The Abel Tasman Monument is a memorial to the first recorded contact between Europeans—led by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman—and Māori in New Zealand's Golden Bay on 18 and 19 December 1642. It was unveiled on the tercentenary of the encounter by the prime minister, several government ministers, and a Dutch delegation. The monument, originally referred to as the Abel Tasman Memorial, was designed by the architect Ernst Plischke as an abstracted sail, and consists of a large concrete monolith painted white. Located on a bluff at Tarakohe just east of Pōhara, the land for the monument was gifted by the Golden Bay Cement Company. The dignitaries opened the Abel Tasman National Park the following day and the area holding the monument is part of the national park. As was typical for the 1940s, the original inscription focused on the European experience only and overlooked the Māori perspective, demonstrating Western-centric systemic bias.
Historical context
The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman first encountered New Zealand (Aotearoa), which he named Staten Landt, on 13 December 1642. Tasman was in the service of the Dutch East India Company, a corporation with quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, negotiate treaties, and establish colonies. Tasman had 110 men under his command and was travelling with two ships, the Heemskerck and the Zeehaen. It is believed that the ships were off Punakaiki and if so, it was the Paparoa Range that they saw. On 18 December, they sailed around Farewell Spit (Tuhuroa) and into Golden Bay (Mohua), where they saw many fires on land. They anchored in Golden Bay for the night, near where the Abel Tasman Monument is now located, intending to go on land to take on water and provisions the next day. The local iwi (tribe) was Ngāti Tūmatakōkiri and they came out in two waka (canoes) to inspect the visitors and their ships. The Māori used ritual challenges including blowing their pūtātara (a type of trumpet) and the Dutch responded by blowing their own trumpets and firing a cannon. The cannon frightened the Māori and they retreated to the shore.
The next morning, on 19 December, several waka came out to the ships. When a boat transferred some Dutch sailors from one ship to the other, they were rammed by the Māori and attacked, and four sailors lost their life. Tasman ordered his ships to leave Golden Bay. They were followed by eleven waka, with a man standing in a large waka holding a white flag. As the waka came closer, the sailors shot and killed the man. Tasman named Golden Bay Murderers ("Moordenaers") Bay and thus gave it its original European name. Tasman and his men sailed north. On 5 January, they attempted to land at Manawatāwhi / Three Kings Islands but were thwarted by a rocky shore, high surf, and several dozen Māori who threw stones at them from a cliff top. Tasman left for Tonga without landing in New Zealand.
Golden Bay Museum, located in Tākaka some from the monument, has a permanent display covering Tasman's journey and a diorama showing the waka ramming the Dutch sailors' boat. Tasman's two ships had anchored some north of the Tata Islands, which are located at the western side of Wainui Bay.
Commission
The New Zealand Government had first considered arrangements for the tercentenary of Tasman's visit in June 1938 but planning was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. A possible memorial was discussed by the Pohara Domain Board at its October 1941 meeting. It was decided that a memorial should be erected at Pōhara Beach as that was the closest populated place to where the encounter between Dutch sailors and Māori had happened; Pōhara Beach is south-west of the Tata Islands. The Domain Board resolved to convey their view to the Department of Internal Affairs. Within days, the Department of Internal Affairs sent its historian, John Beaglehole, to Golden Bay to explore the area for a suitable site for a memorial. It was said that Beaglehole favoured a site near the band rotunda at Pōhara Beach or a site at Ligar Bay.
Design and construction
The site chosen for the monument was a bluff in Tarakohe that overlooks Ligar Bay and Tata Beach, on land donated by the adjacent Golden Bay Cement Company. As Bill Parry, the Minister of Internal Affairs, explained in his speech at the monument's unveiling, the site where Tasman came closest to land was "past Wainui" and too difficult to access.