Islands of Angry Ghosts: The Story of Batavia, Australia's Bloodiest Mutiny

by Hugh Edwards

A fascinating story, in print since 1966, Islands of Angry Ghosts is a story in two parts. It traces and re-creates the final months of the Batavia and her crew, pieced together through journals, letters and trial records. It also follows the discovery and salvage of Batavia's wreck by Hugh Edwards and a crew of divers. In 1629, the Dutch East India merchantman the Batavia was wrecked on reef islands off the West Australian coast while on a routine trip to Indonesia. What followed this disaster is a harrowing tale of desertion, betrayal and murder. More than 125 men, women and children were murdered by mutineers caught in a frenzy of bloodlust and greed. By the time the rescue ship finally arrived, months later, the marooned were caught in a desperate battle between soldiers trying to defend the survivors and the mutineers who were bent on leaving no witnesses. More than three hundred years later, Hugh Edwards, a West Australian reporter and diving enthusiast, started to search for the lost ship. When Edwards and his team found the Batavia, they discovered the final piece of a story that has gripped Australians for over a century.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Australia

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 15, 2000

Reviews

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edwards tells two stories: the sensational and frankly disturbing loss of the Batavia, and the personal and somewhat lighthearted finding of it again (spiced with an almost-fatal cannon accident and shark encounter).

Neither approach the topic clinically. The tale of the wreck is dramatized and perhaps over-sensational, with dialog attributed to participants and narrated with real emotion. This is perhaps warranted, as the events reveal an incredible depth of human failure. The captain and the commander quarreled bitterly, even considering the fact that the captain and select officers and crew were hatching a mutinous plot to become pirates, with Batavia itself as prize. And the senior officers, in a continued rash of poor or weak judgement, themselves sailed off, leaving the surviving soldiers and civilians to fend for themselves in the care of the junior officers. And the junior officer in de facto charge was himself a mutineer with cult leanings, driven only by the need to fulfil base desires. It is not, you might say, an uplifting Swiss Family Robinson story.

[Steve Chilcott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read and a truly amazing true story.
The Batavia’s gruesome history is brilliantly covered in the first half of the book and it was very hard to put it down.
I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy the second half of the book, the present day (1963) discovery and recovery of the wreck but I actually enjoyed this half more than the first.
A great read and a thoroughly enjoyable well written book.

[Courtney Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful & informative read despite the age of it

[Tommy Seselja · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half that charts the history of the Batavia shipwreck & mutiny was interesting enough, but I was more captured by Edwards’ passionate, first-hand account of his team’s adventure to find the wreck in the 1960s. He’s like a young boy in a toy shop as he recounts it!

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 1966 book was the Third to be published
on the Wreck of the Batavia in 1629
on its Maiden Voyage to Indonesia.
It became one of the first of the hundreds
of wrecks that litter Australia's rugged coastline.
AND it is probably one of the most notorious,vicious,
bloodthirsty and chilling shipwrecks in history.

The Australian Opera when advertising the Operatic Version
of this tale a couple of years ago, had to warn patrons
about its very possibly upsetting and grisly contents.
Sadly they had not done this on its debut a few years previously.

I first came across the story in 1981
when I was able to visit a small museum at Geraldton
on Australia's west coast.
The thought that two of the mutineers
were left marooned on this barren and rugged coastline
has never left me. The others had been hung after having their hand/hands cut off at the scene of their ghastly crimes, the Abrolhos Islands off the Western Australian coast.
Their victims were mainly passengers,men and women,young people, children and babies
whose skeletons, many in grotesque postures,are still being discovered
on this tiny group of barren islands.

The story is gripping - both terrifying and horrifying and absolutely CHILLING!!in its deliberate and calculated cruelty.
It is a shame that no reviewers have done it justice on this site.

I have no idea how available Hugh Edwards award winning book is,
but in recent years a number of versions have been published,
the latest by Peter Fitzsimons, which I will try and find on Goodreads.

FOUND:
"Batavia", published 2011, by Peter FitzSimons, a former footballer and now sports reporter, is a "ripping yarn", and even though more than 400 pages long rips along and is continually absorbing. Can't put it down. Lots of interesting details and the people come to life. It would make a gripping film which I don't think I would have the courage or stomach to see.
Shall review it on site.


Hugh Edwards was also involved in the search for the Batavia in 1963,
which had taken five years to locate.The first half is the story of the Batavia and its tragic passengers and crew The second half is the tale of how the site of the wreck was finally discovered and much of it raised.Edwards was a passionate diver on wrecks,passionate about the contact with history and real people of the past.And he conveys it all.
Far from "boring" as described in a very limited and dull 'review' here.

[Diana]

Normally I don’t hesitate to slap a bad rating on books I’m not quite sure about, but in this case I legit have no idea how to balance the good vs the bad so I’ll just leave it off.
Probably a good 60+% is dedicated to the search for the wreck, which I didn’t care for whatsoever. This is a short enough book as it is, so to have so little space taken up by the actual story of the Batavia was disappointing - especially because this part was so well written!

Edwards mainly tells the story through the eyes of the ill fated commander, Pelsaert, probably simply because Pelsaert is the main first hand historical source for what went down. Huge missed opportunity to skip the entire journey of the Batavia up until the wreck and then basically skip the entire 1-2 months when the passengers were stranded on tiny islands and were terrorised by the mutineers. Part of me understands why you wouldn’t want to write about murder after murder in detail, but then again… if you don’t, what’s the point of writing about the Batavia at all?
I still feel like I don’t understand how a group of men could descend into such a haze of blood lust and brutality - for such a long time too!, and I also don’t feel any closer to understanding how the surviving victims experienced this horrible time. Missed opportunity all in all.

