Francisco Pelsaert ( – September 1630) was a Dutch merchant who worked for the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

best known for his role as the commander of the . The ship ran aground in the

Houtman Abrolhos The Houtman Abrolhos (often called the Abrolhos Islands) is a chain of 122 islands and associated coral reefs, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia, about west of Geraldton, Western Australia. It is the southernmost true coral ...

, off the

coastal regions of Western Australia Western Australia has the longest coastline of any state or territory in Australia, at 10,194 km or 12,889 km (20,781 km including islands). It is a significant portion of the coastline of Australia, which is 35,877 km (59, ...

in June 1629, which led to a massacre of survivors orchestrated by

Jeronimus Cornelisz Jeronimus Cornelisz (c. 1598 – 2 October 1629) was a Dutch apothecary and Dutch East India Company merchant who sailed aboard the merchant ship which foundered near the Australian mainland. Cornelisz then led one of the bloodiest mutinies i ...

Background

Born in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

, Pelsaert joined the

and sailed to India in 1618, where he was posted as a junior merchant, spending seven years in

Agra Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is ...

during which time he became a senior merchant. After a brief return to the United Provinces in 1628, he departed for Java soon after in command of the ''Batavia''.

''Batavia''

During the voyage from the

Texel Texel (; Texels dialect: ) is a municipality and an island with a population of 13,643 in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the largest and most populated island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. The island is situated north of De ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

, a company official,

, and the ship's skipper

Ariaen Jacobsz ''Batavia'' () was a ship of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Built in Amsterdam in 1628 as the company's new flagship, she sailed that year on her maiden voyage for Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies. On 4 June 1629, ''Batavia'' was ...

, had plotted but never attempted a mutiny against Pelsaert. Before this was possible, the ship had been wrecked. The wreck of the ''Batavia'' took place on Morning Reef, about to the south of what is now known as Beacon Island. Of the 341 passengers and crew, about 40 drowned early on while trying to reach a small island, while the rest succeeded in getting ashore. After a brief search of the island and several nearby islands, the commander realized that the islands held no natural water source, and eventually decided to head for

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

to get help. He left with the ship's longboat and a party of 48 officers and passengers, including one baby in arms. All survived the voyage. Though neither sailor nor soldier, Cornelisz was the most senior Dutch East India Company official left behind. After the departure of Pelsaert and Jacobsz, he assumed control of the social situation. Cornelisz and his men then began a reign of terror, murdering over 100 men, women, and children before they finally found resistance from a group of soldiers under the command of

Wiebbe Hayes Wiebbe Hayes () was a Dutch soldier known for his leading role in the suppression of Jeronimus Cornelisz's massacre of shipwreck survivors in 1629, after the merchant ship was wrecked in the Houtman Abrolhos, a chain of coral islands off the w ...

, who had been exiled to a neighbouring island. In October 1629, after a four-month absence, Pelsaert returned to the islands on the Dutch East India Company’s ship . Cornelisz had been captured weeks earlier by Hayes' men, and he and his followers were tried and most were executed. After several weeks spent trying to salvage the Batavia's goods, Pelsaert and the survivors returned to Java.

Later life

Pelsaert's health had suffered from the hardships, but nevertheless he took part in an expedition to

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

. He died in September 1630, soon after his return to Batavia. He does not seem to have taken his seat in the High Government at Batavia for which he had been selected as extraordinary member in 1629. Little of his life earnings were eventually passed to his elderly mother. He had no offspring, and no heirs for his fortune. In the end, the Dutch East India Company retained most of his earnings. Pelsaert had secretly acquired a large sum of unauthorized goods and money before his death. These were discovered by the Dutch East India Company, and confiscated.

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pelsaert, Francisco 1590s births 1630 deaths Batavia (1628 ship) Businesspeople from Antwerp Sailors on ships of the Dutch East India Company Shipwreck survivors