Abel Tasman: the Dutch voyage that found Tasmania and New Zealand

In 1642, two small ships of the Dutch East India Company left Batavia (today’s Jakarta) in Java with an unusual purpose: to find out how much unknown land lay in the south, beneath the maps. Their commander was Abel Tasman. When he returned ten months later, he had sighted two lands that had never before appeared on a European map: Tasmania and New Zealand.

The sailor from Groningen

In 1895, James Backhouse Walker read a paper on Tasman’s life before the Royal Society of Tasmania. According to him, Tasman was born in 1603 in Lutjegast, a small village in the Dutch province of Groningen. He came east as a sailor with the Dutch East India Company and had already made several sea voyages.

The expedition was sent by Anthony van Diemen, Governor General at Batavia. According to Walker, it had two ships: the Heemskerck, with sixty men, and the smaller, lighter and faster Zeehaen, with fifty.

South from Mauritius

Tasman’s journal survives. In 1813, Captain James Burney of the Royal Navy included an English translation of it in his book. According to it, the ships left Batavia on 14 August 1642 and reached Mauritius on 5 September. According to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, they stayed there until 8 October. From there the ships went far to the south, to about 49 degrees latitude, and then turned east. Throughout the voyage Tasman regularly measured the variation of the compass needle. Where large ocean swells came from the south-west, he concluded that there was no land in that direction.

“Van Diemen’s Land”

On 24 November 1642 they sighted a coast. Tasman writes: “As this land has not been known to any European, we called it Anthony van Diemen’s Land, in honour of our high authority, the Governor General.” The island was later called Tasmania.

On 2 December a boat went ashore in search of water. The sailors heard human voices and a sound like a trumpet or a small gong, but saw no one. They saw very tall trees with steps cut into the bark at intervals of five feet, so that people could climb up to the birds’ nests. According to the journal, the sailors thought that either the people there were very tall or they knew some special way of climbing trees. They also found the tracks of an animal’s claws in the sand. According to the 1911 Britannica, Tasman did not realise that Tasmania was an island.

“Staten Land”

From Tasmania they sailed east. On 13 December 1642, according to the journal, they sighted “a large high land”, its mountain peaks hidden in cloud. Tasman named it “Staten Land”, thinking it might be joined to the land of that name near South America and be part of a large southern continent. According to Burney, when this idea later proved wrong, it was renamed New Zealand.

Sailing north along the coast, on 18 December they anchored in an open bay. According to Walker, this is today’s Golden Bay. At night lights were seen on the shore and two boats came close. The people in them called out loudly and kept sounding an instrument; a trumpet was sounded from the ship in reply. Tasman writes that their hair was tied on top of their heads with a large white feather in it, and that their boats were two long, narrow canoes lashed together, with planks fitted on top to sit on.

On 19 December a clash took place between a boat of the Zeehaen and local Maori boats, in which four sailors of the Zeehaen lost their lives. According to Walker, because of bad weather and this incident, Tasman never landed on New Zealand soil. On 6 January 1643, near the northern tip, he named an island the “Three Kings Island”; an attempt to take on water there had to be abandoned because of heavy surf.

The islands of Tonga

After New Zealand the ships headed north-east and on 21 January 1643 anchored near two islands. Tasman named the larger one “Amsterdam”, because he found plenty of fresh food there, and the smaller one “Middelburg”. According to Burney and Walker, these are the Tongan islands of Tongatapu and Eua.

The journal’s account of the place is very friendly. Three men came in a small boat. When a piece of cloth was thrown into the water from the ship, one man dived in, brought it up and, in thanks, put it on his head several times. In return they gave a fishing hook made of shell. Later people came waving white flags and gave gifts of cloth made from tree bark. Many boats brought coconuts, which were given in exchange for old nails: three or four coconuts for one large nail. An elderly chief came aboard and showed by signs that there was fresh water on shore. Tasman named another island “Rotterdam”; the local people called it “Anamocka”. Water and supplies were taken on there.

The reefs of Fiji and the return

In early February the ships ran into a dangerous area of rocks and sandbanks. According to the journal, on 6 February they got past a coral reef only through a narrow channel “two ship’s lengths” wide, with eighteen or nineteen islands around. Tasman called the group “Prince William’s Islands”; according to the 1911 Britannica, these are the islands of eastern Fiji.

From there they went north, then west along the northern coast of New Guinea, and reached Batavia on 15 June 1643. Tasman ended the journal with the words: “God be thanked for this happy voyage.” According to Walker, ten men died of illness during the ten-month voyage, in addition to the four killed in Golden Bay.

In 1644 Tasman made another voyage, along the coasts of New Guinea and northern Australia. According to the 1911 Britannica, the exact date of his death is not known, but he had died before 1661.

Next instalment: Vitus Bering: the strait between Asia and America.