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The Dauphin and Harleian maps and the Portuguese discovery of Australia

A simple man’s view by Ray Blackwood

This website assumes the reader has some prior knowledge of the Dauphin and Harleian maps, their origin and the controversy engendered by them over many years about what they portray, and the great volume of arguments put forward by laymen and scholars from which emerges, particularly in academia, a degree of consensus that they portray the east coast of Australia.

I take issue with this view and say the maps portray the north coast of the Northern Territory from Joseph Bonaparte Gulf in the west to Groote Eylandt in the east and given, as is accepted by scholars, that the Dieppe cartographers derived their basic information from the charts of Portuguese mariners, it follows that the Dauphin and Harleian maps are concrete evidence that the Portuguese set foot on Australian soil early in the sixteenth century.

Before I proceed with my argument I must refer to the common factor I see in the opposing arguments, that the promontory Simbana on the north of the maps is unquestionably accepted as equating with the Cape York peninsula and their theories proceed from that base which I say is manifestly wrong and has been a persistent red herring in the long search for the portent of the maps.

In my argument I see the maps as serious and remarkably accurate portrayals of the NT coastline, with some allowance made for the cartographic capabilities of the time. They are not a figment of someone’s imagination.

The most obvious question is about Java and the Rio Grande which I say are the Tiwi Islands and the waters between them and the mainland, a proposition which becomes more valid as I progress my case. Also in question is the distortions of the western coast but nevertheless the features which appear therein are valid presentations and here the cartographers must be allowed some licence.

Another question requiring attention is the abrupt cut-off of the southern portion of the maps, easy to explain in my reasoning as indicating the extent of knowledge of the time of what lay to the south but difficult for other theories.

I now put forward a series of “Identifiers” in which I equate named features in the maps with features on the real coastline.