ice on the Batavia Yanoon collapsed and died at the age of 42 after a history of heart issues and a bout of dysentery.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And that's the thing. And people say that about the patriarchy and now it's bad for all of us, which is true, you know, like, why are men in charge of everything and why do they own everything? But on some level, don't you think it's super stressful?

[Marcus Parks]

Because think about to be a genocidal maniac. Does it wears on your heart?

[Henry Zabrowski]

He was under so much pressure. It's just like, you know, what are you going to do? Of course he went. He got. I wish he had found a way to find some self care time for himself.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

So is the next guy nicer than K?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Never. Literally never. They can't. They can't physically be. You have to be able to. You have to be able to say to yourself, we really need to burn down the entire village, like in order to keep it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And I think Young, he was certainly more concerned with merchandise. He was certainly more concerned with cash. But there were passengers on that ship which was a part of the VOC business and very few of those survived. Oh yes, very. Was it Crazia Jan's doctor? The woman that was the. She had one of the saddest stories actually. She, remember, she was the one who was attacked by the feces and tar. Beautiful, super beautiful woman.

[Ben Kissel]

She was the one who was staying with Euronimous.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. No, yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, she was. She was forced.

[Marcus Parks]

Forced to stay with Euronimous. Yes. Uh, once she got to Batavia, she found out that she Was there to meet her husband because all of her kids had died back in the Netherlands. When she arrived in Batavia, she found out that her husband had died the previous June.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Yeah. Ye. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

Everyone just dies so easily back.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, dude. But it was very dangerous.

[Marcus Parks]

She remarried, moved back to Amsterdam, and lived until the age of, like, 70.

[Henry Zabrowski]

See, that's what a wonderful third act. That's what I tell Natalie all the time. It's like, listen, I'm gonna die while you're in your 60s. You'll go get to go be an incredible lesbian. You get to have so much fun.

[Marcus Parks]

It's nice. That's very nice of you.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Women get to have that.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because husbands die early.

[Marcus Parks]

That is true.

[Ben Kissel]

I hope so.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Yan Cohen's replacement was no less brutal to the mutineers brought back from the shipwreck than Yanoon might have been. Out of the 14 brought back, five were hanged, eight were flogged. And Stone cutter Peterz said to be just as bad as Euronymous Corneli. He was broken on the wheel. And you can hear all about that particularly brutal method of execution if you listen to our recent episode on the Saints.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, that's a wild one. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

But the difference between Stone Cutter's breaking and what occurred in Europe was that while Stone cutter was waiting to die from internal hemorrhaging, as all his limbs were broken and wrapped around the spokes of the wheel until his feet were touching the back of his head, he had to contend with the bugs.

[Ben Kissel]

Who are the bugs?

[Marcus Parks]

Great garage rock group. They work from Minneapolis. Like, bugs are really solid. Honestly.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm gonna write that down.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm making it up.

[Ben Kissel]

I was excited. I was literally open Spotify.

[Marcus Parks]

Check out the. Check out the hangman. You'll love the hangman.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Tell me about Poison Ruin, which is amazing. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Also, I love Poison R. Well, as back to Stone Cutter. As Stone Cutter baked in the southeast Asian sun, flies and mosquitoes quickly covered his body, filling his mouth and swarming his eyeballs, until he finally died a deservedly painful death as the last mutineer from the Batavia to be executed.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Crime don't pay.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now, as far as everyone, everyone else in the story went, very few lived a happy ending.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

While Eva Hayes and all his defenders were promoted with raises, Upper merchant Pelsart was found to be wanting by the voc.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I could see that.

[Marcus Parks]

Who deemed his work unimpressive.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, it is.

[Marcus Parks]

The gentleman, 17 never gave him another command. Although they really didn't have much of a chance to 11 months after the execution of Euronymous Cornelis, Francisco Pelsart caught a fever and died at the age of 35.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, he's only 35 this whole time.

[Marcus Parks]

He's 35.

[Ben Kissel]

No wonder they all killed each other. They're all young idiots.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, we're not that young, but he, you know, 35 at the time was pretty old.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I mean, the oldest man on the ship was Captain Jakobs, and he was in his, like, early to mid-40s. Like, he was far closer to our age than anybody else.

