Melville Island (Northern Territory)

History

Main article: Tiwi Islands#History

Indigenous people have occupied the area that became the Tiwi Islands for at least 40,000 years. It is said that the first European to sight the island was Abel Tasman in 1644.

Explorer Phillip Parker King (son of governor of New South Wales Philip Gidley King) named it for Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, first Lord of the Admiralty, who is also commemorated by the much larger Melville Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Shortly after this, the British made the first attempt to settle Australia's north coast, at the short-lived Fort Dundas on Melville Island. The settlement lasted from 1824 to 1828.

In an 1853 book chapter on Melville Island, George Windsor Earl theorised that the island had been a source of slaves for Portuguese Timor and had been regularly raided by Portuguese slave traders, citing anecdotal evidence from King and Fort Dundas commandant John Campbell. Earl's theory has been repeated and expanded by a number of subsequent writers, sometimes in support of the unorthodox theory of the Portuguese discovery of Australia. However, no direct evidence for these practices exist in Portuguese sources or in Tiwi oral tradition.

There was a Catholic mission on the island, on which Nova Peris' mother was raised after being taken from her mother.

During World War II the small Snake Bay Patrol manned by local Tiwi people was established as part of the military forces deployed to protect the island against any Japanese landings.

Geography and climate

The island lies in the eastern Timor Sea, approximately 60 km north of Darwin and west of the Cobourg Peninsula in Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory. At 5786 km2, it is just outside the 100 largest islands in the world, but is the second biggest island of Australia, after Tasmania. Irrititu Island, 1.60 km2, lies 55 m south of Melville Island's southern tip. The islands have a tropical climate.

Population

The largest settlement on the island is Milikapiti, with a population of 559. The second largest is Pirlangimpi (Pularumpi, formerly Garden Point), with a population of 440, located 27 km west of Milikapiti, on the west coast of Melville Island. About 30 more people live in five family outstations.

Governance

As part of the Tiwi Islands, Melville is under the jurisdiction of the Northern Territory, with the Tiwi Land Council as the regional authority.

References

References

1. "Timeline: Dreamtime to 1978". Tiwi Land Council.
2. Farram, Steven. (2022). "The Tiwi of Melville Island, the Portuguese of Timor, and Slavery". Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia.
3. Hersh, Philip. (22 September 2000). "Across generations".
4. (December 1997). "The natural occurrence of northern quolls Dasyurus hallucatus on islands of the Northern Territory: assessment of refuges from the threat posed by cane toads Bufo marinus.". Australian Government and Northern Territory Government.