Frederick de Houtman

Frederick de Houtman ( other usual notation: Frederik ) (* 1571, † 1627 ) was a Dutch seafarer, researchers and administrators. He created the oldest surviving star catalog of the southern sky (1603 ) and sailed along the coast of Western Australia ( 1619).

Frederick de Houtman was born in Gouda; 1590 he lived in Alkmaar, where he married. 1594 Frederik Cornelis de Houtman and his brother were captured in Lisbon. Nevertheless, they brought back 25 charts, drawn by Bartolomeo de Lasso.

From April 1595 to August 1597, he participated in the first Dutch East India expedition under the command of his older brother Cornelis. They had the Itinerary Huygen van Linschoten of Jan and landed in September, on the southwest coast of Madagascar, where 70 men must be buried because of illness and vitamin C deficiency. In February, she drove on. In June, the four ships in Bantam. So far Houtman supported the navigator Pieter Keyser Dirkszoon when creating a star catalog.

At that time it was believed that compass needles showed deviations, the further one penetrated to the south. Frederick de Houtman Plancius instructed in the astronomical position determination to check the phenomenon. The navigator Pieter Keyser, he asked to make observations of the heavens and to map the southern sky and endowed him with a device (probably an astrolabe ) from.

In November, they went on to Java's coast. When one of the captain's poisoned, did not want to continue the occupation. They landed in Bali and headed back in February. When three instead of four ships arrived in August on Texel, one third was only in life. There are several descriptions of this trip.

The first Dutch East Indies expedition from April 1595 to August 1597 was a disaster and was a commercial failure. Of 249 participants, only 87 returned back alive, the majority had died due to disease and violence. In addition, only some barrels pepper could be acquired. The company may, however, be regarded as the beginning of Dutch colonial rule in East Asia. In addition, the monopoly of Portugal was broken on the spice trade.

Keyser and Houtman had successfully measured the southern sky and cards made ​​( Keyser had died on the journey ), where she introduced twelve new constellations. Plancius they first put 1597/1598 on a celestial globe published in 1600 by Jodocus Hondius, 1602 and 1603 globes of Willem Blaeu. Johann Bayer, she took in his 1603 celestial atlas published Uranometria.

In a second expedition under Laurens Bicker, which started in 1598, Cornelis de Houtman was killed and Frederick was 26 months long prisoner of the Sultan of Aceh in northern Sumatra. This time, he used to study the Malay language and led by celestial observations. Keyser's catalog, he expanded to 304 stars. However, it will be mentioned in the Almagest of Ptolemy, 107. De Houtman refused to become a Muslim. When he showed that he could build a mill, he was released.

1603 Houtman returned back to the Netherlands. His astronomical observations he published as an appendix, curiously, a dictionary for the Malaysian and Malagasy language. Be based on Noël de Barlaimont he wrote 12 dialogues and added 1,000 words from Turkish and Arabic language. The cartographer Willem Janszoon Blaeu used Houtman's catalog in creating his celestial globes. From the catalog today, there are only a few copies, one is located in the library of the University of Oxford. Keyser's catalog is lost, however.

Between 1605-1611 was Frederick de Houtman Governor of the Netherlands on the island of Ambon. De Houtman translated the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Heidelberg Catechism to Malay. During another expedition De Houtman 1619 discovered a previously unknown land mass. It was the Australian coast near the present-day Perth. As he followed the coast northward, he came across a group of small coral reefs and shoals, the Houtman - Abrolhos archipelago today. In 1621 he became governor of the Moluccas.

349755
de