| History | |
|---|---|
 Dutch Republic | |
| Name | Zuytdorp |
| Owner | Dutch East India Company |
| Fate | Wrecked at the Zuytdorp Cliffs in 1712 |
Zuytdorp, also Zuiddorp (meaning 'South Village', after Zuiddorpe, an extant village in the south of Zeeland in the Netherlands, near the Belgian border) was an 18th-century trading ship of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, commonly abbreviated VOC).[1]
On 1 August 1711,[2] Zuytdorp was dispatched from the Netherlands to the trading port of Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) bearing a load of freshly minted silver coins.[3] Many trading ships travelled the Brouwer Route, using the strong Roaring Forties winds to carry them across the Indian Ocean 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 Australian coast between Kalbarri and Shark Bay, approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) 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.[4]
There was news of an unidentified shipwreck on the shore in 1834 when Aboriginal people told a farmer near Perth about a wreck – the 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.
- ^ "Zuiddorp (1701)". De VOCsite (in Dutch). 2020. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
- ^ zuytdorp.html Archived 17 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Zuiddorp". The Dutch East India Company's shipping between the Netherlands and Asia 1595-1795. Huygens ING. 2 February 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
- ^ "Select Committee on Ancient Shipwrecks" (PDF). Western Australian Legislative Assembly. 17 August 1994. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 February 2008. Retrieved 21 February 2008.