Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we take your
source material, your dense stack of articles,
histories, and geological surveys, and we carve
out the unexpected story at the center of it
all. Today we're focusing on a single name that
is, well, it's utterly inescapable across the
South Pacific, Abel Tasman. It really is. You
just have to glance at a map of that part of
the world and his footprint is massive. Exactly.
We're talking about the entire Tasman Sea, the
island state of Tasmania itself, and the dramatic
Tasman Peninsula. All of them named after this
one 17th century Dutch seafarer, Abel Jenszoon
Tasman. And he's a man whose name defines these
huge geographical features. Yet the sources you've
given us paint a picture of an explorer who,
despite, you know, accidentally revealing two
massive land masses, ended his career having
utterly disappointed his corporate sponsors.
It's an incredible dichotomy. It is. Geographical
immortality paired with commercial failure. So
that's our mission today for you, our listener.
Right. We're going to unpack the intense commercial
context of his voyages in the 1600s. And these
weren't for a king or a queen. They were for
the Dutch East India Company, the VOC. Which
was less a government agency and more like, what,
the world's first truly global mega corporation.
That's a perfect way to put it. We need to understand
their specific goals. Hunting for a phantom southern
continent, finding lucrative new trade routes.
Then we'll look at what he actually found, how
his discoveries fundamentally changed maps forever,
and why, at the time, his whole endeavor was
considered a very expensive flop. Okay, so let's
start with the man himself. Who was Abel Tasman
before he was a name on a map? Well, he came
from extremely humble origins, born around 1602
or 1603 in a small village, Lechegast, in the
Netherlands. The sources suggest he had very
little formal schooling. So he wasn't one of
those high -ranking naval officers with, you
know, rigorous mathematical and astronomical
training. Not at all. He started out as a common
merchant seaman. His entire education was practical,
learned on the job, under some of the most intense
and dangerous conditions imaginable. But that
practical skill clearly got him noticed. It did.
It propelled him. By 1633, he was able to join
the VOC, and he sailed straight to the center
of their Asian operations. A place called Batavia.
Which is now modern -day Jakarta in Indonesia.
Exactly. And moving to the Dutch East Indies
was a huge career move. It put him right at the
sharp end of global commerce and, frankly, global
conflict. And you can see his natural skill almost
immediately. Within just a year of joining the
VOC, by 1634, he was already promoted to skipper
of his own ship, the Mocha. But his career in
the Indies was... Well, it was far from peaceful.
The VOC was engaged in what you could only call
a brutal commercial war across the entire archipelago.
All focused on maintaining their spice monopoly.
A rigid, violent monopoly. And the sources mention
this one incident that I think really shows the
rough, high -stakes nature of the job. Right,
this is where he gets a real taste of the conflict.
He was on a voyage to Saramb Island, one of the
key spice islands. And he docked. supposedly
to gather wood and make repairs. But the background
tension, you know, the real reason for the friction
was that the local villagers were selling valuable
spices to competing European powers. They were
bypassing the VOC. Which to the VOC was an existential
threat. Absolutely. So during this stop, a fight
broke out. The sources describe it as a violent
exchange and it resulted in the deaths of at
least two of Tasman's men. So it's vital to understand
he wasn't just some peaceful cartographer. He
was a corporate enforcer. He was. Operating in
a territory where the lines between trade, exploration,
and outright war were constantly blurred. Okay,
so by 1642, his reputation as this highly effective,
if maybe ruthless, navigator is cemented. And
that deep, demonstrated experience is what gets
him the big commission. The Council of the Indies
in Batavia, headed by his patron, Governor General
Antonio Van Damon, they dispatched Tasman on
an expedition of... really immense scope. Him
and his chief pilot, a cartographer named Francois
S. Jacob Zunvischer. Yes, and the scope was global,
but the objective was explicitly commercial.
The council was obsessed with finding what they
called the provinces of beach. And this wasn't
just some small island. This was a phantom landmass
that had been appearing on European maps for
centuries. Right, stemming from these early mistranslated
editions of Marco Polo's travel accounts. The
rumor, you know, The one repeated endlessly by
cartographers and hopeful investors. Was that
beach was a land of plentiful gold? Exactly.
