Untold histories

The most ignored subject in Australia's history is the story of descendants of marooned Dutch shipwreck survivors who integrated with or lived in isolation in the Kimberley and Western Australia.

Settlements of white tribes have existed in Australia since 1656. "The following curious tradition is current among all the Aboriginal tribes from the Moore River to Shark's Bay... That the people of the other tribe were white..." Augustus Oldfield

Lieutenant George Grey described an encounter with a mysterious tribe.
"A remarkable circumstance is the presence among them of a race. almost white." He called them, "Individuals of an Alien White Race." He found European-looking figures in rock art that he interpreted as depictions of earlier European visitors.

The Bigge Island rock art depicts Dutch sailors in a boat, smoking pipes, carrying buckets, and wearing hats, shoes, and clothing. Comparing these drawings with examples of Wandjina rock art and 17th-century paintings, I came to the compelling conclusion that Dutch sailors and women were shipwrecked, probably during the late 17th century, in the Kimberley region.

"There have been repeated rumours. of a settlement near the northwestern shores of Australia by a Dutch shipwrecked crew, whose descendants, the offspring of native wives, are said to speak, to the present day, the language of both parents, and to have a considerable smattering of the knowledge and arts of civilised life." The Sydney Morning Herald, NSW. 11 May 1857.

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history." — George Orwell

'1606 Discovery of Australia' is not just about the most forgotten event in Australia's history; it is also an account of the most detailed history of Australia's most forgotten man, Willem Janszoon, the man who discovered Australia.

The book traces Janszoon's amazing adventures as a boy being held captive and his dramatic rescue from the Spanish Embassy in London. Follow his many voyages and rapid promotion to Captain, Commander, Admiral, Governor and Councillor of the Indies.

While outlining Janszoon's career, the author is mindful of the importance of historical context. How was it possible for the Netherlands, formed in 1579, at war with Spain, the most powerful country in the world, to come to dominate world trade and discover a new continent, Australia, in only 27 years?

Without the context of the Eighty Years' War, the reader would not understand why events occurred or the motivations of the men who sailed to the Indies.

For almost his entire life, Janszoon was at war. He fought the Spanish, Portuguese, and the English and was instrumental in the defence of Batavia against a force of over 100,000 men.

There is no detailed study of either Australia's first discovery or its discoverer, Willem Janszoon, anywhere in our education institutions. Our earliest known European contact has been erased. We should not erase the past because it does not fit the present.

The story of The Lost White Tribes of Australia by Henry Van Zanden confirms longstanding rumours, never previously proven true, that a community of Dutch-descended people was found only a day’s ride from Perth in the 19th century.

The “white tribe” was discovered by an official expedition in 1832, more than forty years after Britain began colonising the continent and three years after the Crown seized the western third of the continent from the Netherlands.

The community was living proof that foreigners had occupied the continent long before the British, and once its existence became known, the UK’s claim to sovereignty could be threatened. So it was kept a secret and has remained so to this day.

Mr Van Zanden writes that the truth was concealed by the invention of a tale that the tribe lived somewhere in Central Australia - a tale that was repeated as recently as 2001 in the book Stories of Exploration and Survival by the Bush Tucker Man, Les Hiddens.

The deception became a public exercise with the publication of newspaper stories, the first appearing in the Leeds Mercury in 1834. Mr Van Zanden argues that it was “planted” by the Swan River Colony’s governor James Stirling, and that he repeated the practice elsewhere.

What is remarkable about Mr Van Zanden’s narrative is that he himself discovered the primary documentary and physical evidence that established the case. He came across a map showing the location of the settlement while carrying out research at the Mitchell Library and tracked down the ruins of the village beside the Moore River, north of Perth.

A small community, all as white as himself, he said about three hundred; that they lived in houses enclosed all together within a great wall to defend them from black men; that their fathers came here 170 years ago, from a distant land across the sea...

