Wouter Loos was a soldier on board the Dutch East India Company ship Batavia, which sank on Morning Reef in the Wallabi Group of the Houtman Abrolhos Islands off the coast of Western Australia in 1629. Loos had a critical role in the subsequent Batavia Mutiny, becoming the leader of the mutiny after the original leader, Jeronimus Cornelisz (Corneliszoon), was captured.
The Batavia Mutiny is well documented. The first account was published in 1647 in Ongeluckige Voyagie, and a detailed and complete translation of Commandeur Francisco Pelsaert's journal was published by Henrietta Drake-Brockman in Voyage to Disaster in 1963.
Loos was aged 24 when the Batavia Mutiny took place. In the course of the mutiny he was accused of being involved in a particularly gruesome and notorious incident in which all the Predikant (minister) Gijsbert Bastiaenszoon's family, apart from his eldest daughter Judith, were massacred in their tent. He was also reported to have bashed in the head of Mayken Cardoes while another mutineer was trying to cut her throat.
There was a dramatic change in Loos's role, however, on 2 September 1629. Corneliszoon had been inept in his tactics in the conflict that had arisen between the mutineers and another group, the defenders, who had been holding out against them. On the pretext of negotiating, Corneliszoon, accompanied by Loos and four other henchmen, had arranged to meet with the defenders. However, the defenders sprang a trap and tried to take Corneliszoon and his henchmen prisoner. Other mutineers nearby immediately prepared to attack, so the defenders killed all their prisoners on the spot, apart from Corneliszoon, and Loos, who managed to escape.
As an anonymous defender described it, "by a ruse we took five of the principal murderers prisoner. Seeing this, the others resorted to their weapons. When we saw this, that our enemies wanted to come upon us, we struck four of them dead." [1] This was done to "avoid being hampered by the prisoners". [2] Consequently, Lance-Corporal Cornelis Pieterszoon, Cadets Conraat van Huyssens and Gysbrecht van Welderen, and Assistant Davidt Zevanck were killed on the spot. With their leader Corneliszoon captured and four of their number killed, the mutineers retired in confusion.
The mutineers then regrouped and elected the 24-year-old Loos as their "captain". Being a soldier, Loos was far more adept in his tactics. On the morning of 17 September the mutineers attacked again, this time using their muskets to telling effect. Four defenders were wounded, one, Gunner Jan Dircxszoon from Emden, later dying of his wounds. [3] But as the two-hour battle reached its climax, the Sardam, commanded by Francisco Pelsaert, miraculously appeared. [4]
Forewarned by Wiebbe Hayes, leader of the defenders, that the mutineers intended to capture the Sardam, Pelsaert acted decisively and the mutiny was ended. Pelsaert then set about investigating the mutiny, salvaging the wreck and recovering property. This took a couple of months.
Most participants in the mutiny were subject to judicial torture as part of their examination. Loos managed to resist the torture and diminish his culpability, and so he was not among the seven ringleaders who were hanged on Long Island on 2 October 1629. [5] However, on 27 October Pelsaert reopened Loos' investigation, the result of the Predikant's daughter Judith raising his complicity in the massacre of her family. This re-examination revealed the true extent of his involvement. Upon his guilt being determined, the ship's council then made an unusual decision: instead of hanging Loos, he would be marooned on the coast, along with Jan Pelgrom de Bye van Bemel. De Bye, an 18-year-old cabin boy, had been due to be hanged on 2 October, but had been reprieved due to his youth.
Subsequently, on 16 November 1629, Loos and de Bye were abandoned on the Western Australian coast, probably at the mouth of the Hutt River, [6] with a small boat, trade goods and 'provided with everything.' [7] They were issued a set of instructions which urged them to 'make themselves known to the folk of this land.' [8] Thus Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom de Bye became the first Europeans to become resident in Australia, but they were never heard of again.
Batavia 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.
Francisco Pelsaert was a Dutch merchant who worked for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) best known for his role as the commander of the Batavia. The ship ran aground in the Houtman Abrolhos, off the coastal regions of Western Australia in June 1629, which led to a massacre of the survivors orchestrated by Jeronimus Cornelisz.
