Dutch explorers and Australia: 1606-1697

Without ever having seen the Terra Australis Incognita, or the Unknown Southland, everyone in seventeenth-century Europe was convinced that it existed. Sixteenth-century cartographers were heavily influenced by Ptolemy’s world map of the 2nd century, on which a vast southern land mass is shown to counterbalance the weight of the northern continent. This Southland was rumoured to have enormous riches, such as silver and gold. In the end none of the phantasies proved to be correct, as was shown by the subsequent discoveries of Australia and New Zealand, discoveries mainly made by the Dutch.

From a European perspective, Australia was first discovered in 1606 by the Dutch captain Willem Janszoon who was to guide his ship the Duyfken (= little pigeon) from Banda (on Java) to the Unknown Southland. Janszoon was instructed to investigate whether the southern part of New Guinea was attached to the Southland. However, the Duyfken never reached the small straits between New Guinea and northern Australia (now known as Torres Straits) and turned southward. In doing so, the unsuspecting Janszoon in fact explored part of the coast of northern Australia (The Gulf of Carpentaria) where he lost nine men in fights with aboriginals. Despite the unpromising outcome of Janszoon’s expedition and a few equally disappointing accidental encounters with Australia’s west coast, the Dutch East India Company (by its Dutch abbreviation VOC), by then strategically settled in Batavia, decided in 1623 to equip another expedition to explore the Southland, this time by captain Jan Carstenszoon. His two ships, the Pera and the Arnhem, sailed from Ambon, but also failed to discover Torres Straits. With the Pera Carstenszoon explored the Gulf of Carpentaria, fought with aboriginals and reported the land to be barren and unfertile.

Six years after the expedition of Carstenszoon a disaster on the Australian west coast occurred. In 1629 the VOC-ship Batavia wrecked on the dangerous coral reefs of Houtman’s Abrolhos (named after its Dutch discoverer in 1619). The tale of what happened to the survivors is often told: they were subjected to rape, murder and battle and were finally rescued by their commander François Pelsaert, who had returned from Batavia with reinforcements. The guilty mutineers, including their leader Jeronimus Corneliszoon, were tried and condemned on the spot.

The most famous of all Dutch explorers of the Australian coasts is Abel Janszoon Tasman. Born in the northern Dutch town of Lutjegast, Tasman was instructed in 1642 by Batavia-based governor-general Anthony van Diemen to explore the Southland. The story is well-known: Tasman, and his second-in-command François Jacobszoon Visscher, who first sailed to the island of Mauritius with his ships the Heemskerk and the Zee-haen, discovered the south coast of Van Diemen’s Land (present Tasmania) and the western coast of Staten Land (present New Zealand). During the latter exploration some of Tasman’s men were killed in what he called Murderers Bay. The importance of Tasman’s voyage is obvious; nevertheless his VOC-masters in Batavia were (as usual) disappointed because of the lack of trading opportunities and fertile coasts. A second voyage by Tasman (who was again accompanied by Visscher) in 1644 to the north of the Southland was even a greater deception: just like Carstenszoon in 1623 Tasman failed to discover the existence of the straits between New Guinea and Australia. The remainder of his voyage was used to chart the Gulf of Carpentaria. The VOC stopped their Australian explorations for the time-being.

More than fifty years after Abel Tasman the VOC again decided to have the west coast of Australia explored. In 1696 captain Willem de Vlamingh left Amsterdam with three ships, the Geelvink, the Nijptang and the Wesel. Officially sent out to locate a lost ship De Vlamingh set sail for the west coast. One of his most remarkable finds was a tin saucer that had been left on a small island off the coast by Dirck Hartogh in 1616. Despite of De Vlamingh’s accurate explorations, the VOC again was not amused. With this attempt to locate something else than a barren land the VOC finished its explorations of Australia.

Early Dutch books on the exploration of Australia

This CD-rom presents facsimiles from five early Dutch books on the exploration of Australia. Each of the texts represents a different way of editing and publishing travel stories. In the Dutch Republic of the 17th century there was a great interest in the travelogues of the ships that had made the long voyage to the East Indies and even further. Merchants were constantly looking for profitable investments. Scholars were fascinated by the descriptions of strange animals and peoples. Cartographers were eagerly waiting for more details on far away shores and islands. And the general public was fond of the sensational stories about shipwrecks, mutinies and the like. As literacy was wide-spread, there was a large audience and many itineraries, land descriptions, atlases and the like were printed and reprinted over and over.

The descriptions of the five books presented here were taken from the Short-Title Catalogue, Netherlands. The STCN is the Dutch retrospective bibliography for the period up to 1800, which is being compiled and published by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands. The STCN-database will eventually contain bibliographical descriptions of all books published in the Netherlands between those dates, and of all books in Dutch published abroad. The collections of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and the Delft Technical University Library are already completely available, as well as the collections up to 1700 of the University Libraries of Amsterdam and Leiden and the major parts of the collections of Utrecht University Library, Free University Library and the British Library. Work on many other collections is in full progress. The size of the file is now more than 130,000 titles. The STCN will be completed in 2009 and will then comprise 250,000 records. The STCN is freely available at http://www.kb.nl/stcn/index-en.html.

