Background
Abel Jans Tasman was born in 1603 in Lutjegast, a small village in the province of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands.
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(Abel Janszoon Tasman gehört bis heute zu den "unentdeckte...)
Abel Janszoon Tasman gehört bis heute zu den "unentdeckten Entdeckern": Um ein Haar hätte der Niederländer das australische Festland entdeckt, doch eine ungewöhnliche Kurswahl ließ ihn knapp daran vorbeisegeln. Vielleicht ist dies der Grund, warum sein Name nur selten zusammen mit der ersten Garde der großen Entdecker, wie Kolumbus, Magellan oder Cook, genannt wird. Zu Unrecht, denn sein Beitrag zur neueren Entdeckungsgeschichte war enorm: Er gab dem heutigen Tasmanien seinen Namen, entdeckte die Tonga- und Fidschi-Inseln, nahm mit den Maori Kontakt auf und erreichte am 13. Dezember 1642 als erster Europäer die Küste Neuseelands.
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Abel Jans Tasman was born in 1603 in Lutjegast, a small village in the province of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands.
In 1633 he became a ship's captain in the Dutch East India Company and lived in Batavia, capital of the new Dutch commercial empire in the East Indies.
A southern continent had long been thought to exist, but Spanish navigators who crossed the Pacific Ocean from the Americas had failed to locate it.
After 1611 Dutch vessels which were blown east by the "roaring forties" after rounding the Cape of Good Hope occasionally touched the coastline of "Terra Australis" en route to Java.
The Batavian authorities soon decided to find out whether this "South Land" had any commercial potential, and in 1642, Governor General Anton Van Diemen chose Tasman to command an expedition.
Tasman left Djakarta in August 1642 with two ships, the Heemskerk of 60 tons and the Zeehaen of 100 tons, carrying 110 men and sufficient supplies for 18 months. From Mauritius he sped east on latitude 44°S, discovering Van Diemen's Land (renamed Tasmania after 1856) on November 24.
After crossing the Tasman Sea, he reached the west coast of Staeten Landt (New Zealand's South Island) on December 13, and a landing party was attacked by Maoris at Golden Bay on December 18.
Tasman then sailed up the west coast of New Zealand's North Island to the Tonga and Fiji islands and returned to Batavia along the northern coast of New Guinea in June 1643 after a voyage lasting 10 months.
Although Tasman circumnavigated a new continent, he seldom sailed close enough to the coastline to chart it accurately on a map.
Sent to establish a base in the Tonga Islands in 1644, he failed to find a passage through Torres Strait, and instead he surveyed the northwestern coastline of New Holland (Australia) from Cape York Peninsula to Willem's River on the Tropic of Capricorn.
On his return to Batavia after a 6-months' voyage, Tasman was promoted to commander. But his superiors were disappointed.
Although he had discovered more about "the remaining unknown part of the terrestrial globe" than any of his predecessors, his accounts of a barren landscape and primitive natives banished all prospects of trade and settlement. Europeans consequently displayed little interest in the colonization of New Holland for more than a century.
In 1647 Tasman led a mission to the king of Siam.
His reputation subsequently suffered owing to the way in which he commanded a fleet against the Spaniards in 1648-1649.
Soon afterward he left the service of the East India Company and became a merchant.
He died in Batavia, a wealthy man. He was in good circumstances, being one of the larger landowners in the town. He died at Batavia on 10 October 1659.
(Abel Janszoon Tasman gehört bis heute zu den "unentdeckte...)
(Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary...)
(The Journal of Abel Jansz Tasman by Abel Janszoon Tasman....)
On 2 November 1644 Abel Tasman was appointed a member of the Council of Justice at Batavia.
On December 27, 1631 the 28-year-old Abel married 21-year-old Jannetje Tjaers from the Jordaan district of the city.