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{{Short description|Dutch trading ship wrecked in Australia in 1712}} |
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The VOC '''''Zuytdorp''''' (meaning 'South village') was a trading ship of the [[Dutch East India Company]] in the 1700s. In 1712 it was dispatched from the [[Netherlands]] to the trading port of Batavia (now [[Jakarta]], [[Indonesia]]) bearing a load of freshly minted silver coins. |
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{{Use Australian English|date=January 2014}} |
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{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2014}} |
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{|{{Infobox ship begin|display title=ital|infobox caption=''Zuytdorp''}} |
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{{Infobox ship career |
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|Ship country=[[Dutch Republic]] |
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|Ship flag=[[Image:Flag of the Dutch East India Company.svg|60px]] |
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|Ship name=Zuytdorp |
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|Ship owner=[[Dutch East India Company]] |
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|Ship completed= |
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|Ship fate=[[Shipwreck|Wrecked]] at the [[Zuytdorp Cliffs]] in 1712 |
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}} |
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|} |
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[[File:Zeeland hoedjesschelling 1711 VOC Zuytdorp.jpg|thumb|Recovered coins struck in 1711]] |
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'''''Zuytdorp''''', also ''Zuiddorp'' (meaning 'South Village', after [[Zuiddorpe]], an extant village in the south of [[Zeeland]] in the [[Netherlands]], near the Belgian border) was an 18th-century trading ship of the [[Dutch East India Company]] ({{lang|nl|Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie}}, commonly abbreviated VOC).<ref name="vsn-zui01">{{cite web |url=https://www.vocsite.nl/schepen/detail.html?id=11249 |title=Zuiddorp (1701) |date=2020 |website=De VOCsite |language=nl |access-date=2020-03-06 }}</ref> |
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On 1 August 1711,<ref>[http://www.voc.iinet.net.au/zuytdorp.html zuytdorp.html] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120717004231/http://www.voc.iinet.net.au/zuytdorp.html |date=17 July 2012 }}</ref> ''Zuytdorp'' was dispatched from the Netherlands to the trading port of [[History of Jakarta|Batavia]] (now [[Jakarta]], [[Indonesia]]) bearing a load of freshly minted [[silver coin]]s.<ref name="huygens-zuiddorp">{{cite web |url=http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/das/voyages?clear=1&field_voynameship=ZUIDDORP |title=Zuiddorp |website=The Dutch East India Company's shipping between the Netherlands and Asia 1595-1795 |date=2 February 2015 |publisher=Huygens ING |access-date=2020-03-06 }}</ref> Many trading ships travelled the [[Brouwer Route]], using the strong [[Roaring Forties]] winds to carry them across the [[Indian Ocean]] to within sight of the west coast of Australia (then called [[New Holland (Australia)|New Holland]]), whence they would turn north towards Batavia. |
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Many trading ships of the time had started to use a "fast route" to Indonesia, which used the strong [[Roaring Forties]] winds to carry them across the [[Indian Ocean]] to within sight of the west coast of [[Australia]] whence they would make a left turn and head north towards Indonesia. |
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''Zuytdorp'' did not arrive at its destination and was never heard from again. No search was undertaken, presumably because the VOC did not know whether or where the ship wrecked or if it was taken by pirates. Previous expensive attempts were made to search for other missing ships, but these failed even when an approximate wreck location was known. |
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The ''Zuytdorp'' never arrived at its destination. No search was undertaken, presumably due to prior expensive but fruitless attempts to search for other missing ships. The crew were never heard from again. Their fate was unknown until the 20th century when the wreck site was discovered on a remote part of the [[Western Australia]]n coast between [[Kalbarri, Western Australia|Kalbarri]] and [[Shark Bay]], a site subsequently named the Zuytdorp Cliffs. It is located at {{coor dms|27|11|10|S|113|36|00|E}} approximately 40 km north of the [[Murchison River]]. |
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In the mid-20th century, ''Zuytdorp''{{'}}s wreck site was identified on a remote part of the [[Western Australia]]n coast between [[Kalbarri, Western Australia|Kalbarri]] and [[Shark Bay]], approximately {{convert|40|km}} north of the [[Murchison River (Western Australia)|Murchison River]]. This section of coastline, subsequently named the [[Zuytdorp Cliffs]], was the preserve of [[Aboriginal Australians|Aboriginal]] people and had been one of the last uncolonised areas until sheep stations were established there in the late 19th century. It has been speculated that survivors of the wreck may have traded with or intermarried with local Aboriginal communities between Kalbarri and Shark Bay.<ref name="selectcommittee">{{cite web |
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==Current theory== |
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|url = http://parliament.wa.gov.au/Parliament/commit.nsf/(Report+Lookup+by+Com+ID)/FB48F049FAD871ED48256602000663A5/$file/fnl-rpt.pdf |
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|work = Western Australian Legislative Assembly |
