Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 605: The Tragedy of the Batavia Part I - Spice World

Episode Date: January 25, 2025

It's Dark History time this week as the boys set their sights on the high seas for a treacherous tale of mutiny, madness... and murder! We're traveling way back to 1628 for the tragedy of the Batavia and the story of the ship's doomed voyage from the Netherlands to Indonesia. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes.

There's no place to escape to. This is the last time. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? You're ruining your son's attractiveness. You do know that I don't see why you're here all these years with this woman Darcy that you're ruining his best son's attractiveness. I don't see why you're here these years with this woman Darcy that you're ruining his best years of attractiveness.

I will tell you Henry, if you were to lose weight, you might be attracted. That is the way Dutch. We're trying to really wrap our brains around a Dutch accent. Yeah, trying to wrap our brains around not just the Dutch accent, but the Dutch language, which is a very difficult language. But one thing that Dutch doesn't seem to have words for, which is being completely fucked on an island. No. They learn that later on though, don't they?

Don't they, my friend? They can't sneak up on anybody. Yeah, they also don't have any words for compassion or friendliness. Welcome to last podcast on the left. Yeah My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the Henry Zabowski That's as far as I'm gonna go You know, when you know my problem is with a Dutch actions dust specifically Dutch

specifically Dutch accent spritzkekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekekeke prepare for the show by farting under the sheets and holding Julie there. Thank you. Yes. That's of course the Dutch oven at Larson. Yes. How you doing? What's going on? That's my name. Don't wear it out. God.

But this can't... I'm... Like, it's been a long time since I've been this excited. This is a really fun episode. This is a... I cannot wait. Series, rather. This whole series comes from a topic I have no idea like how

I had not heard about this topic before. I have my theories which we'll get to but my god this story is massive. I mean this is the it's almost the story of the birth of the modern world with a lot of murder involved. And that's why we begin our 25 episode series now. At the dawn of man. Well this today is a naval tale. The story of the Batavia. That's fuck some dudes. So in 1628 a massive merchant ship called the Batavia wrecked on a reef on the western coast of Australia. 340 souls, including a fair amount of women and children, were aboard. 240 people survived the initial wreck, but their only escape from the seas was a mostly

barren chain of islands that were individually no larger than a mid-sized city park. What occurred in the weeks that followed on those barren islands is quite possibly the most horrific, bloody, and downright disturbing survival story in modern history. Murder by the dozens! Because if there was ever a tale where the adage hell is other people applies, it's this one. What I love about this whole story too is it all starts with somebody sitting in the middle of England going, man, I wish I had an orange.

Everything begins, it's just somebody sitting there being like, why can't I have one right now? I want one now. Hey, hey tell me, Clark, do you like eggnog? You know that brown dust on top of it, that nutmeg right? It's alright right? Yeah it's alright. Let's go kill a bunch of villagers full of babies to get some right? And then we set up an entire civilisation around getting nutmeg Yeah, well my guy slide me and I will get all the nuts from it

Except I did hear that you know nutmeg gets you high as fuck dude Really go man, so if you smoke it fucking no eat it dude You eat like fucking barely if you eat like half a pound of nutmeg you get crazy high You eat half a pound of almost anything you get you feel differently Yeah, but not with like with nutmeg man. You get crazy dude you get knocked out The story of the Batavia is not a well-known Survival tale as to why I think it's because people usually like survival stories to be inspiring And the tragedy of the Batavia is quite the opposite

Yeah, there's the survive part that's missing. Yeah Some do survive But it's definitely not alive, you know It is it's not one of those where it's a tale of you know, the the human spirit Persevering over nature and over each other. This is a tale of the human spirit giving into its worst impulses at every turn. Yeah, you don't band together to get out of it, you kill your sister to get out of it. See, that's what we learned from 9-11 and what we now need to learn from this story.

We don't need to be inspired by every story. When was 9-11? Oh, it was... Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhhhhhh uhhhhh uhhhh uhhhh well this is a tale of greed mass murder manipulation and savagery an example of how just one man can create a band of demonic brutes with just the slightest nudge a man with the unlikely name of your on a miss cornelis yeah you'd be surprised what you could make a bunch of people do when there's nothing but sand to eat. He's the Paul Dano of our story. We'll get here, you'll see.

I'm gonna cast everybody. I disagree wholeheartedly with the Paul Dano here. Really? Yes, because Paul Dano is not in any way charismatic and Uronimus was a very charismatic man. I think Paul Dano's incredibly charismatic. See, he's Paul Dano from There Will Be Blood. That's who I'm putting him in. Sure, sure. Not Brian Wilson.

No. Well, this story is also highly complex because the conditions that made the tragedy of the Batavia possible were created by one of the most evil corporations in history the corp that served as the mold for exploitation and profit above all other concerns CNN That corporation was the Dutch East India Company commonly known as the V o C It's kind of interesting. It's like make America Great Again really kind of wants to make America Dutch again. The VOC was a shipping company with enough power to be almost a country unto themselves,

complete with colonies and a private army. And from what I can tell, it wasn't until modern times that businesses were able to again wield so much power and influence. Tell me if this sounds familiar, but the VOC were able to get away with a list of atrocities a mile long because they did shipping better and faster than anyone else. I kinda want an orange. And if there's one thing that modern humans value above everything, the sin that we all

contribute to in one way or another is the concept of convenience at any cost. I want my packages! That is what it is! I want a pair of scissors in one package, and I want tape in the other package! You never choose Amazon, Nate. I always say, extra plastic, please. Thank you. And make sure that the box is way too big for what I order I'm one way see as the resident capitalist slash Satanist what I will say is that see we're bored

We're burdened with consciousness and what consciousness forces us to do more start talking like a douchebag. No We're burdened with consciousness and what consciousness forces us humans to do is to consider time. You know, dog doesn't know when its kibble will arrive. It knows by a lick in your eye, right? It knows by the setting of the sun, but it doesn't know that it can go to our little squares we have, go down to Petco,

and get it at any time that they want, right? Dogs can't understand that. They don't understand time. They don't understand time. They don't understand capitalism. They don't get the apps. They don't have thumbs. The rest of us, though, as humans, we're forced to understand time. So, yes, we want to fill time quickly, Marcus, because there's nothing but... because time, Marcus,

is the most precious commodity of all! Let go of me. Well, the obvious analog to the VOC, the one that puts convenience and profits over people at every turn, is of course Amazon. Through thousands of different chains of exploitation, Amazon has created a world where we can have our heart's desire delivered to our doorstep within just a day or two from any one of Amazon's 185 distribution warehouses. So before we begin the story of the Batavia,

I'd like everyone to take a little trip with me to one of those 185 Amazon distribution centers. I've always wanted to go. I love trips. It's like seeing Santa's workshop. This is so we may transpose the tragedy of the Batavia to a modern location. Get it straight in everyone's heads.

Yeah, it's like if Santa's workshop was run by Skynet. It doesn't seem like a kind of fun, it's a fun idea. The largest Amazon distribution warehouse in the world is in Ontario out in Orange County. It has 7,000 robots working there. Wow! But Marcus, don't you love it when they do the social media

promos where they like set it to music and you see the robots kind of dancing in unison in sort of like a giant like lockstep army of thousand pound unstoppable machines? Yeah, and they make sure to cut out the part where the robot knocks over the piss bottle that the fucking employee had to use because they don't get bathroom breaks. Yeah.

I thought they're fueled by the piss bottles. Well, they're just inspired. So let's take a trip everyone. Imagine an Amazon warehouse, a flutter with orders, where the bosses, the middle management, and the floor workers are going about their jobs day after day ensuring that millions of dollars worth of merchandise gets to its destination on time. Everyone is a cog in a machine within the biggest machine of all, the Amazon Corporation, and just as long as everyone in the warehouse does their job no matter how difficult it might get, everything goes smoothly and the shareholder stock keeps

going up. One night though, a particularly charismatic middle manager from a wealthy family who's felled at every job he's had before this one. Hey, my name's Aaron. You can call me Thor. Yeah, I'm a swinger. Me and my wife, 25 years older than I. We like to swing on the weekends when I'm not busy here obviously managing

the Amazon warehouse. Well, he's just in the middle. He's not one of the guys at the top. Like he gets drunk with his work buddies and they hatch a plot to take over the warehouse by force and sell everything contained within on the black market, all while they keep the warehouse itself as a base of operations. And no, no one will be the wiser. I will sell as many, oh we got all these, we got five

trampolines. I know a guy who'll buy five trampolines. I got some bullets over here, we could sell that across the street. There's a lot of young people looking for them. This is gonna be an amazing time for us boys, and then y'all can share my wife. Be an amazing time for us boys and then y'all can share my wife Now the warehouse is staffed with some good people and some very bad people But most are somewhere in between wait a second Demetria. Where'd you get that shimatar? Found it a man ordered it. I use it to defend intake. I'm sorry. That's one of the customer shimatars I use it to defend intake. I'm sorry, that's one of the customer shimitars, Demetria. But no matter their morals, most of these people, excepting those at the top, are quite

unhappy working for Amazon because of the shit conditions and the shit pay, especially when they consider how much the shareholders at the top are making. In other words, this warehouse is filled with desperate people, and as we've seen time and again throughout history, desperate people are often the most easily manipulated by those who are able to offer a simple solution to all their problems. And it's like Amazon makes their own problems by making a desperate person inside of these places by creating the scenario in which that desperation is felt. Yes. So, the middle manager gets all the support he needs for the coup fairly easily, but just

before he's able to put his plan into action, a massive earthquake isolates the warehouse from civilization and buries much of the merchandise inside under rubble. Likewise, the warehouse is no longer fit for a base of operations either. The bosses, of course, immediately hop into a helicopter to both escape the situation and to get help so everyone else who's trapped can be rescued. Listen Demetrius, I love you. And I miss you and I'll miss you and I love your fervent enthusiasm. But you're going to need to stay here behind.

Make sure that all these squeegees are completely safe. We're going to Washington DC! I love you. I'm gonna have sex with my wife and I'm gonna think about you." But as soon as the bosses leave, the middle manager who'd been planning the warehouse coup, he steps up as the leader of the hundreds of people left behind. It's at that moment that everyone discovers that the mental manager is a total psychopath on par with the worst dictators in history and he quickly uses his charisma to turn this Amazon warehouse into an NC17 version of Lord of the Flies. Fuck yeah, I'd love to see that. But not to be too stereotypical, but any one of us that has worked in any aspect has met a low-powered

any one of us that has worked in any aspect has met a low powered middle manager. Oh my God. That if given the opportunity to kill everyone. Yeah, absolutely would. Joe Garrix. Yeah, I remember him. Yeah, or you already had a guy in mind. Keith. I remember Keith from my old job.

