European maritime exploration of Australia

Replica of an East Indiaman of the Dutch East India Company/United East Indies Company (VOC), which was a major force behind Dutch exploration and mapping of Australia.

The most significant exploration of Australia in the 17th century was by the Dutch. The Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, "VOC", "United East India Company") was set up in 1602 and traded extensively with the islands which now form parts of Indonesia, and hence were very close to Australia already.

The first documented and undisputed European sighting of and landing on Australia was in late February 1606, by the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon aboard the Duyfken. Janszoon charted the Australian coast and met with Aboriginal people.[12][13][14][15] Janszoon followed the coast of New Guinea, missed Torres Strait, and explored and then charted part of the western side of Cape York, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, believing the land was still part of New Guinea.[13][14][16][17] On 26 February 1606, Janszoon and his party made landfall near the modern town of Weipa and the Pennefather River, but were promptly attacked by the Indigenous people.[18] Janszoon proceeded down the coast for some 350 km (220 mi). He stopped in some places, but was met by hostile natives and some of his men were killed. At the final place, he initially had friendly relations with the natives, but after he forced them to hunt for him and appropriated some of their women, violence broke out and there were many deaths on both sides. These events were recorded in Aboriginal oral history that has come down to the present day. Here Janszoon decided to turn back, the place later being called Cape Keerweer, Dutch for "turnabout".

That same year, a Spanish expedition sailing in nearby waters and led by Pedro Fernández de Quiros landed in the New Hebrides and, believing such to be the fabled southern continent, named the land "Austrialia del Espiritu Santo" (Southern Land of the Holy Spirit), in honour of his queen Margaret of Austria, the wife of Philip III of Spain.[19][20][21] Later that year, De Quiros' deputy Luís Vaez de Torres sailed to the north of Australia through Torres Strait, charting New Guinea's southern coast,[22] and possibly sighting Cape York in October 1606.[11][16][23]

In 1611 Hendrik Brouwer, working for VOC, discovered that sailing from Europe to Batavia was much quicker if the Roaring Forties were used. Up to that point, the Dutch had followed a route copied from Arab and Portuguese sailors who followed the coasts of Africa, Mauritius and Ceylon. The Brouwer Route involved sailing south from the Cape of Good Hope (which is at 34° latitude south) into the Roaring Forties (at 40–50° latitude south), then sailing east before turning north to Java using the South Indian Ocean Current. The Brouwer Route became compulsory for Dutch vessels in 1617. The problem with the route, however, was that there was no easy way at the time to determine longitude, making Dutch landfalls on the west coast of Australia inevitable, as well as ships becoming wrecked on the shoals. Most of these landfalls were unplanned. The first such landfall was in 1616, when Dirk Hartog, employed by VOC, reached land at Shark Bay (on what is now called Dirk Hartog Island) off the coast of Western Australia. Finding nothing of interest, Hartog continued sailing northwards along this coastline of Western Australia previously unknown to Europeans, making nautical charts up to about 22° latitude south. He then left the coast and continued on to Batavia.[24] He called Australia 't Landt van d'Eendracht—shortened to Eendrachtsland—after his ship, a name which would be in use until Abel Tasman named the land New Holland in 1644.

In 1619 Frederik de Houtman, in the VOC ship Dordrecht, and Jacob d'Edel, in another VOC ship Amsterdam, sighted land on the Australian coast near present-day Perth which they called d'Edelsland. After sailing northwards along the coast they made landfall in Eendrachtsland, which had previous been encountered and named by Hartog, before turning for Batavia.

Hessel Gerritsz was appointed on 16 October 1617 as the first exclusive cartographer of VOC, whose job included creating and maintaining charts of coastlines in the area. Gerritsz produced a map in 1622 which showed the first part of Australia to be charted, that by Janszoon in 1606.[25] It was considered to be part of New Guinea and called Nueva Guinea on the map, but Gerritsz also added an inscription saying:

"Those who sailed with the yacht of Pedro Fernandes de Queirós in the neighbourhood of New Guinea to 10 degrees westward through many islands and shoals and over 2, 3 and 4 fathoms for as many as 40 days, presumed that New Guinea did not extend beyond 10 degrees to the south. If this be so, then the land from 9 to 14 degrees would be a separate land, different from the other New Guinea".[26][27][28]

All charts and logs from returning VOC merchants and explorer sailors had to be submitted to Gerritsz and provided new information for several breakthrough maps which came from his hands. Gerritsz' charts would accompany all VOC captains on their voyages. In 1627 Gerritsz made a map, the Caert van't Landt van d'Eendracht, entirely devoted to the discoveries of the West Australian coastline, which was named "Eendrachtsland", though the name had been used since 1619.

