Born 1570
Died seventeenth century
In 1595 the Dutch sent out their first great trading expedition to the East Indies under the command of Cornelis de Houtman (see entry). The expedition was made up of four ships that were built in Amsterdam. The fourth and smallest was a three-masted “yacht” of 50 tons named the Duifken (Little Dove) that was destined to play a major role in history. The ships left Amsterdam in 1595 and returned on August 14, 1597. The voyage was such a commercial success for the Dutch merchants that they sent out a second fleet in 1598.
The Dutch continued to enjoy a profitable sea trade and in 1601 formed the Dutch East India Company. The new company sponsored two expeditions before 1605. The Duifken sailed on both of these voyages; in a battle with the Portuguese off Bantam, on the west coast of Java, the small ship distinguished itself by capturing a much larger galley. The second expedition was commanded by Admiral Van der Hagen, who returned to Holland at the end of July 1606. He left behind in Bantam the two small yachts in his fleet, the Delft and the Duifken, giving them special missions: the Delft went on a reconnaissance trip to the east coast of India and the Duifken was to explore the south coast of New Guinea.
Willem Janszoon was put in command of the Duifken, which left Bantam for New Guinea on November 28, 1605. Sailing through the Banda Sea past the Kai and Aru islands, Janszoon sighted the southwest corner of New Guinea at Dolak Island. He guided the Duifken into what is now called the Torres Strait, where it ran into shallow water. Concluding he had encountered a body of water with no outlet, Janszoon turned southward. Following a route that would prove to be an unfamiliar one, Janszoon sailed down the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula on the east side of the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Janszoon thought they were traveling along the coast of New Guinea. The Dutch had in fact discovered Australia, a continent long sought by explorers and known for several centuries as Terras Australis, or the great southern continent. The Duifken thus joined the small number of European ships, including Christopher Columbus’s (see entry) Niña and Pinta, that sailed to an unknown continent for the first time. Janszoon’s men were also the first Europeans to meet the Australian Aborigines. This encounter ended tragically, however: when the Dutch went ashore to trade with the Aborigines, nine crew members were killed.
According to some accounts a Portuguese navigator, Manuel Godhino de Eredia, sighted Australia in 1601, five years before Janszoon. Several historians, however, have verified that the Dutch party made the first visit to the continent; Janszoon is therefore generally credited with being the first European to sight Australia.
A few months after Janszoon’s discovery, the Spanish explorer Luis Vaez de Torres sailed through the straits between Australia and New Guinea, which were later named in his honor. But the Spaniards did not sight Australia and were unaware that they had sailed between two great landmasses. When Janszoon returned to Java, he reported that the land he had found was desolate, with no opportunities for trade, which was of primary interest to the Dutch. Seventeen years later another Dutch captain, Jan Carstenszoon, retraced Janszoon’s route and came back with an equally unfavorable report.
The Dutch did not return to the continent, except for accidental landings. The most important of these occurred in 1616 when Captain Dirk Hartog sailed too far east in the Indian Ocean and landed on the west coast of Western Australia. Consequently the Dutch knew there was a great landmass south of New Guinea, and they named it New Holland; yet they did not investigate the possibility that New Holland was separate from New Guinea. The continent remained unexplored for more than 150 years, until James Cook (see entry) claimed the fertile east coast for Great Britain in 1770.
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