Dutch East India Company shipwreck and mutiny stories bolster discipline

What is it about?

The paper analyzes four Dutch shipwreck and mutiny accounts from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In each account, disaster arises from a loss of discipline among the crew, indicated by the breaching of shipboard spatial boundaries and protocols. The subsequent survival of the accounts' authors results from the re-establishment of proper discipline, indicated by proper spatial relations.

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Why is it important?

Ships played several important roles in establishing European colonies and empires. The paper shows how the distinctive social organization of the ship informed the early colonial world and how disaster narratives helped form and support its social construction.