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|date = 1994-08-17 |
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|access-date = 2008-02-21 |
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|title = Select Committee on Ancient Shipwrecks |
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|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080229140748/http://parliament.wa.gov.au/Parliament/commit.nsf/(Report+Lookup+by+Com+ID)/FB48F049FAD871ED48256602000663A5/$file/fnl-rpt.pdf |
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|archive-date = 29 February 2008 |
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}}</ref> |
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{{maplink |
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Something, perhaps a violent storm, occurred and the ''Zuytdorp'' was wrecked on a desolate section of the Western Australian coast. Survivors scrambled ashore and camped near the wreck site. At this stage, Australia had no colonies to which to turn for help, so they built huge bonfires from the wreckage to signal to fellow trading ships that would pass within sight of the coast. But fires seen in the vicinity tended to be dismissed as "native fires". |
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|frame=yes |
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|coord={{coord|-27.1861141667|113.9364534167}} |
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|frame-width=360 |
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|frame-height=360 |
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|text=The location of the wreck of the ''Zuytdorp'' off the coast of [[Western Australia]] |
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|zoom=5 |
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|type=point |
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|marker-colour=#C60C30 |
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|title=Zuytdorp |
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|description=wrecked 9 June 1712 |
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}} |
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There was news of an unidentified shipwreck on the shore in 1834 when Aboriginal people told a farmer near [[Perth]] about a wreck{{snd}}the colonists presumed it was a recent wreck and sent rescue parties who failed to find the wreck or any survivors. In 1927, wreckage was seen by an Indigenous-European family group (including Ada and Ernest Drage, Tom and Lurleen Pepper, Charlie Mallard) on a clifftop near the border of Murchison house and Tamala Stations. Bertie and Pearl Drage, Jack Brand and Mrs Brand and two Aboriginal workers including a man named Nyarda are also understood to have been involved. Tamala Station head stockman Tom Pepper reported the find to the authorities, with their first visit to the site occurring in 1941. In 1954 Pepper gave [[Phillip Playford]] directions to the wreckage. Playford identified the relics as from ''Zuytdorp''. |
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Eventually the survivors may have traded with or joined tribes of [[Indigenous Australians|Aborigines]] in the area. |
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== First dives and salvage attempts == |
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An infamous predecessor of the ''Zuytdorp'', the VOC [[Batavia (ship)|''Batavia'']] was wrecked not far away on the [[Houtman Abrolhos]] islands and after the following mutiny, atrocities, massacres and trials, two of the mutineers had been [[marooning|marooned]] on the Australian mainland, not far South from the later wreck of the ''Zuytdorp''. Whether this had any effect on the local Aboriginals' attitude towards the survivors is unknown. |
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The first dive in May 1964 and the sighting of a massive silver deposit in 1967 resulted in successful salvage attempts by teams led by Tom Brady of Geraldton, and Perth-based Alan Robinson who utilised the services of Clive Daw (who had visited the site by land on other occasions) in order to facilitate his work. |
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== Western Australian Museum's work == |
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Harry Bingham and his chief diver Geoff Kimpton were successful in recovering silver and other materials in 1971, as was a team led by Jeremy Green in 1976 and on other occasions. Salvage work ceased in 1981 due to the perceived dangers of working the site. Thereafter a watch-keeper was appointed to guard the site. |
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The site, one of the few restricted zones under the Commonwealth ''[[Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976]]'' and ''[[Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018]]'', required a permit to visit and was under regular surveillance. A permit is still required. |
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==Archaeology== |
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There is also some debate over the first person to discover the wreck in modern times. Early exploration of the wreck has appeared to have been characterised by [[looting]] and [[treasure hunting]]. |
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When work recommenced in 1986 led by M. (Mack) McCarthy (with the museum's chief diver Geoff Kimpton) it was found that the silver deposit had all but disappeared. |
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According to the 'Select Committee on Ancient Shipwrecks': |
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* Primary Discoverer: Tom Pepper, a stockman working at Murchison House Station who claimed to have discovered the wreck in April, 1927 |
