Vergulde Draeck (Gilt Dragon) Shipwreck Survivors' Camp

Values

Unique archaeological site evidencing Dutch interaction with the Western Australian coast in the seventeenth century. The place allows the clear association with an historical shipwreck event, to be understood better than most other places in Western Australia with a similar association.

The information that might be obtained through further investigation has the potential to yield knowledge that would make an important contribution to understanding the history of Western Australia.

Physical Description

Caves located on a limestone ridge facing the beach, about 4 km north of Seabird. and 6.7 km southeast from the wreck site, at 107 degrees.

History

Vergulde Draeck (Gilt Dragon) was a Dutch East India Company (VOC) vessel wrecked on the Western Australian coast in 1656. On 4 October 1655, Vergulde Draeck departed for Batavia (present day Jakarta, Indonesia) via Brouwer’s Route using the Roaring Forties trade winds. On the morning of 28 April 1656, the vessel struck a reef north of Ledge Point and began to break up immediately (Worsley & Green 2019: 732). Of the 193 crew that departed Batavia, only 75 made it to shore. They did so in two boats, one of which capsized on landing. Seven crew immediately departed for Batavia, and 41 days later the jacht Goede Hoop and the fluit Witte Valke left Batavia to attempt a rescue. Some wreckage was identified, but none of the 68 survivors were ever found. Three men from Goede Hoop were lost on land, and another 8 crew were lost the next day when the boat was dashed to pieces on the beach (Worsley & Green 2019: 58). A second group of men, from the vessel Wakende Boei, were temporarily stranded on the coast in 1658 as part of another attempt to rescue the survivors of Vergulde Draeck. The journal of one of the survivors from this episode reports that they camped for a few nights on a beach underneath cliffs somewhere on the coast, foraging for seals and gulls to supplement their meagre provisions, before returning to their boat to attempt rejoining their ship (HaNA_1.04.02_1225_0494-502, nb. Henderson 1985). The wreck site was discovered in April 1963 by spearfishermen John Cowen, Jim, Alan and Graeme Henderson and Alan Robinson. It has been excavated by the WA Museum, and many items are on display at the WA Museum Boola Bardip, WA Shipwrecks Museum and the Museum of Geraldton.

Archaeology

In 1931 40 silver coins were discovered in what was called the ‘money desert’, 3 km north of Seabird (Green 1973: 272). Two other concentrations of material were present at Eagles Nest – including pewter objects, iron fasteners and a skeleton, and further north at Moreton Point, including glass and iron fragments (Sheppard 2019). In 2022, lead shot artefacts were found by metal detectorists at the base of coastal limestone cliffs directly east of the wreck site, around 5 km north of Seabird. Individual shot and spring shot matched standard weapon bores in 1639 Dutch regulations, and indicate survivors brought salvaged weaponry ashore. In 2024 artefacts were recovered from caves north of Seabird associated with the Vergulde Draeck wreck

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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