The shipwreck of Captain Bontekoe, commemorated on this plaque is a very interesting "hard luck" story. A summary is provided here:
(Thanks A.R.) |
On 28 December 1618 Willem Ysbrandtsz Bontekoe, captain of the Nieuw-Hoorn sets sail for Java, from the Low Countries. After several months of difficult sailing he stops at the island of Mauritius and then at Madagascar. Later, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the gin stock catches fire and then the powder. The ship explodes "with so much debris that one could not any more distinguish between parts of human beings and other things". The seriously injured Bontekoe and an apprentice boy are the sole survivors. But 70 men who had escaped in a sloop during the fire come to their rescue . For days on end they are at the mercy of ocean currents and wind. They suffered extreem hardships including thirst and hunger. They finally landed on the coast of Sumatra where they narrowly escape being massacred by natives. They were, however, able to procure some food and then reach the Strait of Sunda (between the South of Sumatra and the West of Java, quite close to the Dutch base of Batavia, which is now Jakarta,) where a Dutch fleet picked them up.
Bontekoe next voyaged to the Moluccan archipelago and various expeditions in the Chinese Sea. He participated in a failed attack against the Portuguese at Macao in June 1622. For the next two years he fights a bloody privateering war from Formosa (Taiwan) scouring the coasts of China. This attempt to force the commercial ambitions of the United east Indies Company on the Empire of China obviously leads to failure. On the 6th of February 1625 Bontekoe departs from Batavia to returns to Holland at the head of three richly charged vesssels. Two are wrecked under way. His vessel, half destroyed in a hurricane, makes a long stop for repairs at Madagascar. He then makes his way to Saint Helena where Portuguese cannons almost send him to the bottom of the ocean. It is only after having overcome these and many other disasters that Bontekoe arrives at his native Holland again on November 25th, 1625, having miraculously escaped death which had pursued him in so many different ways. |
