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I was both fascinated and horrorstruck at the sametime,and the story has left an impression that will last for a longtime. When I first started to read this book,it was difficult to stop.
It will make you grateful you didn't live in 17th century. This is a very well researched true story.
Moreover, the author does not mince words when it comes to showing the Dutch brutalities in maintaining discipline among it's own and among the locals. I love it when I learn something from these non-fiction adventure stories. Besides the in-depth descriptions of the personalities aboard the Batavia, the history of the East Indies and how the Dutch managed to become the superior trading force there is clearly explained in this book.
Very detailed and the footnotes, though numerous, were helpful. I couldnt put this book down - it was great.
One final important point is that there was actually no need to resort to treachery, terrible rationing, and murder and civil war due to the lack of water and food anyway (not to mention retaining basic human values in any case); if they had been led by someone who had more basic character and who bothered to reasonably assess their situation, they would have actually found enough food and water on the various small islands to survive until they were all rescued. I won't tell you all the details, except that most of the survivors die not through thirst or hunger, but through being murdered, however some also survive and eventually make it to Indonesia, which at least puts some positive perspective on the rather terrible story. It's a true and very dramatic story that surely should be made into a feature film (like `Mutiny on the Bounty', but much `bigger'), where the desperate struggles between 3 splinter groups on different islands feature dramatically, but it would be a terribly bloody, heart-rending film. Also of note is that several other Dutch ships suffered the same fate in the same time period on the same dramatic and inhospitable coastline (the winds and currents often drove them there), but most of their stories are unknown since nobody survived these other shipwrecks to `tell the tale'. But ironically enough, one group of `outcasts' eventually get their revenge, as one of the other islands actually turns out to have a reasonable supply of water and food-unlike the island they are outcast from- which factor eventually turns the tide in their favour. This is a one of the very best `survival' stories, where a Dutch ship-the Batavia- strikes a remote reef in the 17th century off the West Australian coastline, sailing off course partly due to negligence, partly due to the difficulty in estimating longitude at the time, but perhaps partly also due to a planned mutiny that was brewing amongst the crew.
The book is perhaps a little long, and strays into a few long-winded tangents (such as religious intolerances in Europe in the 17th century as a backstory to the main villian's character, and the Indonesian spice trade of the time), but is nevertheless one of the better reads of a 'Lord of The Flies' type survival story, where the absence of civil restraint and sheer survival desperation can bring out the worst (and best) in some people. In fact, one group manage to row all the way to Indonesia (several thousand miles), and organise a rescue mission, which returns only to find the remaining 2 groups (a third group had been `eliminated') in the midst of a civil war battle-not dissimilar to what happened in `Lord of the Flies' when the children were eventually rescued. The more than 200 men, women, and children survivors find themselves on a few small, bare, treeless islands with barely any water, no shelter and barely any food, and start murdering each other because there are too many survivors and not enough food and water, but primarily because of one particular psychopath-originally the third in command- who is left in charge. There is treachery, deceit, irony, and a lot of luck set amidst the few small bare islands, but there is also human ingenuity and resistance to oppression as well. This is one where a few score did, and it is worth the gruesome read.It might be the first, or certainly one of the first, European 'settlements' in modern Australian history, which gives one pause as to what conditions and what individuals modern Australia has sprung from. The story is true, gruesome, cruel, full of irony and both very positive and very negative aspects of human character, and very well told.
The 3 groups do not splinter intentionally, 2 groups are deceived into going to other islands to look for water, and left to die there without any of the few supplies salvaged from the ship.
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