Dirck Hartog, also spelled Dirk Hartog or Dyrck Hartoochz   (flourished 1616), Dutch explorer who made the first recorded exploration of the western coast of Australia.Traveling an eastward route from Amsterdam around the Cape of Good Hope to Java, Hartog sighted and explored the western Australian coastline. He landed (October 1616) and spent three days exploring a desolate offshore island that he named for himself. To mark his landing, he left a flattenedpewter plate, inscribed with the details of the visit, nailed on a post on the northern end of the island, now called Cape Inscription.Northern Europe Explorations

Northern Europe nations had a reputation for privateering explorers to go on expeditions. However, after the Dutch rebelled against Spanish rule, the Spanish King Phillip II would go on to combining Spain and Portugal as he received the Portuguese throne through inheritance. It would not be until the Spanish Armada was defeated, before the Netherlands and England in northern Europe could rise and explore freely. While the Dutch focused primarily on the Spice Islands near southern Asia, the English explored North America, both establishing settlements. The emergence of these two nations led to the creation of the English and Dutch chartered companies, each competing each other as well as other European nations in explorations. It was the competition that motivated expansion and settling

Netherlands: Dirk Hartog  

 Dirk Hartog, a 17th century Dutch explorer.

Dirk Hartog, a Dutch 17th century sailor and explorer was born into a family of sailors so it came as no surprise when he became the captain of small trading ship called the Dolphyn in 1615. Soon after, in 1616, Hartog decided to join the Dutch East Indies Company which was located in Batavia (now part of Indonesia).  Dirk Hartog, after gaining employment with VOC, was appointed master of the Eendracht and was scheduled to be part of a fleet heading from the Netherlands through South Africa where the crew would end in Batavia. In 1611 Hendrik Brouwer had discovered a new route to Batavia that was supposed to cut sale time in half. However, after setting sale, Hartog’s ship was separated from the rest of the other ships and landed at the Cape of Good Hope. From there, Hartog set off, only to be blown by strong Western winds to an uninhabited island which he called Dirk Hartog Island and what is know today as Australia. Although Hartog did explore Western Australia for a few days, he was unimpressed and soon decided to continue on with his journey to Batavia. Before doing so though, he left a flattened and engraved pewter plate (now called a Hartog plate). This plate included a recording of his voyage and also his destination. Years later, in 1696, Willem de Vlamingh landed on Dirk Hartog Island and after finding the pewter plate, replaced it with his own and brought Hartog’s plate to Amsterdam. Not only did Hartog’s action continue a tradition of explorers leaving reminders of their visits, but Hartog’s landing in Australia also spurred on many more explorations to Australia by the Dutch, English and French. Dirk Hartog’s legacy will live on as he will be remembered as being the second European group to land on Australian soil and the first explorer to map the Western coast of Australia.

Motivation for Exploration1- During the early 1600s, the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) controlled the East Indies spice trade which was very lucrative. Because this spice trade was such a profitable resource for VOC, the Dutch were constantly searching for a shorter and more efficient travel route that would make traveling faster and in the end, help the Dutch to acquire, and trade, more goods and knowledge. 2- The Dutch were also interested in developing colonies. This helped spur on their motivation for exploration because not only did they use their voyages to help find a faster route to India and the spice trade, but they also used this exploration as a chance to colonize. AlthoughThe Dutch did set up New Netherlands on the East Coast of North America,  colonizations was very slow. However, some came and did take part in the fur trade and expand the Dutch culture, which is still present on the East Coast today.  3- The route that the Dutch took to travel to parts of Asia was very unpredictable because of the strong Western winds. This made traveling unpredictable and often a great risk for not only the sailors, but also those backing the voyages. This further encouraged for a new and safer route to be found. 

 The route that Hartog took in 1615 when he was blown off course to Australia.