On 1 May 1622, Englishman John Brooke in the Tryall, a British East India Company owned vessel of approximately 500 tons, on the way to Batavia made the second English voyage to use Brouwer's southern route. He sailed too far east and sighted the coastline of Western Australia at Point Cloates (about 22° latitude south), although he mistook it for an island sighted in 1618 by Janszoon (and in 1816 named Barrow Island by Phillip Parker King). They did not land there, and a few weeks later were shipwrecked on an uncharted reef northwest of the Montebello Islands (about 20° latitude south, now known as Tryal Rocks). The shipwreck caused the deaths of 93 men, but Brooke, his son John and nine men scrambled into a skiff and the ship's factor Thomas Bright and 35 others managed to save a longboat. Brooke sailed separately to Java. Bright and his crew spent seven days ashore on the Montebello Islands, before sailing the longboat to Bantam in Java. This was the first recorded shipwreck in Australian waters and first extended stay in Australia by Europeans.[29][30]

Hessel Gerritsz' map of Australia and the Dutch Indies after the explorations by François Thijssen in 1627.

In 1623, Jan Carstensz was commissioned by VOC to lead an expedition to the southern coast of New Guinea and beyond, to follow up the reports of further land sighted by Janszoon in his 1606 voyages to the south. Setting off from Amboyna in the Dutch East Indies with two ships, the Pera and Arnhem (captained by Willem Joosten Van Colster), he traveled along the south coast of New Guinea, then headed south to Cape York Peninsula and the Gulf of Carpentaria. On 14 April 1623, he passed Cape Keerweer.[31] Landing in search of fresh water for his stores, Carstensz encountered a party of the local indigenous Australian inhabitants, who he described as "poor and miserable looking people" who had "no knowledge of precious metals or spices". On 8 May 1623, Carstensz and his crew fought a skirmish with 200 Aborigines at the mouth of a small river near Cape Duyfken (named after Janszoon's vessel which had earlier visited the region) and landed at the Pennefather River. Carstensz named the small river Carpentier River, and the Gulf of Carpentaria in honour of Pieter de Carpentier, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. Carstensz reached the Staaten River before heading north again. The Pera and Carstensz returned to Amboyna while the Arnhem crossed the Gulf of Carpentaria, sighting the east coast of Arnhem Land.

In 1627, François Thijssen ended up too far south and on 26 January 1627 he came upon the coast of Australia, near Cape Leeuwin, the most south-west tip of the mainland. Pieter Nuyts the VOC official aboard his ship gave Thijssen permission to continue to sail eastwards, mapping more than 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) of the southern coast of Australia from Albany, Western Australia to Ceduna, South Australia. He called the land 't Land van Pieter Nuyts ("The Land of Pieter Nuyts"). Part of Thijssen's map shows the islands St Francis and St Peter, now known collectively with their respective groups as the Nuyts Archipelago. Thijssen's observations were included as early as 1628 by Gerritsz in a chart of the Indies and Eendrachtsland

One Dutch captain of this period who was not really an explorer but who nevertheless bears mentioning was Francisco Pelsaert, captain of the Batavia, which was wrecked off the coast of Western Australia in 1629.[32]

Abel Tasman's map of his own voyages, 1644, the "Bonaparte Map"

The route of Tasman's first and second voyages in 1642–3 and 1644

In August 1642, VOC despatched Abel Tasman and Franchoijs Visscher on a voyage of which one of the objects was to obtain knowledge of "all the totally unknown provinces of the kingdom of Beach". This expedition used two small ships, the Heemskerck and the Zeehaen. Starting in Mauritius both ships left on 8 October using the Roaring Forties to sail east as fast as possible. On 7 November, because of snow and hail the ships' course was altered to a more north-eastern direction. On 24 November 1642 Abel Tasman sighted the west coast of Tasmania, north of Macquarie Harbour.[33] He named his discovery Van Diemen's Land after Antonio van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. Proceeding south he skirted the southern end of Tasmania and turned north-east, Tasman then tried to work his two ships into Adventure Bay on the east coast of South Bruny Island where he was blown out to sea by a storm, this area he named Storm Bay. Two days later Tasman anchored to the north of Cape Frederick Hendrick just north of the Forestier Peninsula. Tasman then landed in Blackman Bay – in the larger Marion Bay. The next day, an attempt was made to land in North Bay; however, because the sea was too rough the carpenter swam through the surf and planted the Dutch flag in North Bay. Tasman then claimed formal possession of the land on 3 December 1642.