Think about the pressure on the VOC. They needed
a new source of wealth, and this mythical continent
was their great geographical lottery ticket.
So the mandate was clear. Very clear. Three objectives.
Explore all uncharted areas east of the Cape
of Good Hope, south of the Solomon Islands, and
west of this theoretical land near Cape Horn.
And they were told explicitly, find this southern
continent Terra Australis Incognita and find
a new shipping route. A way to link their Pacific
trading areas or even just get around the massive
landmass of New Holland, which is what they called
Australia. And for this monumental, almost mythological
quest, what does he get? Two small ships. the
heemskerk, a slow sort of flyboat, and the smaller,
faster zeehan, or seagull. It just highlights
the risk, doesn't it? Small vessels, a massive
mission, and the promise of either untold wealth
or total ruin. So armed with this ghost of a
golden land and a pair of sturdy, but let's face
it, small ships, Tasman set sail from Batavia
in August 1642. And the logistical strategy for
that first leg of the journey is actually quite
revealing. It tells you how much planning went
into just surviving these voyages. It was crucial.
He didn't just head straight for the unknown.
He sailed first across the Indian Ocean to the
established VOC outpost of Mauritius, arriving
on September 5th. And this stop wasn't for a
bit of rest and relaxation? Not at all. It was
strategic. The governor there, Adrian van der
Sel, made sure they could properly reprovision,
get fresh water, and use the excellent timber
on the island to make critical repairs to the
ships. Before plunging into the unknown, violent
oceans further east? Exactly. And once they left
Mauritius, the real engine of the voyage took
over. The Southern Ocean currents and winds.
What we now know as the Roaring Forties. Right.
This is a band of incredibly powerful, persistent
westerly winds that circle the globe down in
the latitudes between 40 and 50 degrees south.
And if you could harness those winds. You could
cover immense distances incredibly quickly. Tasman
sailed as far south as 49 degrees latitude to
catch the strongest part of that wind stream
and just blast eastward. But the conditions must
have been just brutal. pushing the limits of
their ships and the crew's endurance. The journals
reflect this. By November 7th, the ship's council,
that's Tasman, Vischer, and the other officers,
they get together and make a decision. They alter
course slightly to the northeast, moving a little
closer to the equator. And the reason is clear
in the sources. Yeah. They were encountering
snow and hail. Snow and hail. Imagine that. Near
what would eventually become the southern coast
of Australia. It's incredible. This extreme weather.
made the job of just maintaining the rigging
and keeping the crew healthy almost impossible.
They had to move north just to survive the elements,
even if it cost them some speed. And this powerful
weather, it basically shoves them far further
south and east than they'd anticipated. Right
into the history books. On November 24, 1642,
the lookout sites land. The west coast of Tasmania,
specifically an area north of Macquarie Harbor.
This is the first recorded European sighting
of the island. A major, completely unplanned
discovery. And true to the hierarchical nature
of the VOC, he doesn't name it after himself.
No, he names it after his highest patron, Governor
General Antonio Van Dyman. Calling it Van Dyman's
land. It was a political gesture as much as a
geographical one, making sure his success was
noted by the man who sent him. So after the sighting,
he sails south and eventually enters what he
later named Storm Bay. Which proved to be a very
accurate description. The wind and the swell
were ferocious. He tried to take shelter in what's
now Adventure Bay, but was driven back out. But
he was determined to claim the territory. He
was meticulous about it. Yes. On December 3rd,
after anchoring near what he named Cape Frederick
Hendrick, the sources detailed the formal act
of possession. The sea was too rough for a boat.
So what did they do? A ship's carpenter had to
swim through the heavy surf to get to the shore.
He manages it and he plants the Dutch flag, a
small but powerful symbol formerly laying claim
to this massive unknown island. But this is where
we see that crucial tension, the tension between
the VOC's goals and the geographical reality.
Yes. The sources are clear on this. Tasman's
primary directive was to find the southern continent
Terra Australis, which everyone assumed was one
immense landmass. He was not looking for a string
of smaller islands. Yeah. So as he follows the
east coast northward, he reaches a place called
Eddystone Point. And the land there abruptly
veers sharply to the northwest. At the same time,
his ships are getting battered by those relentless
roaring 40s winds, which are blowing unimpeded
through the gap we now know as Basegrate. The
channel separating Tasmania from mainland Australia.