And a guy named Will Stavenhagen. Well, first, the middle manager divides the workers into three separate areas of the warehouse so he can consolidate control. Then he makes sure that the groups can't communicate with each other. After division and isolation, the middle manager and his inner circle turn their attention to the people in their immediate vicinity and begin committing senseless and grotesque atrocities on their fellow employees on an almost daily basis.

Weeks pass and the bosses still aren't back. The warehouse coup is still sort of in the background, but the middle manager is now mostly focused on total control over everyone who's left through rape and murder, partly to save resources and partly because he and his cronies just develop a taste for it. Yeah, and they sort of build a, imagine that they've also built a giant cocoon of him and he's, he's wearing, you know, like some kind of definitely minion gear. He's got a minion hat on and it's made out of several like highly well constructed, super

expensive tents that you get like on prime delivery. You see those things that you can get. And then like all of a sudden he's just like inside of this with like two big Stanley cups filled with blood. Yes, yes. They can use the trampoline. It's covered in goods. Well the people not in the manager's inner circle then start joining joining in on the murder, just to avoid becoming one of the dozens of victims. And some of those people get so hooked on the feeling of murder that they beg the manager to give them more people to kill, and that request is often obliged.

Yeah, kill Terry. What? No! After six weeks of this, though, one of the people living under the terror of the mental manager escapes to one of the groups that the manager had isolated, and he tells them about all the atrocities being committed on the other side of the warehouse. You wouldn't believe he put on a bunch of Garfield slippers, mate. He had an O-Lens 65 inch screen just for some reason attached to a sash around his back

The things that he did I can't believe what he did he force fed he force fed Terry five pounds of creatine Soon after a small war breaks out between the isolated group and the middle manager's group and it's only settled when the bosses finally return in a gilded helicopter. This is more or less the story of the Batavia and the corporation that made it all possible, the VOC. This whole story, the only way I can put this is that it's a fucking, it's a heist movie mixed with like, it's crazy. It's a Quentin Tarantino movie on a boat. Yeah, it's a heist movie mixed with a horror movie, mixed with a survival movie,

mixed with a drama, mixed with a war movie. It's fucking got everything. It's incredible. And nutmeg. Which Amazon still sells oh yeah oh god yes of course no just just honestly just to celebrate this story i bought several pounds of nutmeg just through amazon and i just left it out in the rain i mean like just the leather rock yeah i'm just using it to dye my skin But before we get to the story of the Batavia, let's acknowledge our main source today Batavia's graveyard by Mike Dash, which is an absolutely Incredible book but definitely on the nerdier side due to the massive amount of historical context, which is, in my opinion, wholly necessary and utterly fascinating. Oh, yeah, we're about to get a Roy Cohn's fucking

helping of history aids right now because this is going to be a it's thick, but I do think that it's extremely important to set up the stakes like why everybody is doing this in the first place. Yeah, and why everyone's so afraid to fuck up and he's like literally once cuz there's no coming back Yeah And also why everyone feels like they have permission to act like they act and to do the things they do I'd also like to thank listener Peter V for bringing this story to our attention by sending us Dash's book in the mail last August. So thank you very much Peter Thank you, Peter. Oh Peter. Thank you so much Peter Peter sometimes I think about what it would be like to taste your seed

Kiss your rope. I wish to fuck to suck you. I've always wanted to fuck and suck a man named after peace Now to really understand how the tragedy of the Batavia came to be how over a hundred people were slaughtered by their co-workers and shitmates We've got to understand Like it's slaughtered by your co-workers. Oh god, it's fucking awful. It's the worst. Your office crashes. Your office crashes and everyone has to fight for themselves. We gotta understand the history of the company that fostered the environment that made all this possible.

That corporation is of course the Dutch East India Company or the VOC. This corporation, one of the first to ever exist exist with the owners and operators of the Batavia And I make it very clear up top because I'm really gonna do my best to make the story easy to understand I'm fucking I'm doing absolutely. I'm really fucking trying hard here. We are it just pay attention to just bitching lock it Okay, I'll do my best, but you know me Well the Dutch name of the Dutch East India Company is I'm gonna butcher this but varying Gida awesome Disa

compagnie or Or the VOC Dutch East India Company there and Gida awesome dogs at compagnie We are not gonna get the Dutch accents correct. No nor are we gonna really? The Dutch accents correct no nor are we gonna really? Pronounce anything in Dutch correctly, but you have we have phonetic things written out doing the best we can we're trying Yeah, we're trying it'd be easier if we got high before the show still but now we wait till afterwards Well, just know from now on we're gonna be referring to the Dutch East India Company as the VOC Okay, the VOC is the big corporation here. And that's the British India Company?

Fuck you! Eddie, I swear to God, you're already, we have to maintain control. No, by the 17th century. Oh wow, we start early. Just remember, start early, just cause it's locket. No, the 17th century is when all this happened. I guess, which is the 1600s. Yes. You're welcome. Thanks for clearing that up. Now by the 17th century, Amsterdam was one of the wealthiest

cities in the world, and that wealth was almost entirely owed to shipping. The Dutch had figured out how to ship goods faster, cheaper, and at a larger volume than any other European power. But the Dutch came out on top because of that most precious of commodities. Spice! Oh yes! He who owns the spice runs the universe. Yes! But it's kind of crazy. People just sat around eating shit.

All day. That's why all this food, all European food, just like boiled fucking roots and old stinky lamb and all this kind of shit. So why hasn't it improved? There's actually a story behind why British food was so bland for so long is because spices became so pervasive in society that the upper classes started seeing spice as a lower class thing. So they made their food purposefully bland as to make it quote unquote pure and that just sort of pervaded all of English society up until fairly recently. Being rich fucking sucks. Honestly, the only thing that- You just become such a pussy. You just get really fucking bored. And I don't get it. You either become peenitty or you become like, you just collect typewriters.

You know what I'm saying? I don't know why. Now today, we take the spices we buy at comparatively impossible prices for granted. But the road that leads from the grocery impossible prices for granted, but the road that leads from the grocery store all the way back to the 17th century is a long and bloody one, and it heavily involves the VOC corporation and ships like the Batavia. We just like spices as humans. We've come to like them.

I guess, I don't know how we discovered spices. I think literally just came from chewing on shit. Could be. yeah, because you know I didn't know pepper was a tree Yeah, I don't know where it came from I tell you what man I fucking kill a girl for some chef Paul's magic seasoning Honestly there are sometimes- The poultry is not to be slept on as well. I love the poultry seasoning. And I looked at, like even just like Holden's daughter came over last night to the house. She looked delicious.

And there's a little part of me that was just like, I just imagined, what if that Paul Prudhomme was in the center of her torso? And you go, could I get it? And yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I just feel like I have earned it. Mm-hmm Meanwhile you put it there to go killer I'm sorry hold it now It seems somewhat ridiculous that something as simple as spice could lead to the creation of one of the most powerful

corporations the world has ever seen So to show you how the VOC and the Dutch came out on top, let's take one spice and see how its introduction into European society changed everything. Baby spice! No, that spice is nutmeg! So stupid. Now nutmeg trees were handy little two-in-ones that also produced the spice MACE, and they grow naturally in exactly one place on Earth, the Banda Islands of Indonesia in Southeast

Asia. After nutmeg was introduced on a wide scale to Europe in the late middle ages by Muslim traders who'd been dealing with the people of the Banda Islands for hundreds of years, it began to be used in all manner of practical ways. And that's also how we got the Black Plague! For example, by the late Middle Ages, that's the 13th to 15th centuries, doctors in London had come to believe that nutmeg was a cure-all, prescribing it for arthritis, gallbladders, the bloody flux, and even the plague. I'm afraid to say this, Doctor, it seems the nutmeg has no effect on this patient.

Get me a candy cane! Yes, the only thing that will cure this man's cancer is peppermint! What do you say, is that R.F.K. Jr.? Yes, here in London Town we cure everything with Christmas cheer! I think it's super important for people that pray spices and do natural way to heal yourself. It's good cause I can kill whales on the move when I'm on the matavia. I wish I could. I could. I'd kill a baby if I also prefer nothing. Well, speaking of the plague, those infamous plague masks with the long noses were stuffed with

a blend of spices, including nutmeg, to protect against the Black Death, because it was believed that the plague was spread through bad air. Outside of medicine, Europeans also came to depend on nutmeg for the preservation of meat, because nutmeg naturally slows down rot, and nutmeg was also used to extend the life of ale. And that was very important because this was a time when fresh water was in short supply in cities because the rivers were full of piss and shit.

Ah, what a good time. Yes, that's also not to mention that nutmeg is yummy. I mean, I don't know. It's yummy. I don't mind a pumpkin and beer. I mean, it's fine. Not even my beer. Old time, If it's not literally Thanksgiving day, I will have a nutmeg beer. But otherwise, I'm not having nutmeg anywhere. I have nutmeg maybe once a year.

You put a little bit in there, but honestly, like a potato gratin, nutmeg's actually really good uplifting flavor. But that's as far as I go well before nutmeg beer with like ale would only last like five days Max and then it would go bad Yeah, if that was the only beer yeah, I'm drinking nutmeg beer, but I'm saying I don't live then sure sure Well in addition to the practical uses nutmeg was also tied to the surefire moneymaker. That is human sexuality Nutmeg was considered to be a powerful aphrodisiac. Nut. In Meg.

Yeah. And one British lord even wrote a poem about his nightly ritual of eating a spoonful of the stuff in order to have arousing dreams. So it's fucking telling you about, dude. Yeah. Yeah, dude. Fucking have horny ass dreams eating a bunch of nutmeg, man. You were telling me about this. Yeah

Dreaming last night on Miss Farley my pecker was up this morning And I was feign without my gown to raise in the cold to get him down Hard shift alas, but yet assure, although it be no pleasing cure. Yeah, so he doesn't like eating nutmeg, but he loves the boners it gives him. I need the boners! I must have the boners to have sex with my nephew! Sometimes, though, as it usually goes with aphrodisiacs, the sexual component of nutmeg would get people into trouble, as it did with one particularly rakish young Danish man whose experiments with nutmeg landed him in the defendant's box at his very own witch trial.

