A murderous 17th-century Dutch mutineer, who inspired the hit TV show The Traitors, could have been the world’s first “corporate psychopath”, a new study has claimed.
Jeronimus Cornelisz was put in charge of around 200 survivors after the Batavia, a merchant vessel run by the Dutch East India Company, ran aground off the west coast of Australia in 1629.
Once senior officers had set off on a longboat to seek help in what is now Jakarta, Cornelisz divided the remaining survivors into factions, playing them off against each. He “quickly installed loyalists on a ruling council, demanded oaths of allegiance and isolated potential opponents”, said Lara Bowman in The Times. Over the next two months “his henchmen drowned, strangled, hacked or bludgeoned to death up to 115 men, women and children”.
Cornelisz justified the killings as a way of conserving food and water supplies but after a rescue ship arrived, he, along with six accomplices, were condemned to death, tortured and hanged.
‘World’s first psychopathic boss’
A new study published in the Asian Journal of Business Ethics has found that Cornelisz displayed all 10 core characteristics associated with psychopathic business leaders. These include “using charm to gain trust, surrounding themselves with loyal supporters, removing potential challengers, creating divisions among rivals, establishing a climate of fear, avoiding responsibility when things go wrong, and pursuing power, money and control above all else”, said The Telegraph.
Dr Clive Boddy, from Anglia Ruskin University, who conducted the research, said that Cornelisz followed the “same playbook we see in toxic workplaces today”. The 30-year-old apothecary turned merchant “removed opponents, rewarded loyalists, created fear, manipulated followers and pursued power at any cost”. This makes him the “world’s first psychopathic boss”, said The Telegraph.
From Cornelisz to The Traitors
The story of Cornelisz and the Batavia may seem an unlikely inspiration for a hit TV show, but for producer Jasper Hoogendoorn the appeal was obvious.
“It’s a story about people who murder each other, backstab each other, betray each other,” he told the Edinburgh TV Festival in 2023. “It’s a horrible story. But it was such a fascinating story and I was thinking it’s also exciting. It’s so exciting to read that story and that’s where the whole idea came to create the show.”
Hoogendoorn said the Dutch TV show “De Verraders” – which means The Traitors and on which the hit UK series is based, was initially going to be called “The Mutineers” and take place on a replica ship, with contestants pushed into the sea when voted out.
That proved too costly for producers, so the decision was made to change the location to a castle, while keeping the idea of a mutiny and rival factions working against each other.
Seventeenth-century Dutch merchant sailor was ‘world’s first psychopath boss’
