Abel Tasman - by Tre

Explorers do funny things. Christopher Columbus found the Americas but believed he had landed in India to his dying day. James Cook named a place the Sandwich Islands. Marco Polo moved two islands with a typo. Oh and also, the Europeans invented a new continent to balance the Earth.

The concept of the continent Terra Australis was first theorized in the time of the Greco-Roman Empires and appeared on maps in the 15th century. The idea was that continental land mass in the Northern Hemisphere must be balanced by land mass in the Southern Hemisphere. The result was a giant landmass occupying an area similar to where we know Antarctica is today. So in a way, they were kind of right. They just misjudged the size. 

Marco Polo accidentally added to this supposed continent with a slip of the pen in his third book. This book cataloged his voyage from China to India. Along the way, he passed through Champa (modern southern Vietnam), as well as the islands of Locach (modern Lopburi) and Sumatra, among other places. While he was in Locach, Polo described the kingdom as incredibly rich and filled with gold. But, while he was describing the route from Champa to the islands, he accidentally wrote that they were south of Java instead of Champa, causing many map makers to place the islands near Terra Australis. 

Due to a series of events that involved German cursive and some rather iffy cartography, these islands became known as the Province of Boëach, later shortened to The Province of Beach.

A map showing Terra Australis

For more than 300 years, not much was known about the fabled Province of Beach, nor of its supposed abundance of gold, until the year 1642, when a Dutch explorer named Abel Tasman was dispatched by the Dutch East India Company to establish trade routes in the area, as well as to obtain more knowledge of the supposedly gold-rich area. 

Abel Tasman would become the greatest of the Dutch seafarers and explorers, but at this time he was just another up-and-coming navigator. In 1633 he joined the Dutch East India Company and sailed to Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia). He participated in a few previous expeditions, including one to Japan, and patrolled the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) for smugglers, rebels, and other ne'er do well cads. This voyage would be his biggest one yet.

The Council of the Indies (leaders of the Dutch East India Company in Batavia) gave him two small ships and told him to explore the Indian Ocean west to east, to attempt to rediscover the Solomon Islands, to explore New Guinea, and, if possible, to continue west into the pacific in order to find an eastward trade route to Chile. Other Dutch explorers had discovered some random portions of Australia's western coast but they didn't know if these coasts were connected to Terra Australis, so the council also wanted Abel Tasman to figure that out for them. And, of course, they wanted him to explore the Province of Beach. The Council of the Indies really were a demanding bunch.

Tasman set sail from Batavia on August 14, 1642.

On November 24, 1642, Tasman sighted the west coast of what is now Tasmania. He named it Van Diemen's Land, after Antonio Van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. He skirted the southern shores of the newly named Van Diemen's Land and attempted to head northward, but unfavorable winds pushed him east, back out into the open ocean.

On December 13, 1642, the ships sighted the northwest coast of New Zealand's South Island. He called it Staten Land, in honor of the States General (Dutch Parliament). He thought it could be connected to Isla de la Estados, an island off the tip of South America that had been encountered by another Dutch navigator. 

Abel Tasman and his crew had several violent encounters with the local Maori (a general term for New Zealand Natives, of which there are many groups). The expedition continued northward past what is now Cook's Strait (the strait that separates New Zealand's north and south islands), but he mistook it for a bight and named Zeehaen's Bight. They followed the North Island's coast and eventually turned and headed out to sea. 

After discovering several more islands, the ships made it back to Batavia on June 14, 1643.

A map showing Abel Tasman's two major voyages, with his first major voyage outlined in red. You can see that he successfully circumnavigated Australia without ever sighting it, thus proving that it was an island continent and not a part of the theoretical Terra Australis.

Today, Abel Tasman is honored in New Zealand as the first European to discover both the North and South Islands. He has a beautiful national park named after him, located on the north end of the South Island. My family and I recently spent a few nights in the park hiking, swimming, and exploring. It truly is a sight to see with its gentle, tree-fern-covered mountains sloping down into the deep blue-green ocean. Its National Park status protects it so that generations to come can see this beautiful land just as Tasman saw it nearly 400 years ago.