Wiebbe Hayes Stone Fort

{{Infobox building

| name =Wiebbe Hayes Stone Fort

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| image = The Fort - West Wallabi Island - Colour.JPG

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| caption = The fort in 2001

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| building_type = Defensive structure

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| location = West Wallabi Island

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| location_country = Australia

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| start_date = 1629

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| coordinates = {{coord|-28.4613357|113.7041114|format=dms|region:AU-WA_type:isle|display=inline,title}}

| embedded = {{Infobox designation list

|embed = yes

|designation1 = State Register of Heritage Places

|designation1_offname = Ruins of Two Stone Huts

|designation1_type = Heritage Council

|designation1_criteria =

|designation1_date = 31 July 1995

|delisted1_date =

|designation1_partof = Houtman Abrolhos Islands

|designation1_number = {{SRHP|3990}}

|designation2 = Australian National Heritage List

|designation2_offname = Batavia Shipwreck Site and Survivor Camps Area 1629

|designation2_type = Historic

|designation2_criteria = A, C, D, G

|designation2_date = 6 April 2006

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|designation2_number = {{ANHL|105887}}

}}

File:Ongeluckige voyagie vant schip Batavia (Plate 3).jpg

The Wiebbe Hayes Stone Fort on West Wallabi Island (also known as Wiebbe Hayes Island) is the oldest surviving European building in Australia and was built in 1629 by survivors of the {{ship||Batavia|1628|2}} shipwreck and massacre.{{cite news |title=The brutal shore |first=Bruce |last=Elder |author-link=Bruce Elder (journalist) |date=2005-07-30 |url=https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-brutal-shore-20050730-gdlrpv.html |work=The Sydney Morning Herald |access-date=2020-03-07 }} West Wallabi Island is {{cvt|63|km}} from the coast of Western Australia.

History

Following the Batavia shipwreck in 1629, a group of the marooned soldiers under the command of Wiebbe Hayes were put ashore on West Wallabi Island to search for water. A group of mutineers, led by Jeronimus Cornelisz, took control of the other survivors and left Hayes' group there, secretly hoping that they would starve or die of thirst. However, the soldiers discovered that they were able to wade to East Wallabi Island, where there was a fresh water spring. Furthermore, West and East Wallabi Island are the only islands in the group upon which the tammar wallaby lives. Thus the soldiers had access to sources of both food and water that were unavailable to the mutineers.

Later the mutineers mounted a series of attacks, which the soldiers repulsed. The remnants of improvised defensive walls and stone shelters built by Wiebbe Hayes and his men on West Wallabi Island are Australia's oldest known European structures,{{cite web |title=Batavia has |url=http://www.abc.net.au/backyard/shipwrecks/wa/batavia.htm |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |year=2003 |access-date=2020-03-07 }}{{cite Q |Q110529184 |access-date=2021-02-09 }}{{rp|37}}{{cite web |title=National Heritage Places - Batavia Shipwreck Site and Survivor Camps Area 1629 - Houtman Abrolhos |url=http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/national/batavia |publisher=Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, Government of Western Australia |year=2020 |access-date=2020-03-07 }} more than a century and a half before expeditions to the Australian continent by James Cook and Arthur Phillip. The remnants of "the fort ... [are] nothing more than a tiny, sandstone-coloured rectangle in the scrub about {{convert|100|m|yd|disp=sqbr}} from the sea. It is unimpressive and isolated and yet this simple structure, just some loose rocks piled up to make a simple fortress, is the first building Europeans constructed in Australia."

Wiebbe Hayes Stone Fort

History

See also

References

Further reading