It's a phenomenal moment of historical irony.
The wind itself is screaming the message that
this land is an island. That it's separate from
New Holland. But Tasman is so focused on finding
a continuous continental landmass that the moment
the coastline turns, he ignores the hint. He
abruptly changes course and turns east again
to continue his continent hunting. And that one
decision was, well, it was fatal to Dutch interests
in the region. Absolutely. He literally sailed
past the defining feature that would confirm
the island status of the land he had just claimed.
And that choice contributed heavily to the misconception
that lasted for the next 125 years. The idea
that Van Diemen's Land was attached to the larger
Australian landmass. Or even the mass of southern
continent they were all looking for. And that
misconception was only reinforced by his very
next big discovery, barely two weeks later. Right.
After sailing east into the open Pacific on December
13, 1642, the expedition sites the northwest
coast of the South Island of New Zealand. Again,
the first European to ever reach it. And he names
this new discovery Statenland. In honor of the
States General, the Dutch Parliament. And again,
the great misconception takes hold. He believes,
and he reports back, that this is the western
mainland coast of the unknown Southland. He was
convinced he'd finally found it, the colossal
continent that geographers have been dreaming
of for centuries. And that belief was so convincing,
it stuck to European maps for more than a century.
You see New Zealand rendered as this huge, vaguely
-stetched piece of coastline attached to a non
-existent larger southern continent. Until Captain
Cook in 1769 actually sails all the way around
the two islands and definitively disproves the
theory. But Tasman's first interaction with the
local inhabitants in this new Statenland was.
It was immediate. And it was tragic. It was.
The expedition anchored near what is now Golden
Bay, which Tasman originally named Zee Haines
Bay. And the sources give this really detailed,
almost cinematic account of the first contact.
They do. They saw many lights on land, four vessels
near the shore as evening fell. Then two canoes
or waka paddled out towards them. And the Maori
people called out in what the Dutch described
as gruff, hollow voices. And they blew on an
instrument that sounded to the sailors like Moors
trumpets. Tasman ordered his own trumpet player
to play some tunes back, trying to signal peace.
But it didn't work. No, the Maori did not approach
closer than a stone's throw. They were wary,
observant, and clearly assessing the threat.
The tension was palpable overnight. And the next
morning, disaster struck before any real communication
could happen. Yes. As sailors were rowing the
small ship's boat between the Heemskerk and the
Zehan, a group of Maori in a waka attacked suddenly.
It was swift, and it was brutal. Four Dutch sailors
were clubbed to death with traditional Maori
patu, or clubs, before the Dutch ships could
effectively respond. Tasman, profoundly shaken
by this, he orders the anchor cut and they seal
out of the bay as fast as they can. And as they
retreated, he observed 22 waka near the shore.
He fired a cannon, hit a man in the largest canoe,
which was curiously holding a small white flag.
And because of the four deaths, Tasman names
the area Murderer's Bay. Now, if we connect this
to the sociological context the sources give
us, the violence becomes a bit more understandable,
if not less tragic. Why such an aggressive, preemptive
attack? The insight from archaeologists and historians
like Ian Barber is compelling. The local Maori,
likely the Nagari Tumatakushiri Iwi, may have
been aggressively protecting a cultivation field.
Specifically, a valuable kumara, or sweet potato
field. Which was under intense ritual protection
known as tapu. And tapu is much more than just
a simple prohibition, right? Oh, much more. Tapu
imposes a sacred status on a person, a place,
an object, and it's accompanied by strict prohibitions.
In this context, protecting a vital food source
like Kumara, especially since it was December,
the midpoint of the growing season would have
been paramount. So any transgression against
a tapu zone wasn't just an offense. It was a
profound, dangerous breach of spiritual and communal
law. It was something capable of bringing disaster
upon the entire tribe. So from the Mari perspective,
the Dutch attempt to land, even if it's just
for water, was an aggressive existential transgression
against a religiously and culturally vital area.
