The Blue Eyed Aborigine

The Blue Eyed Aborigine

Who really were the first white Australians?

Recent developments suggest that long before the days of Captain Cook, Australia's first white Europeans inhabitants were actually young Dutchmen- sailors exiled to the west-coast shores of Australia as punishment for their complicity in the famous 1629 Batavia shipwreck, and the mutiny and grisly massacre of its survivors which followed.

Marooned on the west coast of the empty 'South Land', young sailors Jan Pelgrom and Wouter Looes are left to contemplate their actions whilst they await almost certain death. But what really happened to them- did they survive and integrate with the local aborigines?

At the time of going to press, initial DNA tests have confirmed that some Aboriginals from Western Australia carry Western European blood, posing questions about the legacy of the Batavia survivors. Further tests should allow researches to pinpoint the date when that genetic link came about and whether it predated British settlement.

Base don the dairies of the ship's Commander, Rosemary Hayes recaptures some of maritime history's most dramatic moments, linking the fates of Jan and Wouter with discoveries that fascinate Australians to this day.

"I was intrigued by the personalities involved in the 1629 Batavia shipwreck," says Rosemary, "and I chose to describe the events through the eyes of Jan Pelgrom, the young cabin boy left marooned on the west coast. Was he really as bad and mad as he is painted? And what happened to him and his companion after they were abandoned?"

The Blue-Eyed Aborigine not only describes factual events but also imagines the unknown- the lives, relationships and discoveries of the two young Dutchmen as they attempt to settle in a country so different from their native Holland.

Rosemary Hayes lives and works in Cambridgeshire, UK. She has written numerous books including historical and contemporary fiction and fantasy. Rosemary lived in Australia for six years, and her first children's novel Race Against Time, set in Australia, was a runner-up for the 1987 Kathleen Fidler Award.

The Blue Eyed Aborigine
Walker Books
Author: Rosemary Hayes
ISBN: 9781847800787
Price: $16.95