[Ben Kissel]

Died younger than me. Right now.

[Henry Zabrowski]

42.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Again, stress.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But even though the VOC had not given Pelsart a command, his death robbed them of contractually obligated profits. So the gentleman said 17 had all of Pelsart's worth confiscated and absorbed into the voc. Well, that's not true. It's not all of it. They left a small fraction to his mother, but they took, I would say, like, 90% of his earnings.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Everything. Yep. Well, that's what he gets. I mean it. All up.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, well, that's what he gets for signing on with a voc.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, it could have gotten his hands chopped off and hung.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yep, he just died of a fever, just like most of the rest of the people on Java.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, concerning Pelsart's nemesis, Captain Ariana Jakobs, records show that he was still in the dungeons of castle Batavia in 1630, one years after the other mutineers were executed. No further records exist, however, so it's likely that Captain Jakobs died in those same dungeons, having thrown his life away for a dandy from a rich family who'd sold him a fantasy of freedom.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But he got a reality. A four wall.

[Marcus Parks]

But there is, of course, the matter of what happened to the VOC, the most powerful corporation in the world for nearly 200 years and only the second of its kind to exist.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, I missed them. What happened to them?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, like most organizations built on the brutal exploitation of its workers and the idea of profit at all costs, corruption began to eat the VOC from the inside out. By the 18th century, see, the company had always had a corruption problem. But when the VOC faced a serious shortage of capital in the 1750s, the gentleman 17 dramatically lowered salaries across the board, regardless of rank. To compensate, the VOC simply changed their definition of what corruption was to permit agents to trade goods under the VOC's flag.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because it's not corruption if it's laws.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. Yeah, it's not corruption of its laws. And if you just start calling it something else. You don't have to worry about it anymore.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

In other words, they went with full free market capitalism with no rules or regulations, which always 100% of the the time results in even more corruption and eventual collapse.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But not this time, Marcus.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, this time's going to be different.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We're going to do it good, Marcus. I'm going to be buying McDonald's on Saturn.

[Marcus Parks]

But besides the practices of their employees, the VOC was also having a problem hiring and keeping employees.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, you could see the turnover rate would be high.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, throughout its almost 200 years of operation, Russia, roughly 4,000 VOC employees died every single year, both directly and indirectly due to VOC policy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Just fucking. A wild number.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zabrowski]

4,000. You're like, we lost 4,000 employees this year. Microsoft. No. To the angel of death.

[Marcus Parks]

That tended to discourage recruitment as Europe moved more into the modern age and human life became a little less disposable.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, man. Because now it's very sacred.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. No, well, it's a little more sacred now than it was in 1750.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's true.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now, there were half a dozen other reasons that contributed to the VOC's downfall. But what finally killed the VOC was a war between the Dutch and the English in which the VOC lost tens of millions of dollars in guilders because the British Navy finally caught up. The VOC's charter was therefore allowed to expire on December 31, 1799. And with that, the VOC died just as the 19th century was born, having gone down in history as one of the most evil, callous and exploitative corporations to ever exist.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But I want to first say thanks for the nutmeg. I also like pepper.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And I've really come to enjoy when you. A hint of star anise.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. I enjoyed the smell of cloves.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

So, yeah, like, that's great. We just need to kill a bunch of people so I can enjoy a smell.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I mean, that's really all I ask for, is that I really only like potpourri if it's filled with the blood and guts of children.

[Ben Kissel]

But the clove oil helps with the. The anal sex.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I know, but I just don't use it enough for me to think it.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, I've been thinking a lot about why none of us have ever heard of the Batavia until a listener brought it to our attention. Why such a fantastic story has been all but lost to time. In comparing it to other survival and disaster stories, my first thought was that the Batavia hasn't survived because it doesn't have any mean, unlike, say, the stories behind the Uruguayan rugby team, the Donner Party, or even the Titanic. If you look at it simply, the Batavia could be seen as nothing more than a brutal story about a shipwreck that resulted in one man turning the lives of the survivors into a serial killer's playground.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's enough meaning for me.

