Batavia's Graveyard

Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny (2002) is a book by Welsh author Mike Dash about the Dutch ship Batavia, shipwrecked in 1629 on a small island in the Houtman Abrolhos atoll off the western shore of Australia.

The book retells the story of one of the largest mutinies in history, led by one of the ship's officers Jeronimus Cornelisz, who eventually oversaw the murder of at least 110 people. The book explores the background of the period in history, and many of the people involved in Holland, such as John of Leiden who influenced the mutiny and the revolutionary and violent messianism of its Anabaptist leaders. It retells the tortuous trip from Europe to the East Indies, and a detailed account of the events which transpired on the islands after the captain and some of the crew left for Java in an open boat, before they returned several months later. It also has information on what happened to the survivors and the rediscovery of the wreck in the 20th century.