Dirk HartogFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help toimprove this article by introducing more

precise citations. (October 2013)

Dirk Hartog's plate in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Map of Shark Bay area showing Dirk Hartog Island and Cape Inscription

Dirk Hartog (baptized 30 October 1580, Amsterdam – buried 11 October 1621, Amsterdam[1]) was a 17th-century Dutch sailor and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the second European group to land on Australian soil, He was the first to leave behind an artifact to record his visit, theHartog plate. His name is sometimes alternatively spelled Dirck Hartog or Dierick Hartochsz. Ernest Giles referred to him as Theodoric Hertoge.[2] Born into a seafaring family, at the age of 30 he received his first ship's command, and spent several years engaged in successful trading ventures in the Baltic and Mediterranean seas.

He then gained employment with the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1616, and was appointed master of a ship (the Eendracht, meaning "Concord" or "Unity") in a fleet voyaging from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies. Setting sail in January 1616 in the company of several other VOC ships, Hartog and the Eendracht became separated from the others in a storm, and arrived independently at the Cape of Good Hope(later to become the site of Cape Town, South Africa).

Leaving there, Hartog set off across the Indian Ocean for Batavia (present-day Jakarta), utilising (or perhaps blown on to a small island on his sail to java during a spice trade) the strong westerly winds known as the "Roaring Forties" which had been earlier noted by the Dutch navigatorHenderik Brouwer as a quicker route to Java. On 25 October 1616, at approximately 26° latitude south, Hartog and crew came unexpectedly upon "various islands, which were, however, found uninhabited." He made landfall at an island off the coast of Shark Bay, Western Australia, which is now called Dirk Hartog Island after him. His was the second recorded European expedition to land on the Australian continent (having been preceded by Willem Janszoon), but the first to do so on the western coastline.

Hartog spent three days examining the coast and nearby islands. The area was named Eendrachtsland after his ship, but this name has not endured. When he left he affixed a pewter plate to a post, now known as the Hartog plate. On the plate he had etched a record of his visit to the island. Its inscription (translated from the original Dutch) read:

1616 On 25 October arrived the ship Eendracht, of Amsterdam: Supercargo Gilles Miebais of Liege, skipper Dirch Hatichs of Amsterdam. on 27 d[itt]o. she set sail again for Bantam. Deputy supercargo Jan Stins, upper steersman Pieter Doores of Bil. In the year 1616.

Finding nothing of interest, Hartog continued sailing northwards along this previously undiscovered coastline of Western Australia, making nautical charts up to about 22° lat. south. He then left the coast and continued onwards to Batavia, eventually arriving safely in December 1616, some five months after his expected arrival.

In 1619 Frederik de Houtman, in the VOC ship Dordrecht, and Jacob d'Edel, in another VOC ship Amsterdam, sighted land on the Australian coast near present day Perth which they called d'Edelsland. After sailing northwards along the coast they made landfall in Eendrachtsland. In his journal, Houtman identified these coasts with Marco Polo's land of Beach, or Locach, as shown on maps of the time such as that of Petrus Plancius andJan Huyghen van Linschoten.[3]

Eighty years later in 1696 the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh landed on the island and by chance found the plate, which now lay half-buried in sand. He replaced it with a new plate which reproduced

Hartog's original inscription and added notes of his own, and took Hartog's original back toAmsterdam, where it may now be seen in the Rijksmuseum.

In 2000 the Hartog plate was temporarily brought to Australia as part of an exhibition at the Sydney Maritime Museum. This led to suggestions that the plate, considered important as the oldest-known written artefact from Australia's European history, should be acquired for an Australian museum, but the Dutch authorities have made it clear that the plate is not for sale.

Dirk Hartog left the employ of the VOC upon his return to Amsterdam in 1617, resuming private trading ventures in the Baltic.

