European voyages to Australia

When European ships first reached the Australian continent, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had already lived here for tens of thousands of years. Torres Strait Islanders and some Aboriginal communities in the north had also traded with people from New Guinea and, later, with Makassan fishers from what is now Indonesia.

In the 1600s, Dutch ships sailed to the East Indies (now Indonesia) to trade in spices. In 1606, Willem Janszoon in the ship *Duyfken* charted part of the western coast of Cape York. This is the earliest recorded European contact with Australia, and it included a violent encounter with local Aboriginal people.

In 1616, Dirk Hartog landed on an island in Shark Bay, Western Australia, and left an inscribed pewter plate. Many Dutch ships later passed the western coast, and some, like the *Batavia* in 1629, were wrecked there. The Dutch called the land New Holland.

In 1642, Abel Tasman reached the island now called Tasmania, which he named Van Diemen's Land, and then sailed on to New Zealand.

In 1770, the British navigator James Cook, in the *Endeavour*, charted the east coast. He landed at Kamay (Botany Bay) and later claimed the east coast for Britain, even though it was the home of many First Nations peoples who had not agreed.

French expeditions also visited, including La Pérouse, who arrived at Botany Bay in 1788, just days after the First Fleet.

Historians avoid saying Europeans 'discovered' Australia, because people already lived here. It is more accurate to say Europeans charted the coast or made first contact.