Abel Janszoon Tasman (Dutch: [ˈaːbəl ˈjɑnszoːn ˈtɑsmɑn]; 1603 – 10 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer and explorer, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first European to reach New Zealand, which he named Staten Landt. He also discovered and was the eponym of Tasmania.
Likely born in 1602 or 1603 in Lutjegast, Netherlands, Tasman started his career as a merchant seaman and became a skilled navigator. In 1633, he joined the VOC and sailed to Batavia, now Jakarta, Indonesia. He participated in several voyages, including one to Japan. In 1642, Tasman was appointed by the VOC to lead an expedition to explore the uncharted regions of the southern Pacific Ocean. His mission was to discover new trade routes and to establish trade relations with the native inhabitants. After leaving Batavia, Tasman sailed westward to Mauritius, then south to the Roaring Forties, then eastward, and reached the coast of Tasmania, which he named Van Diemen's Land after his patron, Anthony van Diemen. He then sailed northeast, and was the first European to discover the west coast of New Zealand, which he named Staten Landt. It was later renamed Nieuw Zeeland, after the Dutch province of Zeeland, by Joan Blaeu, official Dutch cartographer to the Dutch East India Company.
Despite his achievements, Tasman's expedition was not entirely successful. The encounter with the Māori people on the South Island of New Zealand resulted in a violent confrontation, which left four of Tasman's men dead. He returned to Batavia without having made any significant contact with the native inhabitants or establishing any trade relations. Tasman continued to serve the Dutch East India Company until his death in 1659.
More than a century later, knowledge from Tasman's expeditions was used by James Cook, leading to exploration and colonization of Australia and New Zealand by the British.
Abel Tasman was likely born in 1602 or 1603 in Lutjegast, a village in the province of Groningen. He married Claesgie Heyndrix, with whom he had a daughter named Claesjen. A proclamation of his second marriage, given in December 1631 at Amsterdam, describes him as a widower and sailor. On 27 December 1631 as a 28-year old seafarer living in Amsterdam, he married 21-year-old Jannetje Tjaers, of Palmstraat in Amsterdam.
Relocation to the Dutch East Indies
Uneducated, but employed by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), Tasman learned navigation and seamanship on the job. In 1634, he was appointed skipper of the Mocha, and, under the command of Frans Valck, he went on a two-year voyage to the Maluku Islands.
In 1633, Tasman sailed from Texel in the Netherlands to Batavia (now Jakarta), using the southern Brouwer Route. While based in Batavia, he later joined a voyage to Seram Island, in what is now Indonesia's Maluku Province. The expedition was sent after local traders sold spices to European merchants other than the Dutch. Tasman docked to find wood for repairs and was separated from the other ships; a fight broke out with local villagers and at least two of Tasman's men were killed.
By August 1637, Tasman had returned to Amsterdam, and in 1638 he signed on for another ten years and took his wife with him to Batavia via a six-month journey. On 25 March 1638, he tried to sell his property in the Jordaan, but the purchase was cancelled.
He was second-in-command of a 1639 expedition of exploration into the north Pacific under Matthijs Quast. The fleet included the ships Engel and Gracht and reached Fort Zeelandia (Dutch Formosa) and Deshima (an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan).
In August 1642, the Council of the Indies, consisting of Antonie van Diemen, Cornelis van der Lijn, Joan Maetsuycker, Justus Schouten, Salomon Sweers, Cornelis Witsen, and Pieter Boreel in Batavia dispatched Tasman and Franchoijs Jacobszoon Visscher on a voyage of exploration to little-charted areas east of the Cape of Good Hope, west of Staten Land (near the Cape Horn of South America) and south of the Solomon Islands.
One of the objectives was to obtain knowledge of "all the totally unknown" Provinces of Beach. This was a purported yet phantom island said to have plentiful gold, which had appeared on European maps since the 15th century, as a result of an error in some editions of Marco Polo's works. The expedition was to use two small ships, Heemskerck and Zeehaen.
Tasman sailed from Batavia on 14 August 1642 and reached Mauritius 22 days later, on 5 September 1642, according to the captain's journal. On the island there was fresh water, timber for repairs, and the crew could be well fed. Tasman also received assistance from the governor, Adriaan van der Stel.
Mauritius was chosen as a turning point because of the prevailing winds. After staying just over four weeks, the two ships, Heemskerck and Zeehaen, left on 8 October and entered the Roaring Forties to make a fast eastward crossing. At the time, no expedition had sailed this far east. Pieter Nuyts had come closest, reaching a similar point about 15 years earlier, in 1626–27.
On 7 November, nearly a month into the crossing, snow and hail forced the ship's council to change course to the northeast, aiming instead for the Solomon Islands.
On 24 November 1642, Tasman reached and sighted the west coast of Tasmania, north of Macquarie Harbour. He named his discovery Van Diemen's Land, after Antonio van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.
He tried to work his two ships into Adventure Bay on the east coast of South Bruny Island, but he was blown out to sea by a storm. This area he named Storm Bay. Two days later, on 1 December, Tasman anchored to the north of Cape Frederick Hendrick just north of the Forestier Peninsula. On 2 December, two ship's boats under the command of the Pilot, Major Visscher, rowed through the Marion Narrows into Blackman Bay, and then west to the outflow of Boomer Creek where they gathered some edible "greens". Tasman named the bay, Frederick Hendrik Bay, which included the present North Bay, Marion Bay and what is now Blackman Bay. (Tasman's original naming, Frederick Henrick Bay, was mistakenly transferred to its present location by Marion Dufresne in 1772). Tasman formally claimed the land on 3 December 1642.
For two more days, he continued to follow the east coast northward to see how far it went. When the land veered to the north-west at Eddystone Point, he tried to follow the coast line but his ships were suddenly hit by the Roaring Forties howling through Bass Strait. Tasman was on a mission to find the Southern Continent not more islands, so he abruptly turned away to the east and continued his continent-hunting.