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* Second Primary Discoverer: Phillip Playford, a geologist working at Tamala Station who identified the wreck between 1954 and 1957 |
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* Secondary Discoverers: Ada Drage, Max Cramer, Graham Cramer, Tom Brady |
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A special award ceremony was held in [[Geraldton, Western Australia|Geraldton]] on 22 February 1996. |
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Soon after the program entered its multi-disciplinary phase, becoming the first of the [[Western Australian Museum]]’s VOC studies to embrace the practice. Geologist-historian [[Phillip Playford]] joined the team, as did pre-historians [[Sandra Bowdler]], [[Kate Morse]], terrestrial historical archaeologists including Fiona Weaver and Tom Pepper Jr., (representing station and Indigenous interests), surveyors, the [[Landgate|Department of Land Administration]], and artists. Oral histories were recorded with station identities, including relatives of the Pepper, Drage, Blood, Mallard and other Indigenous families involved with the wreck. Foremost in this new phase was the attention paid to the possibilities of European-Indigenous interaction and the movement of survivors away from the wreck. |
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In 1834, Aborigines told a farmer near the recently colonised [[Perth, Western Australia|Perth]] about a wreck some distance to the North. Details strongly point to the ''Zuytdorp'', however the colonists presumed it was a recent wreck and sent rescue parties who failed to find the wreck or any survivors. Presumably, the story of the wreck had been passed down the generations. |
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Phillip Playford's book, ''Carpet of Silver: The Wreck of the Zuytdorp was'' produced as part of the museum's research. The book won the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards when it was first published in 1996.<ref>{{Citation | author1=Playford, Phillip E. (Phillip Elliott) | title=Carpet of silver: the wreck of the Zuytdorp | publication-date=1996 | publisher=University of Western Australia Press | isbn=978-1-875560-73-8}}</ref> |
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Numerous excavations since 1941 have been conducted on the site. Primary discoveries included the remains of the actual wreck, just offshore, containing the ''carpet of silver''(coins) the site was famous for, but later stolen under mysterious circumstances. |
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The museums in both [[Fremantle]] and at [[Geraldton]] presented exhibitions on the wreck, a website, and reports.{{cn |date=October 2024}} An exhibition was also produced for the Kalbarri heritage centre. Due to the logistical difficulties and the advent of Health and Safety legislation, the Zuytdorp in-water program ceased in 2002, though work on land and in the laboratory remains active. |
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The [[Western Australian Maritime Museum]] has been instrumental in organising research expeditions to the site. |
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Historian [[Bill Bunbury]] reviewed the wreck and consequences in the chapter ''A Lost Ship – Lost People: The Zuytdorp Story'' in the book ''Caught in Time: Talking Australia History.''<ref>{{Citation | author1=Bunbury, Bill | title=Caught in time: talking Australian history |date=2006 | publisher=Fremantle Arts Centre Press | edition=New | isbn=978-1-921064-84-5}}</ref> |
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Phillip Playford has written a comprehensive book about the ''Zuytdorp'' called ''Carpet Of Silver: The Wreck Of The Zuytdorp'' , and this in turn was followed by Bill Bunbury reviewing the whole issues of the wreck and consequences in his chapter called ''A Lost Ship-Lost People - The Zuytdorp story'' in 'Caught in Time - Talking Australia History''. |
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== Dutch-Aboriginal intermarriage theory and rock inscriptions == |
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==References== |
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In 1988, an American woman who had married into the Mallard family contacted [[Phillip Playford]] and described how her husband had died some years before from a disease called [[variegate porphyria]]. Playford found that the disease was genetically linked and initially confined to [[Afrikaner]]s and that all cases of the disease in [[South Africa]] were traceable to Gerrit Jansz and Ariaantjie Jacobs, who had married in [[Cape of Good Hope]] in 1688. |
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* Playford, Phillip ''Carpet Of Silver: The Wreck Of The Zuytdorp'' 1996, University Of Western Australia Press ISBN 1-875560-85-8 |
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* Bunbury, Bill ''Caught in Time - Talking Australian History'' 2006, Fremantle Arts Centre Press ISBN 1-921064-84-6 |
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* Gerritsen, R ''And their Ghosts May Be Heard'' 1994, Fremantle Arts Centre Press ISBN 1-86368-063-2 |
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''Zuytdorp'' arrived at the Cape in March 1712, where it took on more than 100 new crew. One of the Jansz' sons could have boarded the ship at this time and thus become the carrier of the disease into the Australian Aboriginal population. In 2002 a [[DNA]] investigation into the hypothesis that a variegate porphyria mutation was introduced into the Aboriginal population by shipwrecked sailors was undertaken at the [[Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre]] in [[Nedlands, Western Australia]], and the [[Stellenbosch University]] in South Africa.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=September 2002 |title=Variegate porphyria in Western Australian Aboriginal patients |journal=Internal Medicine Journal |volume=32 |issue=9–10 |pages=445–450 |doi=10.1046/j.1445-5994.2002.00274.x |pmid=12380696 |last1=Rossi |first1=E |last2=Chin |first2=CY |last3=Beilby |first3=JP |last4=Waso |first4=HF |last5=Warnich |first5=L |s2cid=34572600 }}</ref> The research concluded the mutations were not inherited from shipwrecked sailors. |