In 1985 he was honoured on a postage stamp, issued by Australia Post, depicting his ship.[4]

Abel Janszoon Tasman,  (born 1603? , Lutjegast, Neth.—died probably before Oct. 22, 1659, certainly before Feb. 5, 1661), greatest of the Dutch navigators and explorers, who discovered Tasmania, New Zealand, Tonga, and the Fiji Islands. On his first voyage (1642–43) in the service of the Dutch East India Company, Tasman explored the Indian Ocean, Australasia, and the southern Pacific; on his second voyage (1644) he traveled in Australian and South Pacific waters.Tasman entered the service of the Dutch East India Company in 1632 or 1633 and made his first voyage of exploration to Ceram (modern Seram) Island (in modern Indonesia) as captain of the Mocha in 1634. He sailed in 1639 under Commander Mathijs Hendrickszoon Quast on an expedition in search of the “islands of gold and silver” in the seas east of Japan. After a series of trading voyages to Japan, Formosa (Taiwan), Cambodia, and Sumatra, he was chosen by the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, Anthony van Diemen, to command the most ambitious of all Dutch voyages for the exploration of the Southern Hemisphere.

Abel Janszoon Tasman (Dutch: [ˈaːbəl ˈjɑnsoːn ˈtɑsmɑn]; 1603–10 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) (United East India Company). He

was the first known European explorer to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and New Zealand, and to sight the Fiji islands. His navigator François

Visscher, and his merchant Isaack Gilsemans, mapped substantial portions of Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific Islands.

Abel Janszoon TasmanAbel Janszoon Tasman (ca. 1603-1659) was a Dutch navigator who discovered Tasmania and New Zealand's South Island and charted the northwest Australian coastline.Abel Tasman was born at Lutjegast near Groningen. After his second marriage, to Joanna Tierex in 1633, he became a ship's captain in the Dutch East India Company and lived in Batavia, capital of the new Dutch commercial empire in the East Indies.

A southern continent had long been thought to exist, but Spanish navigators who crossed the Pacific Ocean from the Americas had failed to locate it. After 1611 Dutch vessels which were blown east by the "roaring forties" after rounding the Cape of Good Hope occasionally touched the coastline of "Terra Australis" en route to Java. The Batavian authorities soon decided to find out whether this "South Land" had any commercial potential, and in 1642, Governor General Anton Van Diemen chose Tasman to command an expedition.

Tasman left Djakarta in August 1642 with two ships, the Heemskerk of 60 tons and the Zeehaen of 100 tons, carrying 110 men and sufficient supplies for 18 months. From Mauritius he sped east on latitude 44°S, discovering Van Diemen's Land (renamed Tasmania after 1856) on November 24. After crossing the Tasman Sea, he reached the west coast of Staeten Landt (New Zealand's South Island) on December 13, and a landing party was attacked by Maoris at Golden Bay on December 18. Tasman then sailed up the west coast of New Zealand's North Island to the Tonga and Fiji islands and returned to Batavia along the northern coast of New Guinea in June 1643 after a voyage lasting 10 months.

Although Tasman circumnavigated a new continent, he seldom sailed close enough to the coastline to chart it accurately on a map. Sent to establish a base in the Tonga Islands in 1644, he failed to find a passage through Torres Strait, and instead he surveyed the northwestern coastline of New Holland (Australia) from Cape York Peninsula to Willem's River on the Tropic of Capricorn.

On his return to Batavia after a 6-months' voyage, Tasman was promoted to commander. But his superiors were disappointed. Although he had discovered more about "the remaining unknown part of the terrestrial globe" than any of his predecessors, his accounts of a barren landscape and primitive natives banished all prospects of trade and settlement. Europeans consequently displayed little interest in the colonization of New Holland for more than a century.

In 1647 Tasman led a mission to the king of Siam. His reputation subsequently suffered owing to the way in which he commanded a fleet against the Spaniards in 1648-1649. Soon afterward he left the service of the East India Company and became a merchant. He died in Batavia, a wealthy man.

On 18 November 1605, the Duyfken sailed from Bantam to the coast of western New Guinea. Janszoon then crossed the eastern end of the Arafura Sea, without seeing the Torres Strait, into theGulf of Carpentaria. On 26 February 1606, he made landfall at the Pennefather River on the western shore of Cape York in Queensland, near the modern town of Weipa. This is the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent. Janszoon proceeded to chart some 320 km of the coastline, which he thought was a southerly extension of New Guinea.

