History & Heritage

Abel Janszoon Tasman
In 1642 the Dutch East India Company sent Dutch captain Abel Tasman from Batavia to explore southern waters in search of gold and other valuables.
With two ships, the Heemskercq (more commonly spelt Heemskirk) and the Zeehaen, he sailed via Mauritius and in November sighted land (the west coast of Tasmania), naming peaks after his ships. He named the land Van Diemen’s Land after Anthony van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company.

The Dutch saw large paw prints they thought resembled a tiger’s. They may in fact have been from a thylacine and perhaps it is this resemblance as much as the thylacine’s stripes that is responsible for the animal’s common name, Tasmanian tiger.

The sailors saw smoke among the hills and heard human voices but the indigenous Aboriginal people remained hidden. The Dutchmen saw no signs of gold or other valuables such as spices and concluded there were no trading opportunities. They took on a supply of fresh water and left for New Zealand.

Tasman proved by sailing round the south coast of Van Diemen’s Land, that New Holland (Australia) was not part of a great southern continent (which included Antarctica). It would be another 150 years before Tasmania would be proven to be an island. Before sailing east to New Zealand, Tasman named Maria Island after the wife of Anthony van Diemen.

Nicholas Marion du Fresne
The first French voyage to Van Diemen’s Land was led by Captain Nicholas Marion du Fresne (1772) on his ships the Mascarin and the Marquis de Castries. They sailed via Mauritius as Tasman had – to discover what they could about the nature of a land still virtually unknown to Europeans. The ships anchored in North Bay on the Forestier Peninsula (Tasman had called it Frederic Henry Bay) and in nearby Marion Bay.

The French sailors were the first white people to meet Tasmanian Aborigines. Misunderstandings led to suspicion, anger and then violence. When a French sailor was injured by an Aborigine’s stone throw, du Fresne ordered a musket volley, which killed an Aborigine and wounded others.

The French did not find significant water supplies and left for New Zealand where du Fresne was killed during conflicts with Maoris.

James Cook 
The pre-eminent British explorer, Captain James Cook anchored his ships the Resolution and the Discovery in Adventure Bay in January 1777. This was the peripatetic Cook’s third voyage in the area and though on the hunt for valuable resources, his first priority was fresh water.

Aborigines approached the English sailors and meetings were friendly during the six-day visit. Cook was keen to befriend the Aborigines and offered gifts, but both the English and the Aborigines were more interested in each other’s weaponry (Aboriginal waddies and European muskets). English musket fire terrified the Aborigines, however. When Cook departed he left behind a pair of pigs, hoping they would breed.

William Bligh
In 1788, while the British were struggling to establish a settlement at Sydney Cove, Lieutenant William Bligh, in command of the Bounty, was on a voyage from Britain to Tahiti to gather breadfruit for the West Indies.

Bligh anchored in Bruny Island’s Adventure Bay. While ashore, the sailors found a tree with ‘A.D. 1773’ carved into it, and surmised it was from Tobias Furneaux’s expedition.
Bligh and his crew planted fruit trees and vegetables and recorded friendly meetings with the Aborigines, before heading to Tahiti. Bligh’s expedition ended, somewhat prematurely, with the infamous mutiny on the Bounty.

In 1792 Bligh returned to Adventure Bay with two ships, the Providence and the Assistant. During the visit Bligh named Table Mountain, later named Mount Wellington. Bligh was disappointed to find that of all the plantings of the 1788 expedition, only an apple tree remained.

Bruni d’Entrecasteaux
In 1792 Rear Admiral Bruni d’Entrecasteaux, commanding the Recherche, and Captain Huon de Kermadec, commanding the Esperance, were sent to search for French explorer Comte de la Perouse, overdue from the Pacific since 1788.

The expedition’s second objective was to gather more information about the southern oceans. The two French ships made for Adventure Bay but a navigation error took them into a southern bay they named Recherche, where they found good supplies of wood and water.

Although they were searching for the vanished La Perouse, D’Entrecasteaux took time to chart the channel that bears his name, as well as the Huon River and Bruny Island.

The French stayed on Bruny for a month, met with the Aborigines, exchanged gifts and shared roasted shellfish. D’Entrecasteaux noted, ‘O that civilised people who pride themselves on the extent of their knowledge could learn from this school of nature’. Naturalist Labillidiere noted the hard life of the women.
In 2003, a rare archaeological site was found at Recherche Bay. The remains of the first European vegetable garden in Tasmania show four plots, laid out by expedition gardener Felix Delahaie (who later went on to become the gardener in Empress Josephine’s Malmaison residence).

In April 2005 Recherche Bay was officially declared a ‘Heritage Area’ by the Heritage Council of Tasmania. The listing ensures the site’s protection and gives recognition to the historic and cultural significance of the area – its strong connection with European exploration, scientific investigation and peaceful contact with Aboriginal people.

George Bass and Matthew Flinders
At the end of the eighteenth century the idea that Van Diemen’s Land was an island was yet to be proven. In 1798 Governor John Hunter of New South Wales sent Bass and Flinders in the 25-ton sloop, Norfolk, to attempt a circumnavigation of Van Diemen’s Land. They completed their journey in June 1799 and the passage separating Van Diemen’s Land and the mainland was named in Bass’ honour. The Bass Strait considerably shortened the journey from Europe to New South Wales.

Bass and Flinders reported favourably on the soil and natural products of the island, which had an important bearing on the British decision to establish settlements in Van Diemen’s Land in 1803 and 1804.

Nicolas Baudin
Early in 1802 under Baudin’s command French ships anchored near Partridge Island, off Bruny Island, and stayed there for 34 days, gathering specimens and befriending the Aborigines. They then sailed northwards to Maria Island and further up the east coast where the French cartographer, Freycinet, mapped and renamed various peaks, bays, capes and rivers.

Baudin then made for Sydney. Although Britain and France were at war, Sydney’s Governor King welcomed the French ships. However, he later worried about French intentions in Van Diemen’s Land and quickly sent an expedition to occupy the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and King Island.

Acting Lieutenant Charles Robbins, commander of the Cumberland, found Baudin at King Island in November 1802. Robbins challenged Baudin about French intentions to establish bases in Van Diemen’s Land. Baudin denied the accusations (he reportedly laughed them off) and when Robbins inspected King Island he concluded that Baudin was right in his assessment of Van Diemen’s Land: that it was not fit to be settled.

John Bowen
Fears of the French occupying Van Diemen’s Land may have been allayed, but in Sydney Town, Governor King was still worried. He wanted Van Diemen’s Land for the British: both as a strategic base for a whaling industry and as an ideal place to send re-offending convicts.

Governor King sent Junior Lieutenant John Bowen south to Van Diemen’s Land and appointed him commandant of the new settlement. Bowen’s party of 49 (including 21 male and 3 female convicts) sailed from Sydney Cove in August 1803 and arrived in Storm Bay, southern Van Diemen’s Land, in early September. In claiming Van Diemen’s Land for George III, Bowen, just 23, formed a settlement on the Derwent River at Risdon Cove. Besides clearing ground, cultivating crops and employing convicts ‘in the public interest’, he was also secretly authorised to inform any foreign ship that Van Diemen’s Land belonged to Britain.