Dirk Hartog Introduction

Explores the impact and motivations of Europe’s at first tentative and then conflicting approaches to the southern continent. It encompasses the story of Dirk Hartog; profiles other early Dutch East India Company (VOC) skippers or commanders and their discoveries; VOC visits to the South Land; a brief background of the VOC including why the company never settled in Australia; the trials and tribulations of some of the Dutch vessels that were wrecked on the harsh west Australian coast in the 17th and 18th centuries; the stories of the two pewter dishes placed at Cape Inscription (by Hartog in 1616 and another by Willem de Vlamingh in 1697); and descriptions of the landscape of Dirk Hartog Island.