The sensational account of the Batavia shipwreck and massacre in 1629 has been told often, based on the 1645 report of the Commander Francisco Pelsaert. The Library recently acquired two rare firsthand accounts written in 1630, 15 years earlier than the Pelsaert account. On 4 June 1629, a Dutch East India Company flagship, the Batavia, was wrecked off the Western Australian coast. The surviving passengers were left on one of the islands of the nearby Houtman Abrolhos. Pelsaert took a small group in a longboat to get help from the Dutch colony of Batavia, on the island of Java. In the absence of their commander, Jeronimus Cornelisz and a small group of his supporters murdered at least 125 men, women and children. When Pelsaert arrived back from Java, there were fewer than 150 survivors. Those responsible for the crimes were arrested, tried and executed.