In 1619, this Dutchman, who very well may have just been playing a prank for being honest, he told his friend that if he wanted to capture the object of his desire, he should do exactly this. First, eat an entire nutmeg seed whole. Then sift through your feces in the days after to retrieve the semi digested material sure all right But what if I've already eaten like listen buddy? I am fear. I'm hearing you yeah, I Eat like three ball bearings There's a bunch around in there like how do I know what's nut and what's bearing you bring it to me, and I'll tell you

Thank you Okay, that's all I You can also suck on it for a little while and then you get that nutmeg taste Yeah, yeah rinse it off first. Okay, sure. It's like that fancy coffee Next grate the nutmeg seed that is passed through your entire digestive tract into a glass of beer or wine Then give said drink to the object of your affection after she gulps it down, she will fall hopelessly in love with you. Whoa! Now presumably the woman who is giving this disgusting swill noticed the change in taste.

This tastes like your fart. Yes, it's like butt eggs. It seems you are the cleverest lady I've ever laid nutmegs upon. The whole plot was quickly uncovered and the prankster was thankfully not executed. He came very close. I don't want to be murdered over nutmegs. So who was almost killed? The guy who tricked him?

Yeah, the guy who told his friend to swallow it and all that. And the other guy also got in trouble. Yeah, I was going to say kill the idiot. But it's sort of like when you hire someone for murder, you're the one who gets charged with first-degree murder. Yeah. It's sort of like that. Yeah. But, I mean, the man was, both men were punished for robbing the young woman of her virtue.

Now by the 17th century, nutmeg had been completely integrated into European society, as nutmeg spiced ale and nutmeg seasoned meat had become the expected standard as opposed to the occasional treat. That meant that Europe needed a shitload of nutmeg delivered to the continent on a constant basis. Now the Portuguese, Spanish and English had already supplanted the original Muslim suppliers by this point, but while the Dutch were late to enter the spice trade, they soon became the number one supplier of nutmeg after the establishment of the Dutch East India Company, the VOC.

The term and word nutmeg will eventually begin to lose meaning during this section, but that's okay. It's just nutmeg. It really is like the most boring spice of all of them. This entire story centers on nutmeg. Just to make it clear, we're going to be referring to the Indies a lot in this series. By the Indies, we mean the islands of Southeast Asia, which includes the Malaysian, Philippine, and especially Indonesian archipelagos. Y'all gotta say archipelagos or archipelagos. It's archipelago. Archipelago. I've never said it before, but archipelagos or archipelagos. It's archipelago.

Archipelago. I've never said it before, but archipelago sounds great. Doesn't it though? But, I mean, the point is though, these are areas of the world that are rich with spice. Yes, must flow. Now, one of the reasons why the Dutch became so much better than anyone else at the spice and shipping game is because they understood navigation on a level that surpassed even the vaunted British Navy. See, as all the European powers spent more time on the high seas, they developed dossiers for specific

routes that included maps and sailing instructions. These dossiers were called rudders, and the secrets contained therein were so closely guarded that if a captain were to fail to destroy the rudder for their journey upon capture by enemy forces Or if he just lost the fucking thing he could be executed for treason You just are out there man when you go that far out into the ocean And you just don't know how big it is like you start to learn like you just start that's insane Yeah, just do a temp this is so out of guy. I would not do this. Yeah comedian. I say inside Yeah, you know you would be killed immediately on the boat. Yeah, and also it's just like why not just

Say you destroyed it if you lost it. I'd be like I felt threatened so I destroyed it People can't because people can't keep a secret and then when people start showing up at your secret little hidey pepper spot And you might gonna get you're gonna get really angry Yeah Well the Dutch eventually developed the best rudders out of anyone mostly because their cartographers have put together the most comprehensive and accurate maps of the time But since the Dutch caught on late as to how valuable the spice source from the islands of Southeast Asia could be Their fleets in the beginning were made up of a lot of smaller companies in the Netherlands

competing against both each other and the more consolidated companies of Europe like the British East India Company Yes, very good now weren't they all apart like there was their big like war We're gonna get 18 years war. Wait, we there's a lot of stuff that I had There's a lot of stuff I had the fair Well, the Dutch government decided that in order to dominate the spice trade It would be in the country's best interest to form a single joint stock corporation made up of a bunch of small investors. In 1602, that was how the VOC was born. Because weren't they cut out?

That was like a part of it. Because of the 18 Years War, one of the long story short says that they were cut out of the spice trade. And they had to figure, they really had to out their own way yeah to get their own shit. Now the VOC was just the second company in history to do business like this to be a joint stock corporation they were right behind the British East India Company and all the corporations since have followed in the footsteps of these two businesses basically this is the birth of the modern corporation and it's one of the most powerful aspects

of the human animal, the fact that we can understand in 4D space and reality a concept and make it real. Like a corporation doesn't exist. Corporation isn't anything. You can't arrive, like, yes, there are buildings a corporation owns. Corporations are people, right? They are very big people.

Very, very big people that we can't seem to see the head or the arms or the legs of. But it's interesting in that just our language can create a concept that then can become just as real as a building. Yeah. But while today's corporations wield enormous power over our daily lives using politics and lobbying, the strength of the VOC and its competitors in the 17th century was far more literal, as the VOC and the English East India Company both had their own private armies made up of mercenaries from all over Europe. Zuckerberg around here to make sure we're all like NBC's fucking tweets. This is gonna happen.

The VOC had thousands of soldiers on its payroll, which meant that they were capable of waging war and colonization. And at times, these companies would go to war with each other over colonized lands, killing thousands in the process. Over nutmeg nutmeg yeah dude and there you know that these guys are all like it's just nutmeg they're like on this island being like we don't even like the nutmeg it's everywhere we just fucking we're sick of nutmeg have it just pay for it take the nutmeg what do we give a fucking shit? You take it, it's nutmeg! Why you doing it? You're torturing that guy! You're disemboweling that guy! Holy shit, you're crucifying a guy on a boat!

Take the nutmeg! But they didn't really care about life and death back then. It was a lot more willy-nilly. Humans, human life... Oh no, actually Eddie, I think that human life, its cost has not increased with inflation. Now as for the people who invested in the VOC went, and to give you an idea of how much money we're talking about here, the investors were made up of 200 merchants across the United

Provinces of the Netherlands. At minimum, an investor required 5,000 guilders to join, which is roughly $26,000 in today's currency. Doable. Yeah. The largest investors, however, contributed the modern equivalent of $11.5 million, and the return on these investments could be as large as 10 times their original outlay. In other words, the top VOC investors were the Bezos's, the Musk's, the Buffett's, and the Zuckerbergs of their day. Man, I could just see the inauguration, just like the four of them.

It's just like, you know, dudes with the big metal hats and guys with just big like sacks of flour and stuff. Just like hanging out. Those are the billionaires. Mm-hmm. Well, as far as who these people at the top were, the VOC was led by a sinister sounding group of capitalists named the Gentleman 17. Only sinister because you are not in it. Because when we are together, hanging out just the 17 of us, we are having some of the best times of our lives. We're gonna have the best time of our lives boys! The Gentleman 17 directed the VOC's overall strategies and in the process

Reaped the majority of the profits gained from Southeast Asian imports which those imports also it wasn't just spice They also imported precious metals they imported cotton Indigo and eventually people Indigo is also a big thing all of this is in Civ 6 which I've never been I've never been into trading. I feel like the trading in Civ 6 is broken. Yeah, we'll get there What is Indigo used for? It's a dye. Oh, it's a dye. Yeah, it goes into jeans. It's blue. It's a plant.

Alright, cool. Now I know. Well, the VOC transported pretty much anything that would fit on a ship and anything that could be sold at a profit in Europe. The profit margins, at least for those at the top, were astounding. And that was due, in large part, to the absolutely ruthless policies the VOC instituted. As for the men in the middle and the bottom, they were told that they could earn a fortune working for the VOC with just one trip across the ocean. That of course wasn't always the case, as most sailors and soldiers received a set salary that was well below a living wage.

But if you were in the above the line You'd make a fuck ton of money Yeah If you were able but that's the thing you kind of already had to start above the line Yes in order to get above the line you had to at least be born of a higher social status You couldn't like work your way up from like a sailor to like you know the boss That's crazy that that kid that doesn't happen anymore right? Yeah, it's nice It doesn't happen you can't just be born with a lot of money, and then just be able to like make it yeah

No, but we're I I really want people to pay attention to the fact that the world is quickly returning to the way It used to be it's very much returning to the way It was back in the fucking 17th century when these motherfuckers were in charge. Make America Dutch again. Well, I mean, as we were saying, you know, there was room for upward mobility for a merchant who had a successful voyage. And men often rose and rank an opportunity in the VOC by taking a queue from the top and operating from a place of cold cruelty, all in the name of profit. See, as it still is with most corporations today, the VOC's primary goal was to maximize value for shareholders, but there was not a single guardrail in place back in the 17th century to keep the VOC's bosses or employees from going too far in pursuit

of higher profits. This is what completely deregulated capitalism looks like. Basically, the VOC's policies resulted in not only inhumane conditions for their employees, but all-out wars against indigenous populations in which men were handsomely rewarded for the torture and slaughter of hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. You want pepper? You want salt? You can take it.

Just take it. You want jeans? We'll make the jeans. We'll make jeans. Oh no, I named my son and daughter Salt Pepper. You can take it. Is that all you want? I think we can make an arrangement. This slaughter was especially prevalent in the conquest of the Banda Islands and the

subsequent establishment of the Batavia colony on the island of Java. So let's take a moment to explain just how the VOC established a foothold in the Indies and how they came to be the world's number one purveyors of spice. Spice! Gimme, gimme. Now in the early 17th century, the Dutch and the English were neck and neck

when it came to the international spice game. And one of the most valuable spiceries in the world, the aforementioned Banda Islands of Indonesia, were in dispute between the two. Now, as I said earlier, the Banda Islands are the only place on Earth where nutmeg grows naturally, but that wasn't its only valuable spice. It's also the only place on Earth

where clove trees grow naturally. Ugh. You don't like cloves? No! You don't like spiced wine? No! You don't like a mulled wine? I don't, remember smoking cloves when you thought that was cool. Yeah, dude. I was my favorite

Yeah, I smoke clothes until I cough blood. I bought like multiple packs of cloves and now I just can't thanks Banda Well as far as the Europeans went the bandanese have been trading with the Portugueseuguese for about 90 years when the voc finally showed up now the portuguese have of course not been the kindest of trading partners but the dutch were far worse worse than anyone in fact somebody's got to be the worst colonizer it's the dutch we will take that thank you no honestly it's a huge honor to be called the diverse colonizer Because there's so much competition and it's just nice to be nominated with some of my favorite people Spain loving you Loving what China was doing on the in the Asian in a continent. Good work China Thank you. I'm just so angry because their shoes are fucking made out of wood. It's honestly hell!

