Rupert Gerritsen

Rupert Gerritsen (RON) (1953 – 3 November 2013) was an Australian historian and a noted authority on Indigenous Australian prehistory. Coupled with his work on early Australian cartography, he played an influential part in re-charting Australian history prior to its settlement by the British in 1788, and noted evidence of agriculture and settlements on the continent before the arrival of settlers.

Rupert Gerritsen

Early years

Rupert Gerritsen was born in Geraldton,[1] Western Australia in 1953, of Dutch parents.[1] He grew up in Geraldton, where he experienced first hand the excitement of the discovery of the wreck of the Batavia in 1963 and came to know some of those involved in its discovery and the discovery of other 17th and 18th century shipwrecks on the coast of Western Australia.

From 1960s through to the 1980s he was involved in radical politics and social activism and promoted social justice and empowerment.

Professionally he was engaged for many years in Western Australia and the ACT in youth work, community work and mental health, and specialise in developmental work.[2][3]

Indigenous prehistory and early Australian historical research

And Their Ghosts May Be Heard (1994)[4] is a detailed exploration of the fate of the Dutch mariners cast away on the Western Australian coast in the 1600s and early 1700s.

Gerritsen was involved in establishing that some 16% of Nhanda, an Aboriginal language of the central west coast of Western Australia, was apparently derived from Dutch as a result of interaction with marooned sailors.[5] This discovery led to major reevaluation in the perceptions of the early prehistory, in that Aboriginal Australians were not mute witnesses to the unfolding events of history but active participants who embraced parts of European culture long before the British settlement of the continent.

Gerritsen also researched the location where two mutineers from the Batavia mutiny, possibly Australia's first European settlers, were marooned on 16 November 1629.[6] As a consequence of his research Gerritsen established that Hutt River, 500 kilometres (310 mi) north of Perth, was the site where Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom de Bye first set foot on mainland Australia. These discoveries wrought a complete change in the methodology of recording Western Australian pre-history. Many subsequent scholars have embraced this new historical paradigm in their works.[7]

After the appearance of Ghosts, Gerritsen published a range of papers and monographs in diverse fields, from archaeology to historical linguistics.

Australia and the Origins of Agriculture[8] put forward evidence that some Indigenous Australian groups in traditional circumstances were engaged in food production, including agriculture, and lived in large permanent settlements.

Other research

Gerritsen undertook research and published extensively on a diverse range of subjects, including:

• Identification of the oldest ceremonial object in the world, a 28,000-year-old cylcon found at Cuddie Springs.
• Ethnographic and ethnogenic evidence of interaction between Indigenous Australians and megafauna.
• A study of the global prehistory of water craft and island colonisation, leading to a new theory on the original colonisation of Australia.
• Various co-authored papers on the Freycinet Map of 1811, the first full map of Australia to be published, and identifying the first world map showing a full map of Australia, published in 1810.
• A number of papers identifying events during the Batavia Mutiny in 1629 as the first criminal prosecutions, the first military conflict and the first naval engagements in Australian history.

Gerritsen was a Petherick Researcher at the National Library of Australia from April 1995.[9] and focussed his research and writing on early Australian history.

Awards

In recognition of his work on Australian pre-history and its Dutch influence, in 2007, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands conferred upon Gerritsen the honour of Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

In August 2012 Gerritsen was awarded the Dorothy Prescott Prize for the paper, "Getting the strait facts straight", he gave at the Brisbane International Geospatial Forum.

Death and legacy

Gerritsen died in Canberra on Sunday 3 November 2013.[10]

Australia and the Origins of Agriculture and other work by Gerritsen was influential in the shaping of Bruce Pascoe's acclaimed work, Dark Emu.[11]

Australia on the Map

Gerritsen was co-founder, along with Peter Reynders, of Australia on the Map: 1606–2006, and was that organisation's National Secretary.[12] At his death he was Chair of its successor organisation, the Australia on the Map Division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society which aims to make Australians more aware of Australia's early history and heritage, beginning in 1606.[13]

Under the Australia on the Map Division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society, Gerritsen had sole or joint responsibility for a number of projects, including the "Search for the Deadwater Wreck".

