RootsChat.Com

Denn,
I lived in Northampton some years ago (the one just past Geraldton) and noticed that the Aboriginals there were stockier than I was used to, and amongst the kids there was a huge amount of fair hair, this doesn't prove anything but just an observation.

Hi Andcarred,

The reason that the Dutch had contact with the west coast of  Oz after Sth Africa was that it made navigation easy for them at a time when the accuracy of calculating longditude was a hit and miss affair. What they would do was sail with the weather on a latitude that they knew would bring them eventually to the coast of W.A. on sighting the coast, all that was then needed was to turn left and follow the coast and known islands untill reaching the D.E.I.
The main problems were many uncharted reefs or "abrolhos", aparantly the word abrolhos is derived from a portugese word meaning to keep your eyes open. This was compounded by the difficulty in calculating longcitude, they often reached these submerged abrolhos earlier than anticipated thereby coming to grief - the W.A. coast is littered with shipwrecks.

Your comment about the proximity of the D.E.I. to Oz is of coarse quite correct and the Indonesians have for ever (and still do) fished in Australian waters, and I think one would have to be silly not to expect some migration and interbreeding. However Sat here thinking I imagine that the Dutch would on leaving Indonesia use a different route back to Europe, thereby completely missing Oz on the return journey.

Denn

Sandra,
That was an interesting read. However I rather think that the story is made up of a few facts with much embellishment.

I don't have a great deal of time to spare at the moment but I would make the following points,

"Their traditional history is, that their fathers were compelled by famine, after the loss of their great vessel, to travel towards the rising sun, carrying with them as much of the stores as they could...."
Wouldn't records of such a vessel be available from "VOC" - they have records of all ships that they operated.
For anyone to traverse the thousands of kilometers suggested and through such inhospitable country as the great sandy dessert would be a feat in itself without even considering the many tons of stores that they must have taken.

"I saw below me at the distance of about three or four miles, a low and level country, laid out as it were in plantations, with straight rows of trees, through which a broad sheet of smooth water extended in nearly a direct line from east to west, as far as the eye could reach to the westward,"
Such copious amounts of water aren't feasable in this area

"And what fixed me to the spot with indescribable sensations of rapture and admiration was the number of small boats or canoes with one or two persons in each gliding along the narrow channels [sic] between the islands in every direction, some of which appeared to be fishing or drawing nets."

"about three hundred; that they lived in houses enclosed all together within a great wall "

Yet with such a community there seems to be nothing remaining apart from this one mans account - either physically or verbally to show that they ever existed. It is also noted that this is an acount about a "secret" british mission of which there appears to be no record.

Now having said all that I do believe that there is compelling evidence that there have been some Dutch influence in the interior, but I personally doubt that there would be anything like this.

Denn