Willem Schouten | |
|---|---|
 Willem Schouten by Mattheus Merian in 1631 | |
| Born | c. 1567 |
| Died | 1625 |
| Occupation | Navigator |
Willem Cornelisz Schouten (c. 1567 – 1625) was a Dutchnavigator for theDutch East India Company. He was the first to sail theCape Horn route to thePacific Ocean.
Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born around 1567 inHoorn,Holland,Seventeen Provinces.
In April 1601 Willem Schouten was skipper of theDuyfken in the 'Moluccan fleet' of Wolfert Hermansz, and participated in theBattle of Bantam.[1]
On 1 July 1615 Willem Schouten and his younger brother Jan Schouten sailed fromTexel in theNetherlands, inan expedition led byJacob Le Maire and sponsored byIsaac Le Maire and hisAustralische Compagnie in equal shares with Schouten. The expedition consisted of two ships:Eendracht andHoorn.[2] A main purpose of the voyage was to search forTerra Australis. A further objective was to explore a western route to thePacific Ocean to evade the trade restrictions of theDutch East India Company (VOC) in theSpice Islands. In 1616 Schouten roundedCape Horn, which he named after the recently destroyed shipHoorn,[a] and the Dutch city ofHoorn, after which the lost ship was named, the town in which Schouten himself was born. Schouten named the strait itselfLe Maire Strait. Willem Schouten's younger brother Jan Schouten died on 9 March 1616 after the expedition leftJuan Fernández.[2] Willem Schouten crossed the Pacific along a southern role, encountering a number of atolls in theTuamotu Islands, includingPuka-Puka,Manihi,Rangiroa andTakapoto, followed byTafahi,Niuafoʻou andNiuatoputapu in theTonga Islands, andAlofi andFutuna in theWallis and Futuna Islands.[2] He then followed the north coasts ofNew Ireland andNew Guinea and visited adjacent islands, including what became known as theSchouten Islands before reachingTernate in September 1616.[2]Eendracht completed the navigation and returned to the Netherlands on 1 July 1617.
Although he had opened an unknown route (south of Cape Horn) for the Dutch, the VOC claimed infringement of its monopoly of trade to the Spice Islands. Schouten was arrested (and later released) and his ship confiscated inJava. On his return he would sail again for the VOC, and on one of these trips he died off the coast ofMadagascar in 1625.
Abel Tasman later used Schouten's charts during his exploration of the north coast of New Guinea.[2]
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Schouten described his travels in theJournal, published in aDutch edition atAmsterdam in 1618 and soon translated into several other languages.
Among historians, includingA. L. Rowse, there is no consensus about the authorship of thisJournal. Schouten has got the credit for it, and thus the voyage has come down to us under his name. The Dutch, French, German and Latin texts all have nine engraved maps and plates, which are not present in the English version,The Relation of a Wonderfull Voiage.
