ROTTNEST ISLAND HISTORY
THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO, Wadjemup/Rottnest Island was connected to mainland Australia by a land bridge. The Whadjuk Noongar people occupied the area until sea levels rose between 6 and 10,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age and transformed it into an island. The island is of special spiritual significance to Whadjuk Noongar people, who named it Wadjemup, which refers to “the place across the water where the spirits are”. Their Nyitting (Dreaming) stories describe it as a site where spirits go to rest.
In the 17th century the Indian Ocean teemed with European ships as the Dutch began colonising large swathes of modern-day Indonesia. Samuel Volkerson, skipper of
Waeckende Boey, is believed to be the first European to visit Wadjemup/ Rottnest Island, coming ashore on three separate occasions in his search for survivors of the Vergulde Draeck
(Gilt Dragon) shipwreck (see Aussie Towns, page 126).
The first British settlers arrived in the area in 1829 and established the Swan River Colony. Within a decade, the colonial government set aside Rottnest Island for an Aboriginal prison and forced labour camp. The first six prisoners arrived in July 1838 and were chained to trees because no prison infrastructure had yet been built. For the next 100 years, at least 3670 Aboriginal men and boys from across WA were imprisoned on the island. The prisoners, who ranged from eight-yearold boys to senior Elders, were forced into gruelling tasks of quarrying limestone, constructing buildings and operating the grain mill. Records reveal at least 373 prisoners died and were buried in unmarked graves, making it the largest recorded site of Aboriginal deaths in custody. The last prisoner was escorted to the mainland in 1931. For many decades, this chapter in the island’s history was swept under the rug as Rottnest Island rebranded itself as a desirable holiday destination and the prison buildings were converted into a tourist resort.
In the mid-19th century, the island’s proximity to the fledgling Perth settlement meant it had an important role in providing navigational aid for passing ships. In 1842 Aboriginal prisoners began building a 20m-tall lighthouse on the highest point of the island. It was completed in
1849, making it WA’s first stone lighthouse. Between 1848 and 1903 the Rottnest Island Pilot Station helped guide ships through the treacherous reefs and into the safety of Fremantle Harbour.
Despite these aids, ships continued be wrecked on the perilous reefs – sometimes leaving no survivors – so the Wadjemup Lighthouse was torn down and a second, more modern lighthouse replaced it in 1896. At 38m tall, it was nearly double the height of the original. A subsidiary light was built on Bathurst Point in 1900, after a shipwreck claimed a dozen lives the previous year.
At the beginning of World War I Rottnest Island became an internment camp for nearly 1000 Germans, Austrians, Italians, Croatians and Serbians. The camp closed in 1915 and internees were relocated to nearby Garden Island.
In the late 1930s, as international tensions worsened in the lead-up to World War II, Rottnest Island was fitted with coastal artillery and a number of military installations, including army barracks, a battery command post and a three-storey fortress. The island was ideally located to defend Fremantle Port from enemy ships and was declared a prohibited area from 1940 until the end of the war.