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==Access To Wreck== |
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To be added.... |
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The presence of similar European genetic maladies in the Aboriginal population (such as [[Ellis–Van Creveld syndrome]]) as from VOC shipwreck survivors is also doubtful. Dutch–Indigenous links via the VOC wrecks are rendered less certain because of the importation of hundreds of divers for use in the [[Pearling in Western Australia|Western Australian pearling field]] in the mid-to-late 19th century. Incorrectly called [[Malays (ethnic group)|Malays]], these indentured labourers came from the islands north of Australia, many via the port of Batavia. One vessel, the {{SS|Xantho||6}} for example, brought 140 Malay boys aged 12–14 for use in the pearling field. They boarded at Batavia where diseases (including genetic diseases) had been introduced by VOC personnel into the local population since 1600. In addition, many Malay pearlers remained on the coast and some intermarried with Aboriginal people at Shark Bay. Therefore, it is equally possible that genetic links between [[Aboriginal Australians]] and the Dutch can be traced to those sources. The [[Makassar people|Macassans]], who frequented northern Australian shores for centuries and who mixed with the coastal Aborigines and even took some of them back to Macassar, are another possible source.<ref>McCarthy, M, 2024. The Zuytdorp Research Compendium) Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Museum, report No. 348.</ref> |
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==External links== |
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* [http://www.voc.iinet.net.au/zuytdorp.html Australian VOC Historical Society : Zuytdorp] |
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The possibility Aboriginal groups joined survivors from ''Zuytdorp'' or mutineers from ''Batavia'' inspired the [[Walga Rock]] ship painting was another popular belief. This theory has been challenged as new evidence points to the image being a steamship, possibly ''Xantho''.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/broadhurst/ss-xantho | title=SS Xantho - Early life | website=museum.wa.gov.au | access-date=2024-08-23}}</ref> |
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* [http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/collections/maritime/march/shipwrecks/Zuytdorp/Zuytdorp.html Western Australia Maritime Museum : Zuytdorp] |
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There was also renewed interest in the authenticity of rock inscriptions, predominantly one reading "Zuytdorp 1711" that was once visible on a rock-face adjacent to the reef platform at the site. Post-dating Phillip Playford's first visits in 1954–55, when photographs of the same area show no inscription, the inscription is considered a modern artefact.<ref name="museum-wa">{{cite web |url=http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/maritime-archaeology-db/wrecks/zuiddorp-zuytdorp |title=Zuiddorp (Zuytdorp) |publisher=Western Australian Museum |access-date=21 July 2018 }}</ref>{{cn |date=October 2024}} |
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== Commemorative plaque == |
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In June 2012, the [[Shire of Northampton]] unveiled a commemorative plaque in Kalbarri commemorating the 300th anniversary of ''Zuytdorp''{{'}}s wreck.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://zestfest.experiencekalbarri.com/events/official-unveiling-of-the-zuytdorp-commemorative-plaque|title=Official Unveiling of the Zuytdorp Commemorative Plaque|publisher=Kalbarri Development Association|access-date=2012-06-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120411162836/http://zestfest.experiencekalbarri.com/events/official-unveiling-of-the-zuytdorp-commemorative-plaque|archive-date=11 April 2012}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | title='Zuytdorp' Memorial | publication-date=2012-06-02 | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/173249931 | access-date=18 June 2022}}</ref> The plaque also mentions ''Batavia'' and {{ship||Zeewijk||2}}, two other VOC ships that were wrecked in the area. |
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== Recent Developments and renewed research == |
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[[Ernie Dingo]] visited the site to learn more about his estranged father Tom Pepper Jr and his grandparents Tom Snr and Lurlie Pepper. This investigation appeared in a 2018 edition of [[Who Do You Think You Are? (Australian TV series)|Who Do You Think You Are]]. |
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Playford’s book ''Carpet of Silver'' was reprinted unaltered in 1998 and 2006. The last{{as of? |date=October 2024}} of the Western Australian Museum's works was an internal report produced in 2009, {{Incomprehensible span |date=October 2024 |reason=If it is publicly known, why did it need to be published for there to be no knowledge vacuum? Its also only been 15 years (as of 2024) since 2009, which is hardly 'decades'. |text=leaving a decades-old vacuum in what was publicly-known about the wreck and its aftermath.}}<ref>McCarthy, M., 2006. The Dutch on Australian Shores: the Zuytdorp tragedy—unfinished business. In Shaw, L., and Wilkins, W., (eds.) Dutch Connections—400 years of Australian-Dutch maritime links. 1606-2006: 94-109.</ref><ref>Reproduced as Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Museum, report No. 256 [https://museum.wa.gov.au/maritime-archaeology-db/sites/default/files/no._256_zuytdorp1.pdf ''Zuytdorp: Unfinished business''], M. McCarthy, 2009.</ref> |