Finding the land swampy and the people inhospitable (ten of his men were killed on various shore expeditions), at Cape Keerweer (“Turnabout”), south of Albatross Bay, Willem Janszoon decided to return and arrived at Bantam in June 1606. He called the land he had discovered “Nieu Zeland” after the Dutch province of Zeeland, but the name was not adopted and was later used by Abel Tasman for New Zealand.

The Duyfken was actually in Torres Strait in March 1606, a few months before Luís Vaz de Torres sailed through it. In 1607 Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge sent him to Ambon and Banda.[6] In 1611 Janszoon returned to the Netherlands believing that the south coast of New Guinea was joined to the land along which he sailed, and Dutch maps reproduced this error for many years. Though there have

been suggestions that earlier navigators from China, France, or Portugal may have discovered parts of Australia, the Duyfken is the first European vessel definitely known to have done so.

Willem Janszoon was probably born in Amsterdam, Holland in about 1570 but little is known of his early life.

Reaching eastward to the western side of what is now Torres Strait (separating Australia from New Guinea), the Duyfken turned south and sailed along the western side of Australia's Cape York Peninsula. Finding little of interest and finding no watering places along this coast, the ship turned toward home, calling the cape where the ship turned northward Keer-Weer, or Turn Again. The Duyfken returned to Bantam in 1606, two months before Torres sailed through and proved the Strait bearing his name.

Frederick de Houtman (1571 – 21 October 1627), or Frederik de Houtman, was a Dutch explorer who sailed along the Western coast of Australiaen route to Batavia, nowadays known as Jakarta in Indonesia. He made pioneering observations of the southern stars that contributed to the creation of 12 new southern constellations.

Biography

Frederick de Houtman was born in Gouda, Holland, Seventeen Provinces.

He assisted fellow Dutch navigator Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser with astronomical observations during his first expedition from Holland to the East Indiesin 1595-1597.

During subsequent expeditions he added further stars to the list of those observed by Keyser. Between them the constellations at the bottom of this article are credited to them as discoverers.

After several voyages from Holland to the Dutch East Indies (the islands mostly now known as Indonesia) he was put in command of the Duyfken (meaning "little Dove") in 1603.

In 1606 the the little ship set off to search for "south and east lands" beyond the furthest reaches of their known world. Leaving from Banda (Indonesia), Duyfken reached the Cape York Peninsula and charted 300km of the coast. This is the first historically recorded voyage to Australia. For the first time, all the inhabited continents of the world were discovered to the European science of geography.

Monument for Cornelis and Frederik de Houtman in Gouda,Netherlands

De Houtman was the elder brother of Cornelis de Houtman who in a second expedition in 1598-1599 was killed. Frederick was imprisoned by the   Sultan   of   Aceh   in northern   Sumatra , but made good use of his two years in prison by studying the local   Malay language   and making astronomical observations. Cornelis and Frederik de Houtman,  (respectively, born c. 1540 , Gouda, Neth.—died Sept. 11, 1599, Aceh, Sumatra, Dutch East Indies; born 1571 , Gouda, Neth.—died Oct. 21, 1627 , Alkmaar), brothers who navigated and led the first Dutch trading expedition to the East Indies, an area whose trade previously had been a Portuguese monopoly.Cornelis and Frederik were sent to Lisbon in 1592 as commercial representatives of nine Dutch merchants. The brothers were imprisoned by the Portuguese for attempting to steal secret charts of East Indian sailing routes. After their release in 1595 they returned to Amsterdam, where Cornelis was appointed commander of four merchant ships of the Verre Company

