Tasman Discovers Tasmania and New Zealand
Abel Tasman sighted the west coast of an unknown island on 24 November 1642 and named it Van Diemen's Land after Anthony van Diemen, the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies who had sent him. The expedition's brief was to find out what lay south of the known Dutch landfalls on the western Australian coast, and whether a passage ran east into the Pacific towards Chile. Tasman's route was the reason he found what he found and missed what he missed. He sailed first west to Mauritius, then far south into the roaring forties, and then east — a track that carried him well below the Australian landmass, which he passed without ever seeing. He anchored, sent a carpenter to swim ashore and plant a flag on 3 December, and saw notches cut in tree trunks five feet apart, which he took as evidence of very tall people rather than of a climbing technique. He continued east and struck New Zealand on 13 December, the first European to reach it. An attempt to make contact at what he called Murderers' Bay ended with four of his men killed by Māori in canoes, and he left without landing. He charted the west coast north to Cape Maria van Diemen, believing it might be part of a great southern continent connected to South America. He returned via Tonga and Fiji. His employers regarded the voyage as a commercial failure. Cook confirmed New Zealand's shape 127 years later, and the island was renamed Tasmania in 1856.
- Year: 1642 CE
- Category: Exploration
