The Sweers Island project

Published 28th August 2007

- This booklet is a highly polished gem
The Globe, Journal of the Australian Map Circle Inc, No. 59, Aug 2007,
reviewed by Emeritus Professor in Geography Victor Prescott, the University of Melbourne

The Sweers Island project is a mix of personal friendship across the globe, blended with genealogy, history and cartography. So far, it has resulted in the booklet Sweers Islands Unveiled, published in April 2006, and in an article dealing with some of the same issues in Placenames Australia.

Sweers Islands Unveiled follows the paths of discoverers Abel Tasman (1603–1659) and Matthew Flinders (1774–1814) with one common factor in mind: The places they named after Salomon Sweers (1612–1674), Councillor of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Batavia in the 1640s.

The book can be read on many levels. It gives a short, comprehensive history of early Dutch discoveries of the South Seas. Following Councillor Salomon Sweers, it gives an interesting insight into the life of the VOC. On a local level, it gives the history of presentday Sweers Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Qld., the only place among the original five that still carries Salomon Sweers’ name.

The book also examines and sheds fresh light on the Bonaparte Tasman map; so-called because it was once owned by Prince Roland Bonaparte, grandson of Lucien Bonaparte, King of Holland and brother of the French Emperor. The map was presented to the Mitchell Library in Sydney in 1933, and is today counted among Australia's national treasures.

The work has been performed in close cooperation between main author Carsten Berg Høgenhoff, Oslo, Norway, local residents Lyn and Tex Battle of Sweers Island, Qld., historian Bob Forsyth of Mount Isa, Qld., and genealogist Annette Sweerts of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

From the foreword, written by Paul Brunton, Senior Curator, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales:
- At first sight, this might appear a book of only local interest. But in placing a small part of the Australian coastline under the microscope, the authors have advanced our understanding of Abel Tasman's great voyage of 1644. This book is a splendid example of a good local study illuminating the wider picture. [...] [Flinders] would be delighted that it was his naming of Sweers Island which inspred this book which itself is a tribute to, and provides new information about, the greatest of all Dutch voyagers to Australia, Abel Tasman.

Sweers Islands Unveiled can be purchased from Lyn and Tex Battle on Sweers Island, or bought at several outlets throughout Australia. See details here.

Title: Sweers Islands Unveiled - Details from Abel Tasman and Matthew Flinders' explorations of Australia
Carsten Berg Høgenhoff in cooperation with Lyn & Tex Battle, Bob Forsyth and Annette Sweerts. Høgenhoff Forlag (Oslo 2006)
ISBN 978-82-99-71402-0 (ISBN 10: 82-997140-2-8) 48 p., stapled cover. AU$ 19.95 + postage

 

From 13th to 15th February 2009, Lyn and Tex (right) visited Carsten and wife Sulja (left) in Oslo, and three out of five in the Sweers Islands Unveiled team were together. Earlier, Bob Forsyth has met with Lyn and Tex on several occasions both in Mount Isa and on Sweers Island, and Carsten has met Annette Sweerts in The Hague, The Netherlands. Photo from Sydholmen at Lake Lutvann by Steinar Winnem.