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After retiring from the Western Australian Museum in 2019, McCarthy sought to fill that gap,{{cn |date=October 2024}} resulting in ''The Zuytdorp Research Compendium'', an {{Incomprehensible span |date=October 2024 |reason=How can an unpublished report correct something being unpublished? |text=unpublished electronic report that is primarily designed to assist}} stakeholders{{who? |date=October 2024}} in accessing{{how? |date=October 2024}} all that is now{{when? |date=October 2024}} known about the subject. Presented in April 2024 to the Department of Maritime Heritage at the Western Australian Museum as an electronic internal report,{{efn |Number 348}} this roughly 500-page work contains McCarthy's research and links to all other known sources and archives including those of the VOC, early explorers, salvage divers, Aboriginal families, scientists, linguists and other researchers and enthusiasts.{{cn |date=October 2024}} |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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* [[ANCODS]], the Australian Netherlands Committee on Old Dutch Shipwrecks |
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* [[List of shipwrecks]] |
* [[List of shipwrecks]] |
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* [[Concordia (1696 ship)]] |
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* [[Maritime archaeology]] |
* [[Maritime archaeology]] |
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* [[Shipwrecks of Western Australia]] |
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* [[VOC ship Amsterdam]] |
* [[VOC ship Amsterdam]] |
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* [[Protected areas of Australia]] |
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==Notes== |
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{{notelist}} |
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==References== |
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{{reflist}} |
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==Bibliography== |
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* [[Phillip Playford|Playford, Phillip]]: ''Carpet Of Silver: The Wreck Of The Zuytdorp'' 1996, University Of Western Australia Press {{ISBN|1-875560-85-8}} |
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* Bunbury, Bill: ''Caught in Time - Talking Australian History'' 2006, Fremantle Arts Centre Press {{ISBN|1-921064-84-6}} |
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* [[Rupert Gerritsen]], ''And their Ghosts May Be Heard'' 1994, Fremantle Arts Centre Press {{ISBN|1-86368-063-2}} |
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* McCarthy, M. (comp), 2002 Chronological Precis of events occurring in Stage 3 of the WA Museum at the Zuytdorp site(s). For the ANCODS meeting December 2002. Stage 1 – The Bingham/Kimpton era: 1969–71; Stage 2 – The Green era: 1971–1985; Stage 3 – The McCarthy/Kimpton era. With assistance from many expert practitioners and volunteers, including Prof [[Sandra Bowdler]], Dr Richard Cassells, Mr Stanley Hewitt, Dr [[Kate Morse]], Dr Phillip Playford, Mr Bob Sheppard, Staff of the Department of Land Administration, Mr Ross White, Ms Fiona Weaver. 1986–2002. Report – Department of Maritime Archaeology. Western Australian Maritime Museum, No. 173 |
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* McCarthy, M., 2004: Zuytdorp. In J. Green, M. Gainsford and M. Stanbury, (Eds.) Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Maritime Museum: A compendium of projects, programs and publications. Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology. Special Publication No.9: 65. |
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* McCarthy, M., 2006. The Dutch on Australian Shores: the Zuytdorp tragedy—unfinished business. In Shaw, L., and Wilkins, W., (eds.) Dutch Connections—400 years of Australian-Dutch maritime links. 1606-2006: 94–109. Reproduced as Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Museum, report No. 256 [http://museum.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/No.%20256%20Zuytdorp.pdf ''Zuytdorp: Unfinished business''] {{dead link|date=July 2016 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, M. McCarthy, 2009. |
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==External links== |
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* {{cite web|url=http://www.voc.iinet.net.au/zuytdorp.html |title=Zuytdorp |publisher=VOC Historical Society |access-date=2012-06-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120717004231/http://www.voc.iinet.net.au/zuytdorp.html |archive-date=17 July 2012 }} |
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* {{cite web|url=http://australia.nlembassy.org/cultural-heritage/zuytdorp-1712-2012.html|title=300-year Anniversary of Zuytdorp Shipwreck|publisher=Netherlands Missions, Australia|access-date=2012-06-29}} {{Dead link|date=January 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} |
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* {{cite web|url=http://zestfest.experiencekalbarri.com/zuytdorp-history|title=Zuytdorp History|publisher=Kalbarri Development Association|access-date=2012-06-29|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130123061553/http://zestfest.experiencekalbarri.com/zuytdorp-history|archive-date=23 January 2013}} |
