The Wiebbe Hayes Stone Fort on West Wallabi Island (also known as Wiebbe Hayes Island) is the oldest surviving European building in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and was built in 1629 by survivors of the shipwreck and massacre. West Wallabi Island is from the coast of Western Australia.

History

Following the Batavia shipwreck in 1629, a group of the marooned soldiers under the command of

Wiebbe Hayes Wiebbe Hayes (born ) was a Dutch soldier known for his leading role in the suppression of Jeronimus Cornelisz's massacre of shipwreck survivors in 1629, after the merchant ship was wrecked in the Houtman Abrolhos, a chain of coral islands off ...

were put ashore on West Wallabi Island to search for water. A group of mutineers, led by

Jeronimus Cornelisz Jeronimus Cornelisz (c. 1598 – 2 October 1629) was a Dutch apothecary and Dutch East India Company merchant who sailed aboard the merchant ship which foundered near the Australian mainland. Cornelisz then led one of the bloodiest mutinies i ...

, took control of the other survivors and left Hayes' group there, secretly hoping that they would starve or die of thirst. However, the soldiers discovered that they were able to wade to East Wallabi Island, where there was a fresh water spring. Furthermore, West and East Wallabi Island are the only islands in the group upon which the tammar wallaby lives. Thus the soldiers had access to sources of both food and water that were unavailable to the mutineers. Later the mutineers mounted a series of attacks, which the soldiers repulsed. The remnants of improvised

defensive wall A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications such as curtain walls with t ...

s and stone shelters built by Wiebbe Hayes and his men on West Wallabi Island are Australia's oldest known European structures, more than a century and a half before expeditions to the Australian continent by

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

and

Arthur Phillip Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was a British Royal Navy officer who served as the first Governor of New South Wales, governor of the Colony of New South Wales. Phillip was educated at Royal Hospital School, Gree ...

. The remnants of "the fort ... renothing more than a tiny, sandstone-coloured rectangle in the scrub about from the sea. It is unimpressive and isolated and yet this simple structure, just some loose rocks piled up to make a simple fortress, is the first building Europeans constructed in Australia."

History

See also

References

Further reading