Stradbroke Island Galleon

The Stradbroke Island Galleon, believed to be of Spanish or Portuguese origin, is a ship, either galleon or carrak that was sunk off the east coast of Australia.

Overview

The ship is believed to be located in Eighteen Mile Swamp, roughly 3 km to the west of the coast of what is now called North Stradbroke Island. Archeologist Greg Jefferys has been searching for the shipwreck since 1989 and led an expedition in 2007 after finding a silver coin dated from 1597. A number of artefacts have been found in recent years that were reported to have been taken from the shipwreck. These include a sailor's knife, a brass walking stick handle, a lead weight, a 16th or 17th century sword blade or Spanish design and a ship's bell.

Whilst described as a galleon it is more likely to be a caravel or carrak. Based on eye witness accounts it is too short to be a galleon. It is likely that it was sunk in the 16th or 17th century.

The Stradbroke "galleon" was first reported in the Eighteen Mile Swamp in the 1860s by Queensland Member of Parliment E.J. Stevens who had a cattle lease on Stradbroke Island. It was further described by several qualified eye wittnesses, who saw it over the next 80 years, as being a ship with a high poop and forecastle and made of English oak about 30 meters (90 feet) long.

However, according to mainstream, academic opinion and some local Aboriginal Elders, that report -and subsequent theories and interpretations based on it- was mistaken; the wreckage sighted in the swamp being more likely that of a mid/late 19th Century cattle barge or a 'timber-getter' wrecked off the coast of Stradbroke Island and washed across the beach into the swamp by high tides and storm surges. Bob Anderson, an Aboriginal elder from Stradbroke Island recently confirmed that when he was a boy he had been shown the wreck by other Elders in the 1930s and told that it was an old cattle barge.

According to Greg Jeffreys the above statement begs the question: "If Aboriginal Elder Bob Anderson was shown the wreck/cattle barge then he must know where it is so why doesn't he just take a few of the mainstream academics, such as Steve Nichols or his associate Dan Rosendahl, to the wreck and solve the mystery beyond dispute?"

The mainstream academic theory is further disputed by Greg Jefferys who cites early Brisbane historian Isobel Hannah who wrote in a 1921 article for the Courier Mail that the ship's remains had been closely inspected by Mathew Heeb, a shipwright and timber getter, who clearly described the shipwreck to her as being of a "ship with high poop and forecastle" clearly not a cattle barge. Hannah also quotes the Aboriginal widow of the Moreton Bay pilot and light keeper Mrs Andrew Graham who says her husband knew of the wreck and that he found an anchor near it in the 1870's, ..."which was much corroded and had a wooden stock."

Jeffreys goes on to state that "As far as all historic records indicate there has never been an Australian cattle barge built of European or English oak." In his book Jefferys maintains that the cattle barge theory has been used by reactionary acedemics from the Queensland Archaeology fraternity to stifle further debate and deter serious investigation into the "galleon" legend.

Further Hannah, who saw the wreck in the 18 Mile Swamp in the early 1890's, stated that its position in the Swamp made it impossible for it to be a cattle barge. Further there is no historic evidence at all that indicates that cattle were ever shipped across the swamp in a barge. Likewise the recollection of Aboriginal John Campbell, in the 1890's, recorded by noted local historian, Thomas Welsby, that Aboriginal oral histories record that two white men, one named Juan walked into the Aboriginal camp near Flinder's Beach from their shipwreck on the coean side of Stradbroke Island. Campbell further states that the wreck was still visble in in the 18 Mile Swamp in the 1890's and was made of English oak.

Greg Jefferys, who did his degree in Archaeology at the University of Queensland believes that the mainstream academics have a vested interest in ignoring the shipwreck in the 18 Mile Swamp as the discovery of a pre-Cook European shipwreck in Australia would devalue, or divert funding from, their existing maritime archaeological projects.

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