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* {{cite web|url=http://museum.wa.gov.au/research/collections/maritime-archaeology/maritime-shipwrecks/zuytdorp|title=Zuytdorp|publisher=Western Australian Museum|access-date=2012-06-29}} |
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* [http://museum.wa.gov.au/maritime-archaeology-db/wrecks/id-811 Western Australia Museum] |
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{{Australian historic shipwrecks with a protected zone|state=collapsed}} |
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[[Category:History of Western Australia]] |
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[[Category:Merchant ships of the Netherlands]] |
[[Category:Merchant ships of the Netherlands]] |
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[[Category:Maritime incidents in 1712]] |
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[[Category: |
[[Category:Shark Bay]] |
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[[Category:Ships of the Dutch East India Company]] |
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[[Category:Shipwrecks of Western Australia]] |
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[[Category:Australian Shipwrecks with protected zone]] |
Latest revision as of 13:56, 8 November 2024
History | |
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Dutch Republic | |
Name | Zuytdorp |
Owner | Dutch East India Company |
Fate | Wrecked at the Zuytdorp Cliffs in 1712 |
Zuytdorp, also Zuiddorp (meaning 'South Village', after Zuiddorpe, an extant village in the south of Zeeland in the Netherlands, near the Belgian border) was an 18th-century trading ship of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, commonly abbreviated VOC).[1]
On 1 August 1711,[2] Zuytdorp was dispatched from the Netherlands to the trading port of Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) bearing a load of freshly minted silver coins.[3] Many trading ships travelled the Brouwer Route, using the strong Roaring Forties winds to carry them across the Indian Ocean to within sight of the west coast of Australia (then called New Holland), whence they would turn north towards Batavia.
Zuytdorp did not arrive at its destination and was never heard from again. No search was undertaken, presumably because the VOC did not know whether or where the ship wrecked or if it was taken by pirates. Previous expensive attempts were made to search for other missing ships, but these failed even when an approximate wreck location was known.
In the mid-20th century, Zuytdorp's wreck site was identified on a remote part of the Western Australian coast between Kalbarri and Shark Bay, approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of the Murchison River. This section of coastline, subsequently named the Zuytdorp Cliffs, was the preserve of Aboriginal people and had been one of the last uncolonised areas until sheep stations were established there in the late 19th century. It has been speculated that survivors of the wreck may have traded with or intermarried with local Aboriginal communities between Kalbarri and Shark Bay.[4]
There was news of an unidentified shipwreck on the shore in 1834 when Aboriginal people told a farmer near Perth about a wreck – the colonists presumed it was a recent wreck and sent rescue parties who failed to find the wreck or any survivors. In 1927, wreckage was seen by an Indigenous-European family group (including Ada and Ernest Drage, Tom and Lurleen Pepper, Charlie Mallard) on a clifftop near the border of Murchison house and Tamala Stations. Bertie and Pearl Drage, Jack Brand and Mrs Brand and two Aboriginal workers including a man named Nyarda are also understood to have been involved. Tamala Station head stockman Tom Pepper reported the find to the authorities, with their first visit to the site occurring in 1941. In 1954 Pepper gave Phillip Playford directions to the wreckage. Playford identified the relics as from Zuytdorp.
First dives and salvage attempts
[edit]The first dive in May 1964 and the sighting of a massive silver deposit in 1967 resulted in successful salvage attempts by teams led by Tom Brady of Geraldton, and Perth-based Alan Robinson who utilised the services of Clive Daw (who had visited the site by land on other occasions) in order to facilitate his work.
Western Australian Museum's work
[edit]Harry Bingham and his chief diver Geoff Kimpton were successful in recovering silver and other materials in 1971, as was a team led by Jeremy Green in 1976 and on other occasions. Salvage work ceased in 1981 due to the perceived dangers of working the site. Thereafter a watch-keeper was appointed to guard the site.
The site, one of the few restricted zones under the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 and Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018, required a permit to visit and was under regular surveillance. A permit is still required.
When work recommenced in 1986 led by M. (Mack) McCarthy (with the museum's chief diver Geoff Kimpton) it was found that the silver deposit had all but disappeared.
Soon after the program entered its multi-disciplinary phase, becoming the first of the Western Australian Museum’s VOC studies to embrace the practice. Geologist-historian Phillip Playford joined the team, as did pre-historians Sandra Bowdler, Kate Morse, terrestrial historical archaeologists including Fiona Weaver and Tom Pepper Jr., (representing station and Indigenous interests), surveyors, the Department of Land Administration, and artists. Oral histories were recorded with station identities, including relatives of the Pepper, Drage, Blood, Mallard and other Indigenous families involved with the wreck. Foremost in this new phase was the attention paid to the possibilities of European-Indigenous interaction and the movement of survivors away from the wreck.
