Human remains found near Holy Trinity Catholic Church confirmed as Indigenous
The grim discovery, on a typically brisk and sunny autumn day, this week highlighted the dark history behind Western Australia’s favorite holiday island.
Work at the main bus stop next to Holy Trinity Catholic Church on Rottnest Island came to an abrupt halt on Wednesday when human remains were uncovered as tourists wandered through the busy city centre.
Police launched an investigation accompanied by the state anthropologist, and the next day the remains were confirmed to be human.
But it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if expert advice on Friday indicated the remains belonged to an Indigenous person.
Because while Rottnest is internationally famous for its turquoise waters hugging its many pristine beaches – not to mention the Insta-famous resident marsupial that inspired the Dutch name – for WA’s Noongar people, Wadjemup is also a painful reminder of the state’s colonial past.
A few hundred meters from the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, where the remains were found Wednesday, stands the Quod, a large, octagonal building that is one of the oldest structures built on the island in the early 1800s.
Between 1838 and 1931 approximately 3700 Aboriginal men and boys were sent to Rottnest; They were prisoners as young as eight and as young as 70, who were removed from communities as far north as Wyndham in the state’s Kimberley region.
And the people who built Quod, which served as the second main prison, were those sent to the island in the brutal early years.
They were sent across nearly 20 kilometers of water for crimes ranging from petty theft to murder. Hundreds never made it back to the mainland.
Overcrowding, lack of sanitation and nutrition, extreme weather conditions, and physical and psychological abuse contributed to the deaths of prisoners.
Although the Quod was designed to hold a maximum of 106 prisoners, it housed almost 170 Aboriginal men at its peak.
Many were buried in unmarked graves. In 1894 the WA government moved to open Rottnest to the public as a summer resort, and campers in the “tent field” close to the main settlement would soon pitch their tents on land where Indigenous prisoners were buried.
This continued until 2007, when the campsite was moved from the area known to contain unmarked graves, later known as the Wadjemup Aboriginal Cemetery.
The Quod itself was converted into accommodation in the 1900s – it even served as a concentration camp for German and Austrian officers for a time during the First World War – and formed part of Rottnest Island Lodge.
But the Lodge has now been refurbished – it is now the luxurious The Lodge Wadjemup – and work continues to commemorate Australia’s single largest custodial death site.
The Wadjemup Project aims to restore the Quod, map the Wadjemup Aboriginal Cemetery – including the use of ground-penetrating radar – and honor at least 373 Aboriginal men and boys buried there.
The project is currently in its second phase; The first stage involves telling the truth about the island’s previously hidden history and why WA remains such a painful place for Aboriginal people.
“Despite significant resources and many opportunities for learning and understanding, this history is largely invisible and many Western Australians and visitors to Wadjemup remain unaware of these past injustices,” a Wadjemup Project progress report published in 2022 said.
“The main reason for this is a legacy of secrecy. Additionally, many Aboriginal people do not feel safe or comfortable returning to the island.
“The reasons for this are manifold, but firstly it is fair to say that Wadjemup has outstanding and unfinished business.”
A significant turning point occurred in 2024, when Wadjedemup Wirin Bidi (Spirit Path) Remembrance Day invited the public to recognize a new chapter that acknowledges the island’s Indigenous past.
Growing interest in Rottnest Island’s colonial history has been fueled by a surge in visitors to the island, with many overseas tourists being attracted to day trips or staycations through WA Tourism marketing and celebrity “selfies” with ever-grinning native quokkas.
In the 2024-25 fiscal year, 878,287 visitors arrived by ferry; The main means of accessing Rottnest are private cruises or the ever-popular canal swims, with 30 per cent of these visitors coming from interstate or abroad.
The WA government has announced $27.5 million for the Wadjemup Project in 2023, which includes cemetery commemoration and work carried out at Quod.
Heritage builder Colgan Industries has won the tender for the memorialisation, which is due to be completed by the end of the year.
But as Wednesday’s discovery shows, the island’s dark and, for many, painful history is never far from the surface.
from AAP
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