[Neil Willcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book comes in two parts. First the wreck and mutiny of the Dutch East India Company ship Batavia on the Abrolhos islands off Western Australia on her maiden voyage from Texel to, er, Batavia. Secondly comes the expedition led by the author, Hugh Edwards, to find and then dive onto the wreck.

The first part is quite exciting in a slightly overwrought way, taking at face value the contemporary Dutch idea that the mutiny was inspired by the heretical ideas of Torrentius. (An alternative explanation would be that the heretics were fleeing persecution, and so decided to seize the ship to finance a new life. Not that it matters, it’s still a terrible crime no matter the reason for it.) The plan, to overthrow the Commandeur when they sighted Australia (the navigational landmark that indicated they should turn north to Java) seemed to go well as the convoy was scattered in a storm, but went wrong when they ran aground.

After the most reliable men set sail in a boat to get help from Java, the mutineers send the soldiers to another island where they claim there is water though they didn’t find any. They then get to massacring anyone who isn’t on their side. However it turns out there is water on one of the northern islands, and one of the victims escapes and tells the soldiers what’s going on. Despite not having their weapons they hold out until finally a ship arrives. They warn them of the danger and the mutiny is put down.

The location of the wreck is then lost, and in the 19th century Captain Stokes misidentifies the wreck of the Zeewijk on the southern group of islands for that of the Batavia. Not until a local author Henrietta Drake-Brockman gets a copy of the logs and documents from the Netherlands, has them translated and starts a controversy does anyone think to look on the Northern group.

Hugh Edwards, diver and journalist, is interested, tries to get an expedition together, fails to find anything, goes off on some other dives, gets married, comes home to Western Australia, then some of fishermen on the islands find artefacts and he succeeds in putting a dive expedition together.

Unlike the first half with rape, murder, cannibalism etc this part is a bit more family friendly. Of course they find skeletons and the gallows, they are put in danger by sharks and weather, and their attempts to lift cannon from the bottom have mixed success, including breaking the mast that holds the winch on the borrowed naval diving boat, which puts them behind while it’s replaced with steel.

However they get a good haul of artefacts, are able to confirm some details, map the sites, and Edwards gets some good articles and this book out of it, which wins the Sir Thomas White Memorial Prize for the best work published by an Australian in 1966. So that’s nice.

Read This: For an interesting and informative book about the shipwreck, mutiny and dive archaeology.
Don’t Read This: If gruesome events aren’t your thing.

[Cristina Urdiales · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 y medio sería más justo. Es un libro entretenido y bien escrito, pero tiene el problema de que la historia del Batavia, motivo por el que probablemente lo leímos muchos, ocupa sólo una tercera parte del libro y el resto es la presentación del autor como buceador y la tarea de arqueología submarina que lleva a cabo para localizar y rescatar parte del pecio en los años 60. No es que sea aburrido, pero el cambio de ritmo es tan brutal que cuesta volver a coger el paso, ya que la arqueología submarina es poco más o menos como uno espera: comprueba el estado del mar, navega hasta el lugar, desciende, localiza una pieza, despégala del coral, sube al barco vuelve a tierra, duerme y repite. Si hubiera estado preparada para esto, me habría entrado mejor, tanto más siendo aficionada al buceo, pero al esperar otra cosa, se me arrastraron demasiado las dos terceras partes del libro. No obstante, recomendable, sabiendo a lo que uno va.

[Michelle Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous account of both the wreck and it's discovery in 1963. Whilst a bit dated, this is still a gripping first-hand account of the finding of the Batavia wreck, and a good, compact read of what happened 400 years ago. If you want a more indepth and sightly more up to date account, Mike Dash's book is fantastic, but this is a quicker read and a terrific insight into the actual search/finding of the wreck and remains in the 1960s. Highly recommended.

[Alex Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing description of a savage tale. Living on this side of the continent and traveling the area adds an extra layer to the story.

[Branislav Ruzicic · Rating 3 out of 5]

First part interesting, second bit boring

[Jo-Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not my usual type of read but really enjoyed it.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great account of the Batavia journey, shipwreck, massacre and discovery of the wreck.

[Brad Gosling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling reading. This book tells the harrowing tale of the voyage, wreck and rescue of the Batavia crew in all its gruesome detail. Be prepared for an emotional and at times uncomfortable read.

[Pippa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well written book, and is quite compulsive reading. (I'd read it before though, and remembered how good it was.) The first half gives the terrible story of the Batavia, one of the ships from the Dutch East India Company, wrecked in 1629 on a reef island off the coast of Western Australia - and the second half tells the story of how Hugh Edwards and other divers explored the wreck, and its surroundings. It is such a terrible story, and yet the book did seem to bring a kind of completion and peace to me.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

With such a well documented and horrible crime it is hard to believe that it took so long to locate and recover artifacts from the Batavia wreck site. The author does a fine job of describing the crime as well as the work of the team he assembled to locate and document the wreck. There are other books that describe the Batavia story and all the violent detail. What sets this book apart is the second story, that of the recovery of artifacts and evidence more than 300 years after the crime. I recommend this book.

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

a very good insight into early Australian history.

[Chris]

Just read it. Then when you get the chance - visit. Theres nothing more to say

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 would be fair.

[Jeanette Hornby · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half compelling. Second half a bit boring.

[Jodie Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent research