Zuytdorp
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''Zuytdorp'', also ''Zuiddorp'' (meaning 'South Village', after Zuiddorpe, an extant village in the south of
Zeeland Zeeland (; ), historically known in English by the Endonym and exonym, exonym Zealand, is the westernmost and least populous province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the southwest of the country, borders North Brabant to the east ...
in the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, near the Belgian border) was an 18th-century trading ship of the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...
(, commonly abbreviated VOC). On 1 August 1711, ''Zuytdorp'' was dispatched from the Netherlands to the trading port of Batavia (now
Jakarta Jakarta (; , Betawi language, Betawi: ''Jakartè''), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta (; ''DKI Jakarta'') and formerly known as Batavia, Dutch East Indies, Batavia until 1949, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia and ...
,
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...
) bearing a load of freshly minted
silver coin Silver coins are one of the oldest mass-produced form of coinage. Silver has been used as a coinage metal since the times of the Greeks; their silver drachmas were popular trade coins. The ancient Persians used silver coins between 612–330 B ...
s. Many trading ships travelled the Brouwer Route, using the strong
Roaring Forties The Roaring Forties are strong westerlies, westerly winds that occur in the Southern Hemisphere, generally between the latitudes of 40th parallel south, 40° and 50th parallel south, 50° south. The strong eastward air currents are caused by ...
winds to carry them across the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...
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 Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
n coast between Kalbarri and
Shark Bay Shark Bay () is a World Heritage Site in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The area is located approximately north of Perth, on the westernmost point of the Australian continent. UNESCO's listing of Shark Bay as a World Heritage S ...
, approximately 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. There was news of an unidentified shipwreck on the shore in 1834 when Aboriginal people told a farmer near
Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
about a wreckthe 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

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

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. The museums in both
Fremantle Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia located at the mouth of the Swan River (Western Australia), Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australi ...
and at
Geraldton Geraldton (Wajarri language, Wajarri: ''Jambinu'', Wilunyu language, Wilunyu: ''Jambinbirri'') is a coastal city in the Mid West (Western Australia), Mid West region of Western Australia, north of the state capital, Perth. As of the , Geraldt ...
presented exhibitions on the wreck, a website, and reports. 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.''


Dutch-Aboriginal intermarriage theory and rock inscriptions

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 Variegate porphyria, also known by several other names, is an autosomal dominant porphyria that can have acute (severe but usually not long-lasting) symptoms along with symptoms that affect the skin. The disorder results from low levels of the enz ...
. Playford found that the disease was genetically linked and initially confined to
Afrikaner Afrikaners () are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopæd ...
s and that all cases of the disease in
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
were traceable to Gerrit Jansz and Ariaantjie Jacobs, who had married in
Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
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 Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...
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 Stellenbosch University (SU) (, ) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Sahara ...
in South Africa. 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 movement of hundreds of divers to 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 for example, brought 140 Malay boys aged 12–14 for 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 Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia (co ...
and the Dutch can be traced to those sources. The Macassans, who frequented northern Australian shores for centuries and who mixed with the coastal Aboriginal people and even took some of them back to Macassar, are another possible source. 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''. 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.


Commemorative plaque

In June 2012, the Shire of Northampton unveiled a commemorative plaque in Kalbarri commemorating the 300th anniversary of ''Zuytdorp''s wreck. The plaque also mentions ''Batavia'' and , two other VOC ships that were wrecked in the area.


Recent Developments and renewed research

Ernie Dingo Ernest Ashley Dingo Member of the Order of Australia, AM (born 31 July 1956) is an Indigenous Australians, Indigenous Australian actor, television presenter and comedian, originating from the Yamatji people of the Murchison (Western Australia), ...
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 Who Do You Think You Are may refer to: Television series * ''Who Do You Think You Are?'' (British TV series), a genealogy documentary with many adaptations: ** ''Who Do You Think You Are?'' (American TV series) ** ''Who Do You Think You Are?'' ...
. Playford’s book ''Carpet of Silver'' was reprinted unaltered in 1998 and 2006. The last of the Western Australian Museum's works was an internal report produced in 2009, Reproduced as Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Museum, report No. 25
''Zuytdorp: Unfinished business''
M. McCarthy, 2009.
After retiring from the Western Australian Museum in 2019, McCarthy sought to fill that gap, resulting in ''The Zuytdorp Research Compendium'', an stakeholders in accessing all that is now known about the subject. Presented in April 2024 to the Department of Maritime Heritage at the Western Australian Museum as an electronic internal report, 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.


See also

* ANCODS, the Australian Netherlands Committee on Old Dutch Shipwrecks *
List of shipwrecks This is an index of lists of shipwrecks, sorted by different criteria. By location * List of shipwrecks of Africa * List of shipwrecks of Asia * List of shipwrecks of Europe ** List of shipwrecks of France ** List of shipwrecks of the United ...
* Concordia (1696 ship) *
Maritime archaeology Maritime archaeology (also known as marine archaeology) is a discipline within archaeology as a whole that specifically studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains, be they vessels, sh ...
*
Shipwrecks of Western Australia Over 1400 ships have been wrecked on the coast of Western Australia. This relatively large number of shipwrecks is due to a number of factors, including: * a long and very difficult coastline with very few natural harbours; * powerful storms and ...
* VOC ship Amsterdam *
Protected areas of Australia Protected areas of Australia include Commonwealth and off-shore protected areas managed by the Australian government, as well as protected areas within each of the six states of Australia and two self-governing territories, the Australian Capita ...


Notes


General references

* Bunbury, Bill: ''Caught in Time - Talking Australian History'' 2006, Fremantle Arts Centre Press * Rupert Gerritsen, ''And their Ghosts May Be Heard'' 1994, Fremantle Arts Centre Press * 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. 25
''Zuytdorp: Unfinished business''
, M. McCarthy, 2009.


References


Further reading

* * * *


External links


Western Australia Museum
{{Australian historic shipwrecks with a protected zone, state=collapsed Merchant ships of the Netherlands Maritime incidents in 1712 Shark Bay Ships of the Dutch East India Company Shipwrecks of Western Australia Australian Shipwrecks with protected zone