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Good Read: Batavia

There are some things, quite confidently, Americans know about Australia. It has a city named Sydney, its native wildlife includes strange animals like Kangaroos and Koalas, and it’s down under – somewhere.

There is one other well-known fact about Australia – which many of us are taught during our school days– and that is the history of the first British settlers who exported convicts to Australia. My husband’s paternal grandfather was brought to this country from England as a wee baby. His mother was an unwed mom so her family put her and her newborn son on a ship to Australia with the rest of the convicts and misfits. In Sydney, she met her husband whose family name determined the fate of Shane’s family name, and more recently mine. But this is a story for another time.

The book Batavia is not about the British settlers. What many people don’t know is that the first Europeans to set foot on Australia were not British but the Dutch, who discovered and mapped what is today the coast of Western Australia, two hundred years before the British discovered Australia’s East Coast.

It was the lucrative spice trade that brought Dutch sailors to this part of the world. Their twelve month journey which originated in Amsterdam would take them all the way around Africa, past India and conclude in what is now present day Jakarta, Indonesia.

Eventually, a more adventurous captain discovered that if he headed directly east from the southern tip of Africa, taking advantage of the “roaring forties” all the way to what is essentially Perth and up the coast of Australia then three months was shaved off the journey. Hence, the Zuidland (southland) was discovered. With a dangerous coastline of islands and coral reefs, an apparently barren and waterless mainland, and no obvious civilization to dominate, the Zuidland was ignored.

But, in 1629, the Dutch East India Company (the first company with a system of shares and investors) set sail on its’ maiden voyage their most glorious ship, the Batavia, filled with over 300 men, women and children and some of the company’s most precious jewels and coins. On the final leg of the journey the Batavia met its fate on the Abrolhos islands, off the coast of what is today the town of Geraldton, 450 kms or five hours north of Perth.

This disaster was only the beginning of what the book’s author, Peter Fitzsimons, describes as an “adults-only version of Lord of the Flies meets Nightmare on Elm Street.” What makes this amazing and true story even more fascinating is that it was not until the 1960’s that the wreck was discovered and human bones and artifacts were found on the islands. Today the Abrolhos remain a quiet group of 122 islands and atolls, occupied mostly by Cray fisherman with very little accommodation and tourism. Read a bit about the islands today and watch a short video here.

I was bemused (and amused) that Fitzsimons opens his book with a quote from fellow Missourian Mark Twain, written in the year 1897. Twain’s quote reads as follows:

“Australian history is almost always picturesque; indeed, it is also so curious and strange, that it is itself the chiefest novelty the country has to offer and so it pushes the other novelties into second and third place. It does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies; and all of a fresh new sort, no mouldy old stale ones. It is full of surprises and adventures, the incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened”

Whether or not Twain knew anything of the Batavia, his sentiments echo the heart of this story. I highly recommend this book no matter where you live. As it was only recently launched in Australia, it has yet to be published overseas but the book’s publisher assures me it will be published in the US, UK, and Singapore to name a few. If you are doing the e book thing, then it can be purchased through Amazon. Otherwise, coming soon to a Borders near you.  Errr, maybe not Borders.