Lt. Robert Dale 1832 Western Australia

In 1766 two Dutch ships entered Port Fairy Bay carrying a deadly cargo: smallpox. The disease spread rapidly from Victoria to SA and NSW killing up to 40% of the indigenous population.

While departing Port Fairy in a storm, one ship ran aground marooning its Dutch crew. Tragically, messengers sent to warn other tribes, brought the disease with them. Four years before the arrival of Cook, the second Dutch ship visited NSW. Captain Hunter described some  Aboriginals in 1790 as “light as a mulatto” (half-caste). Lieutenant Tench asked, “Whence came these copper coloured natives? They represent a mixture of white blood with the Aboriginals.”

The visit of the second Dutch ship was devastating. “Repeated accounts brought by our boats of finding bodies of the Indians in all coves and inlets of the harbour… On inspection, it appeared that all the parties had died a natural death: pustules, similar to those occasioned by the smallpox, were thickly spread on the bodies; but how a disease, to which our former observations had led us to suppose them strangers. could at once have introduced itself, and have spread so widely, seemed inexplicable.”

Watkins Tench 1789.

Abel Tasman was one of the world's greatest explorers yet very few people realize the full extent of his accomplishments. Best known as the first European explorer to discover Tasmania, New Zealand and Fiji, he also completed the famous Bonaparte map which became the most complete map of Australia until 1770.

However, few people understand the importance of his main objective: to discover Terra Australis Incognito, The Unknown Southland, that almost every mapmaker believed existed in both the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Tasman sailed further south than any other explorer. He sailed longer than any other captain across the Indian and Southern Oceans at latitudes of 45°- S in two ships only 30 meters in length.

The author has not only discovered that Abel Tasman set foot on the shores of Tasmania, (3rd Dec 1642), but will reveal the exact location of this historic event as well as the location of the first landing by the Dutch explorers (2nd Dec).

What remained unknown, until the publication of this book, is that one of the crewmen ambushed by Maoris at Murderer's Bay, (now Golden Bay), was taken alive. He lived amongst the Maori and fathered a daughter. Her skull was recently discovered in the Ruamahanga River. Forensic scientists were puzzled as to how a female European skull could have ended up in New Zealand.

The answer was found in Tasman's Journal. …the foremost man in this prow …with a long, blunt pike thrust the quartermaster... in the neck several times...Upon this the other natives, with short thick clubs... fell upon the men in the cock-boat...three of our men were killed, and a fourth got mortally wounded through the heavy blows...the murderers, having (taken one of the dead bodies into their prow...

This book not only investigates his best-known explorations, but his entire life. Through Abel Tasman's story, we can feast upon a slice of Dutch history of wars, naval battles and the constant struggle of survival in the fabled Dutch East Indies.

The tragic tale of the Batavia is one of the greatest stories ever told. Indeed, when Pelsaert's Journal was first published in 1647, it became a best seller.
The story has everything: drama, romance, adventure, mystery, murder, massacre and mayhem.

Although written as a historical fiction, the book is as historically accurate as possible. Written with the aim of bringing Batavia to the cinemas, it has all of the ingredients to become one of the greatest movies ever made.

If Satan did exist, he would have personified himself as Jeronimus Cornelisz. It is a story of a struggle to retain our human dignity, our decency when the temptations of greed, lust, power and ultimately, a choice between a life as a murderer or death, are put to the test.

For the author, it was a horrific journey: "I had to live' the evil that festered in the minds of maniacal men as well as 'feel" the terror of the helpless victims. I had to enter into a dark place, a place that I had never been before to engage in the most unspeakable evil and commit, in my mind, the most despicable and depraved acts of barbarism." This is not a book for the very young or the faint hearted.

The book asks some uncomfortable questions, such as: How much evil would you be prepared to commit in order to stay alive? How many people
would you kill before you stop? Is it better to die an honourable death or live a dishonourable life as a murderer?