Willem Janszoon | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1570 |
| Died | c. 1630 (aged around 60) |
| Other names |
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| Occupation(s) | Navigator andcolonial governor |
| Known for | European discovery of Australia |
Willem Janszoon (Dutch:[ˈʋɪləmˈjɑnsoːn];c. 1570 – c. 1630) was aDutch navigator and colonial governor. He served in theDutch East Indies in the periods 1603–1611 and 1612–1616, including as governor of Fort Henricus on the island ofSolor.[1] Duringhis voyage of 1605–1606, Janszoon and his crew became the first Europeans known to have seen and landed on the coast ofAustralia.
His name is sometimes abbreviated toWillem Jansz. and sometimes toWillem Jansz,[a] as was customary at his time, but "always pronounced in full and generally still is in the Netherlands where this bit of common knowledge is taught at school."[2] However, the abbreviationJansz is not the same as the now more predominant unabbreviated but identicalJansz that is a petrified form ofJanszoon.[b]
Willem Janszoon (Willem Jansz) was born around 1570 as the son of Jan (c. 1540), but nothing more is known of his early life or of his parents.
Janszoon is first recorded as having entered into the service of theOude compagnie, one of the predecessors of theDutch East India Company (VOC), in 1598 as a mate aboardHollandia, part of thesecond fleet underJacob Corneliszoon van Neck, dispatched by the Dutch to theDutch East Indies.[3] Around 1600 he became the father of Jan Willemsz before setting sail again on 5 May 1601, for theEast Indies as master ofLam, one of three ships in the fleet ofJoris van Spilbergen.[4]
Janszoon sailed from the Netherlands for the East Indies for the third time on 18 December 1603, as captain ofDuyfken (orDuijfken, meaning 'Little Dove'), one of twelve ships of the great fleet ofSteven van der Hagen.[5] When the other ships leftJava, Janszoon was sent to search for other outlets of trade, particularly in "the great land of New Guinea and other East and Southlands".[This quote needs a citation]
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On 18 November 1605,Duyfken sailed fromBantam to the coast of westernNew Guinea. After that, Janszoon crossed the eastern end of theArafura Sea into theGulf of Carpentaria, without being aware of the existence ofTorres Strait.Duyfken was actually in Torres Strait in February 1606, a few months before Spanish explorerLuís Vaz de Torres sailed through it. On 26 February 1606, Janszoon made landfall at thePennefather River on the western shore ofCape York inQueensland, near what is now the town ofWeipa. This is the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent. Janszoon proceeded to chart some 320 kilometres (200 mi) of the coastline, which he thought was a southerly extension of New Guinea.
Finding the land swampy and the people inhospitable (ten of his men were killed on various shore expeditions), Janszoon decided to return at a place he namedKaap Keerweer (lit. 'Cape Return', the name persist as Cape Keer Weer), south of Albatross Bay, and arrived back at Bantam in June 1606. He called the land he had discoveredNieu Zelant, orNieu Zeelandt,[6] after the Dutch province ofZeeland, but the name was not adopted, and was later used by Dutch cartographers forNew Zealand.
In 1607, AdmiralCornelis Matelieff de Jonge sent Janszoon toAmbon andBanda.[7] In 1611, Janszoon returned to theNetherlands, believing that the south coast of New Guinea was joined to the land along which he had sailed, and Dutch maps reproduced that error for many years.[8]Duyfken is the first Eurasian vessel known to have discovered parts of Australia, though there have been suggestions, but no proof, that navigators fromChina,France, orPortugal may have done so earlier.
Janszoon reported that on 31 July 1618 he had landed on an island at 22° South with a length of 22miles and 240 miles south-southeast of theSunda Strait.[9] This is generally interpreted as a description of the peninsula fromPoint Cloates (22°43′S113°40′E / 22.717°S 113.667°E /-22.717; 113.667) toNorth West Cape (21°47′S114°09′E / 21.783°S 114.150°E /-21.783; 114.150) on theWestern Australian coast, which Janszoon presumed was an island without fully circumnavigating it.[10]
Around 1617–1618, he was back in the Netherlands and was appointed as a member of theCouncil of the Indies. He served as admiral of the Dutch Defence fleet.[11] Janszoon was awarded a gold chain worth 1,000guilders in 1619 for his part in capturing four ships of theBritish East India Company nearTiku onWest Sumatra, which had aided theJavanese in their defence of the town ofJakarta against the Dutch.[12] In 1620, he was one of the negotiators with the English. In a combined fleet, they sailed to Manila to prevent Chinese merchants dealing with the Spanish. Janszoon became vice-admiral, and the year later admiral.[13] Near the end of his life, Janszoon served as governor of Banda (1623–1627).[14] He returned toBatavia in June 1627 and soon afterwards, as admiral of a fleet of eight vessels, went on a diplomatic mission to India.[15] On 4 December 1628, he sailed for Holland and on 16 July 1629, reported on the state of the Indies at The Hague.[15] He was now probably about sixty years old and ready to retire from his strenuous and successful career in the service of his country. Nothing is known of his last days, but he is thought to have died in 1630.
The original journal and log made during Janszoon’s 1606 voyage have been lost. The Duyfken chart,[16] which shows the location of the first landfall in Australia byDuyfken, had a better fate. It was still in existence in Amsterdam whenHessel Gerritszoon made his map of the Pacific in 1622, and placedDuyfken geography upon it, thus providing us with the first map to contain any part of Australia. The chart was still in existence around 1670, when a copy was made. This eventually went to theImperial Library inVienna and remained forgotten for two hundred years. The map is part of theAtlas Blaeu Van der Hem, brought to Vienna in 1730 byPrince Eugene of Savoy. The information from his charts was included in the marble and copper maps of thehemispheres on the floor of The Citizens' Hall of theRoyal Palace inAmsterdam.[17][Link to precise page]
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