Abel Tasman Discovers Tasmania
Abel Tasman was a Dutch explorer who made significant contributions to the European understanding of the southern hemisphere during the 17th century. On November 24, 1642, he became the first European to discover Tasmania, an island off the southern coast of Australia. Originally named Van Diemen's Land in honor of his sponsor, Anthony van Diemen, the island is part of modern Australia and spans over 26,000 square miles. Before Tasman's arrival, Tasmania had been inhabited by Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years, although by the 17th century, it had separated from the Australian mainland.
Tasman’s expedition aimed to explore potential new lands for colonization and trade, as the Dutch were already aware of Australia through their trading routes in Indonesia. Despite his discovery of Tasmania and New Zealand shortly after, Tasman’s findings were not pursued further by the Dutch due to the lack of commercial value in these lands. In the late 18th century, British colonization began, leading to significant changes and impacts on the Indigenous populations, including the establishment of penal colonies and the founding of Hobart in 1804.
Tasmania was officially renamed in 1856 to honor Tasman, whose exploration efforts gained recognition over time, despite the initial disappointment of his voyages. This history illustrates the complex interactions between European exploration, colonization, and the Indigenous cultures of Tasmania.
On this Page
Abel Tasman Discovers Tasmania
Abel Tasman Discovers Tasmania
On November 24, 1642, Abel Janszoon Tasman became the first European to discover the island of Tasmania off the southern coast of Australia.
Tasmania is a large island, over 26,000 square miles in size, off the southeastern portion of the Australian continent. It is part of the modern nation of Australia and has a population of approximately 500,000, roughly half of whom live in or near the city of Hobart, which is the island's regional capital and largest city. When it was originally settled by aboriginal peoples—perhaps as long ago as 40,000 b.c.—Tasmania was probably still attached to the continent. By the 17th century, however, when the age of European discovery was in full swing, the largely unexplored region of Tasmania was already separated from the Australian mainland by some 150 miles of ocean.
The Dutch were the first Europeans to discover Tasmania. Looking for new lands to colonize and new trade routes, Anthony van Diemen, the governor-general of the Dutch East India Company, sent the explorer Tasman on a survey voyage in 1642. The Dutch already knew about Australia, since it was not far from their trading establishments in Indonesia to the north, but unlike Indonesia, Australia did not appear to have any significant native population or goods of value to Europeans, such as spices. Nevertheless, the Dutch were determined to explore the region just in case there might be some opportunity for profit. Tasman sighted the island that would later bear his name on November 24, 1642, and named it Van Diemen's Land in his sponsor's honor. He also went on to sight New Zealand on December 13 of the same year. Although New Zealand looked like promising agricultural land, it was defended by fierce Maori warriors, as Tasman found to his shagrin. Van Diemen's Land was less dangerous but held nothing of commercial value, so the Dutch never followed up on Tasman's discoveries in a significant way. His voyages were considered a disappointment.
The British eventually came to control Australia and began to colonize the region in the late 18th century. They set up penal colonies in Van Diemen's Land and in eastern Australia, where prisoners from Britain could be interned, and founded the town of Hobart in 1804, which makes it Australia's second oldest city, after Sydney on the mainland. Most of the native population of Van Diemen's Land was eradicated, either intentionally or through the inevitable introduction of Western diseases. The British renamed the island Tasmania in 1856 to honor Tasman personally; by then his feats of exploration and discovery were widely recognized.