[Marcus Parks]

But. But as I thought about it a little more, I realized that the reason why the Batavia story hasn't survived is because it has too much meaning, as the story of the Batavia is, at its essence, the story of what happens when the ugliest and most uncomfortable parts of humanity are allowed to run wild. See, the VOC doesn't just represent simple corporate greed. It's a company that knowingly and callously sacrificed the lives of 4,000 employees a year and killed who knows how many of the people it enslaved. And it looked at their deaths as not just acceptable losses, but essential parts of their business model. Likewise, the mutineers don't just represent human cruelty. Their actions show just how quickly men can turn into monsters willing to crush a child's skull on someone else's. Say so with all the emotion of stomping on a cock. Cockroach. And they show just how easily other men will join in, if only to save themselves. Furthermore, the lessons from the Batavia are difficult to absorb, considering how companies like the VOC effectively created the modern world. It's been proven time and again that unrestrained capitalism inevitably leads to foul exploitation. And it's a system in which every single one of us participates.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, I'm wearing pants. Immediate all from Halliburton. I like a lot of my clothes.

[Ben Kissel]

I love packages.

[Marcus Parks]

It's also difficult to accept that men like the gentleman 17 are more in charge now than they've ever been. And it's hard to see how that's ever going to change. Especially when it feels like we're in the final stage of a plan that was hatched hundreds of years ago, and especially when many of our fellow citizens are welcoming subjugation. But we cannot despair and we cannot lose hope. For every Euronomist Corneli's leading a horde of psychopaths, there's a Viva Hayes who sees right through his bullshit, and defenders who are willing to back him up. Every organization throughout history that's built on backstabbing, exploitation and profit above all inevitably topples and falls. And things happen far faster in today's world than they did in the 17th century. And while the corporations of the world seem like impossible monoliths that hold all the power, the one thing they can never take from you is who you are. Just so long as you stay fucking strong. They can try to manipulate you. They can try to tell you what to think. They can try to cram AI down your throat and convince you that's what you want. But you don't have to let him. As I said, it's not the 17th century anymore. This is 2025. And I think it's high time we started looking at that as a good thing. People are smarter, healthier, and stronger, even though that's hard to see sometimes. And we're also far more numerous than we've ever been. For every one of the bastards in charge of this world, there are millions of us. And if we all stick together, it is possible, however slim the chance might be, that we can stop the Musks and the Bezos and the Zuckerbergs from bringing days of the VOC back into our daily lives. Even though the meaning of the Batavia is about as ugly as it gets, we can still take inspiration from the horror, absorb it as an example of what the world could look like if we don't fight back. And we can use that inspiration to resist the motherfuckers in charge in whatever way we can until the day we die.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, my brother. That's why I wanted to do this fucking story.

[Marcus Parks]

Hell yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I was so excited to do do this story. It really. It's true. It like. I think you hit it right on the money, dude, because this is the only thing that we can do, truly, that will always work is gum up the works.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep.

[Henry Zabrowski]

So I'll say that I definitely, as a podcast producer, I'm always in charge of a general strike. I am ready to do it.

[Marcus Parks]

And you gum up my works all the time.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, that's my job.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Literally, with your gums.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's my job. Just know that a part of what we're going to have to do as we roll through this next couple years is obstruct as much as possible, which we can do.

[Marcus Parks]

Do whatever you can do. Find out what you can do and fucking do it.

[Ben Kissel]

And I also, you know, it's a. It's a common expression, but I think it rings true more. More now than ever. It's just. Don't let the fucking bastards get you down.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's what they want. They want to take it from you. They want to take your day to.

[Ben Kissel]

Day from trying to break your spirit. And, you know, every time you let them them, they're winning. So Just fucking ignore it and fight forward.

[Marcus Parks]

Try to. Yeah. If you need to fall apart every once in a while, fall apart, but pick yourself back up.

[Ben Kissel]

Amen.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Get your fucking shit together. So now. But now the Batavia. The comedy of the Batavia is told. We're so excited because next week we're moving on into another big project that I am personally very excited is another multi parter. It is another multi parter. I'm extremely excited because we're going to modern times.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And we're going to see some of these lessons are going to pop up up again in this next story. But I cannot wait because we're going to meet my favorite Idaho 10. Can't wait to see her, man.

[Ben Kissel]

Also, I just want to say I'm coming to Florida.

[Henry Zabrowski]

All right.