It is hell trying to play horse. Have you ever tried to play horse in wooden clogs? Well, the Dutch's arrival on the Banda Islands was marked with an omen. When they stepped foot on land, a volcano that had been dormant for centuries suddenly erupted. For the Bandanese, this was the fulfillment of a prophecy foretold five years earlier by a Muslim holy man who said that an army of white strangers would soon arrive to the Banda Islands to take them by force. And as you might expect, the prophecy very quickly came true.

Racist! Why do they gotta be white? Why do they gotta be white? But it is interesting in that way because they called it some magical prophecy when it was definitely a Muslim guy that's like, uh, they're coming here. Yeah, it's not a magical prophecy at all. This isn't some mystical thing. I'm seeing the shit. He's a businessman who is telling you the fucking forecast of the market. I know these guys and they can't wait to not pay me anymore

They're figuring out how to find me Well to begin the campaign to take the Banda Islands the VOC invaded one of them in particular and slaughtered the entire population 1800 people died all because the natives have been trading with the English after signing a treaty with the vo see For a hundred percent trading rights listen before you do anything. Just don't tell them about hazelnuts Don't even talk about dill I mean with this slaughter, the Bandhanese were basically killed for breach of contract, and out of 1800 murdered, 400 died by drowning when they tried to escape the VOC's vicious private army by swimming to another island. Once depopulated, the VOC replaced the people of this island with natives from other islands as workers, and for breaking a contract.

They broke a breach of contract. You were meant to just trade with us, you fucking went with our, you go to our competitors? I'll fucking show you what happens when you go to our competitors. It's negotiation. Now after the VOC had been operating from Fort Revenge for almost a decade, the Bandanese decided to finally throw in their lot with the English, because as bad as the English India Company was, the VOC was worse.

The Bandanese, however, had no idea just how far ahead of the game the VOC was by 1620. To begin with, most VOC ships were heavily armed with cannons, which had originally been installed to defend themselves against Portuguese, Spanish, and English ships also on the lookout for spice. And they learned a new mechanism of sending out a bunch of ships at once. They learned that that's the way to do it. Instead of just sending out one guy and hope he comes back, you just send out a constant flow of ships. Now, so that it never sent them out like 15 at a time.

Yeah, so that never stops so that you send them out like 15 at a time. Yeah, so that it never stops. So that you're always, so they're crossing each other. So they actually, which is interesting, so there's support on the open ocean. Yeah, but within just a few years of its founding, the VOC went on the offensive and began to intentionally sink the ships of foreign competitors in full naval battles. The VOC also had far more capital, stronger support from their government, and better ships than anyone else. Man, if it's so but fun, if I had to like, be the first maid of the Hollywood video ship to go up in, and I had to slaughter everybody at the fuck on the blockbuster ship, you know what I mean? Just to get, because they all have the new fuck, and they got the, they got Hitch in first,

you know what I mean? So I gotta get all that hitch because people are looking for hitch right that's Kevin James Wilson with vehicles but listen that was a fucking guaranteed moneymaker that's the verse that's their nutmeg how's our nutmeg I don't want to fucking get on the fucking Joe's crab shag ship and have to go fight the Logan's Roadhouse ship. You might have to together, the better ships, the stronger government, the bigger capital, the VOC had nearly wiped out the English East India Company by 1620, which meant that the Bandanese of Indonesia never stood a chance, nor did the English. The VOC's man on the ground in Indonesia, the man who eventually wiped out the Bandanese was a right

Dutch bastard named Jans Pieterzoon Koen. If I were to cast the biopic, Jans Koen would be played by Ralph Innocent, the father in The Witch. Very much so. That's great. Great casting. And he was put out there because they didn't want him back in the Netherlands anymore. Legitimately, this man was so scary and he was such a non persona non grata that they put him out in the middle of fucking nowhere

Because also they knew he'd be the guy that would kill everybody Nicknamed Disclare because of his thin figure and bony fingers Come here! Come daughter! Coon was a humorless and ultimately genocidal VOC company man through and through. Coon was a chief merchant, a high management position in the VOC, and his only goal when he arrived on the Banda Islands in 1612 was to subjugate its people and secure the world's largest supplies of nutmeg and cloves for his company. islands in 1612 was to subjugate its people and secure the world's largest supplies of nutmeg and cloves for his company.

So no one made him laugh? Yes! I laughed. There was one time I laughed. I saw a young, beautiful, bandanese woman fiddle with china. And I sat and I watched as she gave birth. And as the feet slid out of her gash I saw that it was dead and in that moment I

chuckled You're Larry Want to check me out is to our old for Netflix thing Special where I'm just uncontrollable saying things people wish they could say. Well, let's start with, Jan Koons took a thousand men on the VOC payroll and invaded the island of Java to conquer the city of Jakarta, both as a show of force and to further drive the English East India Company out of the Indies.

Once captured, Koons burned Jakarta to the ground and built the VOC capital city of Batavia on its ashes. This settlement, one of the first company towns in history, was named after the Germanic tribe that were thought to be the ancestors of the Dutch people. So we got Batavia the colony and Batavia the ship. Coon spent the next year building up his forces, and and before long he'd amassed an army of 13 ships 1600 soldiers and this is fucking incredible 80 Japanese Ronin Fucking samurais without lords or masters. Well, I guess they're right over there. Yeah

Yeah, they're total mercenaries. So just's like, yeah, let's get the fucking samurai. Like they'll show them what's what. Yes, my favorite is when they all get together and they do the cheeseburger cheeseburger scan. My absolute favorite, a little culturally insensitive. True to form, the Ronin were the deadliest and cruelest men in Kuhn's crew. Besides being vicious warriors, they would torture prisoners psychologically by beheading some of them and rolling the heads around the feet of the other captives while laughing

at the panic it caused. On one occasion six Japanese Ronin on the VOC's payroll quartered and beheaded 44 bandanese prisoners with samurai swords why because that's what they wanted to do Then they displayed the heads on bamboo spikes for all to see honestly. I'm looking for self starters Have they anticipate needs. They're really great within the corporate culture at the VOC. And it's good they use bamboo because it grows back so easily. Yes! And it's sustainable. I mean this whole story is, I mean it might as well be called the evil that men do. It's

what happens when people are left unchecked. We just say go out and be as cruel and mean and savage as possible and come back and we'll give you a nice little fat paycheck. Well, because these guys also believe there was obviously its money and its power, but there is also a kind of like a manifest destiny style. We are expressing our power over the world. Oh, absolutely. Now that happened again and again, you know, it happens with, you know, it also happens, you know, when native populations start dying of disease that the Europeans would bring over, they would say this is God's judgment on these people. They're dying because we are meant for this land.

Yeah, and you know, people don't care as long as they still got their nutmeg coming in. I kind of want an orange. Yeah. Yeah, like, ah, well, here's my orange. Let's go take Florida. Don't care as long as they still got their nutmeg coming in. I really want an orange Yeah Let's go take Florida. Yeah We live in California Sweet the ones with the snakes in the trees I Want one taken from a dead child's hands? Now young Coons orders from the VOC they were just to subjugate the Bandhanese.

He was not supposed to slaughter them en masse. But when a torturous interrogation of a Bandhanese warrior revealed a plot on Kun's life, he took it very personally. I do tend to do that. And thereafter, set himself on the task of completely annihilating the Bandanese people. Many Bandanese were driven into barren areas by VOC armies and starved, while others were simply beaten to death. Many more were enslaved and forced to work the plantations that were quickly springing

up around the islands, but not that many. Dude, have you heard of garlic salt? Honestly, there's some crazy shit over there. You should go to that other island over there. I've heard they've got, have you heard of smoked paprika? Yeah, why don't you ask the rodent about teriyaki? Do not tell them the secret of terianki. In the end, it's estimated that out of the 15,000 people that Coon found on the Banda Islands, fewer than a thousand survived his campaign of terror. Furthermore, the VOC ordered that all clove and nutmeg trees not controlled by the VOC

were to be destroyed so as to regulate the supply and keep the prices as high as possible Anyone on the islands caught growing stealing or possessing these plants without authorization were subject to the death penalty Carried out by VOC employees. Did it just randomly grow? Yeah, but if it's on your land if it's in your room if you've got it with you And this is fucking dead and this is before we decided that we can like Grow it ourselves or whatever. Yeah, so we just wanted because they already had it well We'll just take it and it well it only grows in certain climates like you can't just grow fucking you can't I don't think you Can grow a nutmeg tree and like Bristol? Yeah, but you can sounds like a children's book

You could steal one plant it in a Greek island that you've stolen me canos Yeah, eventually they did start planting them on other islands But yeah, but but for the longest time this was the only place where you could get nutmeg I saw honestly and truly this also reminds you on my craziest days at borders is that we had we found out that someone had Taken some books like one of the employees and it was really crazy about how like they charged me. They're like, well, you know, because I was the manager on time and they said, can you handle this? Can you talk with this guy? And I had to hold a gun to the back of his head while he committed sepulchre. Yeah. In front of JK Rowling. And

he was honestly truly one of just she's so nice in person. She answers her phone turf, turf, as long as blood squirting on her shoes. She's fine. in person. You'd be surprised. She answers her phone, turf turf. As long as blood's squirting on her shoes, she's fine. Yeah, she loves it. Yeah. Now for taking the plot on his life personally, Kuhn received a strongly worded letter from the men who ran the VOC, the aforementioned Dittleman 17. But their issue was not with the genocide per se, but what the genocide might do to trade relations.