It reframes the whole narrative of Murderer's
Bay. It's a clash of two completely incompatible
worldviews. Exactly. And following this trauma,
the expedition quickly retreated. They sailed
north, sighted the narrow channel we now call
Cook Strait, but they dismissed it. Mistaking
it for just a large bite, which Tasman named
Zihin's Bite. The journey home did leave two
lasting names in the far north of New Zealand,
Cape Maria Van Dyman and the Three Kings Islands.
But then they turned for home. And it was a rough
return voyage. They nearly wrecked on dangerous
reefs while passing through the Fiji Islands.
Where the ships almost came apart. But Tasman
skillfully charted the eastern tip of Vanu 'uluvu
and Secobia Ilao, proving his navigation skill
under pressure, before finally turning northwest
and arriving back in Batavia on June 15, 1643.
Ten months at sea. Two massive landmasses charted.
And the geographical reality that Australia was
separated from other continents was established?
A monumental achievement. Undeniable. So what
was the reaction from the directors of the VOC?
Well, the internal reaction was cold, hard, and
brutal. They were disappointed. Disappointed?
After all that? Yes. From the perspective of
the Dutch East India Company, which existed solely
to maximize profit, Tasman's explorations were
a commercial failure. It's incredible how quickly
corporate objectives just override actual discovery.
He hadn't found the gold. He hadn't found the
mythical provinces of Beach, which was the main
financial driver. He hadn't established a single
promising trade area, nor had he found a useful
new shipping route. So the company directors
were deeply dissatisfied. They were. They were
not interested in cartography for its own sake.
They actually viewed his careful skirting of
coastlines as timid. They were upset that he
hadn't fully explored the lands to see if they
held any commercial value. And this cold, hard
business verdict had immediate and severe consequences
for global history. It did. The VOC decided that
a more persistent explorer should be chosen for
any future expeditions and they effectively halted
their interest in the southern pacific so for
over a century until the arrival of james cook
in 1769 tasmania and new zealand were just left
alone largely unvisited by europeans kasman had
put them on the map But the VOC's disappointment
meant they were immediately erased from the map
of commercial interest. He did lead one final
major mission for the VOC, though, a smaller
one in 1644. Yes, trying to redeem himself. He
commanded a small fleet of three ships, Limon,
Zemiu, and the Tender Break. The goal was to
find a passage to the eastern side of New Holland,
or Australia. But this voyage only reinforced
his commercial failure. It did. The VOC Council
had specifically ordered him to explore the possibility
of a channel between New Guinea and Australia,
what we now call the Torres Strait. A crucial
potential shortcut. Absolutely. But he missed
it. The sources suggest it was likely due to
the sheer number of islands and submerged reefs
in that area. It would have been incredibly difficult
and dangerous in a time before accurate depth
charts. So instead of finding the channel, he
sailed south. and meticulously mapped the Gulf
of Carpentaria and much of the North Australian
coast before returning to Batavia. Cartographically
useful, yes, but he only confirmed to the VOC
that the northern coast of Australia was economically
barren and didn't offer the shortcut they wanted.
So the company was done with him as an explorer.
They were done funding deep southern exploration,
yes. But his administrative career with the VOC
continued at a high level. He was appointed a
member of the Council of Justice in Batavia,
a powerful post. And he even led a high -stakes
military expedition in 1648 to try and loot Spanish
silver ships. Which was unsuccessful. But this
is where we confront a darker reality of VOC
authority and the rough justice of the era. Despite
his high rank, Tasman wasn't untouchable. In
November 1649, he was charged, found guilty,
and suspended from his office. And the offense
for having hanged one of his own men without
a trial the previous year during that silver
expedition. He was fined and had to pay compensation
to the dead sailor's family. The fact that a
senior VOC official was penalized for what was
essentially an extrajudicial killing is stark.
It is. It raises the question of whether this
was truly about justice, or was it an internal
corporate punishment? A way to show that commanders
weren't entirely above the company's laws, especially
concerning crew discipline. A warning shot, maybe.