[Ben Kissel]

I might as well be on the Batavia with this tour but invasive species. I'm touring Florida. I'm going for a week in March and a week in May. In March, from March 20th to the 23rd, I'll be in Jacksonville, Panama City and Tallahassee, Florida. The Tallahassee Show I'm doing with Danny Bedrosian of Pre Funk. He's gonn play the keyboards with me.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Did you hear about this too? I did not know Eddie accidentally booked himself in the same venue that Murder Fist started.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like the first place I ever did comedy. I'm coming Back to the 926 Bar and Grill, which formerly Brothers.

[Marcus Parks]

That's awesome. That is funny.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And the exact 20 year anniversary of our buddy Danny's first time playing in his band at that venue.

[Marcus Parks]

That's crazy.

[Ben Kissel]

The same exact venue. It's going to be a hell of a show. I can't wait. So if you're in the talent Tallahassee area, go to that. Also in May, from May 6th to the 11th, I'm going to be in Naples, Dania Beach, Orlando and a whole three nights in Key West. But Daniel beach and Orlando are going to be side story shows. So make sure you guys come out to that. It's gonna be a lot of fun. [e-mail].

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. And I can't wait. I'm gonna be with you when we are in Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. We're gonna have a blast.

[Ben Kissel]

I can't wait. It's gonna be great.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's gonna be really fun. And then we are gonna be.

[Marcus Parks]

We're coming to Dallas. If you're listening to this, it's going to be in one week on February 22nd. We're going to be out there in Grand Prairie. My brother tells me the venue is built in the middle of a swamp. Awesome. I didn't know they had water still.

[Ben Kissel]

In Texas, so that's nice.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah, no, no. Dallas is very swampy.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, okay.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. Once you're starting to get into East Texas, and once you start to get into East Dallas is like the gateway to East Texas. And that's when starts getting real swampy and real racist.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, we're gonna fix them. We're going out there. We're gon fix y'all. We go downtown Texas, and I not leaving the stone unturned. Yeah. All right. We're having fun because Texas Pete Henry Browski is going to be there.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it'll be cool.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm looking forward to coming back to Texas. It's been a while since I've been back, so. Yeah, looking forward to come back home.

[Ben Kissel]

Can't wait to try the pizza.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, you know what? Just keep your. If you keep your expectations at the appropriate level, you'll be fine.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I know exactly where. Where we're going. I already know. I already know where we're going to eat.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, barbecue.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, buddy.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm going to get so sick.

[Ben Kissel]

I really want to get sick and fat.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ben Kissel]

I mean, well, fatter.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Well, if you want to give money directly to us and if you want to see actual video episodes of last podcast on the left, go join our Patreon, patreon.com lastpodcast on the left. We've got all kinds of there for all the different levels. You know, you can see. You can watch our stream live every Tuesday. If you're a Patreon member. That is a last stream on the left. That's every Tuesday at 6pm PST. You can also follow us on the socials, Tick tock, Instagram @LP on the left. And don't forget to check out all of our other streams at Twitch tv, lpntv. And we've also got a ton of other shows coming up after Dallas. You can go to Last Podcast on the left dot com, click on shows to see when we're going to be coming near. Hear you.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We cannot wait because it's more fun than ever. Is it, boys?

[Marcus Parks]

Isn't it?

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, my God.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Dirty little horse.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah. Come on out to Dallas. It's gonna be fun. I got a shitload of family coming.

[Ben Kissel]

Oh, that's gonna be awesome. I can't wait to meet the rest of your family.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, you'll. You'll meet them. Yeah, they are a funny bunch. Hail sweet Satan.

[Marcus Parks]

Hell again.

[Ben Kissel]

Hail Marcus Parks for putting this big together.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Thank you.

[Marcus Parks]

And also also say hey, Hail Joel and Shaw, our research assistants who absolutely crushed it on the series and could, of course I could not have done it without them. So thank you. But also hail them.

[Ben Kissel]

I'm gonna say this is my favorite series.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, I've been loving it.

[Ben Kissel]

Yeah. Really truly love this one.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Wait till next week because it's. I'm very excited for this next coming Coming.

[Marcus Parks]

At Ameca Insurance, we know it's more than just a house. It's your home. The place that's filled with memories.

[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

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