The descriptions will probably be self-explanatory, except for the STCN-fingerprint. This is a unique and very reliable method to identify different editions, using the position of certain signatures. An explanation can be found at http://www.kb.nl/stcn/vingerafdruk-en.html.

Each description is accompanied by some introductory book historical observations. Much more information on the Dutch book history is offered by Bibliopolis, the electronic national history of the printed book in the Netherlands. Bibliopolis offers the researcher free and integrated access to various information sources: an up-to-date handbook, an image database, reference materials, online catalogues, information on persons in the book trade and on present collections, a glossary and much more. See: http://www.bibliopolis.nl/index_en.html.

  • Ongeluckige voyagie, van't schip Batavia nae de Oost-Indien [...]. Vytgevaren onder den E. Francoys Pelsert. Amsterdam: J. Jansz., 1647.
    A typical example of a cheap publication for a wide audience. The catastrophe on the Houtman Abrolhos, where the voyage of the proud Batavia ended in shipwreck, mutiny and slaughter, has been reprinted many times. This is the rare first edition, published by the renowned bookseller Johannes Janssonius. Six pages of engraved illustrations add to the dramatic story.
  • De nieuwe en onbekende weereld: of Beschryving van America en't Zuid-land. / By Arnoldus Montanus. Amsterdam: J. Meurs, 1671. pp. 577-585.
    It took almost three decades before the results of Abel Tasman’s journey south of Australia and his discovery of Tasmania and New Zealand in 1642/1643 were published in print in the Dutch Republic. No doubt the Dutch East-India Company prevented the publication. But in his highly prestigious and extended folio-description of America, Arnoldus Montanus added nine pages on the South-Land, which are almost completely based on Tasman’s voyage.
  • Tweede deel van enige oefeningen, 'twelk is in geographia ofte aertkloots-beschrijvinge. / By Dirck Rembrantz van Nierop. Amsterdam: A.S. van der Storck, 1674.
    A completely different account of Tasman’s travels was given by the mathematician and navigation instructor Dirck Rembrantszoon van Nierop. The text that he presents is part of a series of geographical exercises, and his interest lies clearly in the mathematical aspects of position and course calculation at sea.
  • Journaal wegens een voyagie, gedaan op order der Hollandsche Oost-Indische maatschappy in de jaaren 1696 en 1697 door het hoekerscheepje de Nyptang, het schip de Geelvink, en het galjoot de Wezel na het onbekende Zuid-land. Amsterdam: W. de Coup, W. Lamsvelt, P. Verbeek en J. Lamsvelt, 1701. The account by Willem de Vlamingh of his journey in 1696-1697 is one of the liveliest descriptions of the exploration of the Australian west coast. The rough sea-dogs are ill at ease on these strange shores. Even more remarkable is the publication of this travelogue, which was combined with two completely imaginary voyages into one edition.
  • Journael van Jan Carstensz. op de ghedaene reyse van Nova Guinea. Edited in L.C.D. van Dijk, Twee togten naar de Golf van Carpentaria. Amsterdam: J.H. Scheltema, 1859.
    Not every journal or every report of 17th century travels to the unknown South-Land was published immediately. If the journey had not reached important commercial results or promising discoveries, and if no spectacular events had happened, the log-books and diaries of the skippers remained in the archives of the East India Company. Scholars in later times disclosed some of them. The journal of Jan Carstenszoon’s 1623 exploration of the Gulf of Carpentaria, then considered part of New Guinea, remained unpublished until 1859.

Colophon and acknowledgements

Copyright: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands, © 2006
Compilation, introduction and editing: Jan Bos and Perry Moree
Photography: Casper Cammeraat
Page-editing: Wim Vogel, Jan van Oorschot and Marcel Rijs
Design: Joke Mestdagh
Production: LWF Holland Supplies

All digitized book copies are property of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands.

  • The reproduction and translation of the Ongeluckige voyagie, van’t schip Batavia were taken from The Western Mail of 24 December 1897. The Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, kindly permitted the digitization and publication of their issue of this newspaper.
  • The translation of Arnoldus Montanus, De nieuwe en onbekende weereld…, was mainly taken from Andrew Sharp, The Voyages of Abel Janszoon Tasman. Oxford, 1968, pp. 40-53. With the kind permission of the Oxford University Press.
  • The translation of Dirck Rembrantsz van Nierop, Tweede deel van enige oeffeningen…, was mainly taken from ‘A short Relation out of the Journal of Captain Abel Jansen Tasman, upon the Discovery of the South Terra incognita’ in Royal Society of London, Philosophical Collections 6 (1681-1682), pp. 179-186.
  • The translation of Willem de Vlamingh, Journaal wegens een voyagie…, was mainly taken from R.H. Major, Early voyages to Terra Australis, now called Australia. London, 1859, pp. 120-133.
  • The translation of the ‘Journael van Jan Carstensz. op de ghedaene reyse van Nova Guinea’, ed. in L.C.D. van Dijk, Twee togten naar de Golf van Carpentaria was partly taken from J.E. Heeres, The Part borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765. Leiden/London, 1899.

Additional translations by Jan Bos, Perry Moree, Elise Reynolds and Marianne Roobol.

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