Abel Janszoon Tasman
From AustraliaWiki
| Abel Janszoon Tasman | |
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| Firstname | Abel Janszoon |
| Lastame | Tasman |
| Gender | male |
| Born |
1603 |
| Died | |
| Properties |
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Abel Janszoon Tasman was born in 1603 in Lutjegast within Netherlands and died in 1659 in Batavia within Indonesia at the age of 56 years.
The Governor-General Anthony van Diemen (1593-1645) of the Dutch East Indies (today: Indonesia) asked the mariner Abel Janszoon Tasman, to cartograph the coast of New Holland (today: Australia). During his journey holding up from 1642 to 1644 he sailed from the north to the south into the Gulf of Carpentaria and then heading west alongside the Australian coast. Approximate at the Tropic of Capricorn at the west coast he turned off the coast and sailed heading west. He came back in a large arch but he missed the continent. He sailed to far away in the south of the continent and discovered a large island that he called Van Diemens Land (since 1856 autonomy: Tasmania).
He did not know that this was an island. He thought of one big landmass of New Holland (today: Australia) containing Van Diemens Land (today: Tasmania). Sadly his discoveries were not accepted because he explored not enough. The unknown country was not interesting for the dutch. About 1700 the british buccaneer William Dampier (1652-1715) explored the coast of Papua New Guinea and Western Australia. He arrived at the conclusion that Australia is commercial uninteresting, too.