I'm sorry, I didn't think about it like that. I got ahead of myself. And the letter did end with a winky face. Yeah, one of those emojis. You've been a bad, bad, little boy. Yes I have. I guess I should get a spanky. See, word of genocide tends to get around, and there were plenty of other native civilizations

in the Indies that the VOC planned to do business with. In other words, Coon was reprimanded not for crimes against humanity, but for bad business practices. Despite the reprimand, Jans kept his position as one of the VOC's chief merchants, and was thereafter considered a Dutch national hero in the mold of so many colonists before and after and even has a Statue that stands to this day But he was also the man for the job because someone they believed that they needed that type of psychopath to hold this far very valuable outpost

a VOC or a fucking Kelly? Yeah, you're sure? I can't wait to watch. Now while the Dutch government was somewhat involved in all this, the genocide and subjugation of the Bandanese was planned, authorized, and carried out by employees of the VOC. Again, it's just a private company, and with this conquest, they'd prove that they would do and allow just about anything if it increased their profit margin. Once the Banda Islands were in their grasp, the VOC completely controlled the world's nutmeg and clove supply, which brought them close to a

total monopoly on the global spice trade at large. And just like how we can't avoid putting money into Amazon's pockets, even if we don't buy shit from Amazon directly, most likely the people we buy shit from do use Amazon Anyone in Europe who wanted their spiced wines and erectile aids were now contributing to the profits of the VOC Somewhere down the supply line. What's it doing? Oh, I don't care Erectile aids is uh, you know how it all got started. Yeah, it's really very sad. That is very sad, that is true. Fly from your grave. Now concerning the type of person that was willing to work for the VOC,

the number one quality needed was a tolerance for risk. See, out of the million some odd people who sailed with the VOC to the Indies over the course of their existence, less than one in three returned to Europe alive. It was not a comfortable trip. It wasn't a fun trip. And you were just as likely to die on the trip as you were when you got to the East Indies themselves. Statistically speaking, you were far more likely to die than you were to get rich.

Some who sailed to the Indies did end up settling in Southeast Asia, but most of the settlers were killed by various plagues, diseases, or in skirmishes with the natives. The VOC's reputation for brutality and this acknowledged risk, however, attracted a certain type of man to their employment, a type whose morals were flexible, to say the least. No, didn't like, so they would also, they would trade with closer places. So they would trade with other people in Europe, and they trade in some other places probably in the Middle East maybe where they do cover things right yeah but then it's kind of interesting on this leg this was the leg that was the most profitable but also the most horrible the Indies leg it was the longest

it was the worst it was the most dangerous and so that's why all of the bottom of the talent pool was at this leg. Yes. And like how, just for my own thought process, how would they actually get there? Would they have to go all the way around Africa down the bottom? Yeah, they went around, they would usually, they would start in, they would start from Europe, they would sail down to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, stop once, and then make the rest of the trip to Indonesia. So what they learned was a faster way to go was because it was about taking a left. Like literally you had to go from, it was a left out of Netherlands, you take a right

in Africa, and then you get to right before Australia, and you make a left, and you go up and you catch this one current. But guess what happens? If you don up and you catch this one current, but guess what happens if you know You're really fucked up You wouldn't guess what Australia is surrounded by miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of coral Which is extremely sharp and destroy ships countless ships. Mm-hmm So it's interesting almost like you kind of waiting for something to go wrong Yep

Now the roll call on a vo sea ship was made up of sailors, soldiers, tradesmen, and merchants. The soldiers and sailors were often otherwise unemployable men who were violent, often lazy, and above all else expendable. And that's how I like to be. Please kill me and forget me because I don't even know my name. I'm a random man with a bandana, and I'm next to a cannon. But you'll never know me, will ya? Alright, ah! I am his brother. I look just like him, and sound just like him too.

Where'd you come from? Home! Does it really matter, because I'm a walking corpse! The tradesmen on the ship, which included carpenters, cooks, surgeons, and what have you, they seemed like men who were just looking for steady work. But if a man ended up on a VOC ship, it usually meant that he had fucked up pretty badly at some point in his life. This is last stop shit. But speaking of fuck ups, let's talk about the merchants. The merchants were the men responsible for protecting the goods and the profit potential of the voyage.

And as such, they were given authority to override the captain's orders if the merchant deemed it necessary to protect the VOC's interests. Nothing like a corporation putting in some talentless, unconnected middle person to be at the very top of the little thing that you might know, because he's over the captain. Yeah, he's over the captain. So the captain is the person who knows how to run the ship and do all the stuff for the ship, but he is a boss. It's just some guy from the company. Yeah, and that's all he does Let's surprise the newspapers and go four feet ahead with this ship called the Titanic And what happens when they kill the captain the first mate takes over or they take over I think they just keep going like

Promoting from within the sailors, but you know, but the but that's the thing is that the the captain we're gonna get to you know His job later, but mostly he's there to navigate and to manage the sailors keep the sailors. But that's the thing, the captain, we're going to get to his job later, but mostly he's there to navigate and to manage the sailors, keep the sailors in line. If the merchants survived the sea voyage and landed in the Indies, they then had the task of maximizing profits on the ground by negotiating with the local leaders the VOC hadn't killed yet to obtain spices and or goods to bring back to Europe. Now concerning the social standing of the merchants, many of them were most definitely in the past fuck-up category. The majority were down on their luck financially, disgraced debtors who'd lost everything, or businessmen on their way down the economic ladder who would do anything to turn around their failing

fortunes. Sometimes if you came back with a super fucking successful run from the Indies, you could get re-put back into some form of respectable like, there was always kind of like a shot. Yeah. That maybe if I come back and I make everybody a fuck ton of money, they'll legitimize me again and then I can go back to doing a more cush thing. I can go to France or I could go to some other place that's not fucking Jakarta. now was there like a shit ton of merchants on the ship or was there just like three or four just a few Yeah, yeah There weren't there weren't very many now on a vo C ship merchants were divided into two ranks upper merchants and under merchants

These were the middle managers of the company, but since most of them were in dire financial straits Even they were desperate men. As such, one of the VOC's desperate undermerchants will play the psychopathic villain in today's tale, a man named Euronymous Cornelis. You talk to me and you ask me how do you control a man and I tell you, you do it by his soul Excuse me I farted You don't have to call them under merchants you can just call them merchants well that's It's to separate them from the upper merchants, but the up there You can still call the guys the upper merchants and the other guys merchants one of the column shit

still call the guys the upper merchants and the other guys merchants. You don't have to call them shitheads. You know what's funny? This is actually one of the traits that's going to come up again and again in this story. Once we get to the actual plot, you really start to see the corporatization, the ladders put into place that these guys follow like they are real God's law. That's how afraid they are of their bosses, that these roles will be actually extremely important to the story that comes up because of how everybody behaves according to their roles.

Well, of course they're scared of their bosses. They kill islands of people in front of them. Yes, this is why we're doing the context. Yeah, yes, their bosses execute people. Now to be perfectly clear here, the dictatorial middle manager in the Amazon allegory that began today's episode, that represented Euronymous Cornelis. Because after the Patavia wrecked, Euronymous would use his psychopathic charm to trap the survivors in a nightmare of his own making. None of this happens without

Euronymous. Now Euronymous Cornelis was indeed a complete and utter psychopath, but he was not the same stripe as, say, a Ted Bundy. Rather, Uronimus is more like a Nazi who probably would have gone his entire life without hurting another person had circumstances not opened the door to savagery. It's nice to have an invitation to violence. Thank you, because I was just a pussy before. Not now though. I'll kill everyone but I won't fuck their corpses.

My thing is, is that I need a government's permission to do it, but as soon as I get it I can't fucking wait to do it. Well, Euronymous this whole thing is not that he would kill anyone, it's that he liked to get people to kill for him. The true capitalist. Born in 1598 in the Dutch town of Leeuwarden to wealthy land-owning parents, Euronymous was raised as an Anabaptist.

The Anabaptists were a fascinating and highly aggressive Christian cult, and their philosophy of violence undoubtedly influenced Euronymous Cornelis in the most negative of ways. The core principle of the Anabaptists was that they believed that only adults acting on their own free will should be baptized.

Infant baptism, in their opinion, was utter horse shit because babies can't really decide anything for themselves. You're just making a baby wet. And I don't need to make a baby wet in a church. I can do it by leaving it out in the rain. I mean kind of agree. No I do too. It means nothing yeah it's theater. This belief about baptism however was considered heresy to both the Catholic Church and the Protestants which put the Anabaptists at odds with the rest of the Netherlands from the get-go. Additionally Anabaptism was a

millenarian cult meaning they believed that a vengeful Christ was sure to return any day now to kick off a vicious apocalypse. Is that Christ? No, just some guy. Sorry, I get really scared. Is that Christ? Oh my God, is he there? Oh no, just some long-haired guy.

White skin. But most importantly, as far as the Anabaptist neighbors went, they believed that it was their duty to build a new Jerusalem by force, which led to mass murder in the year 1534. Although it's kind of nice to take a break and see the whites going against the whites. Yeah, different kinds of whites fight. Yeah You know, it's funny cuz of all the serial killers I feel like so many people cover like they always want us to cover true crime and you serial killers cuz they're like Oh, we want blood we want murder and it's like so far in this episode. We've killed thousands thousands

And that's just theater that's's just history. Which I think is amazing. They just all wipe stuff out. And because it's not individually cleaving someone to death I feel like this is maybe part of the issue. Is that we see it kind of like you just forget. No, this is like

bigger than a serial killer. To be clear, 44 people have been beheaded in this episode already Yes, at least at least cuz well, there's also the whole you know, the whole island. Yeah. Yeah was murdered Well in the year 1534 Anabaptist seized the German town of Munster where they expelled or killed any non-believers and spent 16 months as rulers of their own little theocracy. The leaders, predictably enough, soon began practicing compulsory polygamy because they'd expelled or killed many of the men in Munster.

And it was definitely a thing that they just stumbled upon because of her prophecy and it's not just because the guy just noticed that there's a lot of just like open wives. He just never just said like, oh wow, there just seem to be a bunch of lonely ass women here that I could have sex with. They had to do it. They had to, because God said so. Finally though, the city was retaken by a joint force of Catholics and Protestants.

Oh wow. Yeah, working together. Look at that. Who executed the leaders and nailed the genitals of one in particular to the city gates. It's usually what they do to polygamists, stuff like that. They do really don't like it. They really like to mutilate the genitals and display them. And use a little door knocker.