Selected publications

• The Freycinet Map of 1811: Proceedings of the Symposium Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Publication of the First Map of Australia (jointly edited with Robert King and Andrew Eliason)
• Beyond the Frontier: Explorations in Ethnohistory, 2011
• Australia's First Criminal Prosecutions in 1629, 2011
• Gerritsen, Rupert (2008). Australia and the Origins of Agriculture. Volume 1874 of British Archaeological Reports British Series; Bar S; BAR international series. Archaeopress. ISBN 9781407303543.
• And Their Ghosts May Be Heard ..., 1994 and 2nd ed. 2002
• A Further Translation of Selected Chapters of Dr Erhard Eylmann's Die Eingeborenen der Kolonie Südaustralien (The Aborigines of the Colony of South Australia), Translated and transcribed by W.C. Gerritsen and Rupert Gerritsen, 2002
• The Traditional Settlement Pattern in South West Victoria Reconsidered, 2000
• Nhanda Villages of the Victoria District, Western Australia, 2002
• An anonymous account of a journey from Augusta to the Vasse in 1833, Unpublished, 1999
• Early Records of the Wardandi language, 1998

References

1. Fremantle Press Authors "G" Fremantle Press, 2011
2. Mental Health Foundation ACT Staff Mental Health Foundation ACT, 2011
3. Rupert Gerritsen Research and Consultancy Rupert Gerritsen Research and Consultancy
4. National Library of Australia National Library of Australia Catalogue
5. Anonymous 1995 ‘Example of How Not to Use Historical Sources.’ In Paper and Talk: A Manual for Reconstituting Materials in Australian Indigenous Languages from Historical Sources, edited by N. Thieberger, 146. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press; Editor 1997 ‘Editorial.’ Australian Aboriginal Studies 1997/II: 1; Gerritsen, R. 1997 ‘The Note on Page 146 of ‘Paper and Talk’: A Response.’ Australian Aboriginal Studies 1997/II: 55-57; Blevins, J. 1998 ‘A Dutch Influence on Nhanda? Wanyjidaga innga!’ Australian Aboriginal Studies 1998/I: 43-46; Gerritsen, R. 2001 ‘A Dutch influence on Nhanda?: A Reply to Blevins.’ Australian Aboriginal Studies 2001/I: 69-73. Blevins, J. 2001 A Dutch influence on Nhanda? Malya kanangga!’ Australian Aboriginal Studies 2001/I: 74-75. Blevins, J. 2001 Nhanda: An Aboriginal Language of Western Australia: Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication No. 30. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press; Gerritsen, R. 2004 Historical problems and methodological issues regarding Nhanda, an Aboriginal language of Western Australia. Anthropological Linguistics 46(1):84-99.
6. Playford, P. E. 1959 ‘Wreck of the Zuytdorp on the Western Australian coast in 1712.’, Journal and Proceedings of the Western Australian Historical Society 5(5):37-8; Gerritsen, R. 1994 And Their Ghost May Be Heard, South Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, pp.271-87; Playford P. E. 1996, Carpet of Silver: The Wreck of the Zuytdorp, Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, pp.237-42; Gerritsen, R. 2007 ‘The debate over where Australia’s first European residents were marooned in 1629 – Part 1.’ Hydrographic Journal 126:20-25; Gerritsen, R. 2009 ‘The debate over where Australia’s first European residents were marooned in 1629 – Part 2.’ Hydrographic Journal 128-9:35-41.
7. Drake-Brockman, H. 1963 Voyage to Disaster, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, pp.295-300; Gerritsen, R, Slee, C. and Cramer, M. 2003/2005 The Batavia Legacy, Geraldton: Batavia Coast Maritime Heritage Association.
8. Gerritsen, Rupert (2008). Australia and the Origins of Agriculture. Volume 1874 of British Archaeological Reports British Series; Bar S; BAR international series. Archaeopress. ISBN 9781407303543.
9. Petherick Researcher Mary Gosling, Petherick Librarian, Gateways, February 2003
10. Reynders, Peter. "Rupert Gerritsen R.O.N. (1953-2013)". Australia on the Map. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
11. Guilliatt, Richard (25 May 2019). "Turning history on its head". The Australian. Weekend Australian Magazine. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
12. Australia on the Map Australiaon the Map: 1606-2006, Australia on the Map, a division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society, on Tuesday, 5 June 2007
13. Australia on the Map, a division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society Australia on the Map, a division of the Australasian Australasian Hydrographic Society Hydrographic Society