Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Extract Uittet Journael vanden Scpr Commandr Abel Janssen Tasman, bij hem selffs int ontdecken van't onbekende Zuijdlandt gehouden

Extract Uittet Journael vanden Scpr Commandr Abel Janssen Tasman, bij hem selffs int ontdecken van't onbekende Zuijdlandt gehouden

1642–43, compiled 1643–47

Ink on laid paper bound in vellum

Safe 1 / 72


Known as the Huijdecoper journal, this Dutch manuscript is a copy of part of Abel Janszoon Tasman’s original journal (1642–43). The original no longer exists.

On his voyage to chart the unknown south land, Tasman sighted the west coast of Tasmania, north of Macquarie Harbour on 24 November 1642. The next evening he made this observation:

… This land the First Land in the South sea that we have encountered and not yet known to any European nation, so have we given this Land the name of Anthony van Dymens Land, in honour of the Hon. Governor General our high Superior, who has sent us out to make this discovery. The Islands circumjacent we have named after the Hon Councillors of India, as may be seen from the little chart made of them.


Tasman commanded two ships, the Heemskerk and Zeehaen.


As part of the 1642–43 voyage of discovery, Tasman circumnavigated an island continent (Australia) without sighting land, but established that it was separated from the hypothetical southern continent.


Following Tasman’s voyage the Dutch started to name the island continent ‘Nova Hollandia’ (New Holland) as opposed to the unknown southern land ‘Terra Australis incognita’.


Following Tasman’s circumnavigation, Australia was known as ‘New Holland’ until the British colonised Australia and declared the eastern half of the continent ‘New South Wales’.


Despite all his achievements, Tasman’s superiors deemed his voyages as failures because he didn’t establish trading posts.


It is interesting to note that Abel Janszoon Tasman’s birth and death dates (b. 1603?–d. 1659–1661) are estimations, which is surprising as he was the greatest of the Dutch navigators and explorers. 


The Dutch voyage of discovery led by Abel Janszoon Tasman is credited with being the first European expedition to encounter Tasmania, New Zealand and Fiji.


Despite giving the continent its name, neither the Netherlands nor the Dutch East India Company claimed any territory in Australia as its own or attempted to permanently settle the land.


By 1642 Dutch navigators had discovered discontinuous stretches of the western coast of Australia, but whether these coasts were continental and connected with the hypothetical southern continent of the Pacific remained unknown. Tasman was assigned to solve this problem … (Helen Margaret Wallis, Britannica Online Encyclopedia).


Van Diemen’s Land was renamed Tasmania in 1855.