The Lost Survivors of the Zuytdorp
On the 1st of August, 1711, the Dutch ship Zuytdorp set sail from the Netherlands, bound for the trading port of Batavia in Indonesia. She never made it. The ship and crew were lost without a trace. No one knew where.
The ships fate remained a mystery until 1926, when Tom Pepper, the head stockman of Tamala Station, his Indigenous wife Lurlie Mallard, and Lurlie’s sister and brother-in-law Ada and Ernest Drage, found items from a shipwreck on the cliffs, 40km north of the Murchison River.
(the location of the wreck site on the Western Australian coast)
The family found bottle fragments, carved wood, part of a mast, breech blocks from swivel guns and silver coins dated 1711. They also found signs of deliberately made fires.
(silver coins, part of the ships cargo, found on the wreck) Although the find was reported to authorities, the site remained unidentified until 1954, when geologist and researcher Phillip Playford visited the site under Tom Peppers direction. Playford positively identified the relics from the site as the wreck of the Zuytdorp.
(the site of the Zuytdorp wreck)
The fate of the Zuytdorp was finally known, wrecked on the rough surf and rocky cliffs of Western Australia. But what happened to her crew? The wreck itself was found to be lying on its side, having sunk parallel to the cliff. The positioning of the anchors found around the wreck suggest that the ship struck the reef suddenly, perhaps in a storm, and the crew did not have time or ability to set anchors. Many of the crew could have been lost to the turbulent water, crashed against the rocks or sucked into the blowholes below. The most likely form of escape, from the position of the wreck, would have been scaling the tilted rigging to reach the reef platform and cliff tops. A sizable amount of artefacts have been found on the slopes and along the top of the cliffs, including coins, weapons, navigational instruments, writing slate, clay pipes and the remains of chests and barrels. The remains of two or three camp sites appear close to the wreck site, along with the remains of a large fire, presumable a single beacon. Metal hoops from water barrels were found 2.5km inland. it is estimated that 30 to up to 180 survivors could have made it to shore.
(a carved wooden figure found on the cliffs)
(the area of the survivor camps)
Once on shore though, there options would have been limited. In 1711, there were no European colonies in Australia that they could try to reach. No survivors ever reached Batavia, meaning their long boats were destroyed in the wreck or they tried to reach Batavia and didn’t make it. With no survivors reaching Batavia, no one knew where to look for them. It’s likely they stayed near the wreck for as long as possible, trying to signal any ships at sea. In the Murchison/Kalbarri region, the weather is dry and hot in the summer.
There are two prevailing theories about the fate of the Zuytdorp castaways. That they eventually died of exposure and dehydration. Or, that the were taken in by the local Indigenous population. The site of the wreck lies between two major Aboriginal camp sites, Wale Well to the north, and Billiecuthera Well to the south east. It is possible that survivors interacted with groups from these areas, and may have traded with them or even joined them, marrying into the local communities. Over the years, artefacts found the surrounding area have been attributed to the Zuytdorp. An inscribed tobacco tin lid, similar to ones found in other Dutch wrecks was discovered in 1990 at Wale Well, 50km north of the wreck. And a coin, believed to be from the Zuytdorp, was given to a station owner in Shark Bay by an Aboriginal man named War-du-marah in 1869. War-du-marah stated he found the coin at Woomerangee Hill, 40km north of the wreck site.
(the tobacco tin lid found at Wale Well)
Anecdotal accounts from early European explorers in Western Australia relay encounters with Aboriginal people with “European features”. A. C. Gregory reported that while exploring the Hutt River region in 1848, about 100km south of the wreck, that he encountered Aboriginal people with a distinct mixed race appearance, with lighter colored skin, eyes and hair. In 1865, pastoralist Augustus Oldfield noted seeing Aboriginal Elders with distinct European features, despite the area being only recently settled by Europeans. At this time though, there is no physical genetic proof that the Zuytdorp crew intermarried with the Indigenous population, only historic anecdotal reports.
We may never know exactly what happened to the survivors of the Zuytdorp. What we do know is that some people survived the wreck, and lived for a time on top of the cliffs. What happened after that remains a mystery. Research is still being carried out on the sites. But one question has yet to be answered. If the crew stayed and died there, where are their graves? As of today, no graves have been located around the Zuytdorp cliffs.
(maritime archaeologists studying the Zuytdorp wreck)
