The history of New Zealand dates back at least 700 years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture centred on kinship links and land.
 The first European explorer to sight New Zealand was Dutch navigator Abel Tasman on 13 December 1642.
 The Dutch were also the first non-natives to explore and chart New Zealand's coastline.
 Captain James Cook, who reached New Zealand in October 1769 on the first of his three voyages, was the first European explorer to circumnavigate and map New Zealand.
 From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers.
 In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Crown and various Māori chiefs, bringing New Zealand into the British Empire and giving Māori the same rights as British subjects.
 There was extensive British settlement throughout the rest of the century and into the early part of the next century.
 War and the imposition of a European economic and legal system led to most of New Zealand's land passing from Māori to Pākehā (European) ownership, and most Māori subsequently became impoverished.
Abel Tasman National Park is a New Zealand national park located between Golden Bay and Tasman Bay at the north end of the South Island.
 It is named after Abel Tasman, who in 1642 became the first European explorer to sight New Zealand and who anchored nearby in Golden Bay.
The United East India Company or the United East Indian Company, also known as the United East Indies Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie ; or Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie in modern spelling; VOC), referred to by the British as the Dutch East India Company, or sometimes known as the Dutch East Indies Company, was originally established as a chartered company in 1602, when the Dutch government granted it a 21-year monopoly on the Dutch spice trade.
 A pioneering early model of the multinational corporation in its modern sense, the company is also often considered to be the world's first true transnational corporation.
 In the early 1600s, the VOC became the first company in history to issue bonds and shares of stock to the general public.
 In other words, the VOC was the world's first formally listed public company, because it was the first corporation to be ever actually listed on an official (formal) stock exchange.
 As the first historical model of the quasi-fictional concept of the megacorporation, the VOC possessed quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike its own coins, and establish colonies.
Cape Foulwind is a prominent headland on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island, overlooking the Tasman Sea.
 It is located ten kilometres west of the town of Westport.
 It was previously named Rocky Cape by Abel Tasman, the first European to visit it, in 1642.
Abel Janszoon Tasman (] ; 1603 – 10 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC).
 He was the first known European explorer to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and New Zealand, and to sight the Fiji islands.
The Treaty of Bongaya (also spelled Bongaja) was signed on November 18, 1667 between Sultan Hasanudin of Gowa and the Dutch East India Company (VOC).
 This treaty was developed after Dutch imperial forces (allied with the Bugis) defeated the Gowan forces at Makassar.
 Based on the terms of the agreement, Sultan Hasanudin officially recognized the VOC's influence in Indonesian territories (VOC recognition by the sultan was unofficially established in 1667).
 As a result, major restrictions were placed on Gowa's ability to trade.
 The treaty declared that all traders from Gowa required a license in order to do business in regions controlled by the Dutch East India Company.
 These territories included Buton, Makassar, Timor, Bima and the coasts of Java.
Cape Farewell is a headland in New Zealand, the most northerly point on the South Island.
 It is located just west of Farewell Spit.
 First mapped by Abel Tasman, it was named by British explorer Captain James Cook in 1770 —it was the last land seen by his crew as they departed on the ship's homeward voyage.
Ambon was a governorate of the Dutch East India Company, consisting of Ambon Island and ten neighbouring islands.
 Steven van der Hagen captured Fort Victoria on 22 February 1605 from the Portuguese in the name of the Dutch East India Company.
 Until 1619, Ambon served as the capital of the Dutch possessions in East Asia.
 In that year Batavia was founded to function as the staple port for the Dutch East India Company in Asia.
 The island was the world center of clove production until the 19th century.
 The Dutch prohibited the rearing of the clove-tree in all the other islands subject to their rule, in order to secure the monopoly to Ambon.
The Torrent River is a river of the Tasman Region of New Zealand's South Island.
 It flows east to reach Torrent Bay on the Tasman Bay coast of the Abel Tasman National Park.
 The Abel Tasman Track crosses the river close to its mouth.
This is a list of colonial Residents of Dutch Timor from the mid-seventeenth century to decolonization in 1949.
 Colonial rivalry on Timor between the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Portuguese began in 1613, conditioned by the desire to control the sandalwood trade in the region.
 The Dutch were permanently established on the island Solor, to the north of Timor, from 1646.
 In 1653 they founded a fortress in Kupang in West Timor, Fort Concordia, and made it their main regional base in 1657.
 The fortress was headed by a colonial Resident who, during the VOC era, carried the name "opperhoofd".
 The territory controlled by the VOC on Timor was originally restricted to the vicinity of Kupang, the so-called "sespalen gebied".
 After 1749 large parts of West Timor fell under Dutch suzerainty, although attempts to subjugate areas in East Timor were thwarted by 1761.
 The VOC was dissolved in 1799 and replaced by a new colonial organization under the Batavian Republic.
 Fort Concordia capitulated to the British in January 1812 and stood under British rule until 1816 when it was returned to the new Kingdom of the Netherlands.
 Agreements with the Portuguese in 1851 and 1859 established the borders between Dutch and Portuguese Timor.
 In the late colonial period the Residency of Timor and Dependencies ("Timor en Onderhoorigheden") consisted of West Timor, Roti, Savu, Sumbawa, Flores, the Solor Islands, and the Alor Islands.
 The Dutch administration was ousted through the Japanese attack in 1942.
 The Dutch, assisted by a force from Australia returned in the fall of 1945.
 During the Indonesian Revolution in 1945-49 there was widespread republican and anti-colonial agitation, but no physical fighting.
 The last Dutch Resident A. Verhoef handed over his powers to a new Indonesian administration in late 1949.

Question: Cape Farewell is a headland in New Zealand, the most northerly point on the South Island, it was first mapped by Abel Tasman, he was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and which year, in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC)?
Answer: 1644