Yeah. To the balls. By the end, around 3,000 people had died in the so-called Munster Rebellion. This was all due to the Anabaptists. And where was Grandpa? I'd say Munster, the Munsters reference. The Munsters reference, yeah. Well after the rebellion was put down, the Anabaptists splintered and some factions continued robbing and killing anyone who wasn't a

member of their cult. Others, however, followed an Anabaptist named Menno Simmons who adopted a philosophy of non-ence. Well, we now know the descendants of these followers of Minnow as the Mennonites. Oh, the Amish! Yeah, the Amish Light, as we like to call them in Texas. Yes, Amish Light. Because they would make their own clothes, but they would still wear Nikes and shop at Walmart. And they can have cell phones.

Yeah. And you gotta take care of your feet, you know. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, I never got what the point of Mennonites was, but... They're just bad social people. Yeah. No, no, no, I never got what like the point of Mennonites was but just bad social people. Yeah Actually, I think I knew some minutes it's interesting. It's technically like a very peaceful. Sure. It's kind of a quaker II thing Yeah But I never got the point of like you have you have to make your own clothes, but you can buy Nike's

It's cuz they are just barely hanging on There were however some Anabaptists who assimilated into the Mennonite religion in name only while still following the violent ideologies of other Anabaptist leaders, if only to survive in a decidedly anti-Anabaptist environment. Amongst those who still believed in the philosophy of violence were the parents of our villain, Euronymous Cornelis. For Euronymous, using organized violence to get what you want would very much have not only been an acceptable path, but second nature.

I learned to read by getting spanked with each letter. They used to write up a bunch of letters and they used to spank me with them. And I'll tell you what, I Know the language better than anyone Now after school, Uronimus became an apprentice to an apothecary on the road to becoming one himself Apothecaries were in essence the pharmacists of their day, concocting potions and treatments from roots, herbs, and other exotic ingredients like animal excrement. As far as the exotic ingredients went, specifically the animal excrement, pigeon shit was supposed to be a cure for epilepsy, while horse manure was said to cure the lung condition known

as pleurisy. Oh good, I haven't eaten it. horse manure was said to cure the lung condition known as pleurisy. Well, that's why Nick Nolte is still alive. Cause he's always like, horse! Oh shit! Animal penises were also held in high regard by apothecaries. Dried boar penis, for example, supposedly reduced phlegm and balanced the humors. The way you used to do that was in the old-fashioned manual where you used to go Gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, stuff it was it was all around like, you know, the four humors theory You know, was it phlegm blood bile? What's the fourth one? Yeah, but it's when you get a bore throat, yeah But if you really wanted the top-of-the-line cure-all from an apothecary, it was believed

that nothing was better than ground-up mummy flesh. Oh please! Yeah! I mean, I try it once, you know, twice if you ask. It could probably get you sick. Interestingly though, in addition to cures, apothecaries also made poisons. They were kind of exterminators. They made rat poison and such.

He did a lot of weird shit. Yeah. I always remember from Romeo and Juliet. Mm-hmm. But as we'll see later, after the wreck of the Batavia, Euronymous was just as bad at making poisons as he was at the rest of the Apothecary business. And after trying to run his own shop for a few years, he declared bankruptcy in 1628. I don't understand. How are you bad at making poison?

Is it just like orange juice? This is delicious. They're actually going to show later like he's bad at it. It's like 7up, he just accidentally makes delicious. It's like, wow, this is good. This is crystal Pepsi. Alright, you'll die any hour now. Yeah. You're bad at making poison as you make them sick, but you don't kill them.

And so they just sit there screaming and screaming in pain, which, you know, isn't really the point. Unless it is. Unless it is. Now, in addition to his bad business sense, Geronimus's personal life was also an absolute nightmare. The year before his business failed, he got married to another Anabaptist and settled in the Dutch city of Haarlem.

His wife soon became pregnant, but the pregnancy was difficult. For some reason, Euronymous hired an absolute lunatic as a midwife, an uncouth, deranged, and dangerously incompetent individual who danced and sang compulsively, frequently spoke of so-called torments inside her head, and slept every night with an axe. husband issue since day one. Yep. Since nannies existed. So when the baby finally came, the midwife mishandled the delivery and left the placenta in the womb of Uronimus' wife, which became infected and septic. The new mother was therefore unable to breastfeed. What?

Yeah. That's what happened when you leave the placenta up in? It's what can happen. You're supposed to take it out. How does it affect? Has it clogged the tube or some shit? I don't know. Yeah, you're supposed to take it out and you gotta put it back in the front hole. That's what can happen. You're supposed to take it out. How does it affect? Has it clogged the tube? I don't know Yeah, you're supposed to take it out and you gotta put it back in the front hole Yeah, I thought yeah, I think you fold it back up. Yeah, well, I don't know. Yeah, if you don't take it out though Hard to keep singing and dancing. I know that much

Absolutely not I don't think my mom even knows that that is a thing that people do Did your mother did your mother ear placenta? No, she ordered in Actually wanted one from the restaurant father chopped it up and put it on an RV sandwich Who's sandwich Well because the new mother was sick, she was unable to breastfeed. But Euronymous was like, alright, the first midwife, she's insane, let's get rid of her. But instead, he hired a wet nurse to handle the breastfeeding, who was just as bad, if not worse.

A woman who had already gone mad with syphilis, and the baby contracted the disease as a result. Within weeks, if the average 17th century infantile death from syphilis is anything to go on, Euronymous' child died a horrible, horrible death. By the end, babies who died from syphilis bled profusely from the mouth and anus and were covered in so many sores and rashes that they were said to have looked moth-eaten when they mercifully died. But concerning the woman who gave the baby syphilis, the author of Batavia's Graveyard speculates that Euronymous might have had an affair with her and contracted syphilis

himself, which would partly explain his horrific behavior after the Batavia wreck. Everything I do is highly logical. Even my madness. I'm surprised he didn't murder her. Everything I do is highly logical. Even my madness. I'm surprised he didn't murder her. He had made love to her. It's like the only time. Then it ended up leading to a bunch of murders. It's because he didn't fully become who he was going to be until the moment came where

he could finally blossom. Yeah, again, this may have just been one factor that unlocked Uronimus' true psychopathy. See, after the Batavia wrecked and its passengers and crew were stranded, Uronimus was definitely acting on a philosophy, and that philosophy was heavily influenced by a man named Johannes Torrentius. This guy's fascinating too! Yeah. See, Torrentius was Uronimus' fencing partner and friend, but he was better known in the Netherlands as a highly controversial painter

who was infamous for openly using sex workers, refusing to financially support his wife, and allegedly being in regular contact with Satan. He's the most actual Dutch person we've met so far. Yeah. No. Well, Torrentius claimed that all of his artistic skills came from black magic rituals.

Yeah, you wouldn't know what they're like. It's what I do. You just wouldn't know. It's something I do. It's something cool. Yeah. He said he would place blank canvases on the floor and the paintings would magically create themselves.

Tarentius also bought black chickens and roosters exclusively so he could sacrifice them to Beelzebub. They're the only ones he takes. It's just his favorite thing. It's his favorite color. He likes chicken. You know, that doesn't hurt in his eyes. And Tarentius claimed to go on long walks in the woods

where he would have extensive conversations with Satan himself. It's crazy talking to my old buddy. I was talking to my old buddy in the woods the other day, and he said to me, I was like, Lord Satan, how are you feeling? And he was saying something. He was like, I'm not feeling good right now. I'm not feeling very confident right now.

And I just reminded him like, you're Satan. You know, you don't need to. You don't need all of this, Mr. Gersh. Just feel good for yourself. Feel good about yourself. And I really think you took it to heart in many ways. And he gave me five dicks Yeah, it's pretty good, pretty cool to be me

Three around my body, two were in my pocket Two were in my pocket, you could see I'm gonna ding ding ding ding ding ding ding I made a bit of a still drum with them Tarantius however was not a Satanist. He was a Gnostic Which is basically a Satanist according to these fucks. Yeah. Agnostic means you don't believe in shit. No. No. Gnostic. Not agnostic.

Oh, okay. Gnostic. That meant that he believed that God and Satan were equals. Yes! Oh, cool. Yeah, and since Sorrentius had friends in high places, he was able to openly discuss his Gnostic beliefs where others might be charged with heresy. And who else was listening? But Euronymous Cornelis? See, Gnostics believe, that's why they're super controversial, is that all of their books were

taken and hidden in caves, right? The Dead Sea Scrolls, those are all Gnostic works. Yeah, the Book of Enoch. Yes, and what it in the Book of Judas, the Book of Thomas, and basically what they say is, you don't need the capital C church to get enlightenment. Jesus is in everyone. You can have this mystical property and the church doesn't like that because that means that you don't need them. Yeah, and it means they don't get your money. Before long, Euronymous was mixing Torrentius' gnostic beliefs with Anabaptist dogma, and

eventually, Euronymous came upon the conclusion that he was incapable of sin, that no thought or deed, not even murder, could be described as evil. Because what is evil anyway? It's just four letters. Four letters, what could you even do? What's a letter? Just a line on a piece of paper. What's paper?

It's tree blood. What is even trees? But in 1628, the same year Euronymous went bankrupt, Terentius finally wore out his welcome in Dutch high society. He was arrested for heresy at long last, tortured on the rack, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. I can't imagine who he pissed off to make this happen. After Terentius' trial, Dutch authorities declared that all suspected heretics be banished

from the city of Haarlem, which ended up working to the advantage of Uronimus Cornelis. See, by that point, he'd failed as an apothecary, he was bankrupt, his baby had died of syphilis, and his wife still hadn't recovered from the womb infection. She's being a huge bummer about it. Just so, I'm just like, listen baby, can we get past this? It's been a week. I'm just impressed she's still alive. Yeah, I mean just barely she had a very big pussy There's a lot of energy to draw upon the baby didn't touch the sides So So, Euronymous, his life in fucking ruins, more or less used the heretic order as an

excuse to abandon his wife for a job with who else but the VOC. The only explicit criteria to sign a VOC contract was that you should not be bankrupt, nor Catholic, nor infamous. Neuronymous was bankrupt, but he still had a fairly high social status because he came from a wealthy family and he had connections As such a wealthy captain who had imagined regretted this decision later vouched for Uronomus to the VOC Uronomus was therefore hired as an under merchant and was soon bound for the Endies to make his fortune. He also was one of the only guys that wasn't a total fucking criminal to apply.

