François Pelsaert

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Francisco Pelsaert , also Francisco Pelsaert and Francoys Pelsert called (* 1590 in Antwerp , † September 1630 in Jakarta ) was from the then Spanish Netherlands originating merchant and seafaring .

Life

In 1618 Pelsaert entered the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), one of the leading trading communities at the time. In less than ten years he achieved the status of " senior merchant ".

It was primarily for his involvement in connection with the sinking of Batavia famous: Under Pelsaert as commander resigned in October 1628, the VOC merchant ship Batavia a crossing of Texel after today's Jakarta (then Batavia) on. The sailing ship, fully occupied with over 300 people and valuable commercial goods, ran aground on June 4, 1629 in a reef on the Wallabi Islands in Western Australia . Except for 40 people who drowned in the shipwreck, all the other crew members, military personnel and passengers were able to save themselves on small uninhabited islets nearby. Since rescue by third parties was ruled out, Pelsaert, accompanied by the highest ranking officers and some sailors of the Batavia , sailed with a dinghy from the site of the accident to Batavia (today: Jakarta), where he arrived after about a month. There he received a new ship from the VOC, the Sardam , to return to rescue the stranded people and salvage the trade goods of the Batavia . Due to bad weather conditions, the return trip to the Wallabi Islands took over 60 days. When Pelsaert approached the site of the accident in mid-September 1629, he discovered that a mutiny had taken place in the meantime. A small group of the Batavia crew led by Jeronimus Cornelisz had killed over 120 of the stranded. Pelsaert hung the mutiny leaders on the spot and abandoned two mutineers on the west coast of Australia before returning to Jakarta with the survivors and the recovered merchandise from the Batavia .

After the " Batavia tragedy" ended, which seriously affected his health, Francisco Pelsaert took part in an expedition to Sumatra . After a serious illness he died in Jakarta (Batavia) in September 1630.

The southernmost group of the Houtman Abrolhos Archipelago , the Pelsaert Islands with the main island of Pelsaert Island , is named after Pelsaert .

Works

  • "Ongeluckige voyagie, van't schip Batavia, nae de East-India ...", Amsterdam 1647. (Known as Pelsaert Journal .)

literature

  • MRC Fuhrmann-Plemp van Duiveland: "The sinking of the" Batavia ": and other ship journals and original reports from the great days of Dutch seafaring in the 17th and 18th centuries", German translation and comm .; Stuttgart 1976
  • Mike Dash: The sinking of the Batavia. ISBN 3-442-30984-0
  • Henrietta Drake-Brockmann: Voyage to Disaster, 1963, Australia

Web links & sources

personal data
SURNAME Pelsaert, François
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pelsaert, Francisco; Pelsert, Francoys
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian merchant and navigator
DATE OF BIRTH 1590
PLACE OF BIRTH Antwerp , Belgium
DATE OF DEATH September 1630
Place of death Jakarta (formerly: Batavia), Indonesia