Batavia (1628 ship)

Batavia ([baˈtaːvia] ^ⓘ) was a ship of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). She was built in Amsterdam in 1628 as the flagship of one of the three annual fleets of company ships and sailed that year on her maiden voyage for Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies. On 4 June 1629, Batavia was wrecked on the Houtman Abrolhos, a chain of small islands off Western Australia.

As the ship broke apart, approximately 300 of the Batavia's 341 passengers and crew made their way ashore, the rest drowning in their attempts. The ship's commander, Francisco Pelsaert, sailed to Batavia to get help, leaving in charge senior VOC official Jeronimus Cornelisz, unaware he had been plotting a mutiny prior to the wreck. Cornelisz tricked about 20 men under soldier Wiebbe Hayes into searching for fresh water on nearby islands, abandoning them there to die. With the help of other mutineers, he then orchestrated a massacre that, over the course of several weeks, resulted in the murder of approximately 125 of the remaining survivors, including women, children and infants; a small number of women were kept as sex slaves.

Meanwhile, Hayes' group had unexpectedly found fresh water and, after learning of the atrocities, waged battles with Cornelisz's group. In October 1629, at the height of their last and deadliest battle, they were interrupted by the return of Pelsaert aboard the rescue vessel, Sardam. Pelsaert subsequently tried and convicted Cornelisz and six of his men, who became the first Europeans to be legally executed in Australia. Two other henchmen, convicted of comparatively minor crimes, were marooned on mainland Australia, thus becoming the first Europeans to permanently inhabit the Australian continent. Only 122 of the original passengers made it to the port of Batavia.

Associated today with "one of the worst horror stories in maritime history", Batavia has been the subject of numerous published histories. Due to its unique place in the history of European contact with Australia, the story of Batavia is sometimes offered as an alternative founding narrative to the landing of British convicts in Sydney. Of the 47 or so VOC wrecks which have been located and identified, Batavia is the only early 17th century example from which the remaining hull components have been retrieved, conserved and subject to detailed study. Many Batavia artifacts are housed at the Western Australian Shipwrecks Musueum in Fremantle, while a replica of the ship is moored as a museum ship in Lelystad in the Netherlands.