So that was at the time they didn't really know what they were getting involved in and so they were kind of it was like you know when I guess in the army or in the navy people get kind of upset when someone goes to like officer school and just shows up and takes over. Yeah yeah that's what this guy's like it's like no experience whatsoever he's just evil now being evil well I mean I mean he's definitely on the road he's abandoned his ailing wife you know honestly you spend an afternoon with her she is just my baby is Okay, so send me to Jakarta

Now being an under merchant made Geronimo a member of the upper class on a vo C ship that upper class included upper merchants bookkeepers clerks and their assistants Basically on a ship the size of the Batavia you had about a dozen of these guys class included upper merchants, bookkeepers, clerks, and their assistants. Basically on a ship the size of the Batavia you had about a dozen of these guys. So Euronymous and a dozen others of his class would make up the business staff on one of the most impressive ships in the VOC fleet. Finally we arrive at the Batavia. A big factor in the VOC's success on the high seas was their ability to streamline mass production of ships on an industrial

Scale and in fact they were one of the first companies to ever do so dude I was like looking at pictures of it fucking insane. It's crazy. I was huge, right? I guess it's one of those where we all like that's where all the thing comes from We're like people doubt that ancient man could have done specific giant things But then when you look at what manpower can do on its own It's so fucking impressive if you have no regulations Yeah, it's amazing when you can pull off. Yeah, how many people even died making the goddamn ship a lot Well, while other shipbuilders in Europe took at least two years to build one ship the VOC

Construct and launch sea craft in just six months This of course helped with their strategy of flooding the zone But besides just building them fast the VOC also built them better VOC ships were the most complex machines in existence at the time Conveyances that maximized loading cost cargo space and defense and the Batavia was considered the top of the line when it came to VOC ships. The Batavia was a class of ship the VOC called a return ship, which was designed to carry both high-class passengers and cargo on long voyages to and from the Indies, a distance of some 15,000 miles, journeyed over an average of eight months

one way. And it's a big central ship, right? It has a bunch of smaller ships that kind of go with it, right? Like kind of like support ships. Measuring as long as a football field is wide, the Batavia had four decks, three masts, and 30 guns. Its upper works, it sounds like the gaudiest fucking thing in the world its upper works were painted bright green and gold While its stern was decorated with gaudy flourishes

specifically requested by the gentleman 17 so as to quote Overall the people of the East what I love first is when a boat has tits on the front of it And it shows respect. It shows respect people respect the tits. But they show up at the island. They go and they look at the boat, they're like, whoa, look at those big tits. Yes, that's two pieces for them. But a lot of times they did have tits on the front. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like literally. Well they also said specifically this boat because a lot of times they wouldn't put a lot of like zhuzh into these boats, but the Bat Batavia they're like let's make this one nice yeah the gentlemen 17 were like fucking go all out with this ship and all the construction of the Batavia cost the modern equivalent of 13 million dollars but if all went well it was expected to pay for itself a dozen times over over the course of 10 to 20 years, ships of the Batavia's class were supposed to last for six round trips to and from the Indies before they were

dismantled and their timber used to build houses. But unfortunately for the VOC, the Batavia would not make it to the Indies even once. Spoiler! As far as cargo bound for the island of Java on the Batavia went it included a 25 foot prefabricated Gateway and a hundred and thirty seven sandstone blocks weighing 37 tons They were gonna use these building materials for a castle. So what they do is so if you're going to Indies It's such a long fucking trip. So there's and because they have business out there There's a bunch of people that will put stuff onto the ship to go and bring over there because they got shit to handle over

There this was from Coon Coon was trying to build a castle that was supposed to be in tribute to himself Yeah, and they literally castle Batavia. Yeah, they were gonna just bring stuff to build him a house. There's shit there. No No It's nutmeg We got rocks Not the good rocks Well concerning Treasure, the ship was loaded with Boxes of silver, millions of dollars

Worth of the stuff This is the Ocean's Eleven style, you have to start seeing All the stuff that's going, so yeah, so now we got the Big blocks, that's like one thing, that's the boring stuff And then all of a sudden you see these big loads Of fucking silver just being dropped in one by one by one You remember it's staffed by entirely criminals Yeah

And the silver was earmarked for trade with the locals and the Indies but most impressive with the massive 500 pound wooden chest full of gilders worth 32.5 Million dollars in today's currency. One boat. These chests were the last things loaded on board the Batavia before it set sail, and as was custom, the loading of the treasure was done under the personal supervision of the Gentleman 17.

This was the only time they actually came out to the docks to watch the money be loaded onto the boat. Because they were the ones that brought the money. They had to hand over the money to the guys now there are good there We will meet the guy that's in charge of the money that will be on the boat. That is our main character Paul Rudd our Paul Rudd And the gentleman 17 they're not going on the trip no No, no, no does Jeff Bezos work at the fucking Amazon factory every once once in a while he'll put on a little shower cap and go out there and he just kind of like goes like, oh this is crazy, golf balls.

The captain of the Batavia was a man named Ariana Jacobs. Jacobs was in his mid 40s, which actually made him one of the oldest men on the Batavia. This is our Nick Nolte. made him one of the oldest men on the Batavia. Jacobs was a quick tempered alcoholic rapist, but an excellent sailor nonetheless. That made him right at home working for the VOC. But as I mentioned earlier, the captain was not the true commander of a VOC ship. While Jacobs was in charge of the navigation and sailor management, the person who was really calling the shots on the Batavia was the upper merchant, a man named

Francisco Pelsart. Now this is our Paul Rudd. This is our lovable scamp. That is gonna have to figure out if he can make it right in the end. And his whole list is gonna rest on Pelsart's shoulders. I got a feeling his family's gonna get killed. Yeah. Now Pelsart's job was to place the cargo and profits of the company above all else.

When the Batavia launched, Pelsart was one of the VOC's most valued upper merchants. He'd been hired at the lowest merchant rank, but had worked his way up because he had a knack for languages and was particularly skilled at negotiation. This guy, I mean, he's just some dude, but he knew how to speak like Urdu, he knew how to speak a whole bunch of different languages. But he also was a guy that was kind of like, he was viewed as charming, well he was good at it. He was a good negotiator and he wasn't brutal.

He was like a guy that liked, kind of like in a way liked people, like he liked the job in a way. He's a salesman, but he's a fuck up. He's a constant fuck up. Well, Pelsart, well actually no, Pelsart was not a constant fuck up. Well, he just, sometimes. Every once in a while he fucked up. It's the penis.

It's the penis. Yeah. Well, Pelsart had been responsible for establishing the VOC's lucrative indigo trade, and it even urged the Gentleman 17 to expand the company throughout India before the British had a chance to do so. They refused his advice and let the British take India, but had the gentleman 17 listened to Francisco Pelsart, the modern world would be a very different place. Yeah, British might fight. I guess when they don't really wear jeans like we do.

Pelsart's weakness, however, was women. The ladies. And his dalliances once almost cost the VOC dearly. While negotiating at a court in India, Pelsart seduced a noble woman, but just before sex, she mistook a bottle and clove oil. I don't know how much- You want the living, fuck man! Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fucking, after they fucked, she dropped dead. Oh shit, oh man! Fuck man! Well because at the time, it was customary, if you were in another country, they let you fuck pretty much anybody you want. You could fuck up anybody of any case, you could use their fucking version of sex workers workers that you can do whatever they didn't care

But the main thing was like leave the local nobility alone But he ended up because because I think a lot of them to be more attractive. Yeah problems you meet a princess Yeah, she's hot as fuck. Yeah, and you fucking kill her accidentally cuz you're a moron. Why do we have the clove oil? I don't know No, and he immediately went into this like cliche like Think it's time to get some new shit you think Lucky he had a boat full of lady murderers. Yeah, he called upon his fellow VOC employees to help him cover up the death of the noblewoman,

and they were able to secretly bury her body without the Indian court discovering what had happened. Not so secretly, we're talking about it now. Well now we're rolling the secret. This sort of shit happened all the time with the VOC as cover-ups and corruption became baseline behavior for just about every merchant. As the common VOC saying went, there were no Ten Commandments south of the equator. Whoa, I'm gonna steal that. When do you go south of the equator? When we go to Australia? No, there are.

There's no Ten Commandments and all that. When do you follow the Ten Commandments? Well, I don't murder. Yeah. I don't die. Well, I covet. I guess I make fun of my mom. Yeah. But also I love her. I do honor her in a way, but... Yeah.

You're all bountiful sidles, I'd tell you that. Yeah, you really are. Oh, shit. Yeah. And so, with Francisco Pelsart acting as the leader of the expedition as upper merchant, Arianna Jacobs as captain following Pelsart's orders, and Euronymous Cornelis assigned as one of the ship's undermerchants, the Batavia set sail on its maiden voyage for the island of Java in October of 1628.

Just remember each one of these guys have their back absolutely against the wall. Francisco Pelsart had to beg his way onto this ship. He had just gone through like a whole like scandal, a whole like a whole thing that I didn't even want to go into. But yeah, he's like this is like last chance time for Francisco. This is a very, because he's on, because it's a horrible run. You don't want, it's a real nice ship, but is a rough fucking run He does not want to be on this so you have him you have Ariana Jacobs who literally he's got a foot. He's fucking what's his name? He's about to retire

This is his life. This is supposed to be his last trip. Oh, he's our Danny Glover Nebulous right he's kind of but he's the whole thing is that this was the last time I'm supposed to go, this is the last time I'm doing this shit, I'm never doing it again. And then you have the other guy, then you have Uronimus, who's a psychopath that we don't know yet. I know you said it earlier, but how many people are on the boat? Well, that's what I was about to get into. These three men made up just a fraction of the Batavia's full passenger manifest, and all of the Batavia was loaded with 340 people. A hundred of these 340 were soldiers who had been contracted by the VOC for garrison duties

in the Indies. Desperate men with nothing to lose and nothing to do for the entirety of their eight-month journey. For the most part, the soldiers were German, but their ranks included men from France, Scotland, England, and the Netherlands. They were largely untrained, and from what it sounds like, they lived by prison rules in prison-like conditions while aboard the Batavia. For example, casual violence and thievery amongst the soldiers was the norm, and the

only bonds were friendships of convenience or between guys who just happened to be from the same town. And also, they didn't always bugger each other, mostly they saved that for the cabin boys. Yep. Your friend would keep an eye on your possessions, share their food and water, and take care of you if you got sick, because the sick bays on the Batavia were reserved for officers, VOC merchants, and higher class passengers only. Everyone else, get better or die. As far as where they lived, soldiers quarters were on the oar lop, the lowest deck of the ship.

The ceilings in the oar lop were low enough so as to make standing upright impossible, and it was so close to the waterline that the men didn't have vents or portholes for air or light. This might have been bearable if not for the fact that the soldiers spent the majority of the eight-month long journey in the Orlok. Wouldn't that make your soldiers weaker? Yeah. Yeah, of course.

But once they got there they maybe could rest and recoup and then get back. That's kind of, well that's also why you- You can still do push-ups like that. But also, to be honest, that's why you send so many. Yeah. So that you can lose 15%. Mm-hmm. And like literally. Yeah. And like-

They're expendable. Remember, everyone on this boat is expendable. They're expendable, yeah. Nobody's care- nobody gives a shit. Yeah we got- If any one of these guys come back. Yeah. It's the jetlies, the Dolph Lundgrens of it.

This is what I'm saying. It's Ocean's Eleven. Nobody's gonna miss any of these fuckers. Mm-hmm. And like prisoners, the soldiers were only allowed outside of the Orlop for two 30-minute periods a day to use the Loshrenes and breathe fresh air for their health. Oh, good. For their health.

If it's any indication as to how the VOC regarded soldiers, the Orlop did double duty. That was where the spices were stored on the return journey. As a result, I'd imagine the Orlopp developed quite the interesting aroma after a few voyages. Oh yeah, so my Uber is here. I wonder also what they would do is the treasure room. So that was also what I love is that the all the money and all the jewels, because also Pelsar was bringing his own personal jewels He had a collection of something like 75 grand of we do that were kept in this Specific safe room that was behind the Orlopp So in order to get to it you would have to go through the soldiers to get to that stuff. That's smart

Yeah, also why even bring the soldiers back? They didn't No, that's the whole point is that where the salt like the even bring the soldiers back? They didn't. They would be filled with stuff. No, that's the whole point, is that where the soldiers, like the place where the soldiers were brought to the Indies, They would just become cops of that place. Yeah. And on the way back, that hold was filled with spice. Okay, good. And then, but ostensibly, the ship would go again. So then it's just gonna get worse and worse. So then it just starts smelling like nutmeg, shit, piss, you know, body odor, and cloves. Yeah, like being it's just gonna get worse and worse. It just starts smelling like nutmeg shit piss

You know body odor and clothes. Yeah, like being in Santa's pants The Washington commander's locker room Now the soldiers were the lowest station aboard the Batavia but the ones right above them the sailors weren't much higher station aboard the Batavia, but the ones right above them, the sailors, weren't much higher. The Batavia's crew was made up of 180 unwashed men with no changes of clothes who lived in less than 70 feet of deck that shared space with a dozen heavy guns and miles of cable. I don't care if I die! I don't know who I am! Me neither!

Yeah, me neither! We're all one guy! God, to be lower than a sailor. It was said that the ordinary VOC seaman was such a horrifying sight that they were kept far away from the higher class passengers, so as to not offend the passengers' delicate sensibilities. Some people have a thick... They're allergic to me.

And I don't know if it's my personality or if it's the fact that I'm covered in barnacles. Oh yes. Let me suck on your eyeballs. I just honestly just for fun. Just for something different. I'd place it at the open swords that you're covered in. Oh yes. Oh now I forget. If they're not open you can't feed them. Little mouth. If they're not open, you can't feed them. Kill them all.

Speaking of passengers though, the Batavia also held the families of any VOC employee who could afford to bring them along. That meant that there were plenty of women and children aboard this ship, and the women especially had to constantly be on their guard to protect themselves from the rapacious soldiers and sailors. And they were sort of kept separate. Tried to. They tried to.

They tried to keep them separate. God, put them up in the crow's nest. They would give them little hours. They would be allowed to go up top. They would go to go up top. Everyone had to leave. They were allowed to go up top, and then they had to go back down.

But they were like, it's also kind of funny because it's again, as we'll see, it's this desperate attempt to create this modern, civilized, hierarchical society on this boat We are an extension of the Netherlands and this boat will be will remain orderly Orderly and it will and it will be fine from here on out Why would you bring your family because they encouraged it so that you wouldn't worry about so you try real hard to not die Yeah

So you'd be so you could keep an eye on them Because if it's safe you just didn't want to be apart from them If you planned on settling and the West Indy or the East Indies, yeah keep an eye on them because if it's safe you just didn't want to be apart from them. If you planned on settling in the West Indies or the East Indies. Many reasons. Other passengers on the Batavia's maiden voyage included a 52-year-old Calvinist minister named Chrisbert Bastions, who had brought along his wife, seven children, and their servants.

Minister Bastions was headed to the Indies not as a missionary but to serve the Dutch coloners who'd made a home there. But unfortunately for the minister, booking passage on the Batavia would be the worst decision he ever made. What? What did you just say? Did he get dysentery? He's gonna get it bad. Now the Batavia got off to a bad start. It was beset with delays and storms and even ran aground just after launch on a sandbank

Apparently one in five Dutch ships that were built crashed on this sandbank and fucking sank and this is kind of like so Pelsart and Jacobs immediately had sort of an antagonistic relationship because Jacobs was kind of like eating but he got stuck and he showed he's like I'm an old sea. It's like I'm an old sea dog and I'll tell you how to do this. And he saved the boat. And everyone's like oh okay maybe things will be fine. Yeah, Cap. Where was the sand bank?

Was it by Europe or Africa? It's right outside of the Netherlands. That's so aggravating. Yeah. But the ship was saved by Captain Yakob's excellent instruction and once it got to sea it began its 15,000 mile journey with a fleet of six other ships, all overseen by upper merchant Francisco Pelsart. After six months at sea, the Batavia put in at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa,

which was the only acceptable port of call mandated by the VOC because they wanted round trips to take the shortest amount of time possible. From what it seems though, during that six months on the water, Euronymous Cornelis became friendly with Captain Yakobs because the two of them, along with a group of sailors, they got drunk one night and stole one of the Batavia's boats for a little ride around the Cape. He was trying to cut off, kind of blow off steam and Yakobs was a really bad fucking drunk. He was a bad drunk and a rapist. And what he was doing was they were going around all the other boats and in a funny

way, he just started fights with the crews and all these other boats. Like this guy just decided to fight the entire mission. For some reason they got hammered. Well it's like the varsity team beats up the JV team. But they're on the same team. Yeah, yeah, I know. We all go to the same school, but like I play football, you play baseball, I'm a slap you. Basically.

Upper merchant Palsar couldn't have been more angry with this little adventure, and as a result, cut the Batavius time in port to just eight days, less than half of what was expected. This naturally led to some resentment amongst the crew, especially the soldiers, because now it's like, well, you're not going to get two and a half weeks anymore to breathe fresh air and just be a human you now have a little over a week. Perhaps not coincidentally, it's also around this time that Captain Yakobs and Euronymous Cornelis began plotting the mutiny that would result

in six weeks of bloody mayhem. The one that was supposed to make them both very rich men. And that is where we'll pick back up next week for the tragedy of the Batavia, part two. Man, it just builds. So now it's gonna build, cause you remember, like, we're gonna see what causes them to kind of put together what it's like to plant a mutiny Mm-hmm and how it all gets fucking just destroyed in a second. I love that. It's already horrible, but it gets worse

No, you have no idea how bad it's gonna get these guys go straight to hell Yeah, yeah, not even joking these guys are going straight down No, it is a dead is a full descent in hell as much as one of as I've ever seen in but the families will be fine Yeah, women and children do great. They do great. Yeah. Yeah, you heard of Manu dough That was that was that came from this that was the kids They became Manu dough and then Yeah, and then you know living with me to local And you know now he's an actor Incredible yeah all from all from the Batavia

Let's just say we have no idea how long this is gonna be but it's gonna be not that long mm-hmm right It's gonna be you know couple episodes. Yeah, definitely a few It's gonna be a few episodes very But I'm very excited with this fucking shit because it's about to get really fucking gnarly immediately. But you'll see. You go to patreon.com slash last podcast and if you could watch us scream about it and have our jaws flopping around.

Wait, you're gonna pay for that money. And you go to LP on the left of TikTok and Instagram for some reason they're still there. So you wanna go look at that. And that's good for advertising. Yes, we know. And then twitch.tv slash LPNTV, go and watch our streams. Such as, not tonight, yesterday we did Hoopa Goopoo,

but it will soon be on YouTube. Yes, it'll be on YouTube and then you can see the next live Hoopa Goopoo on February 6th, 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern. And that is of course starring mr. Ed Larson. Yes I was on the last Hoopa goo goo. Yeah, mr. Nurse. Yeah, mr. Nurse the musical accompaniment Yes, wonderful music. Thank you. Thank you. I played the best christmas music my synth could make Also, we're gonna be in Dallas on February 22nd, actually Grand Prairie, Texas.

So make sure you catch us there. And then of course on the 14th of March we'll be at the Ryman Theater in Nashville. And just two days after that, that Sunday on the 16th, Henry and I got a side stories in Huntsville, Alabama. We're coming for you NASA. Yeah, that's right you NASA pieces of shit. Yeah, fuck you NASA. I fucking dare you to show up. Because we are asking you to. Yeah. And I will put you on the list. That's right. I will put you on the list and I will spank myself.

And then of course we will be on the 18th of April we'll be in Detroit and on May 3rd we'll be in Toronto and at the end of June We're coming back to Atlanta for our rescheduled date Yep, I cannot wait to see all of you Can't wait can't wait to see y'all on the high seas I don't want to go and I'm not gonna go. Yeah on the high seas. Yeah, I'm not going to the high seas No, you are you actually you actually? Had a meeting today specifically about you going on the high sea. Yeah the crime wave

We had a meeting today specifically about you going on the high. Yeah the crime wave Yeah, Henry and I are gonna do a cruise that we're gonna announce it next week Can you be able to buy tickets in the mill? You're gonna come see us on a crime cruise You just gotta be careful. Okay, honestly, we're gonna go out there. Someone's gonna get murdered. Yeah. Yeah. I'm mustang We understand as you should he'll say never okay. Hail Peter. Yeah. Yeah, I was hoping you would for setting the book. Yeah Nobody's feeling a lot of conflicted feelings right now because he did get shouted out by his favorite podcast But then he's also having to relive probably the lifelong trauma about the you know, his name yeah Peter yeah yeah but you know what you do stop ledge sword life sucks see you later