Abel Janszoon Tasman
1603?-1659?
Dutch Explorer
Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch navigator and explorer who discovered Tasmania, New Zealand, Tonga, and the Fiji Islands. Tasman made two important voyages (1642 and 1644) through both the Indian and South Pacific Oceans that helped to map the southern hemisphere. With exploration a secondary goal of his voyages, he was primarily interested in establishing trade and finding sources of wealth for his employer, the Dutch East India Company. Because he failed in both respects with the newly discovered lands, his voyages were initially considered to be disappointments. However, with the passage of time, his voyages have been recognized as important contributions to the knowledge of that part of the world.
Little is known about the life of Tasman outside of his service with the Dutch East India Company. While the details of his birth are unknown, it is generally believed that he was born in 1603 at Lutjegast in the Netherlands. In 1632 or 1633 he joined the Dutch East India Company and made his first exploratory voyage to Indonesia as the captain of the Mocha in 1634. Five years later he served on an expedition that futilely searched for the "islands of gold and silver" in the seas surrounding Japan. He later made a series of trading voyages to the coastal areas of Asia. During this time he proved to be an excellent seaman and was subsequently chosen for an ambitious exploration of the Southern Hemisphere.
Abel Tasman. (Corbis Corporation. Reproduced with permission.)In 1642 Anthony van Diemen (1593-1645), the governor-general of Dutch East Indies, selected Tasman to command an exploratory voyage to the Southern Hemisphere in an attempt to locate new sources of wealth and commerce. In addition, although stretches of the Australian coast had been previously discovered, it was not known if these were part of a large continent or if they were unconnected masses of land. Relying heavily on the memoir of chief pilot Frans Jacobszoon Visscher, Tasman was instructed to explore the Indian Ocean in an easterly direction and then sail into the Pacific Ocean to search for a passage to Chile.
Tasman sailed from Batavia (present-day Jakarta) to Mauritius on August 14, 1642, with two ships, the Heemskerk and Zeehaen. From there, he sailed southeast until he discovered land on November 24, which he named Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania). He later discovered the coast of South Island, New Zealand. Continuing his voyage, Tasman became convinced that there was a passage to Chile, so he turned in a northeast direction. On January 21 he discovered Tonga and later the Fiji Islands. Tasman then directed the crew northwest and returned to Batavia on June 14, 1643. In histen-month voyage, Tasman only lost 10 men to illness and had actually circumnavigated the entire continent of Australia without ever sighting land, thus showing that it was not attached to any continent.
Despite this seeming success, the council of the Dutch East India Company was not pleased with the voyage. They ordered Tasman to make another voyage to establish trading relationships with the areas he had discovered. His second voyage took him to the south coast of New Guinea and then to many of the coastal portions of New Holland (present-day Australia). Once again, he failed to provide a significant amount of wealth or commerce for his company, and this voyage was also considered to be a failure from a financial point of view. Despite this, Tasman was rewarded with the rank of commander and was even made a council member. He later commanded trading and war fleets for the company before he left the service of the Dutch East India Company in 1653. Tasman is believed to have died on October 22, 1659.
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