Phillip Playford's book, Carpet of Silver: The Wreck of the Zuytdorp was produced as part of the museum's research. The book won the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards when it was first published in 1996.[5]
The museums in both Fremantle and at Geraldton presented exhibitions on the wreck, a website, and reports.[citation needed] An exhibition was also produced for the Kalbarri heritage centre. Due to the logistical difficulties and the advent of Health and Safety legislation, the Zuytdorp in-water program ceased in 2002, though work on land and in the laboratory remains active.
Historian Bill Bunbury reviewed the wreck and consequences in the chapter A Lost Ship – Lost People: The Zuytdorp Story in the book Caught in Time: Talking Australia History.[6]
Dutch-Aboriginal intermarriage theory and rock inscriptions
[edit]In 1988, an American woman who had married into the Mallard family contacted Phillip Playford and described how her husband had died some years before from a disease called variegate porphyria. Playford found that the disease was genetically linked and initially confined to Afrikaners and that all cases of the disease in South Africa were traceable to Gerrit Jansz and Ariaantjie Jacobs, who had married in Cape of Good Hope in 1688.
Zuytdorp arrived at the Cape in March 1712, where it took on more than 100 new crew. One of the Jansz' sons could have boarded the ship at this time and thus become the carrier of the disease into the Australian Aboriginal population. In 2002 a DNA investigation into the hypothesis that a variegate porphyria mutation was introduced into the Aboriginal population by shipwrecked sailors was undertaken at the Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre in Nedlands, Western Australia, and the Stellenbosch University in South Africa.[7] The research concluded the mutations were not inherited from shipwrecked sailors.
The presence of similar European genetic maladies in the Aboriginal population (such as Ellis–Van Creveld syndrome) as from VOC shipwreck survivors is also doubtful. Dutch–Indigenous links via the VOC wrecks are rendered less certain because of the importation of hundreds of divers for use in the Western Australian pearling field in the mid-to-late 19th century. Incorrectly called Malays, these indentured labourers came from the islands north of Australia, many via the port of Batavia. One vessel, the SS Xantho for example, brought 140 Malay boys aged 12–14 for use in the pearling field. They boarded at Batavia where diseases (including genetic diseases) had been introduced by VOC personnel into the local population since 1600. In addition, many Malay pearlers remained on the coast and some intermarried with Aboriginal people at Shark Bay. Therefore, it is equally possible that genetic links between Aboriginal Australians and the Dutch can be traced to those sources. The Macassans, who frequented northern Australian shores for centuries and who mixed with the coastal Aborigines and even took some of them back to Macassar, are another possible source.[8]
The possibility Aboriginal groups joined survivors from Zuytdorp or mutineers from Batavia inspired the Walga Rock ship painting was another popular belief. This theory has been challenged as new evidence points to the image being a steamship, possibly Xantho.[9]
There was also renewed interest in the authenticity of rock inscriptions, predominantly one reading "Zuytdorp 1711" that was once visible on a rock-face adjacent to the reef platform at the site. Post-dating Phillip Playford's first visits in 1954–55, when photographs of the same area show no inscription, the inscription is considered a modern artefact.[10][citation needed]
Commemorative plaque
[edit]In June 2012, the Shire of Northampton unveiled a commemorative plaque in Kalbarri commemorating the 300th anniversary of Zuytdorp's wreck.[11][12] The plaque also mentions Batavia and Zeewijk, two other VOC ships that were wrecked in the area.
Recent Developments and renewed research
[edit]Ernie Dingo visited the site to learn more about his estranged father Tom Pepper Jr and his grandparents Tom Snr and Lurlie Pepper. This investigation appeared in a 2018 edition of Who Do You Think You Are.
Playford’s book Carpet of Silver was reprinted unaltered in 1998 and 2006. The last[as of?] of the Western Australian Museum's works was an internal report produced in 2009, leaving a decades-old vacuum in what was publicly-known about the wreck and its aftermath.[incomprehensible][13][14]
After retiring from the Western Australian Museum in 2019, McCarthy sought to fill that gap,[citation needed] resulting in The Zuytdorp Research Compendium, an unpublished electronic report that is primarily designed to assist[incomprehensible] stakeholders[who?] in accessing[how?] all that is now[when?] known about the subject. Presented in April 2024 to the Department of Maritime Heritage at the Western Australian Museum as an electronic internal report,[a] this roughly 500-page work contains McCarthy's research and links to all other known sources and archives including those of the VOC, early explorers, salvage divers, Aboriginal families, scientists, linguists and other researchers and enthusiasts.[citation needed]
See also
[edit]- ANCODS, the Australian Netherlands Committee on Old Dutch Shipwrecks
- List of shipwrecks
- Concordia (1696 ship)
- Maritime archaeology
- Shipwrecks of Western Australia
- VOC ship Amsterdam
- Protected areas of Australia
Notes
[edit]- ^ Number 348
References
[edit]- ^ "Zuiddorp (1701)". De VOCsite (in Dutch). 2020. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
- ^ zuytdorp.html Archived 17 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Zuiddorp". The Dutch East India Company's shipping between the Netherlands and Asia 1595-1795. Huygens ING. 2 February 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
- ^ "Select Committee on Ancient Shipwrecks" (PDF). Western Australian Legislative Assembly. 17 August 1994. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 February 2008. Retrieved 21 February 2008.