Frederik de Houtman (1571?-1627), senior officer of the Dutch East India Co., was born at Gouda, Holland, the son of Pieter Cornelisz, and his wife Agnes née Frederiksd. He took part in the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies which was led by his elder brother Cornelis and by Pieter Dircksz Keyser in 1595-97. In 1598 he sailed again for the east and was a prisoner of the king of Achin from 11 September 1599 to 25 August 1601, when the king set him free on receipt of a letter from Prince Maurits, the Dutch

stadtholder. After his return to Holland, he published in 1603 a grammar and dictionary of Malay and Malagasy together with a treatise on the constellations of the southern hemisphere. He should, however, probably not be credited with the astronomical part of this book, for there seem to be strong reasons for assuming that he had used the observations made by Keyser who died in 1596. In 1603 de Houtman left for the East Indies again and was the first Dutch governor of Amboina, from 1605 to 1611. He returned to Holland in 1612 and lived at Alkmaar, where he was a member of the city council from 1614 to 1618.

In 1618 he sailed on his fourth voyage to the east, this time as a member of the Council of the Dutch East Indies. It was on this voyage in the Dordrecht that part of the west coast of Australia was accidentally discovered. In 1617 the Dutch authorities had issued instructions in which, in order to shorten the voyages, captains were encouraged to sail east from the Cape of Good Hope, so as to profit from the prevailing westerlies. A disadvantage of this route was that with the primitive instruments of those days it was very difficult to decide the right moment for turning northward to Java, and the result was that many ships reached Australia. On 19 July 1619 theDordrecht and the Amsterdam sighted land in the latitude given as 32° 20' S. Heavy surf and wind prevented the crews from disembarking but the coast was followed northward until 28 July. The land round the Swan River was named Dedelsland after Jacob Dedel, councillor of the Dutch East Indies, who was in the Amsterdam. On 30 July they met banks at 28° 46' S. some forty-five miles (72 km) off the mainland, henceforth known as the Houtman Abrolhos (Portuguese for banks). On 2 August the ships again sighted the coast at 27° 40' S. and de Houtman identified the area as that previously discovered by Dirck Hartogsz.

After his arrival on Java on 3 September 1619 de Houtman was employed off Bantam and in the Spice Islands and later was governor of the Moluccas in 1621-23. In 1624 he returned to Holland and settled once more at Alkmaar, where in 1625-26 he was

alderman. He died on 21 October 1627 and was buried in the Great Church. He was survived by his wife Vrouwtje Cornelisd, daughter of Cornelis Nanningsz and Guerte Sijgersd. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has a painting depicting a view of Amboina which contains a portrait of de Houtman.

Willem Hesselsz de Vlamingh (28 November 1640, Oost-Vlieland – 1698 or later) was a Dutch sea-captain who explored the central west coast ofAustralia (then "New Holland") in the late 17th century.

De Vlamingh joined the VOC (Dutch East India Company) in 1688 and made his first voyage to Batavia in the same year. Following a second voyage, in 1694, he was asked to mount an expedition to search for the Ridderschap van Holland, a VOC capital ship that was lost with 325 passengers and crew on its way to Batavia in 1694. VOC officials believed it might have run aground on the west coast of New Holland.

Nation Year Historical Event ShipDutch 1602 Formation of the United Dutch East India

Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie—VOC).

 

Dutch 1606 William Jansz — first European discoverer of Australia on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, Gulf of Carpentaria.

 

Dutch 1610 Hendrik Brouwer’s route to the East Indies established.

 

Dutch 1616 Dirk Hartog discovers the west coast of Eendracht

Australia. Visits Shark Bay and becomes the first European to set foot on Western Australian soil when he lands on what is now known as Dirk Hartog Island at the entrance to Shark Bay. He leaves behind an inscribed pewter plate and continues north along the coast of what becomes known ‘Eendrachtsland’ — or as marked on Van Keulen’s chart ‘Het Land van de Eendraght’.

Dutch 1618 Captain Haevik Claeszoon van Hillegom and Upper Merchant Pieter Dirkszoon sighted the coast in the area of North-West Cape.

Zeewolf

Dutch 1618 Willem Jansz (of the Duyfken) and skipper Lenaert Jacobsz on the west coast of Australia in the area of Exmouth (latitude 22°S).

