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The ''Meermin'' slave mutiny took place in February 1766 and lasted for three weeks. The ''Meermin'' was one of the Dutch East India Company's fleet of slave ships. Her final voyage was cut short by the mutiny of her cargo of Malagasy people, who had been sold to Dutch East India Company officials on Madagascar to be used as company slaves in its Cape Colony in southern Africa. During the mutiny half the ship's crew and almost 30 Malagasy lost their lives. The ''Meermin'' set sail from Madagascar on 20 January 1766, heading to the Cape Colony. Two days into the trip, Johann Godfried Krause, the ship's chief merchant, persuaded the captain, Gerrit Cristoffel Muller, to release the Malagasy slaves from their shackles and thus avoid attrition by death and disease in their overcrowded living conditions. The Malagasy were put to working the ship and entertaining the crew. In mid-February, Krause ordered the Malagasy to clean some Madagascan weapons, which they subsequently used to seize the ship in an attempt to regain their freedom; Krause was among the first of the crew to be killed, and Muller was stabbed three times but survived. The crew negotiated a truce, under the terms of which the Malagasy undertook to spare the lives of the surviving crew members. In exchange it was agreed that the ''Meermin'' would return to Madagascar, where the Malagasy would be released. But gambling on the Malagasy's ignorance of navigation, the wounded Muller instead ordered his crew to head for the coast of southern Africa. After making landfall at Struisbaai, in the Cape Colony, which the Malagasy were assured was their homeland, 50–70 of them went ashore. Their intention was to signal to the others still on board the ''Meermin'' if it was safe for them to follow, but the shore party soon found themselves confronted by a militia of farmers formed in response to the ''Meermin''s arrival; the farmers had understood that as the ship was flying no flags, it was in distress. The ''Meermin''s crew, now led by Krause's assistant Olof Leij, managed to communicate with the militia on shore by means of messages in bottles, and persuaded them to light the signal fires for which the Malagasy still on board were waiting. On seeing the fires, the Malagasy cut the ship's anchor cable and allowed the ship to drift towards the shore, after which she ran aground on an offshore sandbank. The Malagasy could then see the militia on the shore preparing to come to the ship's assistance, and realised that their situation was hopeless; they surrendered and were once again shackled. Captain Muller, ship's mate Daniel Carel Gulik and Krause's assistant Olof Leij were tried in the Dutch East India Company's Council of Justice; all three were fired from the Company, while Muller and Gulik were also stripped of their rank and wages. The slaves were not tried, but the two surviving leaders of the mutiny, named in Dutch East India Company records as ''Massavana'' and ''Koesaaij'', were sent to Robben Island for observation, where ''Massavana'' died three years later; ''Koesaaij'' survived there for another 20 years. In 2004 an ongoing search was begun for the ''Meermin''s remains. ==Voyage== Between 1658 and 1799 the Dutch East India Company acquired and transported approximately 63,000 slaves to its Cape Colony in southern Africa, now part of South Africa.〔("History of Slavery: The first slaves at the Cape" ). Rebirth.co.za. 2000. Retrieved 19 February 2012; ("''Amersfoort 1655''" ). VOCsite.nl. 2012. Retrieved 16 February 2012; ("Dutch East India Company, Trade Network, 18th Century" ). Hofstra University. 2012. Retrieved 4 February 2012; 〕 In Dutch, the company's name was ''Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie'': abbreviated as "VOC", the company's initials were used in a monogram which appeared on company materials as a logo.〔("The Dutch East India Company (VOC) 1602–1799" ) & ("VOC-logo" ). entoen.nu. Retrieved 13 February 2012.〕 The ''Meermin'' was a 480-ton square rigged ship of the Dutch "''hoeker''" type, with three masts, which was built in 1759 in the Dutch port of Amsterdam for the VOC's African trade.〔("''Meermin 1759''" ). VOCsite.nl. 2012. Retrieved 31 January 2012; ; ; .〕 From December 1765 she was working the coastline of Madagascar, under Captain Gerrit Muller and a crew of 56, collecting Malagasy men, women and children for use as slaves in the Cape Colony. Carrying about 140 Malagasy, she set sail from "Betisboka Bay" on the north-western coast of Madagascar on .〔("Slave Ship Mutiny Program Transcript" ). Educational Broadcasting Corporation. 2010. Retrieved 21 February 2012; ; ; ; .〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Meermin slave mutiny」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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