A warning shot, exactly. He was formally reinstated
in 1651, however, and spent his remaining years
in Batavia in good standing. And he died a wealthy
man. He did. On October 10, 1659, he'd retired
six years earlier as a wealthy landowner, one
of the larger property holders in Batavia. His
will even included a 25 -gilder bequest to the
poor of his birth village. A remarkable end to
a career of triumph, failure, and scandal. Okay,
so while the VOC wrote him off as a flop, that
10 -month voyage fundamentally redefined the
world map. His most significant legacy was proving
that the continent he circumnavigated was not
joined to that colossal southern continent fantasy.
By establishing the outline of Australia and
the separation of Tasmania and New Zealand from
that fantasy, he defined Australia as an island
continent, even if it took mapmakers another
century to accept it. So let's turn to the landmass
that ultimately bore his name. His initial title,
Van Diemen's Land, lasted for over 200 years.
It was officially renamed Tasmania on January
1st, 1856. And that name change was a profoundly
political and social act. Yes, it was in Tasman's
honor, but the primary reason was to deliberately...
differentiate the colony of free settlers from
its notoriously brutal convict past. It was a
rebranding exercise. A complete rebranding to
get away from the stench of the penal settlement.
And we have to acknowledge the original identity
of the land. The indigenous name is Lutruwita.
Yes, from the Bruny Island Tasmanian language.
And in recent decades, the state government has
formally accepted dual naming of important features,
like Kunani Mount Wellington, acknowledging that
deep history. And that history the colonists
were trying to escape is, well, it's harrowing.
European settlement began in 1803 as a strategic
penal settlement. Established largely to preempt
any territorial claims by the French, who were
also sniffing around the area. The scale of forced
migration was staggering. About 80 ,000 convicts
were transported to Van Diemen's Land before
it all starved in 1853. And this led to some
of the most feared and notorious penal colonies
in the British Empire. The sources highlight
the sheer brutality. particularly at Port Arthur,
which became synonymous with cruel isolation
and Macquarie Harbor on the rugged West Coast.
Where conditions were so severe, they were considered
a punishment worse than death. The environment
itself was used as a weapon of incarceration.
And this rapid, violent colonization led directly
to what's known as the Black War, an explosive
period of conflict between the settlers and the
aboriginal people, the Palawa or Pocana. At the
time of European contact, their population was
estimated to be between 3 ,000 and 10 ,000. And
the sources cite multiple devastating drivers
for the violence. First, there was increasing
competition for resources. Settlers were rapidly
turning kangaroo hunting grounds, a staple food
for the aboriginal population, into farms for
sheep and cattle. But there was also a profoundly
destructive social element, the severe gender
imbalance among the colonists. Yes. Men significantly
outnumbered women, often by four to one or more.
This created a crisis of its own. It led directly
to what historian Nicholas Clements called a
voracious appetite among settlers for Native
women. Which triggered immense violence as settlers
abducted, raped, and enslaved women and girls.
And that, naturally, provoked fierce and organized
reprisal attacks from Aboriginal men. The conflict
was not just about land. It was deeply personal,
economic and sexualized. The violence peaked
between 1825 and 1831. The governor, Sir George
Arthur, reacting to colonial panic, issued notices
that basically permitted colonists to shoot Aboriginal
people when their property was attacked. Then
in 1828, he issued a proclamation of demarcation,
essentially forbidding Aboriginal people from
entering the settled districts. It divided the
island into white and black zones. And his policies
became increasingly militaristic. He declared
martial law in November 1828, and it stayed in
force for over three years. The longest sustained
period of martial law in Australian history.
And to enforce this, he organized a massive operation
in 1830 known as the Black Line. The goal was
logistically immense. He ordered nearly every
able -bodied male colonist plus military regiments
to form a single line, miles long, and literally
sweep the remaining Aboriginal people out of
the settled districts and contain them on the
narrow Tasman Peninsula. But the operation itself
was largely a failure. A logistical failure,
yes. The Aboriginal people, who knew the dense
terrain, simply melted away. Only a handful were
actually captured. However, by that point, the
population had already fallen drastically due
to disease, violence, and starvation. After the
hostilities ended in 1832, almost all the remnants
of the indigenous population were persuaded or
forced to move to Flinders Island and Bass Strait.