Mauritius

Dutch 1619 Frederik de Houtman and Jakob Dedel discover and name the Houtman Abrolhos and d’Edelsland.

Dordrecht & Amsterdam

British 1620 Three British ships sight the west coast at Point Cloates.

Royal Exchange et al.

Dutch 1622 The VOC ship Leeuwin explores the south-west coast and is almost shipwrecked at what is now known as Cape Leeuwin.

Leeuwin

Dutch 1622 The VOC ship Wapen van Hoorn is almost shipwrecked on the west coast.

Wapen van Hoorn

British 1622 The English East India Company (EEIC) ship Trial (Captain John Brookes) becomes Australia’s first recorded shipwreck when it runs onto reefs near the Montebello Islands. Brookes

Trial

and 45 members of his crew managed to sail two longboats to Batavia (Indonesia) leaving behind 93 crewmembers who possibly reached the nearby islands.

Dutch 1623 Captain Jan Carstenszoon and Captain Willem van Coolsteerd explore the western side of Cape York Peninsula. Carstenszoon charts the Gulf of Carpentaria, naming it in honour of Pieter Carpentier, the Governor-General in Batavia (Indonesia). Van Coolsteerd charted Arnhem Land.

Pera & Arnhem

Dutch 1623 Captain Klaas Hermanszoon charts more of Western Australia, south of Shark Bay.

Leiden

Dutch 1624 Rediscovered that part of the Houtman Abrolhos to which the ship’s name was given—now Turtle Dove Island.

Tortelduif

Dutch 1626 Captain Daniël Jansz. de Kok sighted the ‘Zuydtland’.

Leiden

Dutch 1627 Captain François Thijssen and Peter Nuyts, Councillor of the Indies, charted 1800 km of coastline between Cape Leeuwin and Nuyts Archipelago. They named the area ‘Nuyt’s Land’. Until now, no-one had any knowledge of the south coast. The newly discovered coast is shown by Hessel Gerritsz as contiguous to the section discovered by the Leeuwin, the most easterly point of which was at Point D’Entrecasteaux or Point Nuyts between longitude 116° and 1178 E. The accurate

Gulden Zeepaard

representation of the Recherche Archipelago, the Great Australian Bight and the Nuyts Archipelago indicate the ship must have sailed within sight of the coast.

Dutch 1628 Gerrit Frederikszoon de Witt ran aground on the north-west coast of Australia in about latitude 21° S , possibly near what is now Port Hedland. By offloading cargo he succeeded in freeing the ship. He then followed the coast south-westwards as far as the Montebello Islands, Barrow Island and the coastal reefs to the south. His sighting of the coast to the east of the Montebello Islands was a new discovery. Hessel Gerritsz’ map of 1628 shows the discovery under the name ‘G.F. de Wits Landt’.

Vianen

Dutch 1629 VOC retourschip Batavia wrecked on Morning Reef, Wallabi Group, Houtman Abrolhos, c. 60 km off the coast of Geraldton. Commander Francisco Pelsaert decided to sail to Batavia (Djakarta) to seek water and a rescue ship. Meanwhile, Under Merchant Jeronimus Cornelisz and his followers massacre many of the shipwreck survivors.

Batavia

Dutch 1629 Pelsaert sailed north along the coast searching for fresh water with little success. A party landed on an offshore island where they found evidence of human habitation: Aborigines they encountered fled immediately.

Dutch 1629 Commander Pelsaert returns from Batavia in Sardam

the Sardam to rescue theBatavia survivors. Pelsaert hangs several of the mutineers and maroons two boys on the mainland before returning to Batavia.

Dutch 1631 The VOC ship Grooten Broeck sails along the west coast from Cape Leeuwin to Dirk Hartog Island en route to Batavia.

Grooten Broeck

Dutch 1635 The VOC ship Amsterdam, under the command of Woolebrand Geleynszoon de Jongh, charts the west coast around the latitude of Shark Bay.