In 1644 Tasman made a second voyage with three ships (Limmen, Zeemeeuw, and the tender Braek). He followed the south coast of New Guinea eastwards, missed the Torres Strait between New Guinea and Australia, and continued his voyage westwards along the north Australian coast. He mapped the north coast of Australia making observations on the land, which he called New Holland, and its people. From the point of view of the Dutch East India Company, Tasman's explorations were a disappointment: he had found neither a promising area for trade nor a useful new shipping route.[34]

By the end of the Renaissance (1450 to 1650),[35] every continent had been visited and mostly mapped by Europeans, except the south polar continent now known as Antarctica, but originally called Terra Australis, or 'Australia' for short.[36] This geographical achievement was displayed on the large world map Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Tabula made by the Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu in 1648 to commemorate the Peace of Westphalia.

Danckert Danckerts's copperplate engraving of Jacob Vennekool's sketch of the 1648 Amsterdam Burgerzaal floor mosaic in Jacob van Campen's 1661 Afbeelding van 't Stadt Huys van Amsterdam.

A map of the world inlaid into the floor of the Burgerzaal ("Burger's Hall") of the new Amsterdam Stadhuis ("Town Hall") in 1648 revealed the extent of Dutch charts of much of Australia's coast.[37][38] Based on Joan Blaeu's Nova et Accuratissima Terrarum Orbis Tabula ("A New and Most Accurate Chart of the Sphere of the Earth") of the same year, it incorporated Tasman's discoveries. Although the original mosaic was worn flat, it was reproduced in 1748. This reproduction was left in storage for centuries before being restored after World War II as part of the Royal Palace of Amsterdam. It was also used as the basis of another mosaic in Canberra, focused specifically on the Australian section of the map of the eastern hemisphere. Tasman's discoveries also subsequently appeared on the Archipelagus Orientalis sive Asiaticus ("Eastern or Asiatic Archipelago") published in the Kurfürsten Atlas ("Atlas of the Great Elector").[39]

Maps from this period and the early 18th century often have Terra Australis or t'Zuid Landt ("the South Land") marked as "New Holland", the name given to the continent by Abel Tasman in 1644.[40][41] Joan Blaeu's 1659 map shows the clearly recognizable outline of Australia based on the many Dutch explorations of the first half of the 17th century.

Melchisédech Thévenot's 1664 Hollandia Nova Detecta 1644, which created a new eastern border for the Dutch claims later exploited by the British Empire

In 1664, the French geographer Melchisédech Thévenot published his Relations de Divers Voyages Curieux ("Relations of Various Interesting Voyages"), including a map of New Holland.[42] Thévenot divided the continent in two, between Nova Hollandia to the west and Terre Australe ("Southern Land") to the east.[43] He divided the continent on a line at longitude 135° east,[44] which appears to have been on his initiative, as there was no such division in Tasman's journals or on his, Blaeu's, or Amsterdam Burgerzaal's maps[38] or on any other Dutch maps of this period. Instead, Terra Australis or t'Zuid Landt appeared—if at all—as alternative names with Hollandia Nova in reference to the whole island.[45] This 135° E. line seems to have represented Thévenot's understanding of the Zaragoza Meridian or Tordesillas antimeridian, dividing the Portuguese East Indies conquered by the Dutch Empire in a protracted conflict across the 17th century from the lands reserved under those treaties for the Spanish Empire and reclaimed by the act of possession of "Austrialia" carried out by Pedro Fernández de Quirós in 1606. This western limit of Spain's claim is shown on the 1761 map of the Spanish Empire by Vicente de Memije, Aspecto Symbolico del Mundo Hispanico ("Symbolic Presentation of the Spanish World")[46] and played a part in the British claim and division of the territory during the establishment of New South Wales in the late 18th century and Western Australia in the early 19th century.

In 1696, Willem de Vlamingh commanded the rescue mission to Australia's west coast to look for survivors of the Ridderschap van Holland that had gone missing two years earlier. The mission proved fruitless, but along the way Vlamingh charted parts of the continent's western coast and as a result improved navigation on the Indian Ocean route from the Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch East Indies.

Map of William Dampier's 1699 voyage to New Holland.

Englishman William Dampier came looking for the Tryall in 1688, 66 years after it was wrecked. Dampier was the first Englishman to set foot on the Australian mainland on 5 January 1688, when his ship the Cygnet was marooned in King Sound. While the ship was being careened he made notes on the fauna and flora and the indigenous peoples he found there. He made another voyage to the region in 1699, before returning to England. He described some of the flora and fauna of Australia, and was the first European to report Australia's peculiar large hopping animals. Dampier contributed to knowledge of Australia's coastline through his two-volume publication A Voyage to New Holland (1703, 1709). His book of adventures, A New Voyage around the World, created a sensation when it was published in English in 1697.[51] Though he was briefly marooned on the northwest Australian coast on the trip described in this book, only his second voyage seems to be of importance to Australian exploration.