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

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

(VOC) 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 r ...

, off the coastal regions of Western Australia in June 1629, which led to a massacre of the 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 (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

, 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 Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is the ...

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 Den ...

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, a company official,

, and the ship's skipper Ariaen Jacobsz, 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 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 VOC 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 (born ) 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 ...

, who had been exiled to a neighbouring island. In October 1629, after a four-month absence, Pelsaert returned to the islands on the VOC'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 list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

. 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.

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