Jeronimus Cornelisz was a Dutch apothecary and Dutch East India Company merchant who sailed aboard the merchant ship Batavia which foundered near the Australian mainland. Cornelisz then led one of the bloodiest mutinies in history.
The Zaandam, or Sardam, Saerdam and Saardam, was a 17th-century yacht of the Dutch East India Company. It was a small merchant vessel designed primarily for the inter-island trade in the East Indies.
Strange Objects is a 1990 novel by Australian author Gary Crew.
A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a desert island, either to evade captors or the world in general. A person may also be left ashore as punishment (marooned).
Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny is a book released in 2001 by Welsh author Mike Dash about the Dutch East India Company ship Batavia, shipwrecked in 1629 on a small atoll of the Houtman Abrolhos, off the western shore of Australia.
Dutch Australians refers to Australians of Dutch ancestry. They form one of the largest groups of the Dutch diaspora outside Europe. At the 2021 census, 381,946 people nominated Dutch ancestry, representing 1.5% of the Australian population. At the 2021 census, there were 66,481 Australian residents who were born in the Netherlands.
Willem Siebenhaar was a social activist and writer in Western Australia from the 1890s until he left Australia in 1924. His literary contributions and opposition to policies such as conscription were his most notable contributions to the history of the state.
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 Batavia was wrecked in the Houtman Abrolhos, a chain of coral islands off the west coast of Australia.
The Abrolhos tragedy is the only English translation of Isaac Commelin's 1647 Ongeluckige voyagie, van't schip Batavia, which was the first published account of the 1629 shipwreck of Batavia in the Houtman Abrolhos, and the subsequent mutiny and massacre that occurred amongst the survivors.
Florance Constantine Broadhurst (1861–1909) was a 19th-century Western Australian businessman who is most notable for successfully taking over the management of a number of business ventures of his ill-fortuned, yet extremely creative and hard-working father, Charles Edward Broadhurst, and turning a profit. The best known of these is the guano mining venture in the Houtman Abrolhos. While his entrepreneur father had recognised the potential of the industry and began mining, eventually to obtain a monopoly on the extraction of the guano, he proved unsuccessful in managing the concern. This situation continued until Florance, who had a mercantile education, joined the concern and began managing the venture under the name Broadhurst MacNeil and Company. MacNeil was initially a backer and a partner, but he took no part in the management of the venture. With his accountancy training F.C. Broadhurst proved enormously successful exporting to Europe and winning a gold medal at the Paris Exposition.
Hutt River is a river in the Mid West region of Western Australia.
West Wallabi Island is an island in the Wallabi Group of the Houtman Abrolhos, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of mainland Australia.
Lucretia Jans, or Lucretia van der Mijlen, was a survivor of the events that followed the sinking of the Dutch East India Company vessel Batavia in 1629.
Rupert Gerritsen was an Australian historian and a noted authority on Indigenous Australian prehistory. Coupled with his work on early Australian cartography, he played an influential part in re-charting Australian history prior to its settlement by the British in 1788, and noted evidence of agriculture and settlements on the continent before the arrival of settlers.
Max Cramer OAM was an Australian scuba diver who became famous as the co-discoverer of the wreck of the Batavia on 4 June 1963. He was involved in a number of maritime archaeology projects pertaining to historic shipwrecks in Western Australia.
The Wiebbe Hayes Stone Fort on West Wallabi Island is the oldest surviving European building in Australia and was built in 1629 by survivors of the Batavia shipwreck and massacre. West Wallabi Island is 63 km (39 mi) from the coast of Western Australia.
Pelsaert Island is one of the islands of the Pelsaert Group, which is the southernmost of the three groups of islands that make up the Houtman Abrolhos island chain in Western Australia.
Beacon Island, also known as Batavia's Graveyard, is an island on the eastern side of the Wallabi Group at the northern end of the Houtman Abrolhos, in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Western Australia.