- ^ Playford, Phillip E. (Phillip Elliott) (1996), Carpet of silver: the wreck of the Zuytdorp, University of Western Australia Press, ISBN 978-1-875560-73-8
- ^ Bunbury, Bill (2006), Caught in time: talking Australian history (New ed.), Fremantle Arts Centre Press, ISBN 978-1-921064-84-5
- ^ Rossi, E; Chin, CY; Beilby, JP; Waso, HF; Warnich, L (September 2002). "Variegate porphyria in Western Australian Aboriginal patients". Internal Medicine Journal. 32 (9–10): 445–450. doi:10.1046/j.1445-5994.2002.00274.x. PMID 12380696. S2CID 34572600.
- ^ McCarthy, M, 2024. The Zuytdorp Research Compendium) Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Museum, report No. 348.
- ^ "SS Xantho - Early life". museum.wa.gov.au. Retrieved 23 August 2024.
- ^ "Zuiddorp (Zuytdorp)". Western Australian Museum. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
- ^ "Official Unveiling of the Zuytdorp Commemorative Plaque". Kalbarri Development Association. Archived from the original on 11 April 2012. Retrieved 28 June 2012.
- ^ 'Zuytdorp' Memorial, 2 June 2012, retrieved 18 June 2022
- ^ McCarthy, M., 2006. The Dutch on Australian Shores: the Zuytdorp tragedy—unfinished business. In Shaw, L., and Wilkins, W., (eds.) Dutch Connections—400 years of Australian-Dutch maritime links. 1606-2006: 94-109.
- ^ Reproduced as Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Museum, report No. 256 Zuytdorp: Unfinished business, M. McCarthy, 2009.
Bibliography
[edit]- Playford, Phillip: Carpet Of Silver: The Wreck Of The Zuytdorp 1996, University Of Western Australia Press ISBN 1-875560-85-8
- Bunbury, Bill: Caught in Time - Talking Australian History 2006, Fremantle Arts Centre Press ISBN 1-921064-84-6
- Rupert Gerritsen, And their Ghosts May Be Heard 1994, Fremantle Arts Centre Press ISBN 1-86368-063-2
- McCarthy, M. (comp), 2002 Chronological Precis of events occurring in Stage 3 of the WA Museum at the Zuytdorp site(s). For the ANCODS meeting December 2002. Stage 1 – The Bingham/Kimpton era: 1969–71; Stage 2 – The Green era: 1971–1985; Stage 3 – The McCarthy/Kimpton era. With assistance from many expert practitioners and volunteers, including Prof Sandra Bowdler, Dr Richard Cassells, Mr Stanley Hewitt, Dr Kate Morse, Dr Phillip Playford, Mr Bob Sheppard, Staff of the Department of Land Administration, Mr Ross White, Ms Fiona Weaver. 1986–2002. Report – Department of Maritime Archaeology. Western Australian Maritime Museum, No. 173
- McCarthy, M., 2004: Zuytdorp. In J. Green, M. Gainsford and M. Stanbury, (Eds.) Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Maritime Museum: A compendium of projects, programs and publications. Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology. Special Publication No.9: 65.
- McCarthy, M., 2006. The Dutch on Australian Shores: the Zuytdorp tragedy—unfinished business. In Shaw, L., and Wilkins, W., (eds.) Dutch Connections—400 years of Australian-Dutch maritime links. 1606-2006: 94–109. Reproduced as Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Museum, report No. 256 Zuytdorp: Unfinished business [permanent dead link ], M. McCarthy, 2009.
External links
[edit]- "Zuytdorp". VOC Historical Society. Archived from the original on 17 July 2012. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
- "300-year Anniversary of Zuytdorp Shipwreck". Netherlands Missions, Australia. Retrieved 29 June 2012. [permanent dead link ]
- "Zuytdorp History". Kalbarri Development Association. Archived from the original on 23 January 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
- "Zuytdorp". Western Australian Museum. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
- Western Australia Museum