Amsterdam

Dutch 1636 Commander Gerrit Thomasz Pool and merchant Pieter Pieterszoon charted the northern coast of the Southland, with instructions to search for the two men marooned by Pelsaert.

Klein Amsterdam & Wezel

Dutch 1642 Abel Janszoon Tasman reached the western coast of Tasmania. This land is the first land in the South Sea that is met by us, and is still known to no European peoples, so we have given this land the name of Anthoonij van Diemens Land in honour of the Hon. Governor-General our high superior who has sent us out to do this discovering. After several landings on the southern coast he sailed eastwards and sighted the South Island of New Zealand that he named ‘Staten Island’.

Heemskerk & Zeehaan

Dutch 1644 Abel Tasman commands a second expedition with three VOC ships and explores and charts the northern and western coast from Cape York to Point Cloates . He calls the western part of the

Zeemeeuw, Limmen & Bracq

new continent ‘New Holland’. Dutch VOC cartographers are able to map all known chartings of most of the continent except the eastern part which still remains a mystery.

Dutch 1656 The VOC jacht Vergulde Draeck (Gilt Dragon), Captain Pieter Albertsz., runs onto a reef 5 km off the coast on 28 April 1656, about 75 km north of the present site of Perth. The ship’s boat with seven survivors sails to Batavia to get help. Other survivors land.

Vergulde Draeck

Dutch 1656 Two rescue ships, the Goede Hoop and Witte Valk are dispatched from Batavia to search for the survivors of the Vergulde Draeck. The Witte Valk cannot approach land because of rough seas. The Goede Hoop finally manages to land search parties but finds no survivors and loses 11 men in the process.

Goede Hoop & Witte Valk

Dutch 1657 The Vink sails from the Cape to Batavia with orders to call at New Holland and search for the survivors. Once again there is no success.

Vink

Dutch 1658 Two more ships Waeckende Boei commanded by Samuel Volkersen andEmeloort skippered by Aucke Pieters Jonck sailed in search of the lost Vergulde Draeck. On February 23 skipper Volkersen sighted land; it turned out to be the island Rottnest. From this point they sailed northward. Although the expedition did not succeed in finding the wreck and the survivors, they conducted a very detailed survey of the

Wackende Boei & Emeloort

dangerous west coast of Australia. As well as a description of the coast four maps with land sightings were produced. In the maps various observations are drawn. On one of the illustrations of coast sightings three Aboriginal huts are shown.

Dutch 1658 The region north of Cape Leeuwin was explored by Captain Jacob Pieterszoon Peereboom. A landing party finds a group of Aborigines who flee on their arrival.

Elburgh

Dutch 1678 Captain Jan van der Wall explored and charted the north-west coast of New Holland from present-day Dampier to the Exmouth Gulf.

Vliegende Swaan

Britain 1681 Captain Daniel came across dangerous rocks off the coast of New Holland in latitudes 28°24’ to 28°36’ south—the area of the Houtman Abrolhos, and charted these. Details were published in Thornton’s The English Pilot (1703) and Daniel’s chart republished by Dalrymple in 1782.

London

France 1687 M. Duquesne-Guitton Abraham sighted the west coast in latitude 32° S in the vicinity of Swan River, en route to Siam (Thailand).

Oiseau and Loire

Britain 1688 William Dampier arrives in a privateer. CygnetDutch 1694 The VOC ship Ridderschap van Holland is

believed to be shipwrecked on the west coast.Ridderschap van Holland

Dutch 1697 An expedition under the command of Willem de Vlamingh and Captains Gerrit Collaert and Cornelis de Vlamingh is dispatched to look for

Geelvinck, Nijptangh & Weseltje

theRidderschap van Holland and explore New Holland. The fleet explores Rottnest Island, the mainland around the Swan River (present site of Perth) and several points along the coast going north. They land on Dirk Hartog Island where de Vlamingh retrieves Hartog’s plate and leaves his own behind, before heading for Batavia.

Britain 1699 English contact with Australia. William Dampier returns, names Shark Bay. Makes a natural science collection.

HM ship Roebuck