ABEL TASMAN’S DIARY ENTRY OF 24 NOVEMBER 1642
The Tasman map of 1644, based on the observations of the eponymous explorer, shows parts of Australia’s western and northern coastlines with remarkable accuracy. Over the next 100 years it would be the foundation for maps of the region until Captain James Cook charted the east coast of Australia in 1770.
By the mid-seventeenth century the Dutch East India Company (VOC) had successfully maintained its monopoly on trade throughout the entire East with a robust network of outposts everywhere from Iran to Japan, safeguarded with a powerful naval presence. While a doctrine of perpetual expansion was the core of its constitution, under the governorship of Anthony Van Diemen, the period of 1636-45 saw an explosion in VOC exploratory missions, masterminded from Batavia (Jakarta), the VOC capital established in 1611.
Van Diemen was particularly keen to find two islands first reported in 1584, when a Spanish navigator repeated a rumour he’d heard of a ship headed for Japan, carrying a Portuguese and an Armenian, that was blown wildly off course and found an unrecorded pair of islands rich in silver, known to the Japanese. These were given the irresistible names Rica de Plata (‘Silver’) and Rica de Oro (‘Gold’) – despite there being no mention of gold in the original story. Van Diemen dispatched the Dutch navigators Matthijs Quast and Maarten Vries to the north Pacific to find these piles of treasure in island form. Quast took steps to ensure his men kept the horizon under close scrutiny for signs of the Ricas – any man caught sleeping while on watch was fined a month’s pay and given fifty lashes. If it happened again this was doubled, a third offence would see him hanged. Unsurprisingly the five-month mission turned up numerous unchartered islands, yet none were the fabled lands of gold and silver.
Van Diemen’s ambitions took in fields far farther than Japan and her secret phantom islands. It was in 1642 that the governor-general turned his attention to the South Pacific, commanding a preferred captain from the Ricas mission, Abel Janszoon Tasman, to lead a two-ship expedition that would be considerably more successful. Tasman’s orders were to scour the ocean for the Solomon Islands, again based on Spanish reports, to find and explore the great unknown southern continent Terra Australis and to investigate the possibility of an eastern trade route with Chile, circumventing Spanish lanes. On 14 August 1642 Tasman and the vessels Heemskerck and Zeehaen launched from Batavia, heading to Mauritius to capture the winds that would take them in a southerly direction. These they found, and though the intention had been to reach a record-breaking latitude of 54°S, at 42°S they were swamped with thick mist and spun eastwards. They continued on this course, unknowingly sailing below Australia, until on 24 November land was sighted – the first European observation of Tasmania. Despite the roughness of the waters, the ship’s carpenter was ordered to swim ashore and plant the Dutch flag. From the deck, Tasman claimed the island for the Netherlands and the VOC, and dutifully named it Van Diemen’s Land in honour of ‘our illustrious master, who sent us to make this discovery’.
After naming Mounts Heemskerck and Zeehaen, the Dutch proceeded on their easterly course, with the aim of finding the Solomon Islands. Instead they made the second of their historic discoveries, sighting the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand. They cruised north along the island’s coast, anchoring so that the men might go ashore at what is known today as Golden Bay. Tasman’s original name for it, however, was Moordenaars Baej (‘Murderers’ Bay’), after a force of Māori warriors attacked the landing party and killed four Dutch sailors.
The Dutchmen headed north again, mistaking the Cook Strait as an inlet and therefore wrongly assuming the two islands of New Zealand to be one long landmass, the ‘Staten Landt’ discovered off the southern coast of South America by their countrymen Jacques Le Maire and Willem Corneliszoon Schouten in 1616.
By now Tasman and his crew were in dire need of fresh water. Unable to land on the North Island they made the decision to head northwest, where they glimpsed the eastern Fiji Islands. Again, due to hazardous conditions, they were unable to go ashore, and so continued on their return journey to Batavia. They arrived on 15 June 1643 to share the news of their findings, having covered more than 5000 miles (8000km) of unmapped water, completely unaware that they had achieved something extraordinary: a circumnavigation of Australia.
