Dirk Hartog Lands in Western Australia

Timeline

1. 1616Southern Indian Ocean to waters off Western Australia · Western AustraliaHartog, employed by the East India Company, commanded the newly built Eendracht to Bantam via the Brouwer route: after rounding the Cape of Good Hope he ran far east on the westerlies, then turned north. The fleet sailed farther east than planned and so approached the west coast of the southern continent, then nearly blank on European charts.
2. 1616Inscription Point (Dirk Hartog Island) · Dirk Hartog IslandThe Eendracht landed on an island off Shark Bay. Hartog and the upper merchant Gillis Miebels and others went ashore, finding the land barren and of no immediate trading value. Before sailing they flattened and inscribed a pewter dinner plate, nailed it to a post set on the northern cliff, and recorded the ship's name, the captain, and their plan to continue to Bantam. The plate is the earliest surviving physical evidence of a European arrival in Australia; it was found by Flaming in 1697 and brought back to the Netherlands.
3. c. 1616–1617Eendracht Land (west coast of Western Australia) · Western AustraliaAfter leaving the island, Hartog sailed north along the Australian west coast making rough surveys, and Dutch charts came to call this stretch of coast Eendracht Land. The fleet then sailed to Makassar and Bantam, completing the East Indies voyage. This deviation gave Europe its first direct record of the Western Australian coast and left a verifiable physical inscription.