Abel Tasman's Voyage: First European Contact with New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji
- Date
- December 1642 - February 1643
- Category
- Exploration & colonisation
- Region
- Oceania (New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji)
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
In 1642 the Dutch East India Company (VOC) dispatched navigator Abel Janszoon Tasman from Batavia with the ships Heemskerck and Zeehaen to probe the southern oceans for the fabled Great South Land and new trade routes.
After sighting and naming Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) on 24 November 1642, his expedition sighted the west coast of New Zealand's South Island on 13 December 1642, marking the first documented European contact with the islands. An attempt to anchor in Golden Bay on 18-19 December ended in violence when Ngati Tumatakokiri Maori attacked a ship's boat and killed four sailors, prompting Tasman to name the spot Murderers Bay and depart without landing. Sailing north, the expedition reached the Tongan archipelago around 20-21 January 1643, where the crew traded peacefully for provisions, and in early February it became the first European voyage to sight the Fiji islands, narrowly escaping the reefs near Vanua Levu before returning to Batavia on 15 June 1643. Though Tasman never set foot ashore in New Zealand and the VOC judged the voyage commercially disappointing, it placed these Pacific lands on European charts and inaugurated the era of sustained European engagement with Oceania.
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Empires active in December 1642 - February 1643
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
Related exploration & colonisation events
- Cook's First Voyage Charts New Zealand and Eastern Australia1769-1770
- The Pilgrims, Plymouth Colony and the Mayflower CompactNovember 1620
- Champlain founds Quebec and New France3 July 1608
- Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in America14 May 1607
- Torres Navigates the Strait Between New Guinea and AustraliaOctober 1606
- Spanish Conquest of the Philippines and Founding of Colonial Manila24 June 1571
Further reading
The wider story
A History of the Pacific Islands
Accessible overview of Oceania, including the Tongan maritime empire.
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