Rottnest or Wadjemup: Tourism and the Forgetting of Aboriginal Incarceration and the Pre-colonial History of Rottnest Island

Rottnest Island Prison was established in 1838. Situated 18 kilometers off the coast of Western Australia (WA), adjacent to the capital city of Perth, it is Australia’s first and only mass segregation of Aboriginal people in a racially determined prison. It served this purpose for almost 100 years, finally closing in 1931, after incarcerating up to 4,000 people captured from different Aboriginal nations all over the State of Western Australia (Green and Moon 1997: 380). Despite its significance, its role as the first and longest operating Australian Aboriginal prison site remains hidden beneath national forgetting. In the 85 years since the last Aboriginal prisoners left in 1931, government and local authorities have largely ignored the presence of the former prison on Rottnest Island and inadequately signposted its history. However, its natural heritage and tourism value were recognized very quickly. In 1917, Rottnest Island was declared an A-Class Reserve (State Records Office of Western Australia 2015) and since the 1920s has been reimagined as a place of pleasure and escape for non-Aboriginal Australians. National Trust Australia (Heritage Council State Heritage Office 2012a) classified the island as a significant heritage place in 1993, while a number of colonial buildings, such as Rottnest Island Hotel, are listed on the WA State Heritage Register (Heritage Council State Heritage Office 2012b), with the notable exclusion of the Quod (the Prison—see below).