Australian History: Willem Janszoon
Willem Janszoon (1570-1630), also known as Willem Jansz was was a Dutch navigator and colonial governor. He was aboard the Hollandia, part of the second fleet dispatched by the Ductch to the Dutch East Indies (what is now Indonesia) in 1598.
In 1605, he was sent from Bantam in the Dutch East Indies to search for New Guinea, a land that was supposed to be very rich in gold. He set sail on the Duyfken to its western coast. He later sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria and made a landfall at the western shore of Cape York in Queensland in 1606, believing it still to be a part of New Guinea. Some of his men fought with Aboriginals there. Jansz reported that ‘no good was to be done’ in the land he had found as the land. Jansz was the first known European to have landed in Australia. He continued to chart a further 320km of the coastline under the impression that it was still New Guinea.