TASMAN, ABEL JANSZOON (c. 1603-1659), the great est of Dutch navigators, the discoverer of Tasmania, New Zea land, the Tonga and the Fiji Islands, and the first circumnavigator of Australia, was born at Lutjegast in Groningen, about 1603. In 1634 we first meet with him in the East Indies, sailing from Batavia (Feb. 18) to Amboyna. After a short visit to Holland he was again in Batavia in 1638. On June 2, 1639 Tasman, with Matthew Quast, was despatched by Antony Van Diemen, gover nor-general of the Dutch East Indies, on a voyage to the north western Pacific, in quest of certain "islands of gold and silver," supposed to lie in the ocean east of Japan. On this voyage Tasman and Quast visited the Philippines and improved Dutch knowledge of the east coast of Luzon; they also discovered and mapped various islands to the north, apparently the Bonin archipelago. Sailing on to N. and E. in search of the isles of precious metals, they ranged about fruitlessly in the northern Pacific. In October the navigators decided to return, and, after touching at Japan, anchored at the Dutch fortress-station of Zeelandia in Formosa on Nov. 24, 1639. After this Tasman was engaged in operations in the Indian seas (sailing to Formosa, Japan, Cambodia, Palem bang, etc., as a merchant captain in the service of the Dutch East India Company) until 1642, when he set out on his first great "South Land" expedition. Several Dutch navigators had already discovered various portions of the north and west coasts of Aus tralia (as in 1605-06, 1616, 1618-19, 1622, 1627-28, etc.), but Tasman now first showed that this great South Land was an island.
Sailing from Ba tavia on Aug. 14, 1642 with two vessels, the "Heemskerk" and "Zeehaen," and calling at Mauritius (Sept. 5 to Oct. 8), Tasman sailed first S., then E., almost seven weeks, and on Nov.
sighted (in 42° 25' S., as he made it) the land which he named Anthoonij van Diemen's landt after Van Diemen, now called Tas mania. He coasted its southern shores, and, running up Storm Bay, anchored on Dec. I, in Frederick Henry's Bay, on the east coast of Tasmania. There he hoisted the Dutch flag. Tasman then steered E. for the Solomon Islands, and on Dec. 13 discovered a "high mountainous country," which he called Staten landt ("Land of the States," i.e., of Holland, now New Zealand). Tas man believed the newly discovered land to form part of the same great antarctic continent as the other Staten landt which Schouten and Lemaire had sighted and named to the east of Tierra del Fuego. He anchored on Dec. 18 in 40° so' S., at the entrance of a "wide opening," which he took to be a "fine bay" (Cook's Strait). He gave the name of Moordenaars (now Massacre) Bay to this spot, where several of his men were killed by the natives (Dec. 19). He then sailed along the south shore of Cook's Strait, but without discovering the full extent of the strait here dividing New Zea land into two main islands. Returning westward he then coasted the west side of the North Island, till, on Jan. 4, 1643, he reached the northern extremity of New Zealand.
Thence he bore away to N.N.E. and on Jan. 19-25 he discovered various islands of the Tonga or Friendly group. Here the ships provisioned, for the first time since leaving Mauritius. Thence Tasman steered N. and W., reaching on Feb. 6 the eastern part of
the Fiji archipelago, which he called Prince William's Islands and Heemskerk's Shoals. He reached the western extremity of New Guinea on May 18. He arrived at Batavia on June 15, 1643 after a ten months' voyage.
The materials for an account of Tasman's important second voyage in 1644 are scanty. He was instructed to obtain a thorough knowledge of Staten Land and Van Diemen's Land, and to find out "whether New Guinea is a continent with the great Zuidland, or separated by channels and islands," and also "whether the new Van Diemen's Land is the same continent with these two great countries or with one of them." In this voyage Tasman had three ships under his command, the "Limmen," "Zeemeeuw" (or "Meeuw"), and "Brak" (or "Bracq"). He coasted the south-west coast of New Guinea he mistook the west ern opening of Torres Straits for a bay, but explored (and perhaps named) the Gulf of Carpentaria : for the first time the coast-line of this great bay was mapped with fair accuracy. Though pre ceded by Jansz (1606) and Carstensz (1623) on the east shore of the gulf as far as 17° S., Tasman first made known the south, and most of the west, coast. Beyond this he explored the north and west coasts of Australia as far as 22° S., and established the absolute continuity of all this shore-line of the "Great Known South Continent"; his chart gives soundings for the whole of this coast. Tasman's achievements were coldly received by the Dutch colonial authorities ; but on Oct. 4, 1644 they rewarded him with the rank of commander (he had frequently enjoyed the use of the title already). He was also made a member of the Council of Justice of Batavia. He was a member of the committee ap pointed on April 18, 1645 to declare a truce between the Dutch East India Company and the viceroy of Portuguese India. In 1647 he commanded a trading fleet to Siam, and in 1648 a war fleet sent against the Spaniards of the Philippines (May 15, 1648, to January 1649). By 1653 he had quitted the company's service. He died probably before Oct. 22, 1659, and certainly before Feb. 5, 1661.
See R. H. Major, Early Voyages to . . . Australia (London, Hakluyt Society, 1859), especially pp. xciii.–ciii., 43-58 (here are printed the instructions for Tasman and his colleagues on the voyage of 1644) G. Collingridge, Discovery of Australia (Sydney, 1895), especially pp. 238-40, 279-8o; and, above all, J. E. Heeres and others, Tasman's Journal . . . facsimiles of the original MS. . . . with . . . life . . . of . . . Tasman, etc. (Amsterdam, 1898)—here the Life of Tasman, with its appendices, is separately paged (163 pp.). See also Aandeel der Nederlanders in de Ontdekking van Australia, 1606-1765 (in Dutch and English, Leyden and London, 1899), especially pp. vi., viii., xii.–xv., 72 ; the valuable summary of the voyage of 1642-43 in the anonymous Account of several late
and Discoveries (beginning with Sir John Narborough's), London, 1711, with sub-title, Relation of a Voy age . . . of Captain Abel Jansen Tasman (originally extracted from his journals by Dirk Rembrantse in Dutch, published in English in Dr. Hook's collections) ; also The Discovery of Van Diemen's Land in 1642, by James Backhouse Walker (Hobart, 1891).