In 1628 the Dutch East India Company loaded the Batavia, the flagship of its fleet, with a king s ransom in gold, silver, and gems for her maiden voyage to Java; the ship itself was a tangible symbol of the world s richest and most powerful monopoly.
The company also sent along a new employee to guard its treasure. He was Jeronimus Corneliszoon, a disgraced and bankrupt man with great charisma and dangerously heretical ideas. With the help of a few disgruntled sailors, he hatched a plot to seize the ship and her riches. The mutiny might have succeeded, but in the dark morning hours of...