On October 28 1628 the Batavia set sail from Texel in the Netherlands on her maiden journey to Batavia, now called Jakarta, in the Dutch Colonies of Indonesia. Seven other ships of various sizes accompanied her. Francesco Pelsaert, a senior merchant, commanded the Batavia. The skipper of the ship was Ariaen Jacobsz and he did not approve of having a merchant commanding the flagship. These two men were old enemies from a previous journey.

It took eight months to reach the Cape of Good Hope and the Batavia arrived with only two other ships because bad weather had split up the convoy. Once there the skipper ended up in a fight aboard one of the other ships. The skipper was publicly humiliated by Pelsaert, which made Jacobsz despise the commodore even more.

Soon after this, Jeronimus Cornelius, the skipper's new companion, suggested mutiny to the Skipper. The plan was, with...