And that move proved catastrophic. Lacking resistance
to introduced diseases, many quickly died from
things like pneumonia and influenza. The subsequent
removal and near destruction of the population
is an event still fiercely debated by historians
today. Right. The sources note that some historians
classify the events as an act of genocide, focusing
on the policy of complete removal. While other
scholars argue that the colonial authorities
didn't have an explicit, systematic intent to
destroy the population, highlighting that the
removals occurred during a period of open warfare
and were driven more by policy failure than deliberate
extinction. Regardless of the precise classification,
the result was a demographic catastrophe. A catastrophe.
The last remaining people, including the woman
Trugani, who was claimed to be the last full
-blood Aboriginal person to survive, died by
1876. Acknowledging that devastating history,
let's shift focus to the natural history that
defines the island today. Tasmania's enduring
legacy is also written in its unique geography
and ecology. And those features are intrinsically
linked to its isolation. The geology is distinct
from anywhere else in the world. The landscape
is largely composed of these massive intrusions
of Jurassic dolerite. That's the rock formed
when magma pushes up, but cools slowly deep underground,
creating unique columnar joints. Exactly. It's
what you see in the organ pipes of Cunani Mount
Wellington, towering over Hobart. That slow cooling
process results in incredibly hard, sheer rock
faces. In contrast, the rugged southwest of Tasmania
is much older, featuring highly resistant Precambrian
quartzites. Which are responsible for those strikingly
sharp, jagged ridges you see on mountains like
Federation Peak. Ecologically, Tasmania is a
vital refuge. It's the most forested Australian
state, containing the largest remaining areas
of temperate rainforest in Australia. The Tarkin.
in the island's far northwest covers an estimated
3 800 square kilometers it's critically important
for global biodiversity and it hosts unique flora
like australia's only winter deciduous plant
the australian beach or north of vegas gunny
it sheds its leaves in winter and its distinct
cold and red foliage in autumn is a major tourist
draw and that isolation is crucial for modern
conservation Tasmania is the last natural stronghold
for the Tasmanian devil. Its isolation has become
the key advantage in the fight to save the species
from devil facial tumor disease, or DFTD. A contagious
cancer that's killed more than half of all devils
on the mainland island. And the conservation
strategy relies heavily on that isolation. It
allows researchers to establish disease -free
zones and relocate healthy devils to isolated
peninsulas or offshore islands, ensuring the
species survives. Now, if we expand our view
further, Tasman's name stretches across one of
the world's most formidable bodies of water.
We're talking, of course, about the Tasman Sea,
or as it's known, the ditch. Asectionately and
sometimes ruefully by Australians and New Zealanders.
It's a marginal sea of the South Pacific. Immense
in size, about 2 ,000 kilometers across. And
its depth is staggering. It plunges to nearly
6 ,000 meters. It's one of the most dynamic and
complex bodies of water for oceanographers. The
dominant feature is the East Australian Current,
the most energetic circulation feature in the
entire Southwest Pacific. The current that takes
Nemo on his long journey. That's the one. It
flows powerfully south from the Coral Sea, transporting
heat and tropical marine life. But what's fascinating
is how the current fractures. It splits. One
major branch, the Tasman Front, flows east toward
New Zealand. And the other critical branch. Is
the Tasman leakage. This part is diverted powerfully
west through the Great Australian Bight, carrying
warm tropical water all the way toward the Indian
Ocean. It's a major component of global ocean
circulation. And environmentally, the sea is
situated firmly in the path of the Roaring Forties,
just like Tasman found. Which explains why crossings
are always a massive challenge and why it earned
the nickname. The ditch. Crossing it was a huge
feat of human ingenuity. The first telegraph
cable connecting Australia and New Zealand was
laid under the Tasman in 1876. Imagine the engineering
and the risk. And then came the aviators. Moncrief
and Hood attempted the first trans -Tasman crossing
by plane in 1928 and were never seen again. Swallowed
by the ditch. But later that year, Charles Kingsford
Smith and Charles Ulm finally made the first
successful flight in the Southern Cross. Its
formidable, deadly reputation is well -earned.
Let's zoom back in on one final geographical
feature, the Tasman Peninsula, now known by its
dual name, Turricana -Tasman Peninsula. And this
peninsula is historically significant, precisely
because of its extreme geographical isolation.
It's connected to the rest of Tasmania by only
the narrowest bit of land, the isthmus known
as Eagle Hawk Neck. A choke point that was crucial
for the Port Arthur penal settlement. Absolutely.
The neck is only about 100 meters wide, a perfect
natural security measure. Guards and dogs were
permanently stationed there to prevent escapes.
And today, that harsh geography is protected
as Tasman National Park. famous for its dramatic
coastline. Featuring the southern hemisphere's
highest sea cliffs, sheer dolerite columns rising
an astonishing 300 meters above the sea at Cape
Pillar. And the relentless ocean power has created
these striking geological features like the tessellated
pavement and Tasman's Arch. It's a place that
truly brings the violent nature of the Roaring
Forties and the dramatic dolerite geology together.
So Tasman's achievements, though dismissed by
the VOC at the time, resulted in a truly sprawling,
posthumous recognition that spans continents.
It's everywhere in New Zealand, from the Tasman
Glacier to the Abel Tasman National Park. And
even in California, you can find Tasman Drive
in San Jose, reflecting the global reach of early
Dutch discovery. For historians, the most important
artifact of his work is the Tasman Map. Also
known as the Bonaparte Map, as it was once owned
by Prince Roland Bonaparte. It was completed
after 1644, likely drafted by Vischer or Gilsmans.
And since none of the journals from his second
voyage survived, this map is the primary record
we have of his exploration of the northern Australian
coast. It visually confirms what the Dutch knew
at the time. It shows the Gulf of Carpentaria,
the whole north coast, and crucially, it clearly
shows the Torres Strait area as unexamined. A
visual record of both his geographical success
and his commercial failure. Exactly. could figure
this important would have a clear visual legacy,
but even Tasman's portraits are caught up in
historical controversy. They absolutely are.
There's a drawing held by the State Library of
New South Wales, which scholars think has the
most reliable provenance. There's no strong reason
to doubt it's genuine. But then there's the famous
family portrait, a large oil painting acquired
by the National Library of Australia, which purported
to show Tasman, his wife and his stepdaughter.
And for decades, it was identified as the only
known confirmed portrait of him. But here's where
the story gets really interesting. This is about
historical invention. It is. Recent analysis
has concluded definitively that the sitters are
not Tasman and his family. The man is almost
certainly a prominent Dutch astronomer of the
period. So where did the story come from? Research
into the acquisition revealed that the provenance,
the claim it was passed down through Tasman's
widow's relatives, was likely invented by the
art dealer who sold it. Rexnan Kivel. He just
made it up. Seems so. Auction records show the
painting was previously sold merely as a generic
portrait of an astronomer. Kivel, a major collector,
likely created the backstory to raise the value
and significance of his acquisition. A classic
case of history being manipulated for fame and
profit. So we have an explorer who defined the
boundaries of two nations and an entire sea,
yet we can't definitively say what he looks like,
and his sponsors wrote him off as an expensive
failure. That is the perfect final synthesis
of Abel Tasman's legacy. His voyages were a towering
geographical success, revealing two major landmasses
and proving Australia was a distinct continent.
But because he failed to deliver the gold or
the shortcut the VOC demanded, they were a crushing
commercial failure. And that failure had a monumental
consequence. It stalled further European exploration
for over a century, freezing the global map until
Captain Cook's arrival. His lasting impact, though,
is undeniable. It's visible everywhere, from
the unique isolation used to save the Tasmanian
devil to the immense currents of the Pacific.
Which leads us to our final provocative thought
for you to consider. Tasman was entirely focused
on finding the mythical gold of the provinces
of Beach and the colossal non -existent mass
of Terra Australis. Yet the greatest, most enduring
legacy of his voyages was proving Australia was
an island and defining the ditch. So if the VOC
found his work disappointing because it didn't
generate immediate, tangible profit, what unknown
non -monetary successes are modern explorations,
whether in space, the deep sea, or even pure
academic research, failing to appreciate today
because they don't match our narrow, short...
term definitions of profit and discovery. Something
to consider the next time you look at a map.