New Holland (Dutch:Het Niew Holland or Nieuw-Holland) is a historical European name formainland Australia,first encountered by Europeans in 1606, by Dutch navigatorWillem Janszoon aboardDuyfken. The name was first applied to Australia in 1644 by theDutch seafarerAbel Tasman, and for a time came to be applied in most European maps to the vaunted "Southern land" orTerra Australis even after its coastline was finally explored.
The continent ofAntarctica, later named in the 1890s, was still in largely speculative form; it resumed the nameTerra Australis (sometimes suffixedNon Cognita,lit. 'unknown'). Its existence had been speculated on in some maps since the 5th century, under the theory of "balancing hemispheres".
LieutenantJames Cook, during hisfirst voyage of discovery, claimed the eastern portion of the Australian continent for the British Crown in 1770, naming itNew South Wales. The British settlement ofSydney as a colony in 1788 prompted Britain to formally claim the east coast as New South Wales, leading to a search for a new collective name. New Holland was never settled by the Dutch people, whose colonial forces and buoyant population had a settled preference for theDutch Cape Colony,Dutch Guyana, theDutch East Indies,Dutch Ceylon and theDutch West Indies.
New Holland continued to be used semi-officially and in popular usage as the name for the whole land mass until at least the mid-1850s.
The nameNew Holland was first applied to the western and northern coast of Australia in 1644 by theDutch seafarerAbel Tasman, best known for his discovery ofTasmania (called by himVan Diemen's Land). The English CaptainWilliam Dampier used the name in his account of his two voyages there: the first arriving on 5 January 1688 and staying until 12 March;[2] his second voyage of exploration to the region was made in 1699.[3] Except for giving its name to the land, neither theNetherlands nor theDutch East India Company claimed any territory in Australia as its own. Although many Dutch expeditions visited the coast during the 200 years afterthe first Dutch visit in 1606, there was no lasting attempt at establishment of a permanent settlement. Most of the explorers of this period concluded that the apparent lack of water and fertile soil made the region unsuitable for colonisation.
On 19 April 1770, during hisfirst voyage of discovery,James Cook became the first recorded European to sight the eastern coast of Australia nearPoint Hicks, modernVictoria. He sailed north along the coast as far asCape York where, on 22 August 1770, he claimed "this eastern coast of New Holland" forGreat Britain.[4] Cook first named the landNew Wales, but revised it toNew South Wales.[5] With the establishment of a settlement atSydney in 1788, Britain solidified its claim to the eastern part of Australia, now officially calledNew South Wales. In the commission toGovernor Phillip the boundary was defined as the135th meridian east longitude (135° east)[6] (map from 25 April 1787), taking the line fromMelchisédech Thévenot's chart,Hollandia Nova—Terre Australe, published inRelations de Divers Voyages Curieux (Paris, 1663).[7]
The termNew Holland was more often used to refer only to that part of the continent that had not yet beenannexed to New South Wales; namely it referred to the western portion of the continent. In 1804, the British navigatorMatthew Flinders proposed the namesTerra Australis orAustralia for the whole continent, reserving "New Holland" for the western part of the continent. He continued to useAustralia in his correspondence, while attempting to gather support for the term. Flinders explained in a letter toSir Joseph Banks:
The propriety of the name Australia or Terra Australis, which I have applied to the whole body of what has generally been called New Holland, must be submitted to the approbation of the Admiralty and the learned in geography. It seems to me an inconsistent thing that captain Cooks New South Wales should be absorbed in the New Holland of the Dutch, and therefore I have reverted to the original name Terra Australis or the Great South Land, by which it was distinguished even by the Dutch during the 17th century; for it appears that it was not until some time after Tasman's second voyage that the name New Holland was first applied, and then it was long before it displaced T’Zuydt Landt in the charts, and could not extend to what was not yet known to have existence; New South Wales, therefore, ought to remain distinct from New Holland; but as it is requisite that the whole body should have one general name, since it is now known (if there is no great error in the Dutch part) that it is certainly all one land, so I judge, that one less exceptionable to all parties and on all accounts cannot be found than that now applied.[8][9]
His suggestion was initially rejected, but the new name was approved by theBritish government in 1824. The western boundary of New South Wales was changed to129° east in 1825 (16 July 1825 – map). In 1826, to pre-empt a French settlement and claim to the territory, because of the importance of the route to New South Wales the British established the settlement ofAlbany in south-west New Holland.Governor Ralph Darling of New South Wales putEdmund Lockyer in command of the expedition and gave him the order that if he encountered the French anywhere he was to land troops, to signify to them that "the whole of New Holland is subject to His Britannic Majesty's Government."[10] In 1828 a further settlement was made, this time on the Swan River, and the nameSwan River Colony was soon the term used to refer to the whole western part of the continent. The nameNew Holland was still invoked as the name for the whole continent whenCharles Fremantle on 9 May 1829 took formal possession in the name ofKing George IV of "all that part of New Holland which is not included within the territory of New South Wales."[11]: 11 In 1832, the territory was officially renamedWestern Australia.
Even as late as 1837, in official correspondence between the British government in London and New South Wales, the term "New Holland" was still being used to refer to the continent as a whole.[12][13]
From 1800 to 1803, France conducted an expedition to map the coast of New Holland, led byNicolas Baudin. TheBaudin expedition was intended to be a voyage of discovery that would further scientific knowledge and perhaps eclipse the achievements ofJames Cook.
Many Western Australian places still have French names today from Baudin's expedition: for example,Peron Peninsula,Depuch Island,Boullanger Island andFaure Island.
After British colonisation, the nameNew Holland was retained for several decades and the south polar continent continued to be calledTerra Australis, sometimes shortened toAustralia.[14] However, in the 19th century, the colonial authorities gradually removed the Dutch name from the island continent and, instead of inventing a new name, they took the nameAustralia from the south polar continent, leaving a lacuna in continental nomenclature for eighty years.[15] Even so, the nameNew Holland survived for many decades, used in atlases, literature and in common parlance.
In the Netherlands, the continent continued to be calledNieuw Holland until about the end of the 19th century. The Dutch name today isAustralië.
One place where the name persists is intaxonomy. Many Australianspecies named in previous centuries have thespecific namenovaehollandiae ornovae-hollandiae, for example theemu,Dromaius novaehollandiae.
Dutch politician and cartographerNicolaes Witsen describes thesouth west Australian coast in a detailed description in a letter titled "Some late observations of New Holland" written to English naturalistMartin Lister, dated from 3 October 1698:[16]
On this Voyage nothing hath been discovered which can be any way serviceable to the Company. The Soil of this Country hath been found verybarren, and as a Desart; noFresh-water Rivers have been found, but someSalt-water Rivers, as also noFourfooted Beasts, except one as great as a Dog, with long Ears, living in the Water as well as on the Land.
Black Swans,Parrots, and manySea-Cows were found there; as also a Lake, whose Water seemed to be Red, because of the Redness of the Bottom of it: and round along the Shore there was some Salt. Our People had seen but Twelve of theNatives, all asblack as Pitch, and stark naked, so terrified, that it was impossible to bring them to Conversation, or a Meeting: They lodge themselves as theHottentots, in Pavilions of Small Branches of Trees. By Night our People saw Fires all over the Country; but when they drew near, the Natives were fled. The Coast is very low, but the Country far from the Sea is high.
Upon theIsland near the coast have been seenRats as great as Cats, in an innumerable Quantity; all which had a kind ofBag or Purse hanging from the Throat upon the Brest downwards. There were found many well-smelling Trees, and out of their Wood is to be drawnOyl smelling as a Rose, but for the rest they weresmall and miserable Trees. There were also found some Birds nests of prodigious greatness, so that Six Men could not, by stretching out their Arms, encompass One of them; but the Fowls were not to be found.
There was great Store of Oysters, Lobsters, and Crabs; and also strange sorts of Fish. There were also Millions of Flies, very much troubling Men. They saw a great many Footsteps of Men and Children, but all of an ordinary bigness. The Coast is very foul and full of Rocks.
InGulliver's Travels (1726) byJonathan Swift, the title character, travelling from Houyhnhnms Land, spends a few days on the southeast coast of New Holland before he is chased away by the natives.
The American authorEdgar Allan Poe used the nameNew Holland to refer to Australia in his prize-winning 1833 short story "MS. Found in a Bottle":
the hulk flew at a rate defying computation ... and we must have run down the coast of New Holland.[17]
In 1851,Herman Melville wrote, in a chapter of his novelMoby-Dick entitled "Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish? – Will He Perish?":
... may the great whale outlast all hunting, since he has a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as all Asia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles of the sea combined.[18]
In 1854, another American writer,Henry David Thoreau, used the termNew Holland (referring to the territory of the "wild"indigenous Australians) in his bookWalden; or, Life in the Woods, in which he writes:
So, we are told, the New Hollander goes